Destruction!

 

Destruction!

                                Pansy and Clown (blue and chocolate)

Warning! If you are averse to animals, do not read on.

Polly spoke about her Labrador breeding friends and the destruction the puppies wrought, and it reminded me of our brief foray into breeding Burmese cats.

It had never been our intention to breed cats. We had had an accidental breeding of Jack Russells, which was fun for the children, and also why we ended up with four of them – JRs, I mean, though we did have four children, too.

My sister and brother-in-law had a beautiful brown Burmese, called Tip, because he had a white tip to his tail. A few years after I left home – the baby of the family - they gave my parents a little queen who had come to the end of her breeding programme (!) Liza gave them a great deal of pleasure and much appreciated the freedom and love they gave her.

When we decided to acquire a cat, we remembered how affectionate and curious Burmese cats were, and found a local breeder, who had a pretty little brown queen, a few months old. They encouraged us to breed from her, and we thought it would be interesting for the children. That encouragement is not generally given these days, but this was many years ago.

The kittens were enchanting. From Alicat we had brown, chocolate, blue and lilac offspring. Each child and its friends had different favourites, so, naturally, we ended up with quite a few cats.

Pansy Blue as a kitten

People often claim to ‘know’ that cats and dogs are instinctive enemies and cannot live together, and take pleasure in promulgating the myth. We have found them to be allies and friends. The cats groom the dogs’ heads and faces and the dogs step between arguing cats to defuse the situation, as they would with warring dogs.

              Cariadd, (Dalmatian) with six Burmese, one brown, one blue, three chocolates and a lilac. They would climb on her for comfort if they started arguing.

We were extraordinarily lucky with the Jack Russells, known chasers – and killers – of fur. When we brought Alicat home, I sat down, and Daisy JR jumped up on my lap! We never had a problem with them, but I would not risk it again. It just didn’t occur to us to worry.

Puppies are fun, adventurous, and messy, but they don’t climb. Kittens clamber up everything in sight, including people. The view from the top of someone’s head, or the curtains, is exciting and different. If there are no people or furniture available to ascend, the wallpaper will do.

Inevitably, the time came, at three months of age, to bid the kittens farewell to their new homes. Interviewing prospective owners was never a job we relished, but we wanted to ensure our little creatures went to loving homes. Equally, I felt we had to be honest about what they were taking on. Burmese kittens do not lie around looking beautiful, although they can. They are adventurous and curious and can get themselves into unusual hiding places.

We once lost a litter temporarily. We had put them in our en suite shower room, where we were sure they would be safe and could not escape. When I went in to check on them and feed them, I couldn’t see them anywhere. Our shower room is not vast and the window was securely closed. Panic set in momentarily but something caused me to look more closely at the bidet and sure enough, the kittens were tucked safely under the pedestal. They soon emerged for their food, and we found a different room for them to grow up in.

As well as giving prospective owners directions to our house, a task at which I am still very poor, I would test their resolve by telling them what to expect. If they were experienced cat people, they would quickly understand. One man put it succinctly – ‘So, we look for the house with the wallpaper hanging off in shreds.’ I agreed that was the case and he came to collect his kitten anyway.

While kittens may not eat the carpet or the plaster on the walls, or chew the door frame, your shoes, or anything else that takes their fancy, as puppies will, they have sharp claws, like needles. They will tear at your soft furnishings, turn the stair carpet into a series of scratching posts, scale the heights of the kitchen cupboards, and pierce your heart with their unbelievably silky fur and huge, lustrous eyes. A warm purring cat on your lap or next to you as you lie on your bed is worth more than a king’s ransom.

If dog/s join the cat/s, you are more blessed than you could imagine.

We haven’t bred puppies, or kittens for many years. It is exhausting, being responsible for so many tiny beings. Guinea pigs, mice and gerbils are much easier, but once our children grew out of the farming phase, we ceased breeding altogether. Oh, that is, until our youngest child was born. She came during the cat breeding phase. We must have got muddled, somewhere! 

Herbert with Bethan

In place of a rabbit . . .

