Who started Ginger Cat Appreciation Day and why?

Chris Roy, a Milwaukee software engineer, founded it in 2014 in memory of his orange cat Doobert, whom he had cared for since finding him as a stray kitten 17 years earlier.

Are most ginger cats really male?

Yes. Orange color is carried on the X chromosome, so about 80 percent of ginger cats are male; only around one in five is female.

Is this the same as National Cat Day or Cat Lovers' Month?

No. Ginger Cat Appreciation Day is specific to orange-coated cats on September 1, separate from broader observances like National Cat Day on October 29 or month-long cat-appreciation events.

Do ginger cats really get freckles?

Many do. The small black spots on the nose, lips, and gums are a harmless condition called lentigo, most common in orange, calico, and tortoiseshell cats.

Ginger Cat Appreciation Day

Next celebratedTuesday, September 1, 2026

A cat appreciation day on September 1 celebrating ginger and orange-coated cats and the rescued animals that share homes around them.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated February 26, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATESeptember 1

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYAnimals

SUBCATEGORYCats

ORIGIN

Individual Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY

Chris Roy

FIRST OBSERVED

2014

“Chris Roy started the day in 2014 in memory of Doobert, his orange cat of 17 years.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

One grieving owner, one orange cat named Doobert.

Chris Roy, a Milwaukee software engineer and animal-rescue advocate, founded Ginger Cat Appreciation Day in 2014 after the death of his orange cat Doobert, whom he had cared for since finding him as a stray kitten 17 years earlier. The cat also gave his name to Doobert.com, the animal-rescue transport platform Roy launched the same year.

Read the UPI reportvia upi.com

INTRO

The orange cat that stumped geneticists for a hundred years

For more than a century, scientists could explain almost every cat coat except one. They knew orange fur was carried on the X chromosome, which is why roughly four in five ginger cats are male. What they could not find was the gene itself.

The answer arrived in 2025. Two teams, one at Stanford and one in Japan, traced orange coloring to a small piece of missing DNA that switches on a gene called ARHGAP36 in the cells that make pigment. The mechanism appears to exist in no other mammal.

Ginger Cat Appreciation Day, every September 1, sits on top of all that biology. It started as a private tribute to one orange cat, and it has become a day to look closely at the strangest coat in the house.

ORIGINS

Ginger Cat Appreciation Day history

INTRODUCTION

The most famous ginger cat in Britain has no birth certificate and no fixed identity. He is simply Jock, and there has been a Jock at Winston Churchill's old home, Chartwell, almost continuously since the 1960s.

Churchill received the first one for his 88th birthday in 1962, a marmalade cat that often sat on his knee. When the family handed Chartwell to the National Trust, they asked that a ginger cat with a white bib and four white socks always live there. A rescue named Jock VII took up the post in 2020.

CHAPTER 01

The puzzle hiding in plain sight

Ginger cats are everywhere in culture, but their color was a genuine scientific mystery. Geneticists worked out generations ago that orange was sex-linked, riding on the X chromosome. A male cat has one X, so a single copy of the orange variant turns him fully ginger.

A female cat has two X chromosomes and needs the variant on both. That is hard to inherit, which is why only about 4 percent of female cats are orange. The same chromosome rule explains calicos and tortoiseshells, which are almost always female.

CHAPTER 02

A gene found at last

For decades the gene behind all of this stayed hidden. In 2025, a Stanford team led by Christopher Kaelin and a Kyushu University team in Japan published their findings back-to-back in the same journal. Both pointed to the same culprit.

The cause is a small deletion in a non-coding stretch of DNA. The protein it controls, ARHGAP36, is normally silent in pigment cells. Remove that switch and the gene turns on where it should not, pushing the coat from black and brown toward red and orange. Kaelin called it "a genetic exception that was noticed over a hundred years ago."

CHAPTER 03

From one cat to a calendar day

The holiday itself is far smaller and far more personal than the science. Chris Roy, a software engineer in Milwaukee, found a stray kitten in 1997 and named him Doobert. The two were together for 17 years.

After Doobert died in 2014, Roy started Ginger Cat Appreciation Day in his memory. The same cat inspired the name of Doobert.com, the animal-rescue transport platform Roy built that year to move shelter animals toward homes.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love Ginger Cat Appreciation Day

SCIENCE

An ordinary house cat hides a mechanism found in no other mammal.

Orange cats reach their color through a mechanism that appears in no other mammal, switching on a gene where it is normally silent. That makes the common house cat a rare natural window into how pigment is controlled.

RESCUE

It points attention toward shelter animals

The day was built by an owner who turned his grief into a rescue-transport platform. Marking it channels affection for ginger cats into fostering, volunteering, and adoption for cats of every color.

LANGUAGE

It honors a cat known by many names

The same coat is called orange or red in the United States and ginger or marmalade across the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. The day gives a single, shared focus to a cat that different cultures describe in different words.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Orange recognized as X-linked

Geneticists establish that orange coat color in cats rides on the X chromosome, but cannot identify the gene responsible.

A ginger cat wins twice

Orangey, a red tabby, takes his second PATSY Award for Breakfast at Tiffany's, the only cat to win the animal-acting honor twice.

Churchill's Jock arrives

Winston Churchill receives the ginger cat Jock for his 88th birthday, beginning the Chartwell marmalade-cat tradition still kept today.

Garfield debuts

Jim Davis launches Garfield, the orange tabby who becomes the most widely syndicated comic strip on record.

The day is founded

Chris Roy of Milwaukee creates Ginger Cat Appreciation Day on September 1 in memory of his orange cat Doobert.

The orange gene identified

Stanford and Kyushu University teams publish back-to-back, naming ARHGAP36 as the gene behind orange coat color.

AT A GLANCE

The ginger coat, by the genetics

Inheritance: Sex-linked, carried on the X chromosome
Pattern: Always a tabby; there is no solid-orange gene
Gene: ARHGAP36, identified in 2025
Pigment: Shifts from black-brown eumelanin to red-orange pheomelanin
Freckles: Black lentigo spots common on nose, lips, and gums
Breeds: Seen in Persian, Maine Coon, Abyssinian, British Shorthair

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

Ginger cats have a friendlier, goofier personality than other cats.

The truth

People widely perceive orange cats as friendly, but rigorous studies find little evidence that coat color reliably predicts behavior. Any real tilt is better explained by the male sex-skew, socialization, and owner expectations.

The myth

Some ginger cats have a true solid-orange coat.

The truth

There is no solid-orange gene. Every orange cat is genetically a tabby, so even a coat that looks solid carries faint stripes or ghost markings, clearest in kittens.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate Ginger Cat Appreciation Day

Foster or adopt an orange cat

Catster suggests fostering as a flexible way to mark the day, since shelters often need temporary homes for kittens and recovering cats. Contact a local rescue and ask what kinds of cats need placement now.

VOLUNTEER

Volunteer with a rescue organization

Roy's own cat inspired a platform that moves shelter animals toward adoption. Many groups need help with transport, admin, or at-home tasks for just a few hours a week.

SPOT

Spot the tabby pattern on your ginger cat

Look closely and you will find stripes, swirls, or spots, because every orange cat is a tabby. Even a coat that looks solid carries faint ghost striping.

PHOTOGRAPH

Photograph your cat's freckles

Check the nose, lips, and gums for the small black lentigo spots common in ginger cats. They are harmless, though a vet should glance at any new ones.

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