 NetPetsŪ Main Page |
contact information |  The Cat Center |
Oriental Shorthair In the Beginning
The Siamese and its extended family--the Balinese, colorpoint shorthair, Oriental shorthair, Javanese, and Oriental longhair--are the cat fancy's equivalent of the two-pair-of-pants-and-reversible-vest suit: an adaptable mini-wardrobe that fits on a single genetic hanger. The pivotal element in this multi-purpose ensemble is the "traditional" Siamese in its four basic point colors: seal, chocolate, lilac, and blue.
While Siamese look as elegant with jeans as they do with pearls, there are times when a cat fancier wants to add a dash of fringe and panache to the Siamese pointedly slender silhouettes. For those times there is the Balinese cat, a longhaired variation on the Siamese theme.
When accessorizing is the question, the colorpoint shorthair is the answer. A versatile fashion statement, the colorpoint replaces the four conventional Siamese tones with a multitude of colors. Perfect for the sporty occasion, the colorpoint shorthair embodies the smart-as-a-whip-and-just-as-thin, ultrastylish presence of the Siamese line.
While the Siamese, Balinese, and colorpoint shorthairs confine their expression of color to their points--face, ears, legs, and tail--the Oriental shorthair is characterized by a full-bodied application of color fit for a queen. After all, if your cat has vibrant color on the extremities, what is the point of restricting it there?
The history of the Oriental shorthair begins in 1950 with British designer Baroness von Ullman, grande dame of the Roofspringer cattery. "One cold winter evening," the Baroness has written, "while sitting comfortably by a roaring fire, I idly played with the idea of breeding a new variety of cat," a solid-brown shorthair with green eyes and "foreign" body type. (Foreign-bodied cats then accepted in England were the Siamese, Russian blue, and Abyssinian.)
Two prototypes of Baroness von Ullman's design appeared in the August 1954 issue of the British journal Our Cats. The mother of these brown kittens was a sealpoint Siamese named Our Miss Smith. Their father was a brown hybrid called Elmtower Bronze Idol. He was by a sealpoint Siamese male out of a black domestic shorthair female who had a sealpoint Siamese father.
These brown kittens and others like them were called chestnut foreign shorthairs when they were accepted by the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy in England. Shortly after they had been recognized, a British cat breeder and geneticist named Patricia Turner began working to produce a blue-eyed white cat of the same foreign type. Two other breeders started similar programs at the time, and they began pooling their resources in 1964. Before long they were producing sound-hearing, blue-eyed whites that were all the rage in the cat fancy. These cats were eventually accorded championship status under the name foreign white in England, where individual colors are often registered as separate breeds.
Persons working with foreign whites combined Siamese with a
variety of shorthair breeds, and as a result they also produced
cats of Siamese conformation whose color was not restricted to
their points. These cats caught the fancy of Peter and Vicky
Markstein, two of the United States' better-known Siamese
breeders, who had traveled to England in 1972 looking for new
Siamese lines. To the Marksteins' surprise they found the Siamese
type they wanted in the newly emerging foreign whites and
associated, nonpointed colors. The Marksteins were so taken with
these cats that after returning to the United States, they
decided to seek acceptance for all foreign shorthairs as one
breed that would be called the Oriental shorthair in this
country. By May 1, 1977, the Oriental Shorthair was competing in
championship classes in the Cat Fanciers' Association, and the
breed was soon accepted by all the other associations in North
America.
It Looks Like ...
The Oriental shorthair is a lean, tubular cat with graceful, art deco lines. It is exceedingly lithe, but muscular, and should be hard bodied and well conditioned throughout. Its head forms a long, tapering wedge that begins at the nose and flares out--in unwaveringly straight lines with no whisker break--to the tips of its commandingly large, pointed ears, which look as if they do not miss any sound in a three-mile radius.
Viewed in profile, the Oriental shorthair exhibits a long, straight line from the top of its head to the tip of its nose. That purity of that line is unmarred by a bulge over the eyes or a dip in nose. The muzzle is fine and wedge shaped. The chin, which is neither massive nor receding, is aligned with the nose in the same vertical plane.
The Oriental's eyes are curved grace notes in a linear facial composition. Almond shaped and medium in size, they neither protrude nor recede. The eyes should never be crossed, and there should never be less than the width of an eye between them.
The long, svelte Oriental body is a combination of fine bones and firm muscles. It is a dancer's body, with hips never wider than its shoulders and an abdomen tighter than a little bit.
"Long" also describes the Oriental shorthair's neck,
legs, and tail. While "short, fine textured, glossy, and
close-lying" describe its coat, which comes in particolor,
shaded, smoke, solid, and tabby colors.
Personality
The Oriental shorthair displays most of the characteristics of
its Siamese relatives. Dorothy Silkstone Richards, a British cat
authority and writer, describes Orientals as "the tomboy of
the feline world. Always into everything with its boundless
energy, it will take an intelligent interest in all the family's
activities and loves being taken for walks with the dogs, on or
off a harness and lead."