Velcro's first show

Well, Velcro competed at her first cat show yesterday and it was the first show for a very long time for me, too.  I've not had any free Saturdays for literally years, but sadly my mother has recently gone into Care so I can now get out and about to some shows again.

Velcro at her very first cat show

When taking kittens to shows I'm not too bothered about results, because I know my lines take a couple of years at least to develop.  I aim to breed cats that just get better and better as they get older.  The important thing about showing kittens is simply to get them used to the process.  Velcro looked lovely in her pen, but she had almost no coat and the pretty kitten that beat her in her open was a bit older and much fluffier!  I was happy that Velcro came home with one first prize at least, from a large side class.

The main thing is that Velcro took to showing in a confident manner and really seemed to enjoy her day out, so she will be going to more shows next year, hopefully accompanied by her little sister Kyrie. I'm looking forward to reading her judges' reports to see what they have to say about her.

The show itself was in the Lockmeadow Market Hall in Maidstone.  What a lovely venue! I never realised what an attractive place Maidstone is. The hall was right by the river, and the day being brilliantly sunny meant for a beautiful walk during the time the cats were being judged in their Open Classes, when we all have to leave the hall.

The River Medway at Maidstone

Then I went to the shops - there were lots of lovely little streets and arcades. I was thrilled to find a branch of Lush where I stocked up on bath products!  Back at the show, I met old acquaintances and new ones, and had lots of catch-up chats.  I bought some of the best cat toys ever from Tracey Wood's stall - she makes them from feathers from her neighbour's pheasants.  All my cats were enchanted with them when I got home!  So all in all an excellent day out was had by all.

21.10.11: Velcro's show report from the Open judge, John Hansson, has now been published:
DOUGLAS' VIEUXTEMPS VELCRO.  67 31.15-04-11.  Black Bi-Coloured, higher on her white & very attractive young miss.  Her head is marginally narrow which detracts from the triangular shape, profile not quite straight, chin runs back a little, bite good in spite of her swollen gums.  Ears large, pricked high, good inner furnishings.  Eyes slightly more rounded & could be a little more oblique, green in colour.  Her body has good length, well-proportioned legs &paws, her tail was quite a good length, the bushy appearance still to be achieved.  Coat is at present still very baby soft & fine, requires a little more density, wispy fringes round the base of the ears, fluffy knickerbockers.  Beautifully prepared clean white, with smaller patches of black on her lower back & sides, black head markings & tail with white tip.Lovely condition, excellent temperament.
I would say this is a fair description of Velcro on the day.  As you can tell, she was teething.  I am not worried about the width of her head because it's good for NFC kittens to have heads longer than they are wide; they will widen with age, ending up well-balanced.  She is still very much a baby.

The eyes of the Norwegian Forest Cat

In the Standard of Points for the Norwegian Forest Cat the eyes are given 10% of the total points. This doesn’t sound a lot, but of course there are so many other things to take into account when assessing the overall cat. However if an otherwise near-perfect NFC has round or over-dominant eyes the whole appearance of the cat is spoilt and just doesn’t look “right”. Maybe this is because the eyes are one of the first things you notice about any cat. Maybe it is because the eyes are the window to the soul! 

The Norwegian Forest Cat’s eyes should be slightly oblique in set, and the effect should be that of an alert and capable hunter. The standard describes them as large and well-opened, but in my experience they should not be over-large or they will look too sweet.  I'd say Hermione's eyes (above) are just right.

The males in particular should never have a sweet look – these cats should have an air of wildness about them, even though their natures are anything but wild. The females do have a different expression sometimes – I would say that my best girls’ eyes have a noble and intelligent look.

Kohinoor's eyes, whilst a beautiful colour ('odd eyed') are perhaps a little deep-set.

