Roman Toygers

The Toyger Stripes

The Toyger breed has many particularities that are not found in any other domestic breed of cat. Often many people have the misguided notion that the Toyger is just a striped Bengal or other striped tabby cat. This is not true. Many years of hard work and dedication have been put into the Toyger and many breeders around the world, including breed creator Judy Sugden, are continuing this dedication and hard work to further develop the breed.  Here we're going to explore more about the "special details" that the Toyger has and you'll soon understand why they are a special cat.

As in wild tigers the Toyger too has different stripe patterns.  I want to present to you the differences in Toyger striping patterns so that you can better understand that each Toyger is special and an individual that closely resembles it's big cat cousin the tiger.

The Toyger breed standard says that:
 "Body stripes shall generally be vertically alligned with encircling markings on neck, legs and tail. Bold,  braided non-uniform stripes including stretched rosettes are preferred. Some stretched spots are acceptable."

OVER THE BACK STRIPING is one of the most difficult striping patterns to acheive and is one of our personal interests in which we are trying to fix in our cats.  There are very very few Toygers in existence that demonstrate this unique trait that is found in no other domestic cat other than the Toyger.  Even amongst Toygers you will rarely see this phenomenol pattern.

DOMESTIC MACKEREL is the uniform striping that you see on a domestic tabby cat in nearly all domestic breeds. It is rare for a tiger to have such uniform stripes that encircle the body so this IS NOT our desired patterning for the Toyger. We will use a Toyger in our breeding programs that have domestic striping if the contrast is high and has alot to offer.

ZONED MACKEREL is when the striping is maintained within zones. Below  in the diagram you can see that the Toyger is divided into 3 horizontal areas  or "zones". The Toyger pattern becomes much more "wild" and "tigery" looking when the striping is broken up. The top stripes would extend over the back in the upper zone and down 1/3 of the body to come to a fine point in the middle zone.  The  belly zone would have stripes wrapping around underneath the body to finish in fine pointed stripes within the middle zone.  The middle zone would also host smaller stripes  as well. The over look is much more wild and lends itself to be more identifiable as tigery stripes.

MACKEREL STRETCHED ROSETTES are arranged in the same way as the zoned mackerel though instead of just a solid colored stripe it opens up and resembles what I like to think of as a