CREASHIRE CATS
Austin and Agnes Creasy

When my wife Agnes and I began breeding Oriental Shothairs one of the first breeder females we acquired was a seal lynx point, Nakia’s Reet Petite of Creshire. We bred her to Printer’s Liam Devlin ad got and ebony classic tabby from the litter. Although the classic was small and of moderate type we kept her realizing she was a rarity.

Several months later we received a call from a breeder who had heard about our classic and was interested in acquiring a female from the litter. She believed that the litter-mates to the classic would be classic carriers (would carry the classic tabby gene). We had already sold the kittens, but this conversation made me begin thinking about breeding plans for the classic and some other kittens we were raising to be breeders. We had used the sire of Garbo (our classic) for an earlier breeding and had kept two females from that litter. By this time Garbo’s mother had produced another litter with two females of breeder quality. These four, plus Garbo’s litter sister could all be carriers of the classic tabby gene.

At this time I was beginning to develop some understanding of the color genetics. The gene for classic (sometimes called blotched) tabby pattern is a recessive. This mans that both parents must carry the gene in order to reproduce it, and only individuals who are homozygous (inherited the genes from both parents) will be a classic on appearance. There are three ways that one can be certain that an individual is a carrier:

1.      It is classic in appearance.

2.      One of its parents is a classic.

3.      It has produced classic offspring.

Having parents that are carriers or having grandparents that are classics only gives an individual the possibility of being a carrier. The classic pattern can also be masked over by an individual being homozygous non-agouti (solid color). Also the Siamese of Colorpoint pattern can mask all of the classic pattern except the tail.

In considering all of the above constraints it became obvious that we needed a classic male. This would permit us to produce classics from Garbo and her mother and test breed the other possible carriers. The offspring from all such breedings would be known carriers. On May 30, 1988 we called everyone that we knew who was breeding classic tabby Orientals. We were very fortunate to acquire from Sally Abbott, Typha Cattery, a young classic male who would be mature enough for breeding at the time our females would be ready. Typha’s Tumbleweed of Creshire was bred to: Garbo; Reet Petite, Garbo’s mother; Galadriel, Garbo;s litter sister; and two other females that proved not to be carriers.

From these breedings we have kept Vincent Price, ebony classic male; Victoria and Vectra, blue lynx point classic females; Bogart, ebony classic male; Bacall, ebony classic female; Bastet, ebony ticked tabby female (now in West Germany); Blynn, solid ebony female; Several carriers from the test breedings. Some of these we have placed with another breeder with whom we are working on reciprocal basis. The remainder we are breeding to improve type and pattern. We always breed with at least one parent being classic so as to be certain that all progeny are carriers.

SHADES AND STRIPES

Shaded Silvers and classic tabbies are coat patterns often seen in other breeds, if only rarely in Orientals. One pair of colors that is unique to the Oriental however, is solid cinnamon and fawn. As I mentioned earlier in this article, the cinnamon gene has been around for a while. The color we call cinnamon is the dame color that makes the red Abyssinian RED. The cinnamon color is also seen in spots on Ocicats, which derived from Abyssinians and Siamese. It may have originated genetically as a new color mutation or by regular sex-linked red moving off the X chromosome. The former is probably more likely as the color is not the same as red, it is intermediate between red and chestnut. Orientals got the cinnamon gene rather indirectly from an Aby-Siamese British cross. A few dedicated breeders are slowly expanding the population of cinnamons and fawns, one notable breeder who has been working with the color is Linda Kochis of Ellian cattery. 

ELLIAN
Linda Kochis

Cinnamon is the light brown gene recessive to chestnut. The color was introduced from a red Abyssinian outcross made in Great Britain during the 1960’s. A small number of dedicated breeders working with Dutch and English imports have made great progress with the type in these cats. Several show quality OSH who carry the gene have graced the show bench in the past few years. Fawn, the blue dilution of cinnamon, is truly a rare color and its progress has been slower.

My daughter Elayne and I started breeding 10 years ago with a lovely line bred Petmark chocolate point., Faro Garlinthias of Ellian, a Nescafe daughter. She came to us on breeder’s terms as a way of filling the void left in our lives by the death of our 16 year old Gaidon, chocolate point Siamese. Originally we were just going to have one litter, give the pick to her breeder, Ethyl duBois, and keep the other kittens as neutered pets. But I soon became obsessed with the idea of actually breeding a cinnamon and then working to breed one of show quality. In order to gain my husband Andy’s support in this goal, I agreed to keep our full time adult population at 8 cats and not spend high fees for stud service or for new cats. I’m sure this slowed down progress in our breeding program but I’ve been content raising 2 to 3 litters per year and building up the line step by step. With few exceptions, every breeding produced kittens of better quality than their parents.

