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Don Sphynx - Donskoy
The Don Sphynx is a medium sized naked
cat. The body is solid, but not coarse, and medium in length.
Legs are medium long, relatively strong, but slender. Paws are
rounded, the toes are noticeably long and the paw pads are very
prominent, which look like air cushions.
The bone structure is medium strong. The cat is very muscular, muscles
are firm to touch.
The back rises slightly towards the rump, because the hind legs are
higher than the front legs.
The chest is full, broad and rounded, shoulders and hips are broad and
strong.
The tail is medium long and rather thin, broader at the base.
The head of the Don Sphynx is not too long and wedge shaped with
prominent and high cheek bones. The forehead is flat with many
vertical wrinkles.
The nose is medium long and straight and shows a gentle curve at the
base. The muzzle is broad, medium long and round, and has a "whisker break".
The neck is strong, not too short, wrinkles around the neck reaching
down to the shoulders.
The ears are large, broad and open at the base. They are relatively
upright set on the head.
The eyes are medium in size and almond shaped. They may have any
colour, there is no relation between the colour of the skin and the
eye colour. Wrinkles may be found round the eyes.
The eye brows and the whiskers are very stiff and crinkled. It is
important that the Don Sphynx has whiskers. There are lines where
kittens are born without whiskers, such cats shall not be used for
breeding.
The Don Sphynx is a naked cat.
There are at least 4 types of "coat":
 | completely naked, |
| with extremely thin and very fine hairs (flocked), which
disappear in the first year, |
| with fine wavy down (velour, about 2 mm), mostly with bare
patches on the head and the neck, the down disappears with two
years, some few fine hairs may remain in the face (on the nose), on
the legs and the tail, |
| and the "brush"-variety, which has short, slightly
stiff and irregularly wired hairs. These hairs mostly remain. |
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 |
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| naked |
velour (fine hairs,
about 2mm long) |
brush |
The skin is very warm, soft and very elastic. The fat layer adapts
to the seasons, i.e. it is thicker in winter.
Wrinkles are on the forehead, around the eyes, on the neck reaching
down to the shoulders, on the belly and the rump, on the legs and at
the base of the tail.
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Left: naked, blue tabby Right: flocked,
black tabby |
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Brush: black tabby |
| Pictured with permission of Mrs. Sofia Krasnoselskaya, RU. |
All colours and patterns
The Don Sphynx exists in all colours and patterns:
| black, blue chocolate, lilac, red, cream, cinnamon, fawn |
| tortie, blue-cream, chocolate tortie, lilac tortie,
fawn tortie |
| in all tabby patterns, for example: black spotted, red mackerel,
blue-cream tabby, etc. |
| with silver or as Golden, for example: blue smoke, tortie
smoke, blue-cream smoke, black golden shaded, blue golden mackerel,
red silver tabby, chocolate tortie silver spotted, cream
silver mackerel, etc. |
| with white (Bicolor, Van, etc.), for example: black-white Bicolour,
red-white Van, tortie mackerel Bicolour, cream smoke with white,
black silver tabby Bicolour, etc. |
| also in Colourpoint, with white and without white, silver- or
Golden-pointed, tabby pointed, etc. |
The colour can be seen by the colour of the skin. Mostly it can be
recognized in kittens, which tabby pattern they have. The colour black
appears as dark grey-blue or anthracite, bicolour - the white patches
- appears pale pink on the skin. The points can be seen clearly, the
skin on the body is pale pink, only the skin of the face, the ears,
the legs and of the tail is coloured with the point colour. Also
silver can be seen quite well, the colour of the skin appears like
"pepper and salt".
Origin
The first Don Sphynx was found in February 1986 by Elena Kovaleva,
a professor of the institute of education, in Rostov-na-Donu
gefunden. Boys were playing with a bag, in which a little kitten cried
terribly. As the kitten grew up it lost completely its coat and became
balder and balder. The little cat was a tortie female and was named Varvara.
Mrs Irina Nemikina (MIF cattery, MIF means Mythos) got a tortie tabby
daughter of Varvara resulting from a cross breeding with Vasilii (European
Shorthair male, blue tabby bicolour), which she named Chita (after the
monkey of the TV-film).
Chita was mated with the male Dima (European Shorthair, black tabby)
and got a black Don Sphynx son, called Hannibal.
Mrs Nemikina developed today's breed of Don Sphynx. To enlarge the
gene pool European Shorthair and Siberian cats were used in the
breeding program. It turned out very soon that the hairlessness of the
Don Sphynx was inherited dominantly. Since 2000 other breeds are not
used any longer in the breeding program, because there are already Don
Sphynx with five or more purebred generations.
The Don Sphynx was first recognized by TICA in 2003. It was
followed by WCF. In FIFe the breed has a provisional status since
2007.
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My Toy cattery
Breeder: Natalia Volosova,
My Toy
cattery,
Moscow, Russia |
Genetics
Don Sphynx exist due to a natural mutation.
The bareness is inherited dominantly.
© katzenzeitung 5/2007 |
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