Tiffany Cat
Tiffany cat. Photo: Wikipedia.
Note: I used to have photographs on this page of a Tiffany cat whose name was Arthur. His photographs were published with the kind permission of his human guardian – Marianne. Unfortunately the pictures have been lost because Google hosted the pictures and for some inexplicable reason the pictures disappeared. An error must have taken place on the Google server. This is mainly my fault for putting the pictures on a Google server and not on the server hosting this website. I apologise for this error. I hope the words are still useful.
- The Origin
- The Name
- The Appearance
- Maintenance
- About Arthur and Marianne
- Comments from Visitors on this page
- Click here to see visitors’ submissions
- Breeders
If the “discovery” story is to be taken as fact then this cat breed is as natural a breed as the other well known natural breeds such as the Norwegian Forest cat and Maine Coon to name a couple. Except the moment of “discovery” happened more recently, in 1967.
| Useful links |
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| Anxiety - reduce it |
| FULL Maine Coon guide - lots of pages |
| Children and cats - important |
As is often the case the history is a little cloudy. I feel the history of a cat breed’s creation and development is quite important as to a certain extent, it defines the breed. This is particularly so in the case of the Thai (a traditional type Siamese), for example.
My reading of the history of the Tiffany cat is that either this cat is a discovered cat (in 1967) and bred from thereon, or the breed is the creation of crossing Foreign Longhair/Angora, Havana, and Abyssinian cats.
In 1967 a cattery owner, Jennie Robinson, bought two young semi-foreign long haired chocolate colored cats, one male and one female as part of the sale of an entire estate (this may have been on the death of the previous keeper). These two cats mated and in “breeding true” all the offspring where the same as their parents. The color is a “self color” (solid color with no banding on the hair shafts).
In Canada in 1973, and running almost in parallel with the USA creation/development of this breed, it is said that the same type of cat, of unknown ancestry, as had happened in the USA, turned up at the home of a Canadian. Thus began the Tiffany cat’s history in Canada, from which point, breeders began to develop the breed.
A visitor, Ricardo Delgado, asked, “What is the difference between the York Chocolate and Tiffany cats?” – Not much and I don’t know!
Tiffany “Grendel”. Photo: Pinterest. Lara Grauer Photography.
Another confusing area is the name of this breed. You’ll see this cat breed is called both Tiffany and Chantilly. They describe the same cat breed. What apparently happened is that British breeders of the Burmilla began calling the long haired version of their cat breed, “Tiffanie”. The long haired Burmilla is described as the Tiffanie on the GCCF website (2008). To try and avoid confusion the Canadian breeders coined the name “Chantilly” for their cat. As a result the cat breed has two names. The name selected depends on which cat association is used for registration.
TICA and CFA don’t register the Tiffany or Chantilly. This is a rare cat breed on my reckoning. The ACFA register the Chantilly as “EXP” (presumed to mean “experimental”). The Traditional Cat Association calls this breed “Tiffany/Chantilly”. The Cat Fanciers Federation don’t seem to recognize the Tiffany cat. I wonder whether the confused history/development has something to to do with the reluctance of cat associations to recognize this cat breed.
It seems that in Australia the Tiffany is a cross between the Burmese and Birman (although the Australian Tiffany breeder (see below), which provided this information from their website spells this breed “Burman”). Sorry about this but there is an Australian Tiffanie as well. This is a Longhaired Burmilla and Chinchilla Persian hybrid. Because there is some confusion over the naming of breeds Tiffanie, Tiffany, Longhaired Burmilla etc., I decided I’d try and explain the difference. See the explanation here.
One last point this cat has been called “Mahogany”.
Marianne’s pictures of Arthur pretty well tells you what you need to know.
Arthur is a chocolate Tiffany cat, the original color. The chocolate coloring has lighter patches and picks up the light beautifully as shown in the heading picture.
