Introduction
The Balinese is an Oriental breed with long hair and Siamese-style markings, or points. They resemble a Siamese with a medium-length, silky coat and a plumed tail, and are not nearly as fluffy as a Himalayan. Balinese do not require a lot of grooming. They are extremely intelligent cats, though less talkative than their Siamese ancestors.
Coat and Color
Like the Siamese, there are now two different varieties of Balinese being bred and shown: traditional and contemporary. The traditional Balinese has a coat approximately two inches long over its entire body. Traditionals are sturdy and robust cats with a semi-rounded muzzle and ears. The traditional Balinese closely resembles a Ragdoll cat, though they do not share any of the same genes or breeding other than having a partially Siamese ancestry.
A contemporary Balinese has a much shorter coat and is virtually identical to a standard show Siamese except for its tail, which is a graceful silky plume.
In most associations, the Balinese is accepted in a full range of colors, including the four traditional Siamese point colors of seal, blue, chocolate, and lilac, as well as less traditional colors such as red and cream, and patterns such as lynx (tabby) point and tortie point. However, in the Cat Fanciers' Association, the Balinese is only accepted in the four traditional Siamese colors. All other colors and patterns are considered Javanese.
History
The Balinese was originally registered as a "longhaired Siamese", and examples were known from the early 1920s. The occasional long-haired kittens in a Siamese litter were seen as an oddity, and sold as household pets rather than as show cats.
This changed in the mid-1950s, when two breeders, Mrs. Marion Dorsey of Rai-Mar Cattery in California and Mrs. Helen Smith of MerryMews Cattery in New York, decided that they would commence a breeding program for the longhaired cats. Helen Smith named the cats "Balinese" because she felt they showed the grace and beauty of Balinese dancers, and because "longhaired Siamese" seemed a rather clunky name for such graceful felines.