Oriental Short Hair Cats & Kittens

In the past, so the story goes, blue-eyed, pointed pattern cats were owned by royalty and were kept in the Royal Palace of Siam. The Siamese breed, however, is only one of several varieties native to the area. The Cat-Book Poems, a manuscript of verses and paintings written in the city of Ayutthaya, Siam, some time between 1350 c.e. when the kingdom was founded and 1767 c.e. when the city was destroyed by invaders, describes and shows a variety of cats native to the area. These include solid black cats, black-and-white bicolor, solid brown, and solid blue, as well as cats bearing the point-restricted color pattern. The point-restricted cats portrayed in the book had slim bodies and legs, large ears, and tapered muzzles, similar to today’s Siamese and related breeds.

The first cats brought to England from Thailand were often solid brown or solid blue, or black-and-white bicolor, as well as colorpointed. These blue, brown, and bicolor cats were becoming very popular in Europe in the 1890s. However, in the 1920s, the blue-eyed pointed pattern cat became the Siamese norm in Britain, and interest in the other varieties dwindled.

The Oriental of today does not come directly from Thailand, but rather a Siamese hybrid mixed in the 1950s and 1960s. The breed’s creation was deliberate—breeders with a flair for exterior decorating set out to create a cat breed that looked and acted like the Siamese but were lavishly adorned in a wide range of colors and patterns. In the 1950s, British breeders crossed Siamese cats with domestic shorthairs and Russian Blues. In the late 1960s American breeders, fascinated by the British Orientals, took up the torch and crossed Siamese, domestic shorthairs, and Abyssinians to create a new look. Body style was not sacrificed for color and pattern, and backcrosses to the Siamese preserved type and personality traits. The Oriental breeders met with initial hissing and spitting from Siamese breeders who were resistant at best to the idea of another Siamese-type hybrid, but, since the way had already been paved by breeders of the Colorpoint Shorthair, which gained CFA acceptance in 1964, the opposition didn’t stop Orientals from gaining ground.

Orientals became popular very quickly, and demand rose for the shorthairs (at first). In 1972, CFA accepted the Oriental Shorthair for registration, and granted full championship status in 1977. Since then, the Oriental Shorthair rapidly increased in popularity, and has speedily become one of the most popular shorthaired breeds.

The Oriental Longhair came from Oriental Shorthairs; resulting in a cat that had the same wide range of colors and patterns as the Shorthair but with a semi-long coat like the Balinese. Since the Siamese and the Colorpoint had the longhaired Balinese, it seemed only fair that the Oriental Shorthair should have its own longhaired variant—a breed with a long, lean, classy chassis, silky fur, and a full palette of colors and patterns from which to choose. The Oriental Longhair was developed in the late 1970s by mixing the Oriental Shorthair with the Balinese. The breed achieved official recognition in 1985 when TICA accepted them for championship status, and they were accepted for registration by the CFA in February 1988. The breed grew in popularity, appealing to cat lovers who want the elegant body type and personality of the Siamese, the wash-and-wear hairdo of the Balinese, and the myriad colors and patterns of the Oriental Shorthair.

In 1995, the Oriental Shorthair and the Oriental Longhair became a single breed called the Oriental. A new color class for the Oriental— bicolor—also became more widely accepted.