Through outcrossing, the coat colors have been expanded to include: cinnamon, fawn, lilac, blue and black. Patterns have also been introduced including: ticked (the Abyssinian is the classic ticked cat), mackerel (see this pattern on the Toyger, for example) and spotted (the Bengal is the classic spotted cat for me, but another cat with a great spotted coat is the Egyptian Mau).
Eye color (as seen in the photograph above) is gold to deep yellow.
Being semi-longhaired means a certain amount of upkeep but less than the high maintenance Persian, which is long haired. In addition there is no undercoat, which reduces matting. The Tiffany cat has nice ear furnishings (ear hair – see the best ear furnishings on this Maine Coon or this one – both open in a new window and they are special cats). Their coat is nice and silky to the touch, rich in color and very full.
I am pleased to say that breeders of this cat are concerned with retaining the original conformation, which is very normal and balanced, a great asset for a cat breed. All the most popular breeds have a balanced appearance.
Marianne, who lives with Arthur featured on this page, says he is very low maintenance, partly because he is so healthy. I love you Arthur. Oh, I forgot to mention, Tiffany cats have lovely plumed tails just like Arthur’s. Another cat with a fantastic plumed tail is the Turkish Angora.
About Arthur: He’s very healthy, vociferous, opinionated (obviously very intelligent therefore), sociable and cuddly. What more could you ask for in a companion? I’ll bet Marianne has long conversations with him….
Tiffany cats, generally, are affectionate and companionable, striking a nice middle ground in terms of activity and mischievousness. Like most cats they will not appreciate being alone a lot.
About Marianne: Marianne Stone’s Flickr name is lapietra. She kindly allowed me to publish her photographs on this page to illustrate this cat breed. Arthur said it was OK too. She lives in San Francisco, USA. She likes photography and sharing her images with others. She loves Arthur. Click on this link (new window) to go to her Flickr page on Arthur.
Comments from Visitors See also submissions
8th Jan 2010: From Susan Rogosky, Latrobe Pennsylvania USA:
Friend to Tuffy
I was looking for pictures of Black Angora cats but something did not seem to fit my little friend and Princess Tuffy. Until I came upon a picture on your website of this beautiful Black Mahognany cat and I said “This is Her” my little Tuffy, yeah I call her little but she is an adult of 5 years and I wish I had a picture to show you, this cat could be her twin.
Now I found Tuffy in my backyard full of fleas, lice and smelling like the sewer system after many, many baths, general medicines and flea medicines Tuffy was healthy.
Tuffy is a wonderful friend and loves to sit on my lap at night or sleep on my bed, she never goes outside. Tuffy is also very playful and relishes running around the house at top speed when she gets the urge.
Thank you for showing the picture, it really helped.
1st November 2010: My Milo by Mel from Montreal
I have a Tiffany cat and he is very cute (in my opinion).
His fur really is silky like velvet and he is very compassionate. He has a very quirky character that always leaves me laughing… my Milo takes big pride in his appearance; if you pet him the wrong way, he will lick himself till his fur is perfectly placed again.
I let him outside in my backyard, and he will never wonder outside that backyard. He likes to stay close to home, I guess.
20th Nov. 2010: I’ve found Samantha’s breed!! by Deanna from Olathe, KS, USA.
I have had Samantha for about 8 years and now I know what her breed is!!
She is my little fur ball. I rescued her from the local pound. She doesn’t take very well to strangers and she is strictly an indoor cat. She adores her coat combed and brushed. She can be demanding at times: when I’m in the bathroom brushing my hair, she will sit on the toilet seat demanding that I brush her hair too. She will chirp and squeek at me to spend time with her and pet her. When she was a kitten, she would demand that I play with her. She has a “turbo kitty” toy that has a ball that circles around a scratching pad. She would bat at the ball and wait for me to bat the ball back to her. She also has a very beautiful purr and sometimes she will drool if I scratch her in the right places like under her chin.
