Understanding Cat Coat Coloring

[Juniper_Junebug]

I've read a bunch of articles (including the one on this site) about cat coat coloring and I'm still struggling to pinpoint the right way to classify my new DSH kitten's look. When I got her a few weeks ago, I called her silver tipped blue, bc she had an obvious shimmer to her gray coat and bc I specifically asked the rescue for a Russian Blue coat color profile and feel like I got what I was looking for.

But now that she's started to shed, I see that her individual hairs are light (appearing almost white but maybe silver) for most of the shaft from the base on up, then a much smaller dark portion on top of that (presumably gray, but hard to gauge on individual hairs), then an even smaller white or silver tip. She does have some faint tabby markings on her tail, and sometimes I think I see them, barely, on her flank, so I wondered if she could be a ticked tabby, even though she looks solid. In one of the pics, you can see she has a very small portion of white fur under her back legs, but I'm not sure if she'll lose it with age.

Also curious if she has an undercoat. How can you tell? I thought not, but when I brush her, white kinky hairs come off, so does that mean she does?

Thanks for any input. I know it's splitting hairs, so to speak, to ask about this level of detail, but I'm new to the cat world and very curious. (And as someone who grew up with dogs, where you could guess at a mutt's breed mix and then offer that when people asked, I feel like DSH is a totally unhelpful response when people ask what kind of cat I adopted. I got her from a rescue. Of course she's a D*H. I'd love to have a better descriptor, though, because I think that's what ppl are really asking about.)

 

[lutece]

Very pretty! I would describe your gorgeous kitten as a blue domestic shorthair.

Cats are not dogs. Dogs have been selectively bred much longer than cats, and most random-bred dogs really are mixes of breeds. Most random-bred cats, on the other hand, do not have any specific breed ancestry at all.

Silver tipping is a normal phenomenon on a blue cat's coat. You will notice that silver tipping is written into the breed standard for breeds as dissimilar (and distant in geographic origin) as the Korat and Russian Blue... this tells you that it is a nearly universal phenomenon that can appear on any blue cat. It can appear on domestic blue cats' coats, too.

It's also normal to have a lighter area at the base of the hair on a blue cat. Breeds like the British Shorthair have worked to eliminate this lighter area, and create hairs that are "sound to the root" through generations of selective breeding, but most blue cats do have a lighter area at the base of the hair.

Almost all cats have at least some undercoat hairs. Normal feline coat consists of three types of hairs: guard hairs, awn hairs, and downy undercoat hairs. A "double coated" breed simply has more of this undercoat.

 

[game misconduct]

she looks how graycie did as a kitten minus the ghost tabby markings

 

[ZombieTiger]

Cats are not dogs. Dogs have been selectively bred much longer than cats, and most random-bred dogs really are mixes of breeds. Most random-bred cats, on the other hand, do not have any specific breed ancestry at all.

I'm new to cats and I don't know what colour your cat is but, I've grown up with dogs, dogbreeding and line bred bunnies, and when I became interested in cats, I learned pretty quickly what Lutece said. There's just not enough "purebred" cats around to call someone who is not purebred a "mix" of this and that. Which is very different from dogs, I agree. You might have heard, a dog is a dog is a dog when it comes to dog breeds, but it seems like you can tripple that meaning with 10 when it comes to cats.

Either way, I love blue fur and yours is very pretty.

 

[cataholic07]

Silver tipping is pretty normal in kitties, my torbie had it to but it's completely gone now as you can see. I think its like guard hairs that
get shed once their adult fur comes in.

 

[lutece]

Silver tipping is pretty normal in kitties, my torbie had it to but it's completely gone now as you can see. I think its like guard hairs that
get shed once their adult fur comes in.

It's a bit different in blue cats. It's normal in blue cats to see silver tipping that persists into adulthood. Not all blue cats have this tipping, but plenty of them do have it. It's related to the dilute (blue) gene somehow.

It is possible that silver tipping has something to do with how the dilute gene causes pigment to "clump" in the hair (which is why the color is lighter than a black hair). I've also heard that the physical mechanism of "clumping" is thought to be possibly related to blue cats having more of a tendency towards woolliness in the coat texture.

 

[Juniper_Junebug]

Thanks, everyone! I don't know why, but I find cat genetics really interesting.

(I hope she keeps her silver tips! I love them! )

 

[lutece]

Thanks, everyone! I don't know why, but I find cat genetics really interesting.
(I hope she keeps her silver tips! I love them! )

Maybe the reason you find it interesting is that genetics IS interesting
I think she probably will keep her silver tips!