No breeder is on record here yet. Portugal’s FIFe member club does not list this breed in its breeder directory at all, so an absence here says nothing about whether anyone breeds it in Portugal.
Large, muscular cat with distinctive Van pattern (colored head and tail, white body). Famous for loving water.
Ancient natural breed from the Lake Van region of Turkey. Famous for swimming ability and love of water. Distinctive Van pattern with colored markings only on head and tail. Turkish national treasure.
Typically 4.5-9.1 kg and 33-43 cm at the shoulder — published as one range rather than separately for males and females.
Generally described as agile, intelligent, loyal, playful, energetic, active and affectionate.
That is the breed in general, not a promise about one animal. Ask the breeder what their own line is like, and meet the parents before you decide.
Breed reference from The Cat API.
Drawn from sources rather than written as an opinion — cited health research, the registry’s own standard, and peer-reviewed longevity. The Cat API; Prevalence of congenital sensorineural deafness in a population of client-owned purebred kittens in the United Kingdom — Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine; FIFe breed standard. One breeder’s animals can differ from any of it, and an empty column means we hold nothing for that side rather than that there is nothing to say.
FIFe standard · Turkish Van
As the FIFe standard sets it out. Every line below is the standard’s own wording.
Semi-long on the body, fine and silky texture.
No woolly undercoat.
Preferred, permissible, undesirable and disqualifying are FIFe’s own words about the breed. They describe what the standard asks for — not an assessment of any individual dog, and not ours.
Base colour
Chalk white with no trace of yellow
Shortened from FIFe standard TUV — each label is the standard’s own wording with the verdict lifted into the tag beside it. Read the full clause at source.
Breed-level information from The Cat API. It describes the Turkish Van in general; any individual animal can differ.
Known hereditary risks for the Turkish Van breed, and the specific documentation to request from any breeder before paying a deposit. A responsible breeder will have these readily available; deflection is a red flag.
1 condition documentedThis is breed-level literature, not veterinary advice about an individual animal — your vet knows the animal.
Health checklist (PDF)Linked to the same dominant white coat / blue eye mechanism documented in other white cats. A UK study found congenital sensorineural deafness in nearly half of the solid-white kittens it tested from this population — but that figure describes fully white individuals closer to the ancestral 'Van Kedisi' cats of the Lake Van region than to most Western pedigree Turkish Vans, which are bred to the 'Van pattern' standard: a white body with colour confined to the head and tail.
What to ask for
A BAER hearing test result for the specific kitten, and ideally both parents, with the proportion of white coat noted. There is no DNA test for deafness itself
This is where Turkish Van owners’ own photographs will go, from the pet profiles they keep here. Nobody has added one to a public page yet.
A photograph in a pet profile stays private to its owner. We will not put one here unless they ask us to.
No Turkish Van breeder has a record on this platform yet, so there is nothing to list. That is a gap in our coverage, not a fact about the breed.