It is easier to disguise eye shape in a tabby cat, and more difficult to get the eyes to look good in a solid coloured cat. I am lucky in that my white cats, although they have no eye make-up at all to “help” the shape of their eyes, without exception have beautiful expressions. White cats’ eyes come in several different colours: blue, green, gold, or (my favourite) odd-eyed meaning one blue and one green or gold.  Very often as kittens the green-eyed white NFC will look as if he or she is going to end up yellow or orange-eyed, but then they change at around one or even two years of age, so I generally register my gold-eyed-looking white kittens as green-eyed.  I have seen several novice breeders make a mistake because they do not expect the change, and then they might have to re-register the cat later.

Eye colour in the NFC doesn’t really matter at all – it is the shape and expression that counts. You even occasionally get blue eyes in a cat that isn’t solid white (for example, this handsome boy below). 

Photo of Dansbjergs Ringo by Carli Haekkerup

Mostly NFC eyes are of a colour that blends happily with the cat’s coat colour – ranging from soft hazel to bright green.  But I reiterate - it is the expression, not the colour, that counts.

Jet has particularly vivid and beautiful eyes

Introducing our Airedale terrier, Butz

Butz at two months, soon after we got him

We had always admired Airedales but were not in a position to share our life with one until MR found herself able to work from home from year 2000.  After much searching we found just the breeder to suit us - Kate Sibley who had a wonderful bunch of ten pups being lovingly brought up, inside their bustling family home near Woburn. MR explained that we did not want a "show" dog so much as an intelligent companion, who could possibly be trained for obedience competitions.  (Ha ha!) Kate selected the pup she thought would be most suitable - Butz was quite thoughtful and easily handled, and also happened to be the biggest.  He was born in May 2000.

Airedales are born black and the tan develops
gradually during the first few months.

Butz's mother was called Chloe and was a beautiful, typy sunny natured blonde, whilst his dad Buzz was a huge (28ins) rough working-type dog.  His pedigree background has the famous Stargus lines on one side and equally illustrious Glentops lines on the other. Butz himself has one ear sticking up and the other sticking down!  This is quite common with Airedale pups and you are meant to glue the errant ear down in place in the early months. However we made a conscious decision not to do this, being worried about discomfort and maybe even infection, and anyway we love Butz's funny ears even though other doggy people have been heard muttering such things as "spoiling a handsome dog"...

Butz is pronounced to rhyme with "puts".  It's short for "Butzel", a south German term of endearment. 

We feed Butz on a BARF diet – Biologically Appropriate Raw Food, which consists of raw meaty bones supplemented with fruit and veggies and a little pasta.  His teeth are perfect even now he is eleven, and although he has slowed down he still has plenty of energy and joie de vivre.  For the last couple of years MR has been out working all day and Butz is left alone with his friends the cats, but being an elderly gentleman now he simply sleeps more.

Butzel has certainly brought lots of fun and new friends to the Vieuxtemps household, not to speak of Extra Loud Woofs!

Now we are six (weeks old)

These three girl kittens are all extra adorable, they really are.  And so sturdy and sweet-natured.  I am so happy that I get to keep one.  Here are photos taken at age six weeks.

Rossi is a bold, brave, clever kitten!

Lindy is feminine and pretty, but also has a mind of her own!

Kyrie reminds me of her dad, Quink, not just in looks but character.  She's just lovely.

The kittens are growing really well, full of health and fun.  They switched to eating food and using their litter tray seemingly overnight at four weeks of age with no need of help from me.  Jet's such a good mother, all I need to do is enjoy!

All these kittens have homes waiting for them, so no enquiries please, although you can go on my waiting list if you like.  Next kittens will be Uku's, due towards the end of the year.

Overview of the Norwegian Forest Cat

The Cats from the Woods

I guess that most cats would enjoy a prowl round the woods, should they get the chance. None more so however than the Norwegian Forest Cat, whose development in the harsh natural surroundings of Scandinavia literally took place in the woods and farmlands over a number of centuries, resulting in the rugged cat we know and love today. This breed is really the “moggie” of Norway and Sweden, being a mixture of all the variegated cats that arrived there over many hundreds of years, brought by travellers going back to the Vikings. Their origins probably spread as far as Russia, Turkey and North Africa, but only the sturdiest, most self-sufficient individuals would survive the Scandinavian winters.

