Could my cat be mixed with a long haired breed?

[tristessa]

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• tristessa
• Feb 9, 2017

This is Danburry. He is an Domestic American Shorthair as far as I know. Rescue cat. What I was wondering is if he could also be part long hair cat and if so what do you think he is mixed with? (I only noticed this when I adopted a second cat who is also a domestic short-haired tabby, very petite and much less hair! In this photo Danburry is about 9 years old. He has very thick hair and seems to have two coats. His hair on top is longer and covers shorter thick soft fur underneath. When he gets wet, it takes a bit for him to know it cause his coat is so thick. He has long tufts of hair growing on his feet that cover his pads partway. He does not seems bothered by snow or cold weather but gets hot in the summer and prefers to lounge in front of a box fan. (We jokingly call him snow cat. Only cat I've ever known to try and get outside when there's snow.) His tail is not fluffy at all. His ears have some long hair growing out of them but maybe related to age? He is a large bodied cat. Weighed 20 pounds at one point when he was very overweight. Now weighs around 14-15 pounds after I took him off dry food. He used to be a spotted tabby when he was young but his spots grew out into all grey when he got older. He is also very vocal and smart.

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• tristessa
• Feb 9, 2017

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• tristessa
• Feb 9, 2017

What do you think he looks like besides being a domestic short hair?

 

[Kieka]

Your cat is likely more of a medium than a short hair but on vet documents they usually only have short or long as options so he would be short hair in that case.

As to the coat layers, from http://consciouscat.net 

"Most cats have three different types of hair in their coats. The undercoat consists of soft, short, downy fur. Its purpose is to keep the cat warm.

Guard hairs are coarse, long, straight hairs found in the outer coat. These guard hairs are designed to keep the cat dry. The intermediate coat is made up of medium length hairs known as awn hairs. The part of the awn hair closest to the skin functions much like the undercoat, the part further away from the skin has the same function as the guard hairs."

While most cats have all three not all do some cats have just two types and some just one. The difference you are noting is the difference between your cats coats which is not to be confused with their coat length overall. I have three cats with short hair and two of them share them not getting wet to the skin.

Possible background breed is really anybodies guess. Some long hair breed in there are the toe tufts are a normal characteristic of a cold climate ancestry which usually means long hair too. But exactly what is much harder. Tabby and bicolor are fairly common across all breeds and I am not seeing any characteristics that could really narrow it down much, at least for me. 

 

[tristessa]

Thanks! Your post was very informative. I didn't think about cold weather ancestry. If he has some it would be very far back and he is probably so mixed breed it would be anyone's guess. The medium coat thing makes sense to me. I've always thought of long-hair vs short-hair, never medium coat.