Breed
history
The Peterbald breed was originally produced in St Petersburg, Russia by experimental
mating of a Donskoy male with an Oriental female in 1993.
The original founder of the breed is Olga
Mironova.
Donskoy and Peterbalds are completely different breeds from the Canadian Sphynx. The gene
that causes the hair loss in the Peterbald/Donskoy is a dominant gene whereas the one that causes the
Sphynx to be hairless is recessive.
Coat
types
Peterbald comes in five coat variations, including:
- Naked: Completely hairless or very fine short hair on the face and extremities. These cats
typically exhibit a soft, warm almost elastic skin that may feel sticky to having a soft silk like feel.
- Chamois: These cats typically exhibit a suede or peach fuzz texture that is dry to the touch and
very soft.
- Flock: These cats typically exhibit a velour/velvet, fine to slightly dense coat that is soft without
any guard hair.
- Brush: These cats typically exhibit a sparse wiry coat irregular in texture. Skin may be seen
through the coat, it may be dense, wiry, short, wavy or kinky. Brush ranges from 5mm or longer
and should not feel or look like a normal coat.
- Straight: These cats exhibit a “normal” straight haired coat. These cats DO NOT carry the gene
for hair loss and will never lose the coat that they are born with.
It is important to note that these descriptions are points along a continuum from completely naked to
fully brush coated. The coat a Peterbald is born with can change over the course of their life. Within
their first two years, they can experience hair growth, hair loss, or a change in fur texture.
Genetics
The relationship between these mutations from most dominant to most recessive is:
Russian Hairless >> Normal Hair >> Sphynx >> Devon Rex.
Test matings show that there are predictable factors (modifiers) dictating the different coat types.
Hrbd (bald) - Russian Hairless Gene Dominant
- hi – minimiser modifier for Improving hairlessness
- ha – maximiser modifier for constraining/weakening hairlessness
Hr – normal haired
Combinations:
~Hr/Hr + hi/ha = normal haired (this could have any combination of modifiers because they only work on
the Hairless-Bald gene)
~Hrbd/Hr + hi/hi = brush coat
~Hrbd/Hr + hi/ha = brush coat with some bald areas
~Hrbd/Hr + ha/ha = brush coat that turns bald
~Hrbd/Hrbd + hi/hi = velour coat
~Hrbd/Hrbd + hi/ha = flocked coat
~Hrbd/Hrbd + ha/ha = rubber bald – born bald and remains bald