The Norwegian Forest Cat’s history has equipped them with keen hunting skills and a robust constitution that ensures they can cope with anything that life throws at them.   Rain and cold do not usually bother the NFC, who will often prefer to lie in a cool spot indoors instead of in front of the fire.  Their coats are self-maintaining and waterproof, with a unique duvet-like undercoat to keep them warm in winter covered in a glossy, oily overcoat to protect them from rain and snow.

In fact coat quality is perhaps the single most important feature of the breed. Soft, silky coats are not allowed in the Standard of Points. Another feature of the coat is its shape - in winter, a fully developed cat will have a large ruff, shirtfront and breeches, with shorter fur on the shoulder blades which defines the ruff. In summer however the woolly undercoat is shed (suddenly one’s house is covered in cotton-wool like balls of fluff, but fortunately this happens for only a couple of weeks). The result is that for a few months the shiny guard hairs lie flat against the body, and it is only the plumed tail that gives a hint of the cat’s winter glory. Colour is not important and this breed comes in almost every colour and pattern.

Another important feature of the breed is its body - size and shape.  This is a large breed, like many in the Semi Long Hair group, and the legs are tall with big round paws so as to help the cat when wading across snow.  However perhaps the first thing you notice about a Forest Cat is its head shape and expression - the cat has an alert, intelligent look with a triangular head shape, long straight profile and large tufted ears.

Although these cats have been around in their native country for longer than we have had pet cats in Britain, it is comparatively recently that they actually became a pedigree breed. In 1977 the National Cat of Norway made front page news when it gained formal acceptance as a breed in its own right. The Norwegians had fought for pedigree status in order to protect the breed, as by the mid twentieth century conditions in Scandinavia were changing and the spread of population, together with the import of many other breeds, endangered the integrity of the NFC. You might think that with such a “wild” background NFCs are a little untamed, but that is not the case at all. In fact their adaptability and companionable nature has meant that they have now spread all over the world, from Europe to America, Australia and Africa.

A Norwegian Forest Cat can as easily make him or herself at home in an apartment as in the forest, and so long as they have plenty of food and company the NFCs really don’t mind where they live.  Companionship really is a key thing - the NFC actively wants to become part of your life, sharing everything you do and even sitting on the edge of the tub whilst you bathe.

This irresistible combination of being laid-back and being interested in human activities, being intelligent without any neuroses, and looking beautiful without a lot of special care, has meant that the NFC’s popularity has soared with people who have got to know the breed. They love to live in groups and rarely show either aggression or fear. When I have introduced new NFCs to my multi cat household (not to mention the dog) they usually just stroll in and say hallo to everyone. This is even the case when introducing adults, and I have known several full males to live together in gentle companionship without so much as a growl. In the UK the NFC was comparatively rare until recently (having been introduced in 1987, with a tiny handful of breeding cats). Since then it has deservedly risen to the top ten of the pedigree cat world here.  However in Northern Europe it is one of the most popular breeds of all. For example, when I visited the World Cat Show in Copenhagen in 2003, there were well over 300 Norwegian Forest Cats entered - meaning that around one in five cats at the show was an NFC. With personalities like that, and with the aristocratic long heads and impressive grace of the breed, it is only a matter of time before they become just as sought-after in the UK.

If you would like to learn even more about Forest Cats, please visit the website of the Norwegian Forest Cat Club.

Photos –the cats in this post are all Vieuxtemps cats.  Thanks to Heather Bird for the second photo, Joanne Santillo for the third and Shirley Fullarton for the last one.  A version of this article first appeared in the Semi Long Hair Cat Association Magazine, November 2004

Keeping a Norwegian Forest Stud Cat

In an island such as ours, stud cats are particularly important to their breed.  Although it is much easier now than when I started, bringing in new breeding cats still isn't easy or cheap.  A few good quality NFC studs – by which I mean of excellent type, health and temperament – can have a far-reaching effect over many years as their beneficial genes gradually spread throughout the Forest Cat population which is still relatively small here (though rapidly growing). Likewise, a stud cat with poor type, temperament or health can have a disproportionately adverse effect on the breed as a whole within the UK. Hence it is very important indeed that stud owners are careful to use only the highest-quality males for breeding. Obviously the same applies to females, but to a much lesser extent. If a healthy queen is bred every year for six years and averages five in a litter, then she will introduce thirty kittens to the world during her active life. A stud cat on the other hand may father that many kittens, or more, every single year!

