27/05/2024
MEET THE TONKINESE! 🐱
The stylish Tonkinese, or ‘Tonk’ to his friends, has a strong, elegant body with long slender legs and an expressive tail. Its beautiful head is a medium wedge with large, shapely ears and almond-shaped eyes in sparkling gem colours of aquamarine, topaz or sapphire. It has short close-lying fur. The males are large and noble; the females are smaller and exquisitely feminine.
Records of Tonkinese go back several hundred years to the rare Cat Book Poems of Thailand. They have often been confused with cats that we now call Burmese and Siamese. The three breeds are genetically related and, until the 1970s they were still quite similar in head and body shape; and were being bred together even in to the 1980s. Now, geneticists know that the Tonkinese is unique among cat breeds. Tonkinese share their coat-pattern genes with their Burmese and Siamese cousins; the Tonkinese pattern falling midway between them.
Gregarious by nature, a properly-socialised Tonkinese is an outgoing, confident cat who will make its presence felt; a strong, active and spirited cat who’ll give each family member a chance to love and serve them. They do not mind being housecats as long as they have a companion and plenty to amuse them. They generally get on well with children (provided the children have been properly taught to respect animals), other cats and cat-friendly dogs.
You can read more about the Tonkinese on our website here - https://tinyurl.com/52s9mb38 ! 🖱️
Image submitted by Tonkinese BAC.