Oriental - Self Cats

A beautiful black Oriental with a shiny Coat

History

Oriental cat breed originated in the UK in the 1950s. This breed was created by crossing Siamese cats with Russian Blues, British Shorthairs, Abyssinians, and domestic cats. The aim was to have a cat that looked like a Siamese cat without the pointed colour. The resulting cats were crossbred back to Siamese to further develop the breed. This resulted in cats that looked exactly like Siamese cats apart from their coat colour. Occasionally pointed Orientals would be born as the pointed gene is recessive. These cats were used in Siamese breeding programmes to widen and strengthen the gene pool. All the cats that had different colour coats were used as the foundation of the Oriental breed.

Orientals were exported to America in the early 1970s. Here they were crossed with American Shorthairs to produce even more colours.

Behaviour

These are cats with a big personality. Orientals are very athletic and love to be up high climbing on tops of doors or climbing up trees. They are very intelligent and are responsive to clicker training. This is a very loving and affectionate breed, but they are also very playful. Orientals love to play with their owners, but will also happily amuse themselves for hours. This breed remain kitten like throughout their lives. They have inherited the noise chit chat from the Siamese breed and they love to talk to anyone that will listen to them.