Just for fun, rescue breed ideas

[DesdemonaRose]

Hello, we rescued a kitten back in August who's been a lot of fun to watch grow. We don't know a lot about him, but:

He is estimated to be 6 months old, currently. He is very thin, but is growing well and weighs in at 9 lbs (I checked twice just to be sure).

His medical records came from the LA area and a rescue that works with feral cat colonies. However, we found him in WA state. I never did get any history from the rescue.

His most notable feature is a very long and fluffy tail. He has no real undercoat, so the rest of him is not fluffy. His hair length is probably medium. It's very straight and hugs his body. As a younger kitten he had a face that was more narrow, but it seems less pointed now.

Personality, he's the most curious cat that I have known. He has to see everything. If you open a door in the house, he's there. He inspects all of our packaging, my craft projects, etc. He's on the more energetic side, but doesn't really go into hyper cat that often (our first cat was there constantly as a teen). He loves playing fetch though and will do so for hours. He also loves chasing our other cat's tail.

He is also pretty chatty. He is fed as much as he can eat three times a day, but will meow like he's starving anytime we feed him. Sometimes when you talk to him he will also meow back, but just a short little mew.

He is fairly cuddly when he's sleepy.

I think that is all of the relevant info.

 

[DesdemonaRose]

I meant to add more pictures and hit the wrong button.

Some of these are younger kitten pictures. We got him around 3 months of age.

 

[lutece]

He's gorgeous! What's his name? He sounds like a very entertaining character, too, and a good friend!

In some of these pictures his color appears to be red (orange / ginger), and in other pictures his color appears to be cream. Cream is the dilute version of red, and sometimes it's hard to tell from pictures whether a cat is red or cream. My guess from these pictures would be cream... so I would describe him as a cream mackerel tabby domestic longhair. He's definitely a longhaired cat, as we can see from his tail. As he matures over the years, the coat on the rest of his body may become thicker and fluffier.

Most cats aren't any particular breed, and are not "mixes" of breeds, unlike dogs. We call them domestic longhairs and shorthairs based on their coat length. This doesn't make them any less pretty or special, however. Your cat is obviously a very special one, and so handsome, too!

 

[DesdemonaRose]

His name is Griffin. He's definitely a dilute orange/red tabby, cream in color.

I forgot to add that I know he would be considered a domestic kitty, though I was going to call him medium instead of long hair. I put the, "just for fun," in the title, but forgot to explain that part.

It will be interesting to see if he grows an undercoat. We have a standard, "run of the mill," orange tabby who does have a full undercoat, so it's easy to feel the difference between the two.

Some of my friends and I have been trying to decide what registered breeds he looks more like and I thought it would be interesting to see what the forum thought. I know cats aren't considered mix breeds in the same way as dogs, but forgot to add that to my original post.

Here he is with our 1.5 yr old orange tabby. The orange cat, Cyberis, is 14 lbs. It also shows Griffin's size. Of course, without knowing if his birthday is accurate or not, it's hard to say whether or not his size is larger than average or not.

 

[lutece]

That's a great name for him

With longhaired cats, people often want to assign a breed lookalike, and I can imagine what your friends are speculating about, however I'm not seeing extreme features in these pictures that suggest a specific breed lookalike or breed ancestry. Long hair is caused by a recessive gene that is widespread in the domestic cat population. Griffin's parents may have been either longhaired or shorthaired. His parents could have been nearly any color, although since the red gene is sex-linked, we know that his mother was either red / cream, or some kind of tortie / calico.

Genetically, cats are either longhaired or shorthaired, but in each of those categories, coat length and density can vary a lot. "Medium hair" is an informal description that some people apply to longhairs that don't have very fluffy coats, but these cats are still genetically longhairs.

All cats have undercoat hairs, but the undercoat can vary in texture, density and length. Young cats often don't have as much undercoat as older cats. Undercoat hairs also tend to grow and shed seasonally.

Griffin is still very young. Adult coat thickness often doesn't develop until cats are quite a bit older. He has plenty of time to become super floofy

 

[DesdemonaRose]

That's interesting. I only have kitten experience with one other cat, that being our other orange cat. Cyberis was born from a feral mom in the attic of a building that I used to work next door to.

Anyways, he's been fairly fluffy, though still short haired of course, from a young age and more stout. His mom looked like a gray tabby, but she didn't live with me so I only saw her a couple of times. She could have had calico traits, or the other fitting coats. He was the only orange boy in his litter and significantly smaller as a kitten, so the vet figured he probably had a different dad than the rest.

Griffin's individual hairs are definitely long, so that makes sense that he's a long haired cat still growing into his fluff. I do try to buy high quality cat food (I pay attention to the nutrition breakdown and ingredients), so that should help him reach all of his furry potential. He'll probably end up looking bigger than his house mate if he does fluff out, even if he doesn't grow much more.

 

[lutece]

If mom was a tabby and she produced an orange boy, we know that she would have been a torbie (tabby tortoiseshell). It's often not obvious that a tabby cat has red/cream tabby patches.

The red gene is sex-linked, which means it is on the X chromosome. Boy kittens get their X chromosome from mom. So the dad's color doesn't have any effect on whether a boy is red (or cream). Boy kittens from a red mom will all be red (or cream). Boy kittens from a tortie / torbie mom have a 50% chance of being red (or cream), and 50% chance of being non-red.

So, Griffin (or Cyberis, if that is who you meant?) being the only orange boy doesn't indicate that he would have had a different dad from the others. It's possible for kittens in a litter to have different dads, but it probably doesn't happen as often as people think... it's quite possible for kittens to all look very different and still have the same set of parents.

 

[DesdemonaRose]

Cyberis was the odd one out. He was really tiny. If my memory serves me, he was only around 450 grams at 8 weeks old. I think his runted size played into that second daddy theory. All of the other kittens were of average size. Cyberis is now 14 lbs and is a good size, so he wasn't genetically a smaller cat. One of my friends has his bio brother and he's a good sized cat as well. Though both are well in the average boy cat size. Cyberis has maintained the same weight for a while now, so I am pretty sure he's close to being done with his growing (he's 17 months old).

 

[fionasmom]

They are both gorgeous! I have a rescued dilute orange, found as a tiny abandoned baby, Jamie. He is also a real character. I know nothing about cat genetics since I only work with strays and ferals but that was very interesting about the tortie mom as it gives me some idea of whose Jamie's mother might have been. Rescues in this area sometimes look for places where cats and dogs might have a better chance of being adopted and move them around the country.