The Havana Brown Cat, Formally Known as the Chestnut Brown Foreign (Really!)

Imagine the Havana Brown cat, a beautiful sleek cat with a deep mahogany sheen and green eyes.

It's history is a bit murky but the Havana is a relatively new breed, manmade since the 1950s, although it may have been shown as early as 1894 under the name of Swiss Mountain Cat.

This cat came to be when black domestic cats were crossed with seal and chocolate point Siamese and, in the UK sometimes, even with Russian blues. Similar looking cats are also found on the streets of Thailand, where natural selection has done what the breeders did elsewhere.

What does the Havana Brown cat look like?

The cat is a beautiful chocolate brown, more a reddish brown than a black brown, hence its description as 'mahogany'.

The shape of the Havana is different in the US and in the UK. In the UK, its shape has followed the trend in Siamese breeding, resulting in a more extreme shape, with characteristic bat ears, elongated body and a thin, slight build. In the US, on the other hand, they've kept to the more traditional shape.

Its overall look could be described as an all-over brown cat, that looks like a Siamese cat, but with green eyes and a face longer than it is wide.

In reality, it is quite muscular and solid. When you pick them up, they are much heavier than they look, with their delicate paws, used to inspect everything from people to toys to anything else that crosses their paths.

The personality of this brown cat is also quite distinctive.

It is childish and playful - it never grows up. It loves to run and fetch and play with people - Havana heaven!

It is an intelligent animal, people-oriented, with a quieter voice than some of the Siamese cats.

Finally, like many of these highly bred animals, you might find a dominant strain, which can cause problems in a mixed cat household.

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