Ojos Azules Cat Facts For Kids

This is a difficult cat breed to write about for children because it is a rather strange cat. I don’t think it should be a cat breed at all. Visitors can use this text if they’d like to.

“Ojoa Azules” is Spanish for blue eyes. Ojos Azules are non-white cats with blue eyes. Why is that special or different? Well, nearly all cats with blue eyes are white or have some white fur in their coats. So a cat with blue eyes and fur that is not white is rare. Or, at least, it is meant to be.  The problem with this strange breed of cat is that there are, in fact, moggie cats that are not white which have blue eyes. However, these cats usually have some white fur. A major cat association, The International Cat Association (TICA), accepts this cat as a cat breed. Yet it is basically a moggie with blue eyes.

A very strange thing is that TICA have allowed cats of any color and pattern including white or partly white cats with blue eyes to be called an Ojos Azules cat. I am not surprised that there are almost no breeders of this rare cat because it doesn’t really make sense as a cat breed. This is because a cat breed is meant to be a cat that is different from all other cats including random bred cats (moggies). The Ojos Azules is no different from some moggie cats.

Health and Breeding

There is another problem with this cat. If a cat breeder mates two Ojos Azules the kittens are born dead with a deformed body. This is because of how genes work.

When a cat breeder does a good job and puts an Ojos Azules and a cat without blue eyes together to mate, half the kittens won’t be Ojos Azules. This is a problem because what happens to the half that are not Ojos Azules? Who wants them? These are cats that are basically moggies. People would be more sensible to go to a cat rescue place and find a cat that needs a home and human companion. The health problem with this cat is another reason why breeders don’t want to be involved.

Why Are Non-White Cats With Blue Eyes Rare?

The reason is because the genes that produce white fur also produce blue eyes. Blue eyes and white fur go together. Both have little or no colored pigment in them.

Genes are small particles inside the cells of a cat that controls the way the cat looks and behaves when born. One of the genes that produces white fur in patches is called the “piebald gene”. Another is a gene that makes the cat all-white.

The reason why a cat’s eyes are blue is the same reason why the sky is blue. Without explaining in detail, light going into the eye is scattered. Some light is absorbed at the back of the eye but blue light is not. That is why you see blue in eyes of blue-eyed cats.

The reason why light is scattered is because there is not much pigment in the iris of a blue eyed cat. This is because of the same gene that makes fur white.

I’ll explain those two words.

• Pigment  – a substance in the skin, eyes and fur that gives it color
• Iris – the circle of color that you see in the eye with an opening in the middle. The iris controls the amount of light that gets into the eye.

Behavior

This cat’s personality or character is not known because there are so few of them. I would expect this cat to have a normal domestic cat character.

History

It seems that the first Ojos Azules were spotted in Mexico in 1984. However, there will be others anywhere in the world. In 1991 TICA accepted this cat as a cat breed. It has not grown in popularity and in 1992 there were only 10 purebred pedigree Ojos Azules cats in the world. I would expect this cat breed to die out.

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