The First Pandora Cat
I was introduced to the Petz games by a lifelong best friend. I remember playing the original game at her apartment. My first cat was a B&W Shorthair, or as they were called back then, a Pouncer.
For some time during my childhood I pined after the game but couldn't find it. This was the 90's and ordering things off the internet wasn't a big thing for us. When I finally came across a version of the game during a holiday shopping trip with my grandfather, it was Catz 3, still new at the time.
I still remember my first four catz - a calico named Cassie, a B&W shorthair named Jake, a Russian Blue and a Siamese whose names I have forgotten.
I meant to breed Cassie with Jake and the other two together, but the calico didn't approve of her arranged mating. The convenience of the love potion didn't exist back then, so I settled for mixing my planned pairs and breeding Cassie with the Blue.
The origin of the Pandora Catz was one of Cassie's grandkittenz. I'd chosen on a whim to breed a daughter of hers with a Main Coon, and the resulting cat stunned me at first sight. She had the body of a calico, mixed, perhaps, with the elegence of a Russian Blue. Her coat was a solid base of white mottled over with burnt orange speckles. Her eyes were brilliant green.
I named her Pandora.
Pandora Types
& Breeding Tips
In my attempts to recreate the original Pandora Cat, I stumbled upon several variations.
Pandora, with her orange mottling over white fur, was what I've come to call a Classic Pandora Cat. These can be most easily obtained by breeding a main coon to a calico or calico mix with a white base coat. Of course, other white-base breeds will work just as well, but I prefer the calico body type.
If you like something a little bit darker, the Reverse Pandora might be your thing. I first got one of these by breeding a classic Pandora Cat to a B&W shorthair mix, but a simpler option is to pair a B&W shorthair with a Main Coon, since that's where the Pandora pattern originates.
The Autumn Pandora is a trickier mutation, since there is no solid orange breed. My Autumn Pandoras have all come from breeding different types of Pandora Catz together or with other mixes.
These are only my three favorite varieties. Other base colors are not excluded, as long as the orange mottling is present and covers the whole cat except the points. When using calicos or Japanese Bobtails, it is common to see kittens with the mottling pattern interrupted by solid patches of color. These are not proper Pandora Catz, though breeding them together can increase your chances of a full Pandora kitten.
Below are examples of simple Pandora cat family trees.
Others of mine have been up to five or six generations, so the coloration does crop up no matter how mixed your cat is.