Welcome to my weird world!

Feline Updates

"The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats"
Albert Schweitzer

I was reading through the comments that people made about my blog in the past, and I noticed that quite a few of the commenters seemed to be interested in my cats. I therefore thought that perhaps a good way to re-introduce myself on the sight was to introduce my cats!

As an aside, I don't entirely agree with Albert Schweitzer's quote, above: for me, the pleasures of a good book or film and writing would have to be up there as escapes, and life really isn't that miserable, is it?! Since I was last active on here, I have become a lot more involved with music, now singing with two choirs in our area, both very different. One is a Gaelic choir that is very social and all about keeping Gaelic culture alive and spending time with other people who have a passion for Gaelic culture; many of the members can't read music and have no choral background. The other is much more serious and we are expected just to be able to open our books, be given a starting note and then sing, making the ability to read music an absolute requirement. Their repertoire is correspondingly serious: Mozart, Beethoven, etc. and mostly in Latin or English so very much easier for me than the Gaelic music. I love both choirs but for very different reasons.

Anyway, back to the cats! When I was last active on here, I had four cats: two moggies and two pedigrees, all neutered and strictly pets. In the intervening years, my other half (still the same one - Richard) and I 'found' the world of cat showing and, having fallen in love with the Asian breed group, particularly the semi-longhaired Tiffanies, began breeding pedigree cats.

I bought our first Tiffanie as a gift for Richard back in 2008, not because she was a Tiffanie, but because she was a black cat and Richard had always fancied a black cat. I'd seen her when visiting a friend who bred them, and ended up booking her as a surprise present for Richard. Her pet name, Annas, is Gaelic for 'surprise', though her official name is Rushbrooke Kahlua Over Ice. Actually, to give her full title, she is Champion & UK & Imperial Grand Premier Rushbrooke Kahlua Over Ice: the highest-titled Tiffanie in the world, and we weren't even interested in showing when we bought her! We got into showing by chance and discovered a new passion.

A year later, we got our first two Tiffanie breeding queens, one a half-sister to Annas, from the same breeder, and the other from someone I happened to come across online. The Tiffanie is the semi-longhaired member of the Asian Group, the other breeds in that group being the Burmilla (shaded shorthair), the Asian Smoke (smoke shorthair), the Asian Self (single-colour shorthair) and the Asian Tabby (tabby shorthair), and all members of the group can be freely bred to each other or to Burmese. They are supposed to be Burmese in other colours and patterns (and hair length, in the case of the Tiffanie), so should look identical to Burmese aside from their coat colour/pattern. We had our first litters in 2010 and have just had our third litter of great-grandchildren of those first two girls. Our current cats are, in order of age:

Jinny - 14 years old this year and the matriarch of the household. She is a longhaired rescue moggy who had been abused before we got her, to the point that she would literally empty her bowels where she stood if you walked into the room too fast. What a long way she's come in the intervening years: she's been Best in Show Household Pet on numerous occasions and now comes to greet all our visitors, bless her. Her name is an old Scots word meaning 'white wave', and we called her that for the flowing white fur on her tummy, though she is otherwise a brown tabby.

Ali - nine years old back in April, he is a shorthaired rescue moggy from the same sanctuary that Jinny came from. I fell in love with him as a tiny kitten when I was volunteering there, and he's been with us since he was six weeks old (his mum had rejected him, so there was no good reason for them to wait any longer than that before letting us take him home). As it happens, he'll soon be leaving us, because although on paper he is my cat, in his heart he belongs to my oldest friend and former housemate, who is currently in the process of moving to Brighton and will be taking him with her. Ali is short for Droch Ailig, which is Scots Gaelic for 'rascal'.

Annas - seven years old this coming December. She is a black self Tiffanie (meaning black and nothing else), with the most stunning yellow eyes. You've already heard about her, though.

Dàrna - five years old back in February, she is one of our original two breeding queens, though now neutered into hormone-free retirement. She is a chocolate tortie silver shaded Tiffanie, and her official name is Imperial Grand Champion Dayjoy Orla - she was only the sixth Tiffanie to win the Imperial title (Annas having been the first). Dàrna is Scots Gaelic for 'second', because she was our second breeding girl. She has the biggest purr on the planet and loves everyone, and we're so lucky to have started our line with her, because she's passed that temperament on to all of her descendants. Ironically, the only reason she was still with her breeders when we got in touch with them is because the person she was supposed to have gone to, as a breeding queen, had visited her a few days previously and decided that they didn't want her because "her tail wasn't plumey enough". More fool them, because when her coat had grown in fully she developed the most fabulous plume. Their loss, our gain!

Tia - four years old yesterday, she came to us as a two-year-old because her owners were giving up breeding and I managed to persuade them to let me have her rather than lose her unique pedigree from the gene pool. Her proper name is Champion Skampaws Ashputtel Galatea, Ashputtel being the prefix of the people who were kind enough to let me take her when they stopped breeding. She is a chocolate silver shaded Burmilla, and is an absolute sweetheart with the most beautiful face and a huge purr. She's currently pregnant with a litter of Dàrna's great-grandchildren.

Fiona - four years old in September and Dàrna's daughter from her first litter, she is an apricot silver shaded Tiffanie and was the first of our own kittens that I fell in love with. She's a bit of a comedienne but also one of the cuddliest of our cats, with a huge purr like her mum. Her proper name is Champion Cagaran Beannachd-Fionn, Cagaran being our prefix, meaning 'Darling' in Scots Gaelic, and Beannachd-Fionn meaning fair-haired blessing in the same language. We started out naming our litters in alphabetical order and they all have Gaelic names unless that isn't possible (our 'H' litter, for instance had to be named in old Scots because there are no Gaelic words beginning with 'H').

