r/cats Jul 16 '22

Discussion what kind of cat is this?

Post image
14.9k Upvotes

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

218

u/dogandcat720622 Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 16 '22

Short answer: It's a cat.

Long answer: Cat breeds don't work the same as dog breeds, most cats are just classed as DSH (domestic shorthair) or DLH (domestic longhair).

People often just refer to their cats "breed" by its colouring. This kitten's colouring is called Dilute Calico, also known as pastel calico, which is a fairly rare colouring. It also appears to be longhair so it is a Dilute Calico Domestic Longhair.

44

u/MourkaCat Jul 16 '22

I love this answer the most! Some people don't understand that the coloring or coat pattern is not the same thing as a breed and they will think things like "Tabby" is a breed, which it is not! However, coat pattern/coloring is often used as descriptors to help people understand the way the cat may look (which brings similar vibes if you give people the breed of a dog. Example: My cat is a (Domestic short hair) Tuxie. My dog is a German Shepherd. )

I'm glad you made the distinction :)

2

u/dogandcat720622 Jul 16 '22

The amount of people I've heard refer to their cats breed as "tuxedo" or "tabby" is honestly surprising. I've also seen so many people claim that cats with certain colouring automatically have a certain temperament? which just makes no sense.

Yeah, using the cats coloring to describe its appearance makes complete sense, as the range of coat patterns that DSH/DLH can have is pretty much infinite. But still it's weird just how many people think that cat coat colouring is their breed.

2

u/MourkaCat Jul 16 '22

Yeah I agree. But it probably honestly does stem from dogs, because certain breeds tend to have specific coloring/coats. (At least the purebred, many of them do) I've always said cats are probably one of the most misunderstood animals out there and understanding "breed" vs "coloring" etc is definitely a big part of it!

And yeah, So many people like to used coloring as some sort of temperament and it boggles my mind. I have a Tortoiseshell long hair and people are always talking about "Tortitude" as if they all have a lot of attitude and spice. But my girl is incredibly friendly and sweet, she absolutely adores meeting new people and I've only ever seen her TRULY angry one time when a new cat she'd just met got too close to her scaredy cat (adopted, not same litter) brother and he was backed into a corner (New kitty was just curious) and he sort of freaked out and then she went APE on this other cat. (Thankfully everyone was on a leash so no one got hurt!)

Otherwise she's VERY friendly, very sweet, very outgoing, and only has slight amounts of sass when she gets zoomies. She's pretty gentle even if she's playing a bit rough with me.

I boggles my mind though that people seem to think that coat coloring has anything to do with disposition. Either they are still holding onto old information that coats are 'breeds' or... I don't even know.

1

u/MamaDeTortuga1253727 Jul 17 '22

Yea domestic longhair Dilute calico! My parents have one, sheโ€™s a total angel ๐Ÿ˜‡

1

u/betweenboundary Jul 17 '22

In general cat "breeds" don't even exist, what we call cat breeds are actually just cats with a purely looks based birth defect that people propagate to continue that look on, for example Siamese cats are just regular cats born with albinism that's only half activated, this results in their fur basically being heat sensitive with warmer parts of their body cooking the color out of their fur turning it white, with cooler places like their face, feet and tail remaining the colors they would otherwise be if they weren't part albino, this also results in them becoming darker during the winter months and is the reason they come in multiple colors as flame point as their called are just orange Siamese cats

2

u/googlemcfoogle Jul 17 '22

If colourpoint (the Siamese pattern) is a birth defect, then so is pretty much every cat colour that isn't brown tabby.

1

u/betweenboundary Jul 17 '22

Yes, exactly, google African wild cat, that's what our house cats used to be before we domesticated them and propagated random birth defects that resulted in different colors, different types of fur from curly to bald, humans were at least good about breeding any health problems that came along with these visual birth defects back out of the creatures, if you want a recent example of a random birth defect turned breed, lykoi or werewolf cats, they literally just popped up from a random cat in 2011

1

u/googlemcfoogle Jul 17 '22

I don't really consider most cat colours to be birth defects just because they're the result of random mutations. Blue eyes are a mutation in humans (which is why they're less common than brown), but they don't inherently make humans who have them less healthy.

The only downside of a cat having, for example, solid black fur is that it might not blend in as well in a brownish environment.

1

u/betweenboundary Jul 17 '22

I call them birth defects because that's technically what they are, but like I said any negative health issues that developed with the birth defects were bred out of all these "breeds" resulting in purely visual differences between them, some of these color or fur differences propagated themselves as well due to the genes that causes them being dominant for example, the donskoy propagated naturally in Russia because the genes that make it bald are dominant meaning any offspring will be bald as well, even if the other parents is an average cat, meanwhile the sphinx cat has a gene resulting in the exact same mutation making them bald but for them it's recessive meaning to get a sphinx cat you either have to be lucky or breed only sphinx cats together

1

u/Autumndickingaround Jul 17 '22

This! I'm glad someone else said it first and better than I could!