Toyger Information

The name 'Toyger' comes from the the words Toy and Tiger.

The Toyger is the result of a cross between a striped Domestic Short Hair and a Standard Bengal Tabby This resulted in a striped Cat which after many years of hard work resembles a 'mini Tiger'.

The Toyger is a designer breed and currently still being developed. Breeder's are striving to give this stunning breed the true look of a mini tiger over the coming years. Many of the features proposed have never been seen in a domestic cat. Progress is slow but steady and it could be several years before the Toyger truly resembles the wild tiger although the founder is aiming at 2010. Judy Sugden says that with a few more years of breeding, her Toygers will look even more like the real thing, with ears that are shorter, smaller eyes, a bigger chin and a wider nose tip.

Toyger's are of medium size with a strong and robust torso. The tail is long and muscular and set and carried low. Toyger's coats are short, thick, plush, soft and feel extremely luxurious.

The ideal colouring for a Toyger is an orange/tan background with dark stripes like that of a Tiger. The stripes are actually long rosettes and should not be uniform like a mackerel pattern but more like long random individual stripes. The coat must be striped with no spotting. The ears small and rounded, good solid bone structure and overall balance.

The Toyger is an ongoing venture with each generation improving on the last to obtain the objective of a beautiful domestic cat with the look of the majestic wild Tiger.

The Toyger has no tiger blood in it but does possess genes passed on from the Asian Leopard cat.