Lhasa - four years old in November, she is a brown smoke Tiffanie. Like Tia, she came to us as an adult, because she has a unique pedigree that I didn't want to see wasted when her breeder gave up. She is much more serious than a lot of our others, but very into cuddles and loves being a lap cat. Her proper name is Champion Adelfsh Amar Stella and she is also pregnant with a litter of Dàrna's great-grandchildren at the moment.

Apollo - four years old in December, he is an apricot silver Burmilla and the only one of our cats who lives outside, because he sprays to scent-mark his territory and therefore has to have a run in the garden. His proper name is Champion Kagura Apollo, though he is usually known as 'Peachy'. He's a really soppy boy who rolls around on his back for belly rubs when we visit him in his run.

Donny - three years old in August and the first boy that we kept from our own breeding. He is a brown Asian Smoke from a mating between Dàrna and a Burmese boy who has since sadly passed away, another reason we've kept him: his pedigree is absolutely unique and unrepeatable. His proper name is Grand Champion Cagaran Deathach-Donn, the name translating as 'Brown Smoke' - not very original, but he suits Donny. We are extremely lucky that he has never started spraying so he is able to live in the house, though we keep him in either the bathroom or the kitchen so that it would be easy to clean up if he ever did decide to start! He's an absolute sweetheart, who will stand on his hind legs on the chest of drawers in the bathroom or the backs of the kitchen chairs to give nose-rubs to anyone who'll let him. He's just fathered his first litter of kittens out of Tilly.

Sonia - two years old back in January, she is a Usual (black ticked tabby) Somali, our only example of that breed, though she is now spayed. Her proper name is Champion Gowlaren Sonia Cagaran and she is very much Richard's cat - she's been suspicious of me since the day we met her at her breeder's house! Unfortunately, when she went off to stud last year she picked up a gut parasite and although that has now been completely cleared up, she developed the habit of toileting inappropriately and we've therefore had to move her out to Apollo's pen. Since they're both entire, she had to be spayed to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but they're both very happy together, and it's great that he's now got a companion, so it's worked out well in the end.

Eiteag and Ayla - littermates who turned two last month, they were from Fiona's first litter and are therefore grandchildren of Dàrna's. They are both Tiffanies, but Eiteag is a cream silver shaded Burmese pattern male and Ayla is a chocolate tortie silver shaded Burmese pattern female. His proper name is Champion Cagaran Éiteag-Bàrr, which means 'Cream Quartzite' and hers is Champion Cagaran Eala-Bianach, meaning 'Furry Swan'. I fell in love with Ayla the moment she was born and wasn't planning to keep Eiteag, but somehow he just didn't end up leaving when their siblings did and his type just kept getting better and better so we decided to have a couple of litters from him. Like Donny, he has never started spraying, so he shares with uncle and one of Ayla's sons. Eiteag is the sire of the litters due to Tia and Lhasa, and if there is a suitable boy in one of those, Eiteag will be neutered. Both Eiteag and Ayla love riding on people's shoulders and have given quite a few people a fright by suddenly launching themselves onto a passing shoulder!

Tilly - two years old in October, she is the only descendant that we have from our other foundation queen, Katie, who sadly died of a bacterial infection a couple of years ago. Luckily, we had allowed one of our friends to have a daughter from Katie's second litter, and our friends let us have one of Katie's granddaughters back. Tilly is very like her granny, though a little bit less serious and a lot more talkative. Her mother was sired by the same boy as Eiteag and Ayla, so she is their half-niece. She is currently in the nest with her first litter, sired by Donny - four gorgeous kittens in four different colours: black smoke, chocolate smoke, brown or chocolate silver shaded and chocolate shaded Burmese pattern. Her proper name is Anizz Tilleadh gu Cagaran, Anniz being our friend's prefix and the rest meaning 'Return to Cagaran'.

Small - a year old last month, Small was Eiteag's first daughter and is a cream shaded Tiffanie. I wasn't planning to keep her, which is why we gave her the name 'Small' (she's huge - it was bad irony), but we fell in love with her and by the time we admitted to ourselves that she wasn't going anywhere, 'Small' had stuck. Her proper name is Champion Cagaran Fileánta, which is Gaelic for 'Poetic'. She is very purry and very cuddly and loves to come under the bed covers and cuddle up to the back of our knees. She's very close with her granny, Fiona.

The final two are Zuko and Hailey, who are our 'cinnamon outcross' kittens: Zuko is nine months old tomorrow and Hailey is a month younger. He is a spotted tabby and she is a classic tabby, but critically, they both carry the cinnamon gene. Cinnamon is a full Championship colour for Asians, but the gene is vanishingly rare: I know of only about a half-dozen carriers, meaning that if you want to breed cinnamons (which I do - I love the colour), you would have to be prepared to inbreed quite heavily. I don't like that idea, so have instead embarked on a programme of outcrossing (breeding to a different breed) to bring in the cinnamon gene. It's a five-generation process to get back to the point where you have a cat that is registered as a full Asian and can be shown, the intermediate generations being known as 'F1 Cat of Asian Type', 'F2 Cat of Asian Type' and so on. Zuko is Ayla's son by a cinnamon Australian Mist and Hailey is Eiteag's daughter out of a cinnamon Ocicat. When they are old enough, they will be mated to pass the cinnamon gene into the next generation and four years from now we will have the possibility of producing our first full cinnamon Asian!

I think that's probably enough for now, though if you want to know any more about what we're up to, our website is www.cagaran.co.uk.