Thailand: free giveaway Siamese cat, dark colour, two months old

The advert on the Cat Thailand website is:  แจกฟรี แมววิเชียรมาศ สีเข้ม อายุ2เดือน, which translates to "Free Giveaway Siamese cat, dark, two months old.

Thailand: free giveaway Siamese cat, dark colour, two months old.

The cat looks very much like a Burmese cat or a dark Siamese. Although it will not be a purebred cat because he or she is not registered with a cat association. But the cat has a very nice appearance, very reminiscent of a purebred Burmese although lighter in colour. But this is a nice pointed cat.

The Cat Thailand website has lots of free cats. I find it interesting to explore websites from countries other than those in the West. It's instructive. We shouldn't confine ourselves to the cultures and ideas of the West. We need to push the envelope and go thousands of miles to Asia for example. It provides us with an insight into what happens in those countries on cat ownership.

In the West, you shouldn't see this sort of free giveaway cat advert. No doubt you do but it is frowned upon. This is because the cat can go to the wrong person. The kind of person who might abuse animals. Sometimes cats are used to train dogs to fight. These sorts of people scour the free cat adverts. As I recall, the website Craigslist.org prohibits adverts of this kind.

Thai tabby cat with shortened tail.

All the adverts are of non-purebred cats which is why they are being given away for free. There is another interesting one of a cat with a very short tail. This is a tabby cat. Random bred cats without tails are more common in Asia than in the West. This is not a Manx cat. He or she will be a standard moggy who inherited a stubby tail. These things happen and it is caused by a "spontaneous genetic mutation" to use the language of geneticists.

In another advert of a very pretty tortoiseshell-and-white cat, the advertiser simply states "looking for a home for a three month old female cat". They don't say that this is a tortoiseshell cat. I think it would have helped the advert if they had mentioned it. It seems that they don't know that they have a tortoiseshell cat.

There seems to be a certain amount of informal cat breeding going on in Thailand leading to an excess of unwanted cats. The same thing happens in the West.

What is the point of this article? It is to make us think about the worldwide cat issues. To explore cultures other than those in the West. To educate ourselves about them. There is a purebred cat marketplace in Asia but it is less well developed than in, say, America, which is the premier purebred cat marketplace. The UK is also very big on purebred cats but there are far fewer purebred cats than random bred cats in both these countries.

Seal Point Siamese Cat in Thailand

This is an interesting photo of a Siamese cat in Siam - well it is called Thailand now but does this cat give us a clue as to what the original Siamese cat looked like before being picked up by the English cat fancy in the late 1800s.

The picture was taken where the marker in this map indicates:


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This is the photo:

Seal Point Siamese Temple Cat in Thailand

You can see that this cat is not oriental in shape but mid range moggie shape (semi-cobby) and a little fat actually!

Cat breeders in the USA justify breeding very slender cats on the basis that the shape is what the Siamese cat was like in Thailand - rubbish obviously. Or if they don't try and justify selective breeding in that way they are clearly breeding cats that are unnatural and unpopular with the public.

You can see the tabby banding on the forelegs. This cat has, it seems, an element of tabby pointing about him (lynx points).

Dark Old Siamese Cat

Dark Traditional Siamese Cat photo by iamcootis on Flickr.

I am guessing that this nice looking traditional seal point Siamese cat is old. I make this assessment on the basis that he is fat - no..only kidding. It is because he is very dark on the torso. Although older cats have a tendency toward obesity until they are very old when they lose weight.

His torso is almost as dark as the points (the extremities).

This darkness of the color of the hair where it should be creamy white is due to the skin being colder in that area than it would be in a young cat.

When the skin is cool at the extremities the pigmentation - melanin - is created in the skin. Where the skin is warmer in the center of the body it is not created - usually - unless the blood circulation is poor due to old age when the skin is cooler in the center of the body as well.

Interesting point: very old cats are less likely to get fleas because there is less blood under the skin due to poor circulation.

Dark Siamese Cat

We know that Siamese cat pointing is caused by a process that is sensitive to heat. Where the skin is cooler there is a production of pigment and where warmer the production stops or is less. At the body temperature of a cat (i.e. in the mother's womb) the temperature is such that the entire cat is creamy white. This is why newborns have no pointing.

This begs the question whether in certain environments that are cold the Siamese cat becomes darker all over. And whether in hot climates the Siamese cat is lighter.

The photograph below by AJ Franklin on Flickr caught my eye because he is a traditional Siamese cat with a dark body area. This area is normally lighter - cream coloured.

Dark Siamese Cat

The dark brown of the central areas of the body are probably caused by natural genetic variations that exist in individual cats and possibly because this cat, Oscar, lives in a cooler climate. Perhaps he goes outside a lot and outside where he lives is cold?! Don't know. But we rarely see a Siamese cat that is this dark....Update: The photographer lives near Houston, USA. Houston is hot and warm in the summer and not a cold area. Must be an individual trait.

Perhaps this is normal for the Siamese cat - I suspect it is. An old photo of an early traditional Siamese (the original shape) looks very similar:

Siamese cat 1911 Photo, R. C. Ryan

Perhaps modern Siamese cat breeders have selectively bred out this natural trait as they have the kinked tail and the squint.