Expert: Jessica - 3/24/2011

Question
I cant post a picture. My cat is dark gray with black stripes and spots. She has a big black stripe running down her whole back to the tip of her tail. Her paws and stomach are plain white and she has a white V shape on her nose like a Snowshoe. She has large, green eyes and medium sized ears. She hates being alone but will sometimes attack someone without warning.

Answer
Hi Dorinda,

It sounds like your cat is what's called a domestic. This is a cat that has no predominant breed. If she has short hair, she would be a domestic short hair, and if she has long hair, she would be a domestic long hair. This would be her breed.

The color pattern you're describing sounds like a "tabby with white". Most likely, she is a brown tabby from the sounds of it. Brown tabbies come in a variety of shades from rusty browns to cool grayish colors, with black stripes. But it's possible she could be a black tabby or even a silver tabby.  You may want to do a search for some images of those cats to see what she is closest to.

Tabbies are further broken down into classics (also called marbles) and mackerels.  Classics have very thick stripes with a swirl-like pattern on their sides, sometimes called a bullseye.  Mackerels have thin, straight stripes. So when all is said and done, yours may be a brown mackerel tabby with white domestic long hair. Or a silver classic tabby with white domestic short hair, etc.

Hope that helps!

Jessica