Brown Cat - What Breed Does This Cat Look Like?

[heylynny]

I manage a cat shelter and have never seen a cat like this before. Was wondering if anyone knows what breed she might be.

 

[lutece]

That looks like a cinnamon and white domestic shorthair. Cinnamon is a lighter brown color than chocolate, but it is at the same gene locus.
Gene B: Black

It is an unusual color for sure. Cinnamon is the gene responsible for the "red" (or "sorrel") color in Abyssinians, and probably originated in that breed.

Here is some information about cinnamon and fawn (the dilute of cinnamon) from a Tonkinese breeder who works with the color.
The Cinnamon gene - a History :: Tonkinese Cats & Kittens Queensland

There is a picture on that page of a cinnamon and white bicolor British Shorthair that looks a little like the cat in your pictures. However I don't think that what you have is a BSH or BSH mix, because the breed type is not similar enough, and cinnamon is a VERY unusual color in BSH, not really seen in the US.

More likely I think, the cat in your pictures has some Abyssinian in the distant background contributing the recessive cinnamon gene, and then plenty of domestic shorthair was mixed in; finally there was some inbreeding involved which doubled up on the cinnamon gene and allowed it to be expressed. That would be my guess! Do you know anything about the cat's history?

 

[StefanZ]

Does she has some darker fields around shoulders, or its just shadows?

IF she really has a third color patches as it seems to me it would make her a three colored cat a sort of calico.

Anyways unusual coloring But as Lutece says, some inbreeding may get some unusual genes to express.