Kyrrekatt Kistrand as a baby - he was the first NFC stud cat we had, and an absolute darling.
He also managed to kill the 'indestructible' aspidistra plant that he's sitting on in the picture.

My personal view is always that the health and happiness of the individual cats is even more important than the welfare of the breed, and very much more vital than the satisfaction of the relevant humans (though these things are often linked). So if there is a really super stud cat who isn’t happy and thriving in his lifestyle, he should be neutered in order to lead life as a happy pet rather than kept entire for the convenience of his owners. What one person considers a satisfactory life for a cat may be considered cruelty by others, of course. In fact I sometimes think that there are as many ways of keeping cats as there are breeders. In some countries studs are kept in isolation in small indoor cages, which would be considered unacceptable by most animal-lovers and certainly by the cats themselves. At the other extreme, some kind owners have sacrificed their own comfort in order to give their cats the best possible life; I have been to homes where the males are allowed to live as part of the family, indoors, but with access to a safe outside enclosure when they want. These homes usually smell overwhelmingly of stud cat to the point where a visitor would reel back at the fumes; for very few studs do not spray and even if they never deviate from the litter tray, the reek of their urine is incredibly strong. If someone could invent a pleasant perfume with as much staying-power as tomcat spray, their fortune would be made! Some novice stud owners have been heard to say “my boy doesn’t spray” but very often this is when the stud is very young – spraying sometimes begins as late as 18months of age. Of course, there do exist a few entire males who are compatible with a home life but then the owner has to be extremely careful that there are no mis-matings; keeping a female and male cat together will almost certainly result in unintentional kittens, for the male will know that the female is on heat before any human could guess, and if there is a stud right there, the queen doesn’t even need to waste energy in calling aloud if she doesn’t want to. 

This is International Champion David Austin av Boxerhaven, a wonderful Norwegian boy who was imported to Denmark.  Carli of Gyldenloeve cattery allowed us to borrow him for a few months during which time he fathered some kittens in the UK, including our own Valentine.  This was a great opportunity for improving the blood lines in Britain.

In the UK I have seen many stud cats because I started breeding a quarter of a century ago (eek!) and for many of my litters, used outside studs. (I only got my own boys once I had the time, space and number of mates they deserved. It isn’t kind to buy a male if you have only one or two females – they will inevitably become frustrated if they do not have a large enough harem.) So I have seen good and bad conditions for numerous boys, and have tried to work out a life that I feel is kind to my own studs. Often people do not intend to be cruel, but are simply unaware of their cats’ needs. Apart from the basics of food and shelter, Forest Cats need space and company. I think if a cat is kept in a “run” it should literally be able to run; a few paces in either direction is simply not enough, and they should have trees or wooden shelves to climb and scratch as well as human and feline company on a frequent basis. Even from a selfish point of view, it makes sense to ensure the contentment of your stud; a frustrated male cat can become irritable (and dangerous); noisy; lose weight; and even refuse to “perform”. 

International Champion Tilia Nova's Ingjalf, another magnificent stud we were kindly lent by Carli of Gyldenloeve.  Ingjalf has his own post in the September 2011 section of this blog.  He was one of my favourite cats, ever.

I remember once having a conversation with an exhibitor at a cat show who was describing how impressed she was at the premises of the breeder of her show neuter (not an NFC as it happens). Apparently the breeder kept all her cats in spotless white plastic pens in the garden, and it was all so very hygienic. But during our conversation it became apparent that there was not a blade of grass or natural log in existence – just a couple of metres of white plastic for each cat, kept separate from the others for “health reasons”. What a lonely life those poor cats must have had.

