Cat colours and Patterns

Question
Hello Ali,  I work in a SPCA as an animal health technician and have been attempting to find an article or book that describes cat coat colours and patterns.  I have been fostering a cat with the unusual colour that a friend has described as "Van".  With attempting to find something suitable to order online has led me here.  Pictures would be most helpful.  I was thinking I may have to resort to putting together a piece by piece layout and making a poster out of what I can find for representation.  Though so hoping you could point me in the right direction.  Looking for the tabby patterns and the various pointed colourations, are my two biggest goals with this.  A book with all of these within would be most ideal.  Not so particular with specific breeds but more so of the varying colours cat may have.  

Answer
Sandra,

To be honest up until I received your email I'd never associated the term Van with a coat color or pattern, instead I was under the impression that a purebred kitty called a Turkish Van was what folks referred to when they talked about a Van kitty. According to the websites I've been able to check out the term van when you're talking about coat color/pattern refers to a mostly white kitty with colored patches on his/her head/tail. While I'm sure that many complete cat breed books and kitty encyclopedias you could purchase at your local bookstore or online would have information about the purebred Turkish Van I did manage to find a few websites that you might find useful. The websites are as follows:

- http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/coatcolorcat.php

(The "Van" information can be found under the 'Spotting' heading on this site.)

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Van

- http://www.thecatsite.com/Snips/106/Cat-Coat-Colors-and-Patterns.html (this site does contain photos of various color characteristics and explains various common coat patterns for cats)

- http://www.thecatsite.com/general/colors.html

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicolor_cat

- http://www.iams.com/iams/en_US/data_root/html/cat_breed/photo_html/turkvan__lg.h... (photo of a kitty classified as having Van markings)

- http://cat-chitchat.pictures-of-cats.org/2008/02/cat-coats-solid-and-white.html

Hopefully this information sends you off in the right direction for your project. I wish you the best of luck. If there's every any other cat related question that you have please feel free to contact me again and I'll do my absolute best to help you out to the best of my ability.