She is mostly black, her head, paws, and tail are a solid dark black but her body is a reddish-black. Her tummy and a spot on her chest are white but I think the white spots occurred when she was shaved when she was spayed and when she was tested for feline leukemia. One winter, her mane was white so it looked as if she had a circle of white around her neck. I don’t know if she has an undercoat but if I brush her hair backwards, the base of the hair is white.
Comment: Samantha look stunning. She may not be a Tiffany cat, though, because you need evidence in the form of a pedigree to claim that she is a purebred cat and all cat breeds are purebred cats….Michael
I just brought my second Tiffany home….from Cindy (NSW – Australia)
This breed of cat is just the loveliest … They are extremely smart, affectionate and clean. The two I have are both Burmese and Birman cross, which my understanding is what a tiffany cat is. Although this breed is not recognized in NSW, it should be! I have owned quite a few different types of cats, and a tiffany is the best type in my opinion. They are extremely intuitive and I am almost sure they can understand me. If you are thinking of getting this type of cat I thoroughly recommend it and an excellent breeder that I got both of my kittens through is meegan, her email address is meeganem[at]BigPond.com (change [at] to @). She raises the most well trained and looked after kittens. You may have to wait for a litter, it is worth the wait.
As I mentioned, this cat is rare so there are few breeders:
Purrfect Essentials – sorry things change and this cattery has moved website or shut down (2012 July).
This cattery is, I believe, located in Australia but the website is not clear on this, which surprises me. They breed Burmese and Tiffany cats. But they describe the Tiffany as a cross between a Burmese and Burman. Their website does, however, come up on page one of a Google search, hence the listing here (2009 – things change).
This is the only website (not being part of a breeder listings site) that is listed in the first 3 pages of a Google search result for this breed. Yet I am not sure about this cattery. Please reassure me by telling me here.
Foreign Type – {go back to where you came from}
In the cat fancy (the cat world) this means a long, svelte but muscular cat like the Modern Siamese. Semi-foreign is a less extreme than the look demonstrated by the Modern Siamese in body and head shape. To me the Tiffany cat is not semi-foreign as he looks more balanced and “normal”. See Cat Body Shapes.
Sources:
- Wikipedia
- http://www.breedlist.com/
- http://en.mimi.hu/
- http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/True_breeding
- http://www.breeds.traditionalcats.com
- Cat Fanciers
What Other Visitors Have Said
Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page…
My Charlotte
A couple of years ago, I adopted Charlotte from Animal Control. Someone had given her up. She was about 3-4 months old and SHE immediately adopted ME….
What is the difference between a Tiffany cat and a Black Maine Coon?
I cannot tell if my 13 year old Francis that I have had since he was a kitten is a Tiffany or a Black Maine Coon? Or both? Is there a difference? Thank …
Harvey
This is my Tiffany/Chantilly Cat. I’ve always been a dog person – until Harvey. Such a good hearted, chill personality. Not aggressive, gets along with …
Tiffany looking for a new home! (Jan 2012)
I did not realize that we have a pure-bread (even if the association does not recognize the breed 🙂 ) I only started looking for the breed info as …
Our cat, Midnight, came with the house
Our cat has three names and is a Tiffany Cat, her names are Midnight, Miss Pompadour, and Girl . She came with the house we bought back in 2005 …
A perfect match!
Thank you! I’ve been looking everywhere trying to find my 9-month-old kitten’s breed and now I’ve found a perfect match! She could be Arthur’s twin. My …
Cat Rescue In Slovakia
Well my story…. last autumn we was at our garden….we have house with big garden behind it….and we were doing classic autumn work when we noticed …
What is the difference between the York Chocolate and Tiffany cats?
Hello to all, I was reading the description of both, the York chocolate cat and the Tiffany, and they seem to be alike. Would someone please let me know …
My Lucifur Kitty Was a Tiffany
I like this page about Tiffany cats and enjoyed seeing everyone’s picture. I had a Tiffany until March of last year when he got sick and passed away. He …
Sheela the Truckin’ Cat/dog
Sheela found her way into our lives as a kitten 6 years ago. The most interesting thing about Sheela is that she acts more like a dog than a cat. She …
My Stray is a Tiffany!!
