Mekong Bobtail cat

Mekong Bobtail cat photo copyright KaDiS Photo - see base of post for more

I confess that I have had difficulty finding out something about the Meking Bobtail cat breed other than from the illustration, from which I can see that this is a pointed cat with a short tail, looking very similar to a traditional Siamese cat with a shortened tail. Maybe that is all I need to know? The first thing that comes to mind is the name "Mekong". My mind drifts to Vietnam for some reason or another (war films probably). Is there a Mekong Delta in Vietnam? In which case the Mekong should be a river. Well, Google Maps confirms that. So, is this a cat breed from Vietnam?


Bobtailed feral cats are very common in Asia. For example I found the picture of the cat above in about 2 mins (picture is by prizepony published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License - note this is not a Mekong Bobtailed cat of course). And a famous bobtailed cat from Asia is the Japanese Bobtail, which has a extraordinarily long history so certainly started life as a mixed breed and/or feral cat as the cat fancy only started in the late 1800s. It would almost be a forgone conclusion that there are pointed cat with bobtails in Asia.

So, can I presume that the Mekong Bobtail is a feral cat from Vietnam that has been bred to become a pedigree cat by meeting the cat associations criteria? It seems that I can as it is described as a being developed from a local variety of cat. This would mean a domestic cat (mixed breed) or a feral or semi-feral cat. It is common for mixed breed cats to be developed into purebred cats. After all not all purebred cats are hybrids. In fact, the Mekong Bobtail is recognized by the World Cat Federation (WCF) and listed under Siamese and OSH (Oriental Short hair). So this is in effect a short tailed traditional Siamese cat

In reference to the WCF breed standard these are some key points:

• the tail should be 3 vertebrae in length
• the tail is made up of kinks or curves - this is a must as without them the cat would be disqualified in competition
  
• the tail should not be longer than one quarter of the cat's length
• the body should be medium sized, slender and elegant
• the head has rounded contours
• the coat is glossy, close lying with minimal undercoat and silky
• any colors are allowed but the cat should of course be pointed without white

From Mekong Bobtail cat to Modern Siamese cat
Go and see links to lots more cat breeds that are not "mainstream" but very interesting.

Photo heading the page: this is published with the written permission of Dmitry - KaDiS Photo ( link to their website is under the photo) - the emails conversation dried up as to details but permission was granted. Problems? Please leave a comment or email me on mjbmeister@gmail.com.

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