The Ocicat
There would be no Ocicat without the cascade of blunders, missteps, and errors that brought this wonderful little spotted kitty to the world.
I guess some mistakes aren’t really mistakes afterall.
The Ocicat, with her full coat of cheetah spots, looks like something that just walked out of the jungle. But this cat is about as domesticated as they come.
In fact, the Ocicat is a cat who needs his people: needs them to keep him company, to play games with him, and to take him on leashed walks outside. All. The. Time. And so, as wonderful has he is, the Ocicat is not for every family and every household.
Read to learn more about this spotted feline beauty.
The history of the Ocicat
Virginia Daly, an experienced cat breeder from Michigan, is the woman behind the spots.
But she never had any intention of breeding a spotted kitty, and when she did – quite accidentally – she had no sense of the value of what she created. The anomalous spotted kitten that showed up in a litter was, in her eyes, a failure.
The Ocicat began as a failed experiment
When Daly bred the first Ocicat, she’d been trying to breed a Siamese cat with Abyssinian points.
Points are the darker areas at the “edges” of a Siamese cat: on the face, ears, feet, and tail.
Abyssinians are ticked tabbies, which means they have a salt-and-pepper look to their fur. Daly’s goal was to create a Siamese cat, but with ticked fur instead of dark fur on the cat’s extremities.
She’d had some luck with this kind of thing before. She’d successfully bred a lynx-pointed Siamese, which has striped tabby markings on the points.
She’d bred a lilac-pointed Siamese, too, which has dusky pinkish-gray fur on the points. And, she’d successfully produced a chestnut-pointed Siamese, too, which has orange points.[1]
I highly recommend extra-credit reading of these three posts, which explain about how tabby cats get their stripes, what makes a cat have orange fur, and where lilac comes from (it’s in the post about black cats):
The first mistake: accidentally breeding an Ocicat
Daly bred one of her seal-pointed Siamese cats to one of her Abyssinians. FYI, a seal-pointed cat has the traditional Siamese-cat look: a creamy body color with rich brown points.
One of the offspring from this litter was later bred to a chocolate-point Siamese (a little lighter in color than the seal point).
This pairing produced the Abyssinian-pointed Siamese kittens that she was seeking…and also one little ivory kitten, covered in golden spots.
The spotted kitten was a “mistake,” and Daly sold him to a student for $10, with a promise that he be neutered. But before he left for his new home, Daly’s daughter commented that Tonga, as he was eventually named, looked like an ocelot, and suggested he be called Ocicat.
What is an ocelot?
Comparing Tonga to an ocelot is a compliment of the highest order. An ocelot is a medium-sized spotted wild cat, and GORGEOUS.
Ocelots are native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central and South America, and a couple of Caribbean islands. Their populations are unfortunately decreasing, a result of habitat destruction, hunting, and run-ins with cars.
The name “ocelot” is, itself, an homage to an even larger cat. The word is related to the Aztec term for jaguar.[2]
The second mistake: neutering the first Ocicat
The first mistake was accidentally breeding a spotted cat. The second mistake was insisting he be neutered.
Sometime after Tonga was sold and fixed, Daly read an article by a geneticist who described an extinct breed of Egyptian cat that had spots. She wrote to him about Tonga, and he suggested breeding Tonga back to his mother to keep the spotted-cat thing going.
Oops. Too late. Instead, she tried breeding Tonga’s parents again in an attempt to recreate the magic. This time a tawny spotted male kitten was born.
The third mistake: listing the wrong cat breeds
The Ocicat breed was registered in 1966, but the Cat Fanciers’ Association made a mistake during the registration.
The Ocicat was wrongly marked down as a mix of Abyssinian and American Shorthair cats, and, consequently, the original breed standard permitted the use of American Shorthair cats in an Ocicat breeding program.
The good news is that the addition of the American Shorthair added a wide range of Ocicat color variations, and the silver gene, too.[3]
Today, outcrossing with other breeds, including the original Abyssinian and Siamese breeds, and the American Shorthair, is no longer permitted.
What are spots in cats?
Spots are tabby stripes that have been “broken” by a modifier gene. A modifier gene is a gene that “does something” to another gene, in this case, turns continuous stripes into dashes or dots.
Are there other spotted cats?
Yes, there are a number of spotted cat breeds in existence today, including the Bengal cat and the Egyptian Mau, and spotted versions of the British Shorthair and American Shorthair.
The Dilmun, is a rare, but naturally spotted cat, from Bahrain. The Australian Mist is mixture of Abyssinian, Burmese, and Australian Tabby cats.
There have been other attempts to breed spotted cats by crossing domestic cats with spotted wild cats. These include the California Spangled Cat, which may or may not have wild cat mixed in, and the Kanaani, which most certainly does.[4]
The Ussuri is a naturally occurring spotted breed that is likely the result of spontaneous crosses with small wild cats.