14 years ago I found a shivering little ball of fluff in the snow one winter outside my parents house. After taking him in and asking around I found out …
Little Clones!
By chance, I came across Arthur’s picture of him in the hay; It was on a YouTube video of different cat breeds . I honestly don’t know why I was watching …
Sammy, Official Mascot for Amerika Now Radio Show
My beautiful cat, Sammy, is the official mascot for my radio show, Amerika Now ( www.radioamerikanow.com ), heard Saturdays on the Genesis Communications …
Miss Kitty – Our Rescue Cat
My Wife and I adopted Miss Kitty as a stray 4.5 years ago from a co-worker who found her on her on the back porch. She was quite an old kitty but did …
Pyewacket
Pyewacket is obviously a Tiffany/Chantilly, though she’s a found kitty without pedigree. She wandered into my parents’ barn and had her kittens there,… Thanks for this site. I now know what type of cat we have. The descriptions of the Tiffany/Chantilly, fit our “Carolina” perfectly. She is a sweetheart …
My loving Spooky Cat
I had a 12 year old cat that looked just like the pictures here of Arthur. He unfortunately passed a few days ago while checking his territory outside …
My Shadow Has Tiffany Twins Everywhere!
I have an amazingly sweet almost 16 year old named Shadow and I am so excited to see and hear about his twins across the US and UK. While he is obviously …
I Now Know What Kind of Cat I Have
My boy’s name is Vito. I have wondered what he is for a while now, but thanks to your website I know he is a Tiffany. My boy is the sweetest thing …
Inky Dink Part 2
Thank you so much for posting my story and offering the funding it would take to take her to the vet and to get her groomed. She is skittish and we hope …
Living with a Tiffany Cat
We got a female Tiffany kitten from someone who was giving it away. She was always affectionate and friendly, in as much as she would come and sleep by …
Inky Dink
I think there is a Tiffany who wants to to adopt us. Very beautiful. We are giving it food and slowly talk to it and really likes that we put out some …
My Tiffany Cat Skunk
I am pretty sure that I have a tiffany/chantilly. Skunk looks just like the pictures. He is very loving and tends to follow me around the house. He is …
Maxwell Edison: My Tiffany Cat
Last summer my mother’s Maine Coon ran away for a month and a half. Convinced it wasn’t coming back I went online to find a new family cat to help comfort …
Tiffany of all Tiffanys
Our BEAUTIFUL girl came to us from a friend who found her in a field. She was one pound and all spunk. We called her Espresso because of the chocolate …
Tiffany Really Was A Tiffany
Twenty-one years ago when I was walking my daughter home from Jr. Kindergarten we spotted a little black cat sitting in the middle of the road looking …
I think my cat child is a Tiffany! Fluffy and black!
I adopted Cubby in September 2007. He’s a large black cat, with longer fur, and a fluffy, plumed tail. He has deep gold eyes. He’s a very vocal cat …
How Can We Find Out What Breed our Cat is?
Hi..My cat’s name is Vader and he looks very similiar to Arthur. How can we find out for sure what breed our Vader is? I have included a picture too….
I think Kyrie-Bee is a Tiffanie
I have a black cat, semi-long haired, I got her from a rescue centre 18 years ago, at 5 weeks (they told me she was 9 weeks old, but the vet informed me …
CC and Mike’s Tiffany!!!!
This is our Bleu! The reason we named him Bleu was because when we first found him/he found us, his fur had a blue/silver tint to it and his eyes were …
My Chimney
A little over four years ago, I worked for an animal shelter in Indiana, Pennsylvania. There was one particular day in which I was working and a man …
Tiffany Cat??
