Siamese breed

Question
We recently adopted a new cat from the local shelter. He is very playful and intelligent and we love him. We were told that the cat is a siamese breed.  This cat has the coloring of a siamese, blue eyes and all but has white paws and chin. Do you know of such a breed of siamese?  

Answer
Hi, James.  Sounds like one of two things.  Either the cat is a Siamese mix, or he's a new breed called a Snowshoe.  The purebred Snowshoe comes from a deliberately man-created breed.  It was started using a cross between a Traditional Siamese and a bicolor American Shorthair.  Most purebred cat registries recognize Snowshoes as purebreds, but the most conservative ones, particulary the CFA, don't as of yet.  

Snowshoes look identical to Traditional (applehead) Siamese cats, but they have white feet.  These are called "mitted".  Some have white on their faces and sometimes their chest, too, and these are called "bicolors".  Sounds like you probably have a bicolor Snowshoe, to me.

Most Snowshoes have the personality traits of the Siamese rather than of the American Shorthair - they're intelligent, outgoing, talkative and curious.