Father, Quink, likes to help bring up his kittens and teach them how to be Forest Cats 

In the countryside, a free-range male cat will roam over a huge distance looking for mates, and studies have shown that a typical patrol area will measure 7 miles in diameter. By means of territorial marking the cat will attempt to keep out other entire males, and if he comes across a male intruder a fight will almost certainly ensue. Sometimes these sound worse than they are; a few chunks of fur will fly, the inferior combatant will retreat and no real harm will be done. At other times there will be genuine injuries, and even a small bite will usually lead to an abscess, which of course can become quite serious in the case of feral toms without access to antibiotics. If two mature entire males come face to face inside a restricted space, such as a breeder’s home or cat-garden, the fight is likely to be bloodier as there is little opportunity for the weaker male to escape. So when I say that stud cats should not live alone, it is not generally a good idea to keep two studs within sight, sound or smell, let alone reach, of each other. Many novice breeders will purchase two good-natured young males and think that they can share a living space, but it is almost inevitable that at some point there will be a nasty fight. I have met one Danish breeder who has several studs sharing the same area in her large home, but this is extremely unusual. It is in the nature of even the most laid-back Forest Cat stud to become aggressive towards other males, and usually one will be the bully whilst the other is dominated and miserable.  However I have had some success with having two studs enjoy each other’s company – and they are both from the lines of the Danish breeder I mentioned, Carli of Gyldenloeve.  Quink is now neutered but this photo was taken while he was still entire.  Valentine is still a stud cat here at Vieuxtemps.

Valentine and Quink chilling out in each other's company

I have heard of some Scandinavian breeders who allow their stud cats to roam free out of doors; I believe that the famous Pan’s Truls was one of these and one day he simply didn’t return home. However in Britain this is hardly practical nor indeed ethical, as your stud will be actively increasing the population of unwanted moggy kittens, and probably picking up nasty diseases into the bargain, not to speak of possible injuries. However this is one instance where your stud cat, if he had his way, would disagree with me in his choice of lifestyle!

Another thing I feel is important for the quality of life of a stud cat is to ensure that he isn’t active for too long. He deserves an early retirement especially if he has been confined away from the household and kept outdoors, so he can mellow into becoming a beloved pet or show neuter, with time spent on the sofa with the rest of the family, without the stress of being stopped from spraying or mating when he shouldn’t. It isn’t fair to keep a cat for many years in the inevitably constricted lifestyle that is the lot of a pedigree stud. Comparatively early neutering also helps to ensure that a stud isn’t over-used within the breed as a whole within the UK. The wider the gene pool, the better it is for the health of the breed.

Champion Magnus More og Romsdal, one of our previous NFC studs caring for one of his kittens.  Magnus was a big gentle blue ticked tabby boy we imported from the Netherlands.

My impetus for writing this article is that there are quite a lot of new breeders of Forest Cats lately – it is great to see the breed growing in strength within our country. I’m sure some people will disagree with my points of view, and they are welcome to put their own thoughts forward. But new breeders sometimes simply don’t realise the needs of a stud cat. It really isn’t a good idea to get a stud until you have had a few years’ experience as a breeder using outside stud cats, and have had a chance to build up the required number of queens for his use. If you are intending to allow outside females to use your stud, you need to be sufficiently experienced to be able to predict what kittens can be produced by a particular mating, and to be able to take responsibility for someone else’s cat staying with you for a few days or even weeks. Cat mating is quite a complex ritual and requires sensitivity and experience on the part of the humans. Of course is it convenient to have two studs– many people like to do this, or indeed have even more, so as to have alternative mates for their own queens and for queens they have sold to other breeders. Inviting sold female kittens back for a mating can be quite a money-spinner in fact! If visiting queens are accepted, you need to have separate quarters so the two cats can get to know each other through wire mesh before being allowed to mix freely. It is also necessary for the stud cat to have an escape shelf on which to spring should the female attack him after mating – which can happen sometimes due to discomfort from the male’s barbed penis. 

Breeders, please ask yourselves – will your studs really have enough mates, company, interesting activities and human attention? If the answer is “no” to any of these, then think twice before embarking on getting a stud. It can be more problematic than it seems.

