Smitten with a kitten

[Moggieslegacy]

Hi! I am so glad to be able to chat here! I am the surprised new Mom to a very intelligent very playful part Savannah kitten. My story is a bit different than most here. I had never heard of the Savannah breed before I got my kitten and was just looking for a regular tabby cat. Moggie was advertised just as a kitten, and came with his vaccinations. All they wanted for him was enough to compensate for the wholesale cost of vaccines they buy in bulk. He is obviously really well cared for and socialized. All my previous cats have been rescues and being able to start with a kitten who expects people to be kind and reasonable is wonderful!

When I was arranging to pick him up, I was told his Mom is an F7 and apparently got out and had kittens with someone other than the intended Dad And they think his dad was part Bengal with a white paw., though I am guessing they are just guessing about this. There is so many people claiming kittens are part something I just took this with a grain of salt, but now I have him and have been reading about Savannah's I see how he has the black spots on silver and oceli on his ears, and I also saw 2 very large male and female snow Savannahs at the home where I picked him up, and a couple snow Savannah kittens. Nothing else looks like that. So I have no reason to doubt he has a Savannah Mom as they told me. I did not get to meet her though and was told she was out. I did not dig for more details, but was left wondering. The home where I got him was just trying to find good homes for the kittens of unknown paternal parentage and I got the feeling they did not want to provide any more information about his heritage than they had to. I respect this, and this seems entirely fair as they never mentioned his Savannah Mom in the kitten advertisement. All the indicators are that they wanted to protect him from kitten traders and uncaring back yard breeders, and just wanted to find him a good home with someone who wanted a regular cat. And I do not feel comfortable to contact them with more questions.

I have no interest in breeding him and he will be neutered ASAP. And I would love him just as much if he was a regular tabby cat. But I am really curious. His oceli and markings make me wonder how likely it is he would be the result of an f7 Savannah Mom and regular non Savannah tabby cat? He also has some possible rosette patterns on his shoulders which maybe why they think his dad was Bengal.

Really hard to get him to hold still long enough to take a decent picture. He is now 10 and 1/2 weeks old. I got him when he was 9. I know that is young, but someone else would probably have taken him if I waited. I work in my home, am with him 24 /7 and he gets lots and lots of attention. He is flourishing. And he is amazingly intelligent. He tries to catch my hand not the laser beam from the laser pointer which he finds boring. He needs me to constantly invent new games and be fully engaged in them. And he curls up and goes to sleep beside me whenever I sit down in my workshop. He is a really amazing little being!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByDQ9QuQRArsTnpHX1hMdDVhNzA/view?usp=sharing


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByDQ9QuQRArsSmlMdGJMVmJETlU/view?usp=sharing


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByDQ9QuQRArsckRLdVZ3cmJnVUE/view?usp=sharing

 

[DumaLove]

It is very possible, he looks like a Savannah mix or late generation. Even non SV tabby cats can have spots and ocelli. Congrats on your new boy!!!

 

[Moggieslegacy]

Thanks for the response DumaLov! If ordinary tabbies can carry this I can now stop wondering why he has oceli!

When I was told he was a Savannah Bengal cross and I read up on this I almost backed out of coming to pick him up as the closer to wild generations sounded like more of a handful than I wanted to take on. But I was assured it is watered down enough in him he will just be more social and interactive than average. Which is true. And he really wants to be good. So even if he is high energy he is pretty easy to live with. And as he mellows I am thinking it will get easier. He is the only pet and keeping him entertained is a bit of a job.

Do those marks on his shoulders look like Bengal rossetes and do regular tabby cats or Savannah's carry the genes to make those?

 

[Rafiki]

It is hard to say from those photos as I cannot really see rosettes. Can you post a shot of his face?

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

As DumaLove says, ordinary domestic shorthair tabbies will show faint ocelli and have spots. it is often what drives shelters and rescues to guess at Savannah and Bengal heritage of course, as people associated the traits with breeds. but even 13 years ago when a Savannah of mine escaped my home and I was searching the neighborhood, there were a LOT of brown spotted tabbies out there in general population.

