<!-- This article is about the pedigree registered Chantilly(-Tiffany) cat breed, which is officially extinct until another cat is registered under the same breed name. Please don't change the parts of the article about the breed's extinction unless you can provide sources that show a new cat is pedigree registered under the Chantilly or Chantilly-Tiffany name. -->
The Chantilly-Tiffany or Chantilly/Tiffany, also known as the Chantilly or the Foreign Longhair, was a breed of domestic cat which originated in the late 1960s in North America. The Chantilly breed never got off the ground and has always been rare. Furthermore, the Tiffany in the NZCF (New Zealand) is sometimes confused with the Chantilly-Tiffany, but refers to a Burmese longhair.
History
New York, US (1960s–1970s)
The Chantilly-Tiffany breed had its official beginning as a "Foreign Longhair"; in 1967, Jennie Robinson (Neotype Cattery) of New York, US, purchased a pair of semi-foreign longhaired chocolate cats with golden eyes of unknown background as part of an estate sale in White Plains, New York. They may have had the same parents but were not litter-mates. "Thomas" was about a year of age upon purchase, and "Shirley" was around six months.
Shirley's first litter of six kittens was born in May 1969. All kittens had a chocolate coat colour and shared a similar appearance. Robinson initiated a breeding programme to emphasise these traits. In the early 1970s, the ACA registered Thomas and Shirley, along with many of their descendants as "Foreign-Longhairs". This hypothesis has now been discounted. in Los Angeles, US, during the 1920s, known for its elegance. The ACA dropped the "Tiffany" from recognition, their reason being its rarity. As a result, all breed representatives registered under the Lund (Sig Tim Hil Cattery) name became unregistered and lost their pedigree status. The false advertisement and the phone interview could explain the tie to the Burmese in these books. The confusion led the breed to near-extinction.
Canada (1970s–1980s)
Around the same time Robinson and Lund were developing the "Tiffany" in the United States, a Canadian acreage owner was surprised by a cat who appeared at his home in 1973. She was a long-haired, semi-foreign, chocolate, gold-eyed feline of unknown ancestry who gave birth to a litter of kittens. Once again these kittens were carbon copies of their mother, an experience shared by Robinson with the cats in her breeding program. Offspring of these were rescued by Canadian breeders to re-establish the "Tiffany" breed in North America with a cooperative effort with Robinson and Lund. and Oraas and DeRegt undertook efforts to reestablish the breed after consulting a TICA judge. This judge expressed that nothing on the show bench compared with them. It took some major detective work, including calls to every veterinarian in Florida, but they managed to contact the original Chantilly breeders, Robinson and Lund. Oraas and DeRegt also concluded that the Burmese breed was never used in any Chantilly breeding program. Their research did reveal that English breeders had crossed Foreign Longhair (Angora), Havana Brown and Abyssinian cats in an attempt to recreate an Angora-type cat. They suspect that the Chantilly may have been a product of these efforts. Since none of the original Chantillys could be found, they established the breed using registered European Angora, Havana Brown, Abyssinian/Somali and Nebelung cats.
In 1992, Oraas was asked to rename the breed because of possible confusion with the British Tiffanie created in 1981. Wishing to preserve the elegance the "Tiffany" name represented, they chose "Chantilly." In 2000, TICA's Legal Council stated that breeders were only allowed to use the name Chantilly and were not allowed to use TICA and Chantilly/Tiffany together.
Last Chantilly cattery (1990s–2000s)
Oraas bred "Chantilly/Tiffany" cats up to the early 2000s, then seems to have faded from the breeding scene. In 2001, a few catteries were working with the Chantilly: one in Canada (Le Pors), and two in the United States—West Virginia (Emberhearth Cattery) and southern Illinois (Amorino Cattery).