I’ve followed a pattern of outcrossing for type then inbreeding to retain color. Galinthias was bred to a cinnamon son of the original English import Southview Peromone. Her cinnamon grandson, CH Ellian Kinnamon, was outcrossed to a typey chocolate point, Barnwood Dominoe of Ellian, an AOV from Singa, Sand N’ Sea, and Quire’s Gal-X-C lines. Dominoe’s cinnamon grandson CH Ellian Sundancer was a major step forward in type. By doubleing up on Dominoe and outcrossing to Petra Pfaffe’s (Cherrygarden) Dutch cinnamon line, I was the happy co-breeder with Debbie Baehr of a vigorous and healthy litter of 4 cinnamon and 3 chestnut Sundancer grandkittens. Naturally, the chestnuts were pick of the litter. The male GRP Yamada Kin Sorelle of Ellian* is, I believe, the best cinnamon seen on the show bench to date. Judges from Holland , Great Britain , and Germany said they had never seen a better one in Europe . Sorelle made some kitten finals and picked up a few grand points before being pulled to be bred.

Our foundation cinnamons were large, heavy boned, deep chested, plush coated, round eyed cats. It took 6 generations of breeding here at Ellian to produce a cinnamon of Sorelle’s quality. The challenge in the coming years will be, to retain the progress we have made, regain the sweeter temperament of our foundation cats, and to lower the ear set, and improve eye shape.

THE RIGHT CLASS

The Oriental Shorthair is the only breed among several breeds derived from the Siamese who have kept the same type standard. Balinese cats were bred from the long-haired kittens born periodically to Siamese cats. Colorpoints, like the Orientals, resulted in a deliberate outcross to obtain new colors. The Javanese is the longhaired version of the colorpoint. Together these four breeds, representing the Siamese type – dominate shorthair classes in CFA. A similar sort of situation exists in the longhair breeds with Persians which are the very oldest pedigreed cat. Himalayans were developed intentionally by crossing to Siamese cats for color and back to Persian for type. The Exotic Shorthairs were created by outcrossing to shorthaired cats and back to Persians for type. Not all possible colors are yet allowed in the Persians divisions, but the Himmy is now (they weren’t always) just a division of Persian and not a separate breed, while long haired cats out of exotics are not yet allowed to compete for championship.

For the first seven years of OSH in championship all pointed Orientals were AOV’s and not eligible for championship competition. On 1984-85 CFA decided that the colorpoint oriental was colorwise, typewise, and ancestrywise, the same feline as the Colorpoint Shorthair and allowed those colors to compete with the CPSH. This, I believe is a completely novel situation. The Oriental Colorpoints have a different registration number series from the CPSH colorpoints and people who breed and grand colorpoint Orientals in the colorpoint class are eligible for OSH breed council membership but not CPSH breed council membership, even if they have never shown a cat in an Oriental Shorthair class!

In 1984-85 CFA’s best Colorpoint Shorthair was an Oriental named Tintadel’s Rose By Any Other Name, a tortie-point bred and owned by Erica Mueller. In 1986-87 both CPSH winners were “real” Colorpoints, but in 87-88 both were Orientals. The best Colorpoint was Glor-ee’s Road Warrior bred and owned by Susan and Gloria Adler and 2^nd best was Magpie’s Sparkle Freelee bred by Linda Doty and owned by Ken Northrup. That general pattern seems now to be the rule. Roughly half of the cats shown in the colorpoint class are Orientals as are about half of the cats that earn Grand Champion titles in those classes.

In keeping with this some people whose breeding programs revolve around colorpoints only use Siamese and CPSH cats in their programs while others pay attention to color and type and have Oriental cats in their programs. There are very few problems remaining with this system. One of which is the Siamese to Colorpoint to Oriental hierarchy which causes a colorpointed cat with only one distant Oriental ancestor to be ab Oriental. From competition this poses no problem but it can make it difficult for a breeder to produce Colorpoints with the aim to earn breed council membership so as to have input into the future of their cats in CFA. The only other problem is for the Javanese breeders who are currently limited to Siamese, Balinese and Colorpoint Shorthairs for outcrosses. Without access to the pointed Orientals they are excluded from the large pool of tabby and red genes.

