EL-DIA
Barbara Phelps

The Siamese was my first love and was that breed that brought me into the Cat Fancy in 1967. Over five years of breeding and showing followed before I took a lengthy “sabbatical” to escort two daughters through their teenage years.

I next attended a cat show in 1984, and many new breeds had emerged. One in particular, the Oriental Shorthair, tore at my heart. The first Oriental I saw was an ebony, it looked to me like my beloved Siamese wearing a brand new coat!! I was hooked and soon became a professional spectator at the shows while learning about this exciting breed. I found it really intriguing when I learned that the Orientals were born with their colors showing instead of all white as I was used to with the Siamese. Also there were so many colors and patterns to choose from. I soon began to realize that with the Oriental I could have all of the things I loved about the Siamese without worrying about such things as body color darkening or point color fading and/ or flecking. After many show visits and hours of pouring over borrowed CFA Yearbooks and back issues of Cat World, I had formed a mental picture of what my “perfect” Oriental would look like and I wanted to try my hand at breeding again.

Not long after this I saw a silver spotted tabby Oriental at a show. Now I was in love with both the ebony and the silver spotted. I began searching for foundation stock. I wrote to catteries that had been breeding, showing and winning in the late 60’s and early 70’s and were still producing winners in the 1980’s. I chose to combine what I considered some of the best from the east and the west. From Dee Johnson and Connie Roberts in California came San-Toi Showdown of El-Dia,* an ebony male kitten who was later to become a grand champion and sire some lovely kittens. From the east coast came Felitan My Fair Lady of El-Dia. I was told that Lady would be a homozygous silver, but as luck would have it, she was a s silver lynx point and not the silver spotted tabby I had so separately wanted. For that reason I came extremely close to turning her down when Barbara Levitan of Felitan cattery offered her. Barbara, in her infinite wisdom, assured me that Lady, when bred with my San-Toi ebony, would throw me silvers of my own.

The day did come when Showdown and Lady’s first litter was born. There were two smokes, a silver lynx point and ONE silver tabby. The silver tabby was nearly twice the size of the others, and had a coat that felt like coarse bristles, and a very broad muzzle ad oversized ears. The silvers I had seen until that point were rather light in color with not much intensity of pattern but this kitten had very good contrast. I can remember discussing this long awaited silver tabby as she grew (yes, she really was a female). Her color was so vibrant and her developing pattern was beautiful, except that it wasn’t spotted like it was supposed to be. It was mackerel!! The only question around our house became “do you think her color could carry her because she sure hasn’t got much type and who wants a mackerel tabby anyway?”

Little by little the ugly duckling began to transform, looking more like a swan as she grew. We named her El-Dia Tinsel Town * and she later added the title of Grand Champion to her name and many best in shows to her credit.

About this time I noticed that nearly all of Showdown’s kittens had very intense color and/or pattern. Showdown himself has the deepest, all the way to the root, ebony color, and his sire, Calermar’s Clipper of San-Toi is a pure seal point Siamese. I began to wonder if perhaps these factors were influencing the trueness of color on kittens and if color on the silvers could be improved from breeding the most intensely colored offspring of these two boys.

El-Dia Lucky Stripe was born about that time, an ebony mackerel son of Showdown and Sandual Tabitha, and this little guy had exquisite color AND pattern. Lucky, or King as we dubbed him was kept with hopes of further improving color in pattern in the tabbies. He held his own at the shows, making many finals; but he never liked being shown. We pulled him with less than 40 points left to complete his Grand. He had more important work to do.

King’s first offspring were out of My Fair Lady and my theory seemed to hold true. These kittens (four silver tabbies and two smokes) had more clearly defined patterns than Lady’s two previous litters. Also, sine Lady’s a pointed cat and all six kittens were Oriental Shorthair, it caused us to wonder if King might be homozygous Oriental. To date, King has yet to sire a pointed kitten, regardless of what he’s been bred to.

I guess the end of this story lies somewhere within the future as only time will tell how much the color can improve on the silvers without jeopardizing type. I must admit though that it is nice to have a homozygous Oriental male as Siamese females can be bred to him when need be and still only Oriental kittens result.

Continued Dedication

The Oriental Shorthair was fortunate to have such a fast and flashy start in CFA in the late 70’s. The breed and all the people involved with it have maintained a high profile (straight profile?) since then, fully justifying such a jump start. The OSH standard also maps a road for future travel. First there is type, in our standard the goal is quite extreme and the cat can always be a bit longer or a little bit finer, the body can more closely approach the feel of a steel pipe. Second, there is color, multitudes of colors, some of which have never been seen. Working with unusual colors takes dedication because putting the type and the color together can be difficult. Future winners in exotic hues will owe their existence to breeders who are willing to keep color over type and then bang their heads against a brick wall to put type back on the color.

Have you seen a shaded silver OSH yet? There have been three to date, the first was not really show quality but the other two were shown a fair number of times. CH Synergy Polaris* bred and owned by Heather E. Lorimer was the first clear shaded silver, he had a lovely front look and lots of length although he never granded (he was a bit of a moose) and he died tragically young, before siring. GRC Hobbicats Shady Lady bred by Ken and Laurie Herbig and owned by Peggy and Elaine Rands. The first shaded grand, is a lovely fine boned, sleek and long headed cat who granded handily and hopefully will produce more of the same. All of the shaded silvers have been ebony shaded and all have been closely related, descending from two silver tabbies GRC Felitan Silvanna bred and owned by Dick and Barbara Levitan, and CH Temeluphils Thromboxane of Synergy bred by Alex and Janice Stalcup and owned by Heather E. Lorimer.

Unfortunately, none of these shaded cats were intentionally produced so repeating the accident is going to be difficult. It does seem though that for an Oriental to be shaded requires three things. First the cat needs the dominant silver gene to be silver, second the hairs must be “wide banded” in other words the cat’s color must be only at the tips of the hairs to leave a large “band” of silver running from the hair root to very near its tip, third the cat must be a tabby with absolutely no pattern. The third trait is going to be the hardest to breed for. Abyssinian breeders have strived for many years to clear their cats coats of barring. Oddly enough, all three shaded Orientals had clearly marked silver tabby siblings which implies there may be a special “shaded” gene which clears the coat. That would make the color much easier to breed for. The details of the genetics of this color in Orientals may not be known for years.

Another fairly recent appearance in the OSH is the classic tabby pattern. There were some classics early in the Oriental breeding programs but everybody was concentrating on solids or spotted tabbies and the classic pattern, which is recessive, quickly vanished. A few breeders have uncovered the pattern and have been working diligently on preserving it. Nancy Jo Schwitzer has been breeding classics for several years and has granded the first classic tabby OSH . Austin and Agnes Creasy accidentally produced a classic tabby a few years ago and have been getting a real handle on the genetics of the color in the process of getting the right chassis under the paint job.