Dinah, Our Rescued Backwoods Girl. Siamese Mix?

[Kricket0913]

Hello all, this is Dinah pictured below. She’s 11 months old. She was a kitten from a tuxedo cat in the woods where my parents live. Her mother unfortunately died of panleukopenia along with two other siblings Dinah was very sick as a kitten and we didn’t know if she would survive but she’s a fighter that’s for sure. You’d never tell by looking at her that she had such a rough start.
Dinah is about 6lbs(pounds) she’s pretty petite.
I’ve been told by the vet that she could pass for a full bred long hair Siamese??? but I don’t think so at all. She’s a mix obviously but when everyone asks me what she is I don’t know what to tell them. Would she be considered long hair? Her fur is super super soft and silky, like nothing I’ve ever felt before on an animal. She doesn’t just meow, she has trills too! It’s so cute. She’s a really silly, very talkative, smart and playful cat. Whenever we have someone new over she’s always up on their laps saying hello.
Thanks all.

 

[StefanZ]

Oh My!

Your vet is right. She would pass as old type Balinese (=mediumhaired siamese) every day of the week and twice on sundays!
The coloring is as mamma black and white.

Momma must be proud in her heaven of such a dau!

Domestic medium hair seal point and white bicolor, look alike to a balinese pld type.

 

[abyeb]

I agree! She is a very pretty lookalike to an old style Balinese!

 

[Kricket0913]

thanks ! an old type Balinese... MEDIUM haired siamese? i guess i'm not sure why i didn't think of a cat being medium haired lol oops hummm.... that's so interesting. Im going to look all that up. That's so crazy how a short haired tuxedo cat gave birth to such a different looking kitten. I added a picture of her mom when she was pregnant with Dinah and her siblings. and the other two are of Dinah as a kitten, when she was sick, she looked so pitiful.

 

[StefanZ]

Do you know how the late littermates were? I presume you dont know the fathee.

 

[Kricket0913]

I do, i only have a picture each of the babies and then a picture after we first found them. They were born on my parents property outside. To prevent the mom getting pregnant AGAIN, because she got pregnant while nursing a previous litter and we did not want to repeat that. she couldn't stay inside my parents house due to my dad being allergic, so the mom and kittens went to a very nice lady with a rescue, she kept, weaned and cared for the babies and mama until she informed me of them being sick, so I told her once weaned i'd take a baby. Dinah and her tux brother were the only survivors once we finally found out they were contracting panluke her tux brother went to a home also.

 

[lutece]

That's so crazy how a short haired tuxedo cat gave birth to such a different looking kitten.

The colorpoint pattern ("Siamese" pattern) is recessive, and long hair is recessive. So, two solid black shorthairs can easily have a long haired seal point kitten if they both carry the recessive genes for colorpoint and long hair.

Siamese cats became popular as pets starting in the 1950s/1960s and since people didn't neuter and spay their cats as frequently back then, many pet Siamese interbred with domestic cat populations. In this way, the colorpoint gene and the other traits of the Siamese (slender body style, long head, large ears, loud voice) became spread around through the population. The colorpoint pattern tells you that there are Siamese somewhere in your cat's ancestry, since that is where the gene came from, but it could be very far back.

 

[StefanZ]

T
3 of 4kittens were points. So father probably a point. And momma of course a carrier of both the point gene and the longhair gene.

This combo gives typically 3 pointed 1 nonpoint. Even if the statistics not ironclad.

The hair lengh not visible, so daddy was perhaps a shorthaired carrier of the longhair gene.

Father could have been a look alike to siamese old type to make Dinahs looks, but its not sure.

Such combos gets often the looks of siamese old type even if the siamese ancestor is decades back...

 

[lutece]

StefanZ, if mother is black carrying pointed (Cc) and father is pointed (cc), on average you would expect 2 black kittens and 2 pointed kittens in a litter of 4, since half would be expected to inherit mom's dominant C allele and half would inherit mom's recessive c allele... but of course you could get all black or all pointed or somewhere in between

Yes, the large number of colorpoint kittens in the litter certainly suggests that the dad was colorpoint, but he could have been solid black (or blue, etc...)

 

[Kricket0913]

I'm not sure who the father is...couldn't even begin to guess. We don't see too many cats around there but theres lots of woods and plenty of property. Ive never seen any cat routinely out there except for the momma cat. OH! in her previous litter, she had a short haired all black, a short haired tux and a fluffy haired all grey(blue?) ! They all got homes before i could see how their coats turned out but that boy was fluffier than Dinah at weaned age, maybe since there was a fluffy blue, the dad, whoever he may be, is the same of both litters??? .... this stuff is so interesting.

 

[StefanZ]

StefanZ, if mother is black carrying pointed (Cc) and father is pointed (cc), on average you would expect 2 black kittens and 2 pointed kittens in a litter of 4, since half would be expected to inherit mom's dominant C allele and half would inherit mom's recessive c allele... but of course you could get all black or all pointed or somewhere in between

Yes, the large number of colorpoint kittens in the litter certainly suggests that the dad was colorpoint, but he could have been solid black (or blue, etc...)

Tx for noticing. Yes I was a little careless. 2+2 is the theoretical result. Still with 3+1 we are pretty sure dad was point. A non point carrier possible but not very prob.

 

[lutece]

So, if both litters had the same father, we have a total of:
- 1 SH black
- 2 SH black and white
- 1 LH blue
- 1 LH seal point
- 2 additional pointed kittens with unknown hair length (could be long or short), unknown point color (could be blue or seal), also unknown whether they had white spotting or not

We know that mom definitely carried dilute (blue) in addition to colorpoint and longhair. If both litters had the same father, our first guess would be that he was a short haired seal point carrying the recessive genes for dilute and longhair. But he could also be solid black or solid blue, blue point, and/or longhaired. He probably did not have white spotting.

It's quite possible in this kind of situation (cats running about in the woods) that the father of the litters was the father of the black and white mother cat, in addition to her mate. This would be a simple explanation for how he would share all these recessive genes with her (pointed, longhair, dilute).