1978 Yearbook Article

The 1977-78 show season was the first championship year for the Oriental Shorthairs (OSH) and what a first year it was! Gr.Ch. Sand N’ Sea Bikkuri of Jemwyck finished in the National Top Twenty, several Oriental Shorthairs placed in their region’s Top Ten and seven Orientals earned Grand Championship titles in the following colors: tortoiseshell, spotted lavender tabby, solid lavender, solid ebony and blue cream. Patapaw Justa Foo-lin, the tortie, was CFA’s first OSH Grand Champion. In addition to this impressive display of grands, the show bench statistics published by the Oriental Express showed that 40 different Orientals won major CFA final awards. To the best of my knowledge, no other breed has achieved these results in its first year in competition. Certainly no one can dispute the depth of quality of the Oriental Shorthair when so many cats have received recognition on the show bench. The Oriental Shorthairs are well on their way to fulfilling Dr. R . Peltz’s prophecy “And now we have two new breeds (Oriental Shorthairs and Exotic Shorthairs) personifying the extremes of body type that, in 20 years, will be the truly elegant cats of the fancy.” (Cat World Jan-Feb 1976)

The Oriental story as it is recounted here is all about a few people who sat around a fire and designed a hypothetical cat, the roll of a well organized breed club, and the importance of an open minded cat registry. The people are the pioneer Oriental breeders, the breed club is Oriental Shorthairs International (OSI), and the cat registry is C.F.A.

In addition, the following topics will be discussed:

Definition of the OSH breed.

Early OSH breeding programs.

Organization of the OSH in CFA.

Discussion of standards and color descriptions.

DEFINITION OF THE ORIENTAL BREED

Before defining the Oriental Shorthair breed, let us review some commonly found dictionary definitions of the word “breed”:

“a relatively homogeneous group of animals within a species, developed and maintained by man.” The Random House Dictionary of the English Language.

“a group of domestic animals developed through the influence of man, either intentionally or unintentionally, and requiring control by man to prevent mixtures with other races, and consequently loss of the distinctive characteristics. Breed, in this sense, designates a more extensive group than strain, and does not imply directly traceable descent from a particular individual.

“a distinctive group of domestic animals differentiated from the wild type under the influence of man and usually incapable of maintaining its distinctive qualities in nature.” Webster’s New International Dictionary.

Clearly it is man who selects the individuals to perpetuate a breed and not nature.

There are several ways to choose the distinctive characteristics of a breed. The oldest method is to select an unusual feature which is found in nature. Man then prescribes the other characteristics which, based on his sense of esthetics, compliment the hosen feature. For instance, the naturally occurring pattern which geneticists refer to as the Himalayan factor was expressed over several species. In particular the shorthair cat which today is known as the Siamese carries this color pattern. However, the conformation was prescribed by man, and realized only after many years of selective breeding. Photographs of Siamese cats taken only 80 years ago show a quite different conformation than today’s show Siamese. Similarly, today’s shoe Persian is barely recognizable from those depicted in Frances Simpson’s “Book of the Cat” (1903).

So one way a breed can be started is to take a naturally occurring characteristic such as a color pattern or hair length and superimpose a rigid man-made standard for type.

Later breeds were developed by combining two naturally occurring characteristics onto a single cat. The Himalayan breed is an example of such a design which combined the Siamese pattern with the Persian coat.

In recent years, breeds have been started using man-made standards as the basis for the cat, rather than a “naturally occurring characteristic”. The Oriental Shorthair and the Exotic Shorthair are two breeds which were designed by this last method.

In particular, the Oriental Shorthair designers started with a man-made standard for the Siamese cat without the color pattern. The philosophy of the original designers was that conformation alone would define the OSH breed. The entire spectrum of colors offered by nature would be used to enrich the breed.

In short, the Oriental Shorthair can be defined as a highly stylized cat having man-made Siamese type with green eyes developed in all naturally occurring colors. The Oriental Shorthair is a hybrid breed and it is intended to remain thus.

“Perhaps I should digress here to say that there is no such thing as “taint” or “stigma” from hybridism in a breed which is deliberately created by this means and bred to a strict physical standard as stringent as any standard used for the Natural breeds. Here hybridism is a mark of excellence, a badge of distinction, …….., considered to produce the highest degree of perfection, desirability, beauty or usefulness.” Jane Martinke, Cats Magazine, Feb, 1972.

