How can i tell cat breeds?
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
United States
September 3, 2008 12:20am CST
dogs are easy but i have never been good with being able to figure between cat breeds.. well i have a black cat and i am reading up on all my pets and there is a huge list of cat breeds and i have no freaking clue what he is.. i have his pics on my profile and its the black cat named gideon.. how can you tell?? or are they mostly so mixed up that unless you were to buy them you really cant tell?
2 people like this
3 responses
@ElicBxn (64177)
• United States
3 Sep 08
its hard to tell in your pictures
let me ask some questions - does he have a long, slim, muscular body or a more compact one?
- does he have the "Siamese" voice when he meows or a regular cat voice?
- is his head long and thin or rounder?
- when you spread his coat, does it seem that the skin and the under hairs are white or black?
There are lots of reasons a cat is black, one of them is a genetic fact that if a Siamese mates with any cat that has no siamese in it, the kittens will be black. This gives you a black cat with the long, strong body of a Siamese and most if not all the other traits of one, they also tend to have light colored hair next to their body - but not always
There are other breeds that are black, but one that has a distive body type you see is called a "Bombay." These are smaller, compact or "cobby" cats with smaller, sturdy bodies and round heads. They often have distictive "breaks" between their forehead and nose while the Siamese have longer faces and even "Roman" noses sometimes.
I doubt your cat is a pure anything, but you might have a mix that shows the distictive body types of these 2 breeds.
2 people like this

@ElicBxn (64177)
• United States
5 Sep 08
He sounds like he might be the "Bombay" type cat.
Shedding - come on - he's just turning into an adult AND its the change of season, so, sure, he's shedding!
Bombay types tend to be very affectionate - even my semi-feral Bombay came around in the end - never enough to pill easily, but for pets if not laps.
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
11 Sep 08
he sheds bad all the time though.. ive had cats for years and this one seems to have more shedding and all year around
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@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
4 Sep 08
his body is really compact.. he is like half the length of my other cat which is part siamese and so no he doesnt have the siamese howl thing lol.. his head is round but seems too small and his nose is short and stubby.. so yeah his head is definitely different than my part siamese one.. no white undercoat just white skin.. he sheds a ton for some reason
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@mentalward (14690)
• United States
3 Sep 08
Cats are usually so mixed that you can't tell what breeds they have in them. I thought I saw some faint stripes on his forehead? He's probably a tabby mix, also known as "domestic shorthair".
Unless they have distinctive characteristics such as being unusually large or small, have long hair or tufts of hair on their ears, blue eyes or a very distinctive personality, they're probably so mixed that there's no way to tell.
Yeah, unless you buy a cat directly from a breeder, complete with papers, you really can't tell. My cat, Bean, is extremely large (16 pounds) and extremely gentle, which tells me that he could be a "Ragamuffin", although they are basically just large, gentle domestic shorthairs.
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
4 Sep 08
no i think the way the light is hitting the hair is making him look like he has stripes.. but he is very compact.. he used to be chubby looking like a butterball but his nose is really small and head was small compared to the rest of his body.. and yeah i figured that cats would be really hard to tell since they seem to mix with anything and everything lol.. thats why i never really paid attention till now when i was looking up my other pets
@mentalward (14690)
• United States
4 Sep 08
I found this great site that lists all the different cat breeds and their general characteristics. You might find your kitty in there.
The site is: http://www.innvista.com/science/zoology/domestic/cats.htm
Have fun!
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
4 Sep 08
i should have asked the nurses when i took him to the vet to get shots but there wasnt a regular vet there.. there nurses seem kind of stupid too lol