Dansbjerg's Pelle Halelos, whom we imported from Denmark for his lovely type, size, health and temperament.  Here he is snuggling up with his friend Champion Ragna More og Romsdal.

Tabby patterns in Norwegian Forest Cats

Norwegian Forest Cats come in almost every possible colour and also almost every possible pattern, and it also doesn’t matter how much white is on their coats. (However they NEVER have a pointed coat, ie a Siamese pattern). When an NFC coat is being evaluated it is the quality of the fur (which should be waterproof on top and woolly underneath), the shape of the coat (defined ruff etc) and the quantity (taking into account the season) that counts. I have noticed that sometimes people are not sure what “tabby” means – sometimes I say “what colour is your cat?” and they say “tabby”, meaning a brown tabby perhaps, but not realising that tabby has nothing to do with colour and everything to do with pattern. Hence this article.

The opposite of tabby is “solid” meaning that the cat has no pattern on its non-white areas of fur. If you’re not sure – look around the eyes. Unless the fur is white there, on a tabby cat you will see “eye make-up” lines regardless of which pattern they are. Because breeders pay attention to coat quality (vital as part of a cat that should be able to survive out of doors) pattern is more or less ignored, so you do get some individual cats or lines of NFCs where the pattern isn’t as clear as it would be in some other breeds. In addition, by the time the cat has a long adult coat, the pattern is more difficult to distinguish anyway, so it’s always easier to make a judgement about a kitten’s pattern than that of a longer-coated adult.

NFCs come in three or four different tabby patterns:

•    Classic- with sworls on the side, a double stripe down the back and striped legs(sometimes known as blotched tabby)
•      Mackerel- stripey all over with rings round the tail
•     Spotted- with spots on side and tummy, often considered to be a form of mackerel or classic tabby with the stripes broken up
•       Ticked- clear tabby markings only appear on the face, while the body has a darker stripe down the back and each hair has bands of colour known as "ticking", giving a very wild appearance. Many feral animals are ticked, including rabbits and foxes

In some other breeds (eg Bengals) there are other sorts of tabby pattern but the above are the only ones that occur in the NFC. Some patterns are “dominant” to others, meaning that if one parent has that pattern it is more likely to occur in the offspring. I will go into tabby inheritance later down the page as it’s a bit complicated. First let me introduce you to the patterns themselves. Remember, tabby is the pattern not the colour, so you can get red classic, silver ticked, blue mackerel and so on, but for my illustrations I have mostly chosen brown tabbies (known as black tabby in FIFe) as the pattern is easier to see on darker coats.

Mackerel Tabby

I would say that brown mac tabby and white is the most common colour/pattern combination in the NFC. Below is a kitten (Vieuxtemps Henry) and an adult (Dansbjergs Pelle Halelos) showing mackerel tabby pattern.

Vieuxtemps Henry

Dansbjergs Pelle Halelos

Classic Tabby

Below is a photo of a classic tabby kitten, Vieuxtemps Beowulf, while a mature stud cat, Champion Vieuxtemps Trulsofjarrah can be seen further down in a longer coat – the pattern is much clearer in the kitten where the coat is shorter. 

Vieuxtemps Beowulf

Champion Vieuxtemps TrulsofJarrah

Ticked Tabby

Ticked tabby is a bit different – the cat has the tabby markings you expect on the face, but the body and tail has no stripes or swirls, but each hair has several alternating bands of colour giving an overall “two-tone” sort of effect. With a brown ticked cat, the bands of colour are rich lighter brown and dark black-brown, alternating with the darkest colour at the tip. With blue ticked there are grey and beige bands, with red ticked, darker and lighter orange bands. The best known ticked breeds of cat are Abyssinian and Somali. For this reason, some people look down on ticked NFCs thinking that they are a hybrid between an NFC and a Somali. This may well be true, but because NFCs only became pedigree cats in 1977, before that they could and did mix with whatever cats they came across and some of these may have been Somalis. I have looked back into the pedigrees of my own ticked tabby NFCs and feel satisfied that no purposeful outcrosses were performed. Alternatively, you should remember that the Vikings travelled as far as North Africa where the ticked cats originate, and may have bought some back many centuries ago, as they did from various other countries. In my opinion ticked NFCs are in no way inferior to any others, and I particularly like the “wild” look the ticking gives them. The important thing is that they should not have the “sweet” expression of the Somali. Type and coat quality are important, not coat pattern. To those who “disapprove” of ticked tabbies, I would say – how do you know what is in the background of your own cats prior to 1977?  Below you can see a couple of photos of ticked tabby NFCs – Vieuxtemps Pumpernickel (top, with white) and Vieuxtemps Brannet (lower down, no white).

