The search for the most appealing Siamese cat photos on Petfinder is harder than you might expect. There are a lot of homeless cats who have Siamese breed features, and one known Siamese parent, yet they don't have the classic Siamese cat look, and this post features cats with the classic Siamese look.
Why do people want Siamese cats, anyway? Different breed features may appeal to different people.
- There's the distinctive coloring produced by reactive pigmentation. Siamese kittens are born off-white. The older they get, the darker the color becomes, with either a brown face, paws, and tail and a pale tan body, or gray face, paws, and tail and a pale gray body. Show-quality Siamese cats always have this unique, heat-sensitive color pattern. It's the look that comes to mind when we think of Siamese cats--and yet, even when both parents are show-quality Siamese, kittens don't always have this look.
- There's the long, lean body shape. Some Siamese cats are tiny but, since deliberately breeding for small size can produce sickly cats, some people look for tall, long, rangy-looking Siamese cats. In any case even crossbreeds tend to have thinner builds than American Shorthair and much thinner builds than British Shorthair cats.
- There's the high-pitched, expressive voice. Siamese cats "talk" to us with a much wider range of sounds we humans recognize than most other cats make. When unhappy they can cry and sob like tiny human babies. When "talking" in an ordinary way some of them squeak like newborn kittens. Cats hear more distinct sounds in their meows than humans do, and Siamese cats are more likely to use enough distinct sounds to teach even humans the different "words" they meow for different purposes. If you ever make them angry enough you'll agree that they can "cuss us out," too.
- There's the famous, or infamous, breed temperament. When Siamese cats are well treated they have nice even tempers, good manners, and a delightful way of showing loyalty and affection to their favorite people. When they're not--even where other cats would be satisfied--they have many ways of making their dissatisfaction perfectly clear. They can become truly vicious, but all the Siamese cats I've known were (or easily became) good pets.
Some pedigreed Siamese cats and most crossbreeds display the other three traits but not the coloring, and commercial cat breeders tend to discard these crossbreeds. And Siamese-American cats often have the nicest qualities of both breeds, and are fantastic pets: clever, even-tempered, loyal, affectionate, sometimes even social. Don't get me started on the wonderfulness of our Founding Queen, Black Magic, or our late lamented Queen Heather.
Even a kitten I named Sisawat, because her father was a classic Siamese and she was born looking like a classic "Blue Point" Siamese, had a delightful, social, gentle and generous personality. Sisawat never seemed to want to be a pet, possibly because her mother and aunts were in a constant polite competition to be pets, but she did love and foster kittens--not only her nieces and nephews, but strays as well. After she was two or three months old, of course, Sisawat's coat was solid gray, quite a dark gray as she matured. Sometimes people seeing her in a bad light would call her color black. This darkening meant that she did have the Siamese type of coat, but not the partial albinism that keeps show-quality Siamese cats' coat mostly pale.
If you search Petfinder for adoptable Siamese cats you'll see crossbreeds and not-quite-show-quality Siamese with all kinds of colors and patterns. Some of them are more photogenic than the classically patterned Siamese cats shown below. Most of them would probably be equally satisfactory pets; some might be the once-in-a-lifetime pets who would convert people who never thought they wanted pet cats before. Unfortunately, for the purposes of this post they don't count. When you visit Petfinder and/or visit the shelter yourself you'll have a chance to see how adorable they can be.
Worse than that, when the classic Siamese look doesn't get cats out of a shelter fast, there tends to be a reason. Several of the cats whose web pages I visited have the feline immune-deficiency virus, FIV, which has been called "cat AIDS." It's transmitted at birth rather than by sexual activity, and it doesn't completely wipe out the cat's immune system but does weaken it, so that cats who are FIV-positive are more than usually vulnerable to diseases, traumas, food or chemical poisoning or whatever. Because FIV-positive cats can have long healthy lives with only a little more than the usual amount of drama, some cat people don't think twice about adopting them, but others do. I've not featured FIV-positive cats in these posts...and that's caused me to look up a lot of cats' pages before linking to these.
10101, New York: Snowball from New Jersey
20202, Washington: Silas from West Virginia
The "City Kitties" organization that set up Silas' web page don't have a shelter; they keep animals in foster homes and probably demand far too much information online in order to arrange meetings for homeless animals and potential adopters. What can I say? Several other Siamese cats seeking homes near Washington are FIV-positive; Silas is clear. He's described as young, fully vetted, "sweet, friendly," and well-mannered. How he behaves toward other animals or children is unknown. To meet Silas, click:https://www.petfinder.com/cat/silas-50531286/dc/washington/city-dogs-rescue-city-kitties-dc22/ .
30303, Atlanta: Wanda from Danielsville
The shelter keeping this classic Siamese kitten (just one year old) doesn't have staff who are willing to take the time to write about individual animals. Isn't that special. And these lazy creatures then demand adoption fees of $75. Maybe you can get that waived by showing that yours really is a good home--the shelter sounds like one of those awful, overloaded ones where animals have to be adopted fast or die. To meet Wanda, click https://www.petfinder.com/cat/wanda-50483806/ga/danielsville/madison-oglethorpe-animal-shelter-ga204/ .
Bonus: 40404: Pepsi from Ohio
This poor little ladycat was placed in a shelter when she had kittens. Now all her kittens have been adopted and Pepsi is still looking for a home. Her purrsonality is described as "perfect, loving, sweet, playful," and good with dogs, cats, and children. She's been spayed and vaccinated. To meet Pepsi, click: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/pepsi-50395465/oh/georgetown/brown-county-animal-shelter-oh139/.
Thanks for this article on the Siamese cat.
ReplyDeleteThey all look so adorable in the pictures, don't they? :)
In pictures, yes...even in real life, the ones I've known were adorable too, but I have heard of ruined ones. Thank you for commenting.
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