The Havana Brown is a
breed of
cat, resulted from
persistent efforts to develop a completely brown cat breed. In the early
1950s in Britain, a
cross between a seal point
Siamese and a black
domestic shorthaired cat with Siamese heritage led to the foundation stock
for the Havana Brown.
The Havana Brown is a moderately sized, muscular short-haired cat with a body
of average length. The coat color must be brown, typically reddish-brown, with
no tabby
markings. Whiskers should also be brown and the eye color should be green. The
head should be slightly longer than wide and the nose should have a distinct
stop at the eyes. Males tend to be larger than females and are average in weight
compared with other breeds.
The Havana Brown is an intelligent cat that often uses its paws both to
examine objects, and to communicate with its owners. The most likely explanation
of the breed's name is that its coat color is very similar to that of Havana
cigars.
The breed has been recognized for championship competition in both the US and
Britain since the late 1950s. It is considered an endangered breed, since the
breeding pool is very small. In the late
1990s, there were only 12 CFA-registered Havana Brown catteries and under 130 unaltered cats.
References
Susie Page; The Complete Cat Owner's Manual; Fog City Press;
ISBN 1-875137-84X (hardback, 1997)