I was browsing your site and ran across the Tiffany Cats and was shocked to see one that resembles my cat, Balboa. He became my housemate after I moved …
Our Vagabond Kitty
About six weeks ago I found a cat sitting on the hood of my car which was parked in the driveway of our log home in the woods of Western North Carolina….
I have two Tiffany cats – chocolate and lilac
I have two Tiffany cats – chocolate and lilac. I adopted them from the ASPCA in NYC. They were surrendered by a breeder – probably because the female …
Tiffany Kitten?
I have a cat which I found 7 months ago, and it looks very much like the Tiffany breed. I would like to know if someone has got a picture of what a kitten …
Can anyone tell me what breed my cat is?
I got Elmo just over a year ago from a rescue centre when my previous cat was hit by a car and killed. I saw a couple of cats I liked but when they brought …
I have two Tiffany Males
Greetings… What I thought were Turkish Angora now after hearing the history and looking at my lads the Father “Thor”and his son “Shadow”are Tiffany’s….
My fearless, desperate cat
We were waiting for a friend at her new home who was moving to area. As we were waiting, we opened the car door and a cat jumped into my lap. He only …
Tiffany Stuff
Three Tiffany cat posts
“Jinger”
I always say that my kitteh Jinger found us. Kari
A Tiffany Teddy Bear
My boy Bear! I first spotted him in a pet store that was promoting cat adoptions for the local SPCA. I ended up going back and playing with him a 2nd …
Three Tiffany Cats
Three visitor submissions on the Tiffany cat.
Could this be.. a Tiffany?
A few months ago I noticed this cat on my backyard fence. At the time I didn’t know whether it was male or female but it was meowing and barely any sound …
Couldn’t Ask For A Better Cat!
Oh WOW! for a while others tried to convince me that my gorgeous lovable cat, Lucifer, HAD to be a full breed. Because I had adopted him form a local pet …
Two Rescue Tiffany Cats
Two short stories about rescued Tiffany cats or at least cats that looked like Tiffanies.
Soulful
I was delighted to see “Arthur”. He looks exactly like my “Poe“. My Poe was rescued from a trailer park in Nova Scotia where he was traumatized by …
Twinkie’s Story
Ten years ago, my animal loving daughter, Ce, went to her sister’s soccer game. There was this friendly half-grown black cat that wouldn’t leave them …
Not sure site still here date wise
I think my guy a tiffany but not sure as was a free cat. Very beautiful black/brown undertones. 4 yrs old now. Fairly vocal and snuggly greets me aftr work. Btw what food best idea for his uti blockage history advice since too many links and who to believe. Thanks A
You can buy ‘prescription diets’ for this but for me the best diet for UTIs is wet food (say boiled deboned, fish) plus added water (add it to the fish) to help flush the urinary tract. Avoid dry food and buy best quality wet plus as stated foods such as fish+water. The Tiffany genes are seen in non-purebreds.
I suspected my cat was a Tiffiny. Our cat Shadow was hanging out in our back yard. My husband and I already had a cat and was concerned about him. He would not come to us but did continue to hang out way back on our very large property. Finally one day my husband called me out to the garage and said he had something for me. I walked out and OH MY GOSH!!
There he was; a very hungry, very skinny and the most beautiful cat I had ever seen! My husband knew I had been very concerned about him but we couldn’t catch the poor thing. He finally decided to come into our garage because he was so hungry.
We allowed in into our home but because he was not used to being around people he never left my side. The first day he would not leave my feet and he thought I was too close to him and he did bite me because he was scared. I did have to go to hospital and they were very upset because we took in a stray! I knew he was just scared and but we adopted him and welcomed him into our home.
End of story: he’s is ours! When we took him to the vet to get fixed even though he was so thin they had to use 2 collars put together to go around his neck. I knew at that time he was going to be a big cat. Shadow is huge but a gentle giant. His fur is pitch black but when sunlight shines on him it has beautiful hints of red. He is just beautiful. Oh yes and his eyes!!!! He has the biggest paws I have ever seen on a cat. He has very large teeth as well. All who see him love him. Don’t forget that lovely main like around his neck and that beautiful full tail.