It is significant that the Ocicat has spots, but is a fully domesticated cat breed. Unlike the Bengal, for example, there are no wild genes in the Ocicat.
What does an Ocicat look like?
The Ocicat is just beautiful.
He’s a medium to large kitty (six to 15 pounds), and he’s well-muscled, but lithe.[5] He has a broad muzzle, large, almond-shaped eyes ringed with mascara, and ears that rest at a 45° angle to his head.
Her legs are medium to long, and her tail is also long with a little dark tip at a the end.
But the most noticeable thing about an Ocicat, is, of course, his coat, which comes in 12 colors and one pattern, and has a satin sheen.
The 12 colors are: tawny, chocolate, cinnamon, blue, lilac, fawn, black silver, chocolate silver, cinnamon silver, blue silver, lilac sliver, and fawn silver.
The one pattern, is of course, spots.
The Ocicat may have eyes of any color except blue.
What is the personality of an Ocicat?
Read anything about the Ocicat and the one phrase that comes up repeatedly about the breed is that it’s a “dog in a cat’s body.”
Ocicats can be trained to fetch, walk on a leash, come when called, and sit and lie down on command.
But like dogs, they’re not happy being left alone all day. If you’re going to have an Ocicat, it’s best if you have other pets in the house, and you really should work from home.
This doesn’t mean that Ocicats are clingy or overly demanding.[6] But they need you to be around. And not just you: they really don’t like being the only pet in the house.[7] You might have to get another cat, or a least a dog. (Yes, cats and dogs can get along.)
I love this quote from a multi-Ocicat guardian:
Ocicats are energetic but not TOO active. They’re athletic, and won’t hesitate to jump to the highest spot in the house, or walk the balance beam of any scary ledges in your home.
They’ll join you everywhere: in the shower with you (they love water), and on family trips. Ocicats make terrific travelers. Read these posts if you want to take your Ocicat with you on vacation:
Road trip! How to take my cat on a trip in the car
Can you bring your cat on a plane?
Ocicats require new toys and new games that challenge their intellect. But even with enough stimulation, they'll still find their own "fun." Ocicats are known for being able to open doors.
They'll find their own toys, too. Ocicats are attracted to shiny objects and may hoard them in secret stashes around the house.[9]
They don’t enjoy being scolded. But then again, who does?
“Amani can sit on command and give me a high five. We play fetch and hide and seek. He even knows how to cheat in games!” – Verena Vos
Are Ocicats healthy?
In general, the Ocicat is a healthy cat who can be expected to live for 12 to 18 years.[10]
However, they seem to have a higher incidence of these three health issues:
Bladder stones
Also known as urate urolithiasis. An Ocicat has about a one in 17 chance of getting bladder stones.[11]
Pyometra
Pyometra is a life-threatening bacterial infection of the uterus. A Swedish study found that Ocicats have the third highest incidence of pyometra of all the cat breeds.[12] Note that spaying your Ocicat will prevent her from ever experiencing a pyometra infection.
Progressive retinal atrophy (PRA)
PRA is an umbrella term for a group of genetic disorders that cause degeneration of the retina, the light-sensitive layer of cells at the back of the eye. PRA can lead to blindness and this disease has been reported in the Ocicat breed.[13]
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Dawn LaFontaine is a lifelong animal lover who always seems to have a little pet hair in her keyboard. Her blog, Kitty Contemplations, helps cat guardians better understand and care for the special beings they share their lives and homes with. Her cat-products business, Cat in the Box, sells beautiful, well-made, and award-winning products that she designed to meet the biological needs of cats.
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FOOTNOTES
[1] “OCICAT Article.” Cfa, 12 May 2024, cfa.org/ocicat-article/.
[2] “Ocelot.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Dec. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocelot.
[3] “OCICAT Article.” Cfa.
[4] Hartwell, Sarah. Striped, Spotted and Ticked Cats, messybeast.com/spotted-cats.html. Accessed 8 Jan. 2025.
[5] “OCICAT.” PetMD, www.petmd.com/cat/breeds/ocicat. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
[6] “OCICAT.” Cfa.
[7] “OCICAT: VCA Animal Hospitals.” Vca, vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/cat-breeds/ocicat. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
[8] “Have You Ever Had an OCICAT as a Pet? Was It like a Typical Cat or Was It Different?” Quora, www.quora.com/Have-you-ever-had-an-Ocicat-as-a-pet-Was-it-like-a-typical-cat-or-was-it-different. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
[9] “OCICAT Breed Information: OCICAT Characteristics, Grooming, Temperament Breed Information & Insights.” Basepaws, basepaws.com/cat-breeds/ocicat. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
[10] “OCICAT.” PetMD, www.petmd.com/cat/breeds/ocicat. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
[11] “OCICAT.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Nov. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocicat.
[12] “OCICAT.” Wikipedia.
[13] International Cat Care. International Cat Care, 6 Oct. 2019, icatcare.org/advice/ocicat/.