The Burmese

The Burmese is bright, cheerful and temperamental. It’s a breed who loves people and will always be close to its owner. This is not a cat you live a parallel life with, but you have an intimate relation with it. It doesn’t like to be alone and it likes to be with other animals. The Burmese is ingenious and needs to move a lot. It is always exploring and likes to sit up high.

The Burmese is a moderate cat. The characteristic is its fur, very short, close, shining and silky.

The Burmese is the only natural brown cat breed. It’s an elegant cat, muscular, and is heavier than it looks like. But it is not really one-coloured. The fur has a deeper tone on its back, and is fairer on the bottom side.
Their eyes are expressive. The typical “Burmese look” is a rounded bottom line, an oblique oriental overline and eyes wide apart. The colour is usually chartreuse yellow, but the desired colour is bright yellow.
The Burmese is active, curious, happy and energetic.

HISTORY
The Burmese from the east
It’s not really clarified who was the first to introduce the Burmese in America. Some says that it came from Rangoon in 1933. Other says it comes from India and not Burma, like the name suggest. And there are also some who maintain that it was taken to America from Burma in 1933 by Dr Joseph C. Thompson, a sea officer from San Francisco. He owned the first Burmese in the US and it was also the first in the west world. He wrote an article, Genetics of the Burmese: “The first Burmese was a female, imported to the US from Burma by the writer in 1930”. She was called Wong Mau.

Cat Fancy in the US didn’t approve this cat at first as a new breed. They thought instead it was a bad type of Siamese. So then, Dr Thompson had a cat they never had seen in the US or in Europe. The theory that it was a complete new variant was supported by Dr Clyde Keeler, Mrs Virginia Cobb and Madeleine Dmytryk. Dr Thompson was aware of the problems with experimental breeding, and his first problem was that there were no Burmese male to mate this new type of cat with. He got help from Mrs Billie Gerst and later Mrs Virginia Cobb, a famous Siamese breeder. Mrs Gerst and Mrs Cobb were both very competent in biology, genetics and breeding. And that was how it started – one single cat, Wong Mau, and a group of interested scientists and skilled breeders.

Very few people know that the Burmese probably is the only pedigree book keeping breed whose origin and development accurately and scientifically has been taken down after the arrival to the west world. It is a product of controlled breeding.

The breeding experiences were long and extensive before the family of clean Burmese was born. Since there was no Burmese male it was decided to mate Wong Mau with the breed that looked most like her, a brown-pointed Siamese which name was Tai Mau.

In 1936 the Burmese was approved as breed by the American CFA. After the Second World War, the first Burmese was brought over to England, where for example the female Laos Cheli Wat and the male Casa Gatos da Fong was very significant for the English Burmese pedigree. Still, all the Burmese were brown. The first blue Burmese was born in England in 1955. It came as a small shock, when Chinki Golden Gay produced a kitten, who didn’t have the same colour as the other once in the litter. The first blue Burmese was born, Seal coat Blue Surprise. To Sweden the first Burmese’s came from England in 1957. They were both brown and there names were Nilgiris Bura Turea and Pussinboots Fudge. The first blue Burmese who was born in Sweden was Cherie of Heligholms in 1975. The first Swedish litter with blue Burmese’s was born the same year from the imports Buskins Blue Jeni Lynd and Hillcross Blue Jester. It became two males, Ming och Morris, and four females, Minesse, Mitzi, Minouche and Mayong.

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Kattutställning i Hörnett

ÖGONSTEN. Markus Johansson, från Örnsköldsviks, gick inte heller hem tomhänt. Hans ena katt, kattungen Bastet , vann "bäst i variant". Foto: Leif Wikberg

KUNGLIG. Marika Olofsson var stolt som en tupp över sin åtta kilo tunga katt, Cat Royales braveheart. "Det här är min älskade bäbis", säger hon. Foto: Leif Wikberg

SYNAD. Alexey Shchukin från Nederländerna synade katterna i sömmarna. Foto: Leif Wikberg

• 12/5 - 13/5 2007, MODO-hallen, Örnsköldsvik

• 13/5 - 14/5 2006, MODO-hallen, Örnsköldsvik - Article

• 15/6 2003, Njurunda ishall, Sundsvall

• 18/5 - 19/5 2002, Svedjeholmens ishall, Örnsköldsvik

• 19/5 - 20/5 2001, MoDo-hallen, Örnsköldsvik