He is excellent with children. He does not shy away from people and will simply walk away when he’s had enough.
I am very grateful he came to our house we just love him.
Thanks Cindy for a great comment. You have a lovely cat.
I to have a beautiful pair of these cats that adopted me one day when they were about 5 weeks old .they were wild born and their mother went out one might and never came back ( I had found a big black coyote had gotten to a few nights before) and next thing I know have this little black fur ball ball between my feet meowing away up at me , and another one crawling out a hole in the wall of an abandoned building making twice the noise letting me know he was here to . Well I couldn’t just leave hungry little kittens like that. so put them in canvas bag and took them to my ladyfriends to get them fed good and take them to humane society next day .they had other plans for me though and here 5 yrs. Later almost to the day still do . I have no idea what they plan for me next but their beguiling ways and loving nature’s have been such an appreciated gift to our lives let them do as they will they more than deserve it . . Oh and did I mention they are gorgeous !! always keeping their luxurious coats combed and shiny , never messed up or dull . Guess I’m going on a bit about this breed because that’s what they are , a well put together one for it to stand up to less than pure lines mixed in and still have such strong and consistently recognizable traits and intelligent loving nature’s I I have not seen very many of these cats only one other live one , and the rest pictured here or there in cat fancier magazines but it only takes one glance at these charming cats to recognize them as tiffanys . A very well done mix , and my hats off to the people who brought them into the world.
.
Thanks for sharing your Tiffany cat story so elegantly and well done in adopting them.
Wow at first when I got my cat, I thought oh she’s just a domestic cat with a different look. And every month that went by I kept thinking something was different about her she has her own unique look that I have yet to seen. Maybe she is mixed. Maybe she is a chantilly. Which I hope she is, she’s my world and that would make her that much more special. She is about 8 months now.
She has that Tiffany look! The Tiffany is a difficult breed to place because the breed comes from random bred cats. She is gorgeous. Superbly attractive. She is one of the WOW cats.
Magic is our Tiffany cat. We adopted him from our neighbors who moved. He loves to be let in and out of the house 12 times(at least) per day! He is wild and crazy and loves to hunt. He likes to get close and tap you with his tail. I think this is his way of keeping tabs on his people! He is almost 10 years old, but he still runs around and plays like a youngster. He has a very strong personality — not shy either. Here is a photo:
Magic sounds like a wonderful cat. Thanks for telling us about him. Your picture – which I would love to see – was too large to upload. What you could do is email it to me and I’ll add it to your comment or if you like messing around on the internet, just below this box you’ll see a link to very short page on how to reduce the size of the image online.
He has the “Tiffany look”. The Tiffany is rather a rare and strange cat breed. A breed born out of random bred cats.
Thanks so much for the website/page on Tiffany cats. My beloved and belated Dusty (1995-2012) is so much like Arthur. Congrats to him for being the Archetype TIffany cat!
Precious and her beautiful hair.
Precious is 8 yrs old, likes to take showers, talk, and stand at the wheel likes shes driving. Love her very much.
Beautiful and smart.
This is my beautiful Chantilly (Precious)
As handsome as a cat can be. She looks big too. Impressive cat. Thanks for sharing.
I have two of those that I got as fosters from St. Francis Society. I just could not let go of them. Their coat is the softest thing I’ve ever seen, and they are so loving. I have a male and female (Jack and Jill, can you believe it?), and they are really sweet and playful. The most noticeable difference with other cats is the silkiness of the coat. I’ve had and seen lots of cats in my life, but never a coat as soft as this. They are really lap cats, love to be with you everywhere. I’m really happy I got them, they were already one year old and nobody wanted them because they are (or seem black) and they had to be together, because they love each other to pieces :). They are a blast!
Thanks Jenny for you added information about this breed of cat. It is a lovely photograph by the way. Good work. They look so cute together.
