I love this photo of Luther sent to me by Gail this morning. Maybe after the sad death of Tadar at only 7 years he's auditioning for the role of Grumpy Cat, or he's already starting to take on the role of his namesake John Luther? (don't know who he is? google him) Seriously his colour is not an issue, I honestly don't care, I'm just curious at the undercoat. When I saw him he did look black, but Gail is today seeing changes after just a few days off, and I had commented about his "ghost tabby" markings in previous photos.You can see from this photo that Luther's undercoat is white on his belly and the second photo is the undercoat under his chin.
As we know with Isla the coat of a smoke can look pretty dramatic, she is just stunning. For a cat to be a smoke rather than black one of the parents has to have a white undercoat so the white initially hides in the kitten. A black smoke tabby cat is claimed to display the ghost tabby’s markings, but then they fade out once reaching a year old. They are often difficult to tell from solid color kittens except that smokes sometimes have white around the eyes and a paler stomach. It may take some months to tell which kittens will be smoke because the full coat color is sometimes not seen until the adult coat comes in at 2 years, but the undercoat begins to show at 3 weeks, and by 6-8 weeks they have a mottled look. Isla sure has changed, she did have tabby markings, particularly on her tail when we got her at about 16 - 20 weeks old, but they have now gone.
Luther's ghost tabby marking are clear to see in this photo on the 8th of May. It was my intention to have a black cat as they are always left waiting for homes but if Luther does turn out to be a smoke I can't change my mind now. I've set my heart on him, he will be the next Blanik baby, I would only ever back out if the sex was wrong. As I've said bringing in another female would be unwise!
As we know with Isla the coat of a smoke can look pretty dramatic, she is just stunning. For a cat to be a smoke rather than black one of the parents has to have a white undercoat so the white initially hides in the kitten. A black smoke tabby cat is claimed to display the ghost tabby’s markings, but then they fade out once reaching a year old. They are often difficult to tell from solid color kittens except that smokes sometimes have white around the eyes and a paler stomach. It may take some months to tell which kittens will be smoke because the full coat color is sometimes not seen until the adult coat comes in at 2 years, but the undercoat begins to show at 3 weeks, and by 6-8 weeks they have a mottled look. Isla sure has changed, she did have tabby markings, particularly on her tail when we got her at about 16 - 20 weeks old, but they have now gone. 
Luther's ghost tabby marking are clear to see in this photo on the 8th of May. It was my intention to have a black cat as they are always left waiting for homes but if Luther does turn out to be a smoke I can't change my mind now. I've set my heart on him, he will be the next Blanik baby, I would only ever back out if the sex was wrong. As I've said bringing in another female would be unwise! 