When browsing online and learning more about Savannah cats, you may have heard these terms thrown about- warm Brown Spotted Tabby, cool BST, melanistic, smoke, or silver. Terms you may not have heard, but are still out there are... Red spotted tabby, Blue spotted tabby, Cinammon spotted tabby, BST with white and even BTT (Brown Ticked Tabby)!... I am sure there are others as well!

How can that be, you might ask yourself! Particularly when looking at the TICA breed standard, which states that the acceptable colors for Savannahs in our show halls are as follows:

Brown Spotted Tabby (this is either warm which is your typical gold background with black/brown spots or it can be cool, which is a grey background with black spots)

Melanistic (this is solid black cat)

Smoke (this is a cat with a smoky coat- when you pet them, you will see silver guardhairs underneath their coat- hence the smoke appearance)

Silver Spotted Tabby (self explanatory)

Well, where do the oddball colors come in? I can hear you fuming over there! You spent so much time learning about this breed and now, we're throwing odd colors into the mix too! Unfair! Yes, I know- but it's part of what makes the Savannah breed so wonderful, in my nonhumble opinion.

The fact is- when TICA accepted our breed standard, they permitted the Serval to be bred to certain breeds of domestic cats. When those breeds were permitted into the gene pool, they may have exhibited nonstandard traits (such as a nonstandard color or a standard color, but with nonstandard markings- such as BST with white) or (as more often was the case), these cats carried recessives for nonstandard colors.

Now, recessives are tricky little buggers... They like to hide and then pop up when you least expect it! Hence, you can take two warm colored lower generation BSTs, breed them, and have cinammon kittens born!

There are different schools of thought on nonstandard colors. It is my opinion that some breeders refuse to accept them as anything more then imperfect examples of a Savannah- these breeders are the type who believe nonstandard kittens should be ignored and never spoke about.

There is another school of thought that accepts that due to our outcrosses, nonstandards happen and they celebrate all Savannahs- regardless of color- but will only use standard colorization in their own breeding program. This school definitely concentrates on type, but has a limited gene pool due to their choice in color usage. At this point in time, this summarizes the larger percentage of Savannah breeders.

Then there are the rebels! The crazy ones out there that believe the saying that has been repeated by TICA judges consistently throughout the years, "You have to build the barn before you paint it"- in other words, one should first concern themselves with type and then worry about color further on as the breed develops. These people, obviously, believe that it is more important to capture a type then to pander simply to color when breeding.

The latter two schools of thought co-exist easily, side by side; using only standard colors is definitely NOT a fault! It is the simple belief that nonstandards are still wonderful Savannahs that bind these two schools together.

Due to owning a nonstandard F1 female, we obviously are biased and fall into that rebel category. We believe with thought, knowledge, and openness, we can celebrate the nonstandard kittens and cats and yet continue to push our breed forward in the show hall, showing our STANDARD kittens and loving them not more- but just AS MUCH- as our nonstandard kittens! We also are realists and realize that simply by using only standard colored cats, it will not prevent those tricky little recessives from popping up- and those nonstandard kittens are still precious lives that should be celebrated and adored!

We shall end with Shakespeare... For as he wrote, "What's in a name?/ that which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet..." We would posit that no matter what color a Savannah kitten is- they can still be wonderful, sweet, goofy, typey Savannah kittens- just in a different color!

Click HERE to see pictures of various colors/patterns that exist in the Savannah world!

The Wonderful World of Color...And Savannahs!

Simon,

F1 Red Spotted Tabby

with White

Chumlee, F2B Blue Spotted Tabby with White

Rumor, Dreamweaverz F1 Brown Ticked Tabby