ORGANIZATION OF OSH IN CFA

In the summer of 1972, my husband, Peter, and I went to England to look for new Siamese lines to bring back home. During this trip we were surprised to find the Siamese type we were looking for in the Foreign Whites, Lavenders, Chestnuts, Spotted Tabbies and Ebonies. We saw these cats at Mary Dunnill’s Sumfun Cattery and at Angela Sayer’s Solitaire Cattery. We very much wanted to bring some of these outstanding cats home with us, but we know that there was no breed to accommodate then in C.F.A.

We found ourselves pondering the problem of gaining recognition for these various colored cats of Siamese type in C.F.A. The England registration scheme could not be carried over to C.F.A., because GCCF considers every OSH color to be a separate breed (GCCF also treats Bristish Shorthair and Persian in this manner). However, GCCF allows OSH colors to interbreed and allows kittens of several different breeds (i.e. colors) to be registered from one litter.

After returning home, we carefully followed the progress of many colors of Orientals in GCCF and the European Cat registry ( FIFE ). Several articles in Cat World, written by members of FIFE , indicated that cats with Oriental type were being developed: whites, blues, ebonies, and spotted tabbies, and that they would be grouped into one breed. We corresponded with as many overseas breeders as we could track down, and they all, without exception, agreed that these cats should be one breed, and defined in all possible colors. At the same time, we kept close contact with C.F.A. Central Office, and we had frequent discussions about alternate ways to introduce the Orientals in this country. By the summer of 1973, it was clear that the only possibility that made sense genetically and that would remain consistent with CFA’s registration rules was to group all of these cats of foreign type under a single breed classification.

Once we knew the direction that was to be taken, two very important questions were still to be answered: would there be a sufficiently large number of breeders interested in working with the OSH breed? Although CFA required ten breeders to pledge their interest, we felt that twenty would be far better. Without a large number of concurrent breeding programs working toward a common goal, the development is far too slow, and breeders tend to become discouraged. It was also of the upmost importance that the Oriental breeders be able to work harmoniously.

The second question, just as crucial as the first, was whether these cats would have sufficient esthetic appeal to the public, which must eventually provide good pet homes for the kittens. Without these homes for non-show specimens, no responsible or compassionate breeder would want to embark on an ambitious breeding program.

In a nutshell, without a substantial number of experiences breeders devoted to the breeding program, and without interest in the kittens, there was no breed.

On October 19, 1973, the first meeting of Oriental Shorthairs International was held in our home in Yorktown Heights , New York . The meeting was fertile in producing what was to become the standard for the OSH , and defined most of the colors. Two weeks later, the breed was names, and OSA applied for CFA membership.

With almost twenty experiences breeders ascertaining their intentions to work with the Oriental breed, the first question was now answered. These experienced breeders pledge their time, their hard work, their money, their outstanding Siamese stock to a strict selective breeding program. The Charter members of OSI were truly pioneer breeders. And just like all other pioneer breeders they were wiling to work unselfishly without the guarantee of registration status or even more remotely the pleasure of seeing their cats on the show bench. Perhaps the most remarkable fact about the original OSI members is that not a single one possessed an Oriental cat and most of them had not even seen one in the flesh. They pledged their devotion to an abstract concept of beauty.

When the OSH standard was framed, the lack of Oriental cats among breeders was a definite advantage. None of the pioneers had any conflict of interest between defining his ideal and describing his own cats. And now to introduce the charter members of OSI who laid down the foundation for CFA’s Orientals:

William Eisenman, Barbara Harr, Alison Hedberg, Judith Hymas, Richard and Barbara Levitan, Anthony and Barbara Marescie, Peter and Vicky Markstein, Jeoffry and Gail Miles, Robert and Joan O’Brien, Ann Tacetta, Lou and Lynn Weiss, and Donald and Dorothy Wilbur.

Almost immediately the OSI Club placed advertisements in Cat World inviting breeders with similar interests to join forces. The response was far beyond any expectations. Oriental breeders who were discovered through these ads provided the majority of cays required to apply for registration status. The Lavender breeders, interested in promoting their cats in CFA, reregistered their cats as Lavender Orientals, and joined OSI. By the time OSI applied for registration status there were over 60 breeders and almost 100 cats!

Meanwhile in February, 1974, the English imports purchased by OSI members arrived: Solitaire Keleawe, Chestnut female, Harislau Magnolia and Harislau Myosotis, Spotted Tabby Lavender females, Solitaire Tut, Chestnut Spotted Tabby male, and Scintilla Tangent, Cream male. Prior to these imports, Pauline and Sid Thompson had imported two Chestnut females, Solitaire Tongan Princess and Alice ’s Sakura. Since eight of CFA’s first ten OSH grand champions have imports in their pedigrees, the overseas breeders made significant contributions to the USA Oriental development.