Mister Skittles! Snow Savannah???

[Skittles]

Hi everyone, my partner and I have a wonderful new member our my family and his name is Mister Skittles! He's almost 4 months old, LOVES to play day and night and he gets a lot of love and attention.
We were wondering if he is a "snow savannah" kitten? Or perhaps part Siamese? You'll have to excuse our ignorance, we received him from someone who said he was a "Purebred Savannah". We were skeptical of this because he didn't look like anything we'd seen when doing research on Savannah cats. After receiving the cat the previous owner went silent and we were unable to get any more info. Needless to say we were not happy about this. Hoping someone can tell from these pictures?
Any help is much appreciated. Happy to answer any questions

 

[Skittles]

More pics:

 

[Patti]

HI and welcome to the forum! Mr. Skittles looks like he could possibly be a later generation Savannah to me. Definitely not Siamese. I am guessing you weren't offered any registration papers with him?

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

I agree with Patti, definitely not Siamese although the origin of the "snow" is the siamese gene so somewhere in the heritage no doubt there is a tiny bit!

it's possible your kitten is late generation SV like Patti suggests, he does have larger ears than the average domestic, I couldn't really see if he was taller and leaner than the average domestic or if it is just the one pic or his growth stage. You may see more as he matures. The bottom line is that without buying from a breeder and getting papers, it's impossible to know if what you were told is true. He doesn't look strongly Savannah but then there are plenty of lesser quality cats out there with paperwork...

 

[Skittles]

Patti & Brigitte, thanks for your reply. The previous owners told us that Skittles' Mother had papers but that his Dad did not, however at the time we acquired him they were unable to provide any documents. The whole acquisition was rather strange. He was basically given to us and the owners seemed reluctant to provide much information. So you can see why were skeptical about his “authenticity”. We had mostly assumed he wasn’t a Savannah until he started growing so rapidly and noticed he had so much more energy and athleticism than any cats we’d ever had. He exhibits many of the characteristics we’ve read about Savannah cats. Nonetheless we’re very happy with him just the way he is! He’s very playful, loving and entertaining.

 

[Rafiki]

Hi. Welcome to the forum. Skittles is absolutely gorgeous regardless of his pedigree! You will have to see if he grows into the ears or if the ears continue to grow with him. At this age, the portion of foreleg from the elbow to the wrist should be longer than that of another cat but I cannot tell from the pictures you posted.

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

It's important to note that not only do some domestic shorthairs grow large (the black cat I had growing up was a hefty 22lbs of very active cat) but they can have a lot of the behaviors and personality traits of a Savannah. The brown spotted feral kitten we adopted in the year before we discovered Savannahs we named Wasabi because of the huge amount of energy she had, she was very playful and clever and quite a head rush. We adored her and find the Savannahs very similar in personality even if more "exotic" in looks.

Nowadays I am betting people would ask if she was part-Savannah. A breed is just a more reliable way to get those personality traits, it's much more of a crap shoot with a domestic shorthair kitten to know what you might get.

Now your kitten may have a registered Savannah mom, who knows if they actually had papers or it was something to say to bolster the claim that the kitten was part-Savannah. It sounds that if she was, she was not sold as a breeding cat and may have been an unaltered pet. I hope that they did then spay her and it was an accidental litter from delaying her altering too long...

 

[allcritters]

Gorgeous kitty regardless of what it is

 

[Skittles]

Thanks all for the info. Love this forum, fascinating stuff and so many lovely cats! I'll check in down the road when the Skittle Kid has grown up some more!