This is a page on the Burmese cat written for children and people who like to see great cat pictures and easy to read words.
The Burmese is a breed of cat. It is one of the main cat breeds and has been around for a long time. The Burmese cat comes from a country called Burma. Burma is now called Myanmar. We are told that the Burmese breed began with a brown cat that was brought from Burma to America, in 1930, by a navy psychiatrist, Dr Thompson. The cat he brought back was called Wong Mau.
You can see Wong Mau in the picture on this page. She does not look like the sort of Burmese cat that we see in America today. She was a Burmese-Siamese mix and what breeders call a Tonkinese.
Dr Thompson arranged for Wong Mau to mate with a Siamese cat. The kittens were then mated with their mother, Wong Mau, which created the first Burmese cats. One of the first Burmese kittens had a coat that looked a solid color, a sort of dark brown, but the fur on the face, legs, ears and tail was slightly darker. From these first kittens the Burmese breed was created.
The way the Burmese looks has changed over the years. Today, the cat has a rounder face and body than the first ones. The person who began to change things was a cat breeder, Gladys de Fleron. She lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
No Burmese Cats in Burma!
Now for something strange. In 2009 a Burmese person named Mr Wong How Man said there were no Burmese cats left in Burma. What he did was buy four Burmese cats from Harrods in London and took them to Burma! The idea was to restart the breed in Burma.
Kids should understand that the Burmese cats in Burma were never exactly like the popular Burmese cat you see in America or Europe.
How the Burmese Looks
This cat has to look rounded. The head, eyes, muzzle (the part of the face around the mouth) and the chest are meant to be round in shape! Phew. Sometimes the round head causes the cat to be very ill.
The body is short. The cat is quite small but feels heavy. The female cat is smaller than the male. Some males are quite large.
The coat is easy to look after. The coat colors that you are likely to see are sable (a dark brown, almost black color and the first color) and sepia (a ligher brown). There are other colors such as chocolate sepia and lilac sepia. The eyes are golden to yellow colored.
The American Burmese cats looks different to the British and European Burmese cats. This is because people form different countries have different ideas about how the cat should look. The European Burmese is bigger and the head less round.
Character
This cat takes things in her stride. The cat has been called “happy-go-lucky”. The Burmese likes being around people and likes to be loved. Actually, all cats are the same!
The Burmese is quite chatty. He or she likes to talk with quite a loud voice.