You’re right of course, and there is a strange dichotomy in the world of cats when it comes to the concept of “breed”. because on the one hand , breed is really a human concept.
On the other hand sometimes people use the term ( in the phrase “natural breed”) for what scientists sometimes call “landrace “.
It’s also true that in the established cat fancy, or sometimes as a point of national pride, there has developed all sorts of mythology around both of these concepts — I mean in some cases people like to imagine that some cats were only bred in some controlled breeding programs by some high ranking priests or royalty etc. . in other cases people like to imagine that a breed that actually resulted from people breeding different sort of cats together, really is a pristine landrace from long ago history.
I may have sounded a bit like that myself in saying that this Tiffany / Chantilly wasn’t a “natural breed”. (because where does one draw the line? How old does it have to be? I admit I’m not sure… but I still wouldn’t call it that. And I realise you were just sort of tossing ideas around.
I honestly think that sometimes people just have trouble believing in the beauty of the random-bred cat. so they see a gorgeous cat and think surely humans must have created this!
BTW, I love that you have given attention to the Anatolian cats and the misinformation about the Turkish Angora and Turkish Van.
particularly the Angora which has been changed much more.
The philosophy behind cat breeding and the breeds is worth a book. You could argue that arrogant humankind thinks he can improve on nature and tries to do it by owning a cat and making it better looking.
We don’t own cats and can’t improve on them through breeding and in case we are just pandering to one of our less attractive traits, to possess nice looking things and turning the cat into an object.
Hi Michael.
I wouldn’t consider a few instances of people finding a small number of brown longhair cats in North America as evidence they were a “Natural Breed” like a Maine Coon or NFC, anymore than finding pointed longhair cats in North America or the UK would mean that THAT was a natural breed.
I have never heard of evidence there were a bunch of these cats running around America in the early 1800s or before that.
The brown / chocolate color gene ( abbreviated with lower case b), an alternate allele at the Black locus, certainly seems to have originated in Southeast Asia, and got to other countries via the Siamese and Burmese . ( For that reason this color is not permitted in natural breeds like Maine Coon or Norwegian Forest Cat, because it is considered a sign of hybridization with cats from a distant part of the world, and not a part of the natural breed. )
Just like the pointed allele has been spread into cat populations in Western countries due to Siamese breeding with the local cats, the same thing to a lesser extent happened with the brown (chocolate) allele. So sometimes brown “Domestic Shorthairs” or “Domestic Longhairs” turn up.
The fact that some of these are foreign or semi foreign in type may also be due to having a bit if Siamese ancestry. but probably they really pop up with a range of type.
There were some of these brown longhairs found in the 1960s. and someone wanted to make a breed from them.
It seems that at some point a breeder may have also crossed Burmese with longhairs as part of trying to create this Tiffany breed.
Later on someone else found some more longhair moggies and tried to “revive” the breed.
But it really has not gone anywhere.
You mentioned the reluctance of registries to recognize the breed; that just reflects the lack of enough people working with the breed and trying to get it recognized.
But due to the lasting and endless repetitive nature of the internet, the same limited amount of information about this apparently virtually non-existent “breed” continues to be found in online searches, and new articles are still today being written repeating the old information, so that there are now more people than ever who think they have suddenly discovered they have a cat of this breed!
There are more beautiful longhair moggies (not just brown cats but black ones, including some black cats with coats that have turned partly reddish brown due to sun etc. but it’s not the same thing as a cat who has 2 copies of b ) now being labeled as “Tiffany” / “Chantilly” than there EVER were such cats bred in breeding programs. and people are posting photos of their cats today and labeling them as that breed. Then other people think “Hey my cat looks like that , it must be this Tiffany/ Chantilly breed!”
Re “foreign type”: This was used a long time ago to describe the Siamese, which started with that body type but then via selective breeding developed a more extreme type than what existed naturally.