I can't say that I see any markings resembling rosettes on your kitten's shoulders. I think that the spotting pattern can be irregular on any cat and thus you can have markings that smear from spots and maybe that is what you are seeing?

 

[Moggieslegacy]

Trying to get him to hold still when I am trying to take a picture is hard, but here is a couple and a more close up picture of the rosette like pattern I was wondering about. The picture I put as my avatar is also him when he is sleepy. Which is not now! I never thought I would be grateful for ants and house flies!

 

[WitchyWoman]

I never thought I would be grateful for ants and house flies!

I laughed out loud at this. I have 4 savannahs, one of which is an F1, and I totally understand. If he's part savannah and domestic shorthair you may be lucky and he may not turn out to be a total chucklehead. If he's part SV and Bengal -- two intelligent high energy breeds -- you're going to be praying to the Great Mantis god that your home becomes overrun with ants and flies, or, you can do what a lot of us have done -- get another cat

 

[Rafiki]

I definitely do not see rosettes. The eyes look like they could be hooded so I wouldn't rule out that he might have some late gen SV in him.

 

[Moggieslegacy]

So far he is a very well behaved little kitten, though I am pretty sure he is more playful and interactive than kittens I have had in the past. But maybe I am just getting old!

Is there common problems with Savannah / DSH crosses? How do chuckelhead cats behave? I want to try and divert any problems before they happen!

I have no reason to think his Mom is not an f7 Savannah as I was told. Ordinary kittens here sell for $100 -$200 and are gone before the ads have been up a day. There is a lot more people wanting kittens here than there is kittens. Spay and neuter programs have been really successful. Kittens that are supposedly 1/2 something quickly sell for $350 to $700. I have been looking for a grey or tabby cat for months. These kittens were just advertised as ordinary kittens for $25 each. Nothing was said about the Savannah Mom until I had arranged to get him. The person could have gotten a lot more if they had advertised him as 1/2 Savannah. They didn't, and even offered to let me have his brother if I wanted. They obviously wanted what was best for these kittens. And the Snow Savannah's they advertise as Savannah's probably are. The male and female cats I saw there have nearly identical markings as my kitten, except they are pointed and the size of a border collie.

More what I was wondering is if he might actually be sired by the male snow Savannah. The male I saw has the oceli, and looking at pictures of the parents of the snow kittens they had, I don't see much in Moggie that I don't see in both of them. Except he is not a snow. I was thinking he must have a darker non pointed Tabby Dad, but as I continue reading it sounds like if both parents were seal point snows with cscb version of the gene, they could have a cbcb darker kitten. Some of their kittens seemed like they got the cscs version and had more contrast than the parents. Maybe suggesting a cbcs version of the pointed gene? Is it possible a cbcb kitten who's parents have similar markings somewhat fogged in white by the pointed genes, would look like Moggie? Is there some obvious non- f7 Savannah features he has?

Part of why I would like to know, is I live in a rural area with an orchard and large garden where most people have cat doors and cats come and go as they please. The neighborhood cats are generally fine doing this, though there has been one aggressive cat in the neighborhood recently. I know in some places the idea of cats being allowed outside is very controversial, but it isn't here so long as they are neutered and don't go looking for trouble with other cats., and they play an important role in rodent control. We also have newly introduced non indigenous rabbits that are destroying peoples orchards by stripping trees of bark. He won't be going outside until he is fully vaccinated, neutered, bigger and older, and the way I introduce him to his job on my very small farm will be slow and partly limited by what tendencies for trouble he may have, and if he has any that are stronger than those of an average house cat. Seems like having a job as rodent catcher might be a good fit for a part Savannah cat. But I will do what I have to to ensure he has a good life here even if it turns out it isn't.

 

[Patti]

He is quite a cutie! I can see what you mean about the rosette type pattern on his shoulders but I don't think these are true rosettes, just the way his spots and stripes broke up. In any case, he is quite the lucky fellow to have found such a wonderful human slave to care for him!!!