Chantilly-Tiffany

It is an extinct breed, and we include it for its history and because its name is still in circulation. In 1967 the American breeder Jennie Robinson bought a pair of semi-longhaired, chocolate-coloured, golden-eyed cats, Thomas and Shirley, at an estate auction in White Plains, New York; they had their first litter in May 1969. The ACA registered them in the early 1970s as Foreign Longhairs; a Burmese breeder in Florida, Sigyn Lund, renamed them Tiffany, but the breed was so scarce that it lost its registration. In the late 1980s Tracy Oraas and Jan DeRegt revived it, and in 1992 they called it Chantilly, partly to avoid confusion with the British Tiffanie. It reached experimental or new breed status with several North American registries, including ACFA, CFF, CCA and TICA, but in 2009 TICA had only fifteen cats on its books. The last line ended in 2015, when a Norwegian breeder closed her programme and spayed the last female, Acey. No breeding programme is known today.

As there are no cats of the breed left, be wary of anyone selling a “Chantilly”: it will be another cat or a cross. For anyone with a cat of similar type, its coat, without undercoat, tangled little, although breeders recommended brushing it every other day.

There are very few health data, because the breed was always so scarce. Some sources describe a tendency to over-groom and pull out hair, with thin patches and hairballs; others present it as a cat that shed little. Its disappearance has to do with how small the breeding population always was.