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| Weight |
7-9 lbs. |
| Overview |
Ideal lap cats, Burmese enjoy people and love to cuddle. They are also playful (they're born acrobats), intelligent, and good with children and other animals.
Burms require more attention than many Western breeds; females are generally more bossy and demanding than males. Burmese have deep, rumbling voices and do not hesitate to use them.
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| Appearance |
A Burmese is a stocky cat of medium size with good muscular development, short legs, and round feet. The head is exceptionally round, with a short muzzle and wide-set, golden eyes.
The Burmese coat is short, fine, and silky and lies close to the body. The solid, dark sable brown Burmese is in a league of its own, but a dilute division includes cats with lighter coats: champagne (light brown), blue (gray), and platinum (lilac).
While some breed registries recognize Burmese in a host of colors and patterns, others classify these cats as Foreign Burmese.
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| Gromming Needs |
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| Origins |
Burmese are thought to descend from sacred brown cats kept by student-priests in the palaces and temples of ancient Burma (modern Myanmar). Harrison Weir, organizer of the first modern cat show, described two variants of the Siamese cat in 1889.
One type he described as light-colored with darker points, and the other--an accidental deviation, in his opinion--as a chocolate variety. The lighter, pointed cats invariably beat the chocolate ones at shows, and over time the "chocolate Siamese" disappeared from competitions.
Looking back, many people believe these "chocolate Siamese" were not Siamese at all, but descendants of jealously guarded cats from ancient Burma.
In 1930 a retired Navy doctor procured a brown female cat named Wong Mau from Burma that turned out to be a Siamese-Burmese hybrid. Wong Mau was bred to a seal point Siamese. When one of her offspring was mated with her, three types of kittens resulted: some that were light in color with typical dark Siamese points, some that were brown with darker points, and a third kind that was brown with no markings.
These unmarked brown kittens became the foundation stock of the modern Burmese breed in North America.
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| Other |
Breed-related health problems: corneal dermoids (a small patch of skin and hair attached to the cornea, usually near the corner of the eye, that can be fixed surgically); cherry eye. |
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