So , some people came up with a new term at that extreme end of the range of type to mean the body type of the modern Siamese & Oriental: it’s called “oriental type”.
Examples of current breeds described as foreign type include the Thai in TICA, or the Abyssianian & Russian Blue in TICA & GCCF — cats noticeably more elongated than average but not extremely long or extremely fine boned. (though I have to say, some of the Abys and RBs are getting increasingly refined. I hope we can avoid that in the Thai while also avoiding going in the opposite direction)
Hi, thanks for the long and useful comment. I completely agree with you by the way.
This page was one of the first on this cat breed. There are hundreds of thousands more cat websites since and they all regurgitate the same stuff and steal photos etc.
I have presented a conventional view with some questioning. But…
You could argue that no cat breed is natural because cat breeds are man made. The only natural cats are random bred cats because once breeders get hold of a moggie say from Norway that they like and start breeding it and modifying it and crossing it with other breeds and so on the naturalness is removed.
The cat breeds are what I call a mashup. Even the ones that are meant to be pure like the Chartreux are not pure due to human failings.
The more I know about cat breeds the more I doubt the usefulness of their existence.
The Turkish Angora is an American product far removed from the original as another example. And the Turkish Van is a Turkish Angora and both are moggies in Turkey. And the Van does not like swimming…etc etc. There is a lot of make believe in the cat fancy.
Sorry it that sounds cynical.
Over-refinement is a mistake and wrong. It is not refinement but a distortion of what the cat should like. “Refinement” is a human concept far removed from the natural cat.
I could go on for pages and there are lots of pages on PoC about this subject.
My little Kinde, Ich kundelich lieb dich, meine u meine Hubsceb Madchen! Prowrrrr…rrrr. (!)
この型のキーを押しますそれは与えられた意志バッグ
ルイヴィトン がよく知られているは長期時間。その後彼は設立ルイヴィトン維持事務所、登録商標 ルイヴィトン。これ する必要がある-ブートがある
特性 豪華なツイン-直面して シープスキン最大限のため
coziness。 クレイジー 狂気のいけ これらバッグを持つ 設定 アップ。
mY, little Shrimpster/Shrimptaro, who are You?
I feel like this is the closest thing I have found to maybe finding a new chantilly/tiffany. My “zuma” little girl passed away and I am desparately looking for another. The personality of these cats are very, very special. Mine was black. Do you know of any available? Can you point me in the right direction? Much thanks, Debra
My cat, Mandy, looks just like the Tiffany. The only difference is her eyes. Mandy has green eyes. Does that mean she isn’t a Tiffany?
I am going to stick my neck out say that your cat’s green eyes do not exclude her from being a Tiffany. You should find a Tiffany breed standard if you can and check that way.
The picture of Arthur is exactly the same as my little sisters cat Bartok, (I thought she must have put it up as he likes sitting in the haystacks, till I saw the byline). They are from a breed that is common in the victory area of Nelson New Zealand. You can find quite a few of them there, and I have found although they look fluffy, they are really quite silky and less of a problem to me as an allergy sufferer.
Interesting to read your comment. Thank you for commenting.
I am SO happy to have found this post. My husband and I have wondered for SO long what breed our beautiful Gus was, and now we know! We rescued him from a shelter 7 years ago where he was deemed “unadoptable” and was scheduled to be put down. One look at his beautiful eyes and we knew he was “salvageable” with the right amount of love. After spending 8 months hiding under the bed and only coming out at night to eat briefly, he is now the sweetest, most gentle, wonderful boy. Hope everyone is enjoying their tiffany/chantilly as much as we are. He’s an absolute joy 🙂
Love conquers all. Your story is so typical of many others I have read where a cat is “unadoptable” but is really just frightened. I think people need to reassess what adoptable means.
I am so pleased your saw the potential in him and through patience and love brought the best out of him. I guess he just need some love and kindness so that he could find confidence in people.
Thanks for posting. I am sure he is a very handsome cat as well.