Good to know. How is this indicated on "papers" or from TICA?
Thx
The heritage of the Savannah is usually indicated on the papers via its registration code.
It used to be that the certificate would designate either "Stud Book Registry" or "Foundation Registry" but I am looking at a recent kitten's registration printed from TICA's online portal just now and it doesn't say either of those so that may be a thing of the past. I'm not sure. Maybe when TICA prints and sends the certificate it does still say that.
In the cat world, SBT starts the code of a purebred cat... reflecting that the three generation pedigree is only made up of cats of that breed. So it is in the Savannah, hence this can only happen at F4 at the earliest.
As Patti states, there are no more permissible outcrosses for the Savannah breed, in the past when we were still in the new breed program we did have designated outcrosses which were decided by the TICA board to be most suitable for developing the breed. Those were Egyptian Mau, Ocicat, Oriental Shorthair and Domestic Shorthair. When these breeds were used the three letter registration code would reflect the pedigree having only permissible outcrosses by the letter P and N was used for nonpermissible outcrosses (such as Bengal)...
The three letters at the beginning of any cat's registration code tell you something about the background. SBT says it is purebred. "A" at the beginning says outcrossed, and nowadays is mainly seen at the F1 level as the Serval is still strictly speaking an outcross. The Serval will also be represented while in the three generation pedigree with the third letter being S (reflecting another species in the three generation pedigree). So an F1 will always be A1S (A saying it is outcrossed, 1 saying it is one generation away from a cat of unknown pedigree (the Serval does not have a pedigree) and S saying there is a cat of a different species in the 3 gen pedigree).
B reflects one generation of breed to breed, so in that case a B2S would be most F2s nowadays as people generally use a Savannah male with their F1. C reflects 2 generations, and so most F3s would be C3S.
Now to add to the confusion is that N and P I mentioned above. With F1 to F3 this is "hidden" by the S in the registration code...but as our breed is young, we did often get to F4 and beyond without having SBT in the code. It was in recent years that there was enough Savannah males to rule out outcrosses. When I bought my first breeding queen, an F2 female, back in 2003 almost everything was outcrossed. I think Joyce Sroufe had some fertile males but they were still rare. My second queen was F3B sired by one of her boys.But as my F2 was A2S (as her father was a Serengeti male) my F3s were B3S and my F4s were CON... C stating two gens of SV to SV, O saying that there were no cats of unknown heritage in the 3 gen pedigree but N saying that one of the registered cats in the 3 gen pedigree was nonpermissible (the Serengeti was not a permissible outcross). This is in fact proving what Domestic Wildcats says is a lie. They have told buyers that their cats are not registrable because the outcrosses they have used were nonpermissible, but as you see TICA has a code to reflect that and STILL registers the Savannah.
TICA is a genetic registry and will register outcrossed cats. This allows introduction of cats to bring in new or desired traits, but also to replenish the gene pool in the case of some cat breeds with limited cats. Generally there is a reason to outcross. So you might see a SV with a code outside those stated and there is good reason for it. In the case of Domestic Wildcats the only "reason" given is a hankering to produce size and a "wild" look, which is not anywhere in the Savannah breed standard. I have told them over and over that they are NOT producing Savannahs, they are not aiming to breed per our breed standard and hence call them something else and nobody would be quite so angry. If they wish to breed this vision of what they think looks fabulous give it a name other than our breed so that the public is not misled.