Vieuxtemps Pumpernickel

Vieuxtemps Brannet

      Spotted tabbies are classic or mackerel patterned but with broken lines resulting in the effect of spots. I once bred a kitten that was striped on one side and spotted on the other! This would have been awful if I was working with a breed where pattern counted, but as it doesn’t matter at all in NFCs it was simply rather quirky and charming.  Below is a kitten who had proper spots on both sides – Vieuxtemps Vilanelle, who went on to join the Smylee cattery.

Vieuxtemps Vilanelle

The Inheritance of Tabby Pattern

All cats (and other animals for that matter, including us) have pairs of genes that govern every aspect of their appearance, and of each pair, one gene is donated by the cat’s father and one by the mother. There are two separate pairs of genes affecting tabby pattern (as far as I know).

• The first is a A or a gene, which decides whether the cat is in fact a tabby cat or a solid colour (solid = non tabby, eg black and white). A stands for agouti which is another word for tabby. If a cat has two A genes it will definitely be tabby, and all its offspring will be tabby too, as A is dominant over a. If a cat has one A gene and one a gene then it will look tabby but could have non-tabby offspring with the right mate. If a cat has two a genes it will be solid, not tabby, and can only have tabby kittens with a tabby mate.
• The second pair of genes affecting tabby pattern decides what pattern the tabby will be. It could be mackerel, classic or ticked. Spotted is decided by other genes I think or may be a random polygenetic effect. As I said earlier, ticked is dominant. So if a cat has two ticked genes then all his or her offspring will be ticked (but the ticked pattern could be masked if that cat is also “aa” meaning solid coloured, or for that matter if it is completely white which masks everything – but that is a whole other topic!) If a tabby cat has one ticked gene and one mackerel gene, then it will look ticked but could produce mackerel offspring with the right mate. If a tabby cat has two mackerel genes and is mated with a classic tabby cat, then the mackerel will dominate meaning that all offspring will be mackerel tabby. If there are two tabby cats each with one mackerel and one classic tabby pattern gene, then both cats will look mackerel but could have classic offspring together.

Of my own cats, I discovered that Magnus (blue ticked tabby without white former stud cat) was “homozygous for tabby” meaning that he had two A genes and all his offspring had to be tabby (some hid this under the white masking gene though). He carried one classic gene (he had to as his father was classic tabby). Hence if mated with a cat with two mackerel genes, then he could have ticked or mackerel offspring. If mated with a queen with one mackerel and one classic gene, he could (and did) have ticked, classic and mackerel kittens.

Champion Magnus More og Romsdal, blue ticked tabby NFC

      My lovely Pelle was a mackerel tabby with a lot of white. Some of his kittens have been classic tabby, meaning that he must have one mackerel and one classic gene. Some kittens have also been solid colour (black and white) meaning that he must have one A gene and one a gene. Obviously you do get cases where there is so much white that it’s difficult to determine pattern. This happened with Dotty – it was quite a while before I could tell that she is in fact a ticked tabby, like her mother, Ragna.

      When you get red or cream kittens they always show a tabby pattern, even if they have two a genes. In fact it’s more or less impossible to say merely based on appearance if a red or cream cat is tabby or solid. This is due to the way the red pigment works. If two solid coloured cats (ie both having two a genes) have a red kitten then that kitten must be solid even if it looks tabby. Otherwise, you just have to assume that the kitten is tabby for registration purposes, and may never know for sure.

Vieuxtemps Valentine showing his red classic tabby pattern in his short kitten coat