It will b interesting to see how these issues are dealt with in the next few years. Most, but certainly not all, OSH breeders hope for a classification system similar to that that the Persian breeds enjoy, with registration numbers indicating ancestry, allowing for competition based simply on type and color while also protecting the purity of the Siamese and related breeds.

No one would argue that the Oriental Shorthairs are colorful, lively and successful (which could also describe those who breed them). They have been a great success, winning many competitions and many cat fanciers hearts and minds all across the country. May they forever be successfully lean and elegant, sleek and graceful, personable and a bit extreme.

Note from the author: This is an historical account of the Oriental Shorthair from its genesis through 1989. Next year I will continue with more recent events, and associated history as well, such as the stellar careers of Leggs Amapola of Mayflower and Webb-Barrs Beaux, as well as the Orientals of the 1993-1993 season.

Litter of Dajen Kittens

SOME DEFINITIONS

First the colors, which are not standardized in all the breeds.

Ebony: Black. Sable in Burmese, seal in Siamese and Colorpoint Shorthairs, natural mink in Tonkinese.

Ebony Tabby: Black Tabby pattern on a brown background, called brown tabby in many other breeds, bronze in Egyptian Mau, ruddy in the Abyssinian.

Ebony Silver Tabby: Black tabby pattern on a silver-white background, called silver tabby in other breeds.

Blue: Grey, the dilute of black, called blue in most breeds.

Blue Tabby: Grey tabby pattern on a warm cream background. Called blue tabby in other breeds.

Blue Silver Tabby: Grey pattern on a silver-white background. Called blue silver tabby in breeds that recognize the color.

All the colors listed below have tabbies and silver tabbies as listed above, as in the blue tabby. The tabby pattern is of the color listed and the background color is warm cream unless the tabby is silver, in which case the background is silver-white.

Chestnut: Brown, called chocolate in Siamese.

Lavender: Cool beige or taupe, the dilute of brown, called lilac in Siamese.

Cinnamon: Hot cinnamon brown, called red in the Abyssinian, sometimes called light chocolate in the British Siamese.

Fawn: Warm fawn, the dilution of cinnamon, same as fawn in Abyssinian.

Red: Orange to brick red, called red in most other breeds, flame in the Himalayan Persians, is not the same as Abyssinian red (see cinnamon).  Note: Cameo tabbies are red silver tabbies.

Cream: Dark cream to peach to pumpkin color, the dilution of red. Called cream in most breeds. Again note that a dilute cameo is a cream silver.

Smoke: A cat of any of the solid colors listed above who is silver but not tabby. The undercoat is silver-white. Unlike the Persian or Egyptian Mau color standard the Oriental color standard requires that the silver undercoat not be visible when the cat is in repose. The silver should only show when the cat is in motion or the coat is pulled back.

NOW ONTO THE GENETICS TERMS:

Allele: One copy of a gene, usually referred to by a letter which refers to a visible trait, ie A is tabby, a is solid, B is black, and b is brown. Capital letters are dominant traits, lower case letters are recessive, the letter itself is one gene. In other words B and b are alleles of the color gene.

Chromosome: A very large piece of DNA, containing a multitude of genes, inside an animal’s cells which are inherited from the animal’s parents. Every cat (or person) has two of each chromosome one inherited from the mother and one from the father.

Dominant: An allele (version of a gene) which is apparent in only one copy. For example, the color black, a black cat can “carry” other colors because black is dominant.

Gene: A unit of inheritance technically a region of a chromosome that codes for a single protein.

Genotype: The genetic makeup of a living organism.

Heterozygous: Having two different alleles of one gene.

Homozygous: Having two copies of one allele of a gene.

Phenotype: The appearance of a living organism, in the case of dominant genes, such as black in the cat, the phenotype does not indicate whether the cat is heterozygous or homozygous.

Recessive: An allele which must exist in two copies to be apparent. For example the Siamese or “pointed” colors, a black cat may “carry” Siamese color, so two black cats bred together can produce a seal point, but two seal points bred together can only produce pointed cats because both parents must have been homozygous for the Siamese color.