Clown, Magic and Angus

Clown and Magic were chocolate and Angus was lilac

Many years ago, when all my children were still living at home and my parents were alive and living near enough to be visited every day, I started to breed Burmese cats. It was a somewhat foolish venture – I had more than enough to occupy my days as I was also teaching full-time and Barry was frequently abroad on business – but it was fun.

It all started because Susannah, then my youngest child, said she would like a rabbit. We had dogs, of course, but a rabbit has such soft fur and feels so warm. We had had rabbits before, when Susannah was quite tiny, and they had all come to a premature end for one reason or another. Barry had reached the conclusion that rabbits were really too big to be penned, even in the palatial dwellings he constructed for them, with attached runs so that they could hop around outside when the fancy took them. We had tried house-training them – I knew it could be done as my mother had kept a house rabbit when she was a child – but we were singularly unsuccessful and couldn’t keep pace with the chewed wires which effectively severed us from the outside world.

Barry didn’t want to disappoint Susannah and so suggested that we get a cat. My sister and brother-in-law had owned a very beautiful brown Burmese cat and had given my parents a feisty little ex-breeding tortie queen. I had been very impressed by these striking cats and their strong personalities and so we began our search. We were fortunate in finding breeders not far from us who had a female a few months old. Knowing that we would not be able to resist her, nonetheless we went to see her and of course, brought her home with us. She gloried in the registered name of ‘Illuskass Coriander Autumn Lady’. (Illuskass was the breeders’ prefix and was Greek for ‘beautiful cat’.) We tried several names for her but never reached a definite decision and she eventually became known as Alicat, which sounds like Alley Cat but isn’t.

At that time we had three Jack Russell terriers, a breed known for their propensity to chase fur but when we carefully introduced the diminutive cat they behaved with great decorum. Daisy was so intent on ‘being good’ that she jumped up on my lap. We were persuaded by the breeders that it would be good to breed from Alicat and we were excited by the prospect of having home-grown kittens. How little we knew!

Alicat duly presented us with five delightful kittens. They were beautiful and we managed to avoid keeping all of them by selling three. A year or so later Ali had a second litter and then her daughter Sweet Pea gave birth to five and we kept a further two. Sweet Pea’s brother, Herbert, was terrified of kittens and stayed well clear of them.

Kittens in a cat carrier

From the top, brown, lilac, blue, brown

By now another human baby had joined the clan and was often to be seen sleeping with one or two kittens or cats in her cot, her bare feet luxuriating in the silky warmth of real fur. All those old wives’ tales of cats suffocating babies were disproved.

They were delightful cats, very affectionate and faithful and lively. Curtains were hung purely for their amusement, they thought, and the warm-to-the-touch wallpaper provided wonderful scratching surfaces. They jumped and climbed and clambered to the highest points in the room, settling on cupboard tops, easily capable of leaping eight feet, even while carrying a kitten. If a human were around, shoulders were the preferred perching post and assuming that position often involved climbing up the human. This could be painful, especially if said human were clad in thin clothes, like pyjamas, for example.

The first time I saw Ali carrying a kitten I was quite worried. The little creature was limp and seemed unconscious, not rallying for some while after being deposited in a new location. As each succeeding kitten behaved similarly I realised this reaction was entirely normal and part of Mother Nature’s scheme to protect little beings.

I made a point of telling potential purchasers of our kittens all the features of the Burmese breed that might put them off. They are very vocal cats, with loud voices, demanding a lot of attention, but enjoying conversation with their owners, frequently in the still of the night. They are elegantly clumsy and will knock over ornaments or vases and fall out of first floor windows. They are very intelligent and soon work out how to open doors. In cahoots with dogs they will frequently raid the fridge and the food cupboards. They are destructive and do not understand that curtains should not be reduced to scrambling nets nor wallpaper to paper fountains. They are not cats that take kindly to being left to their own devices, needing company and stimulation.

Our kittens always went to their new homes between twelve and sixteen weeks old when they were at their most beguiling. In each new litter there were individuals that demanded to be kept – at least that’s what the children felt. Finally, we decided that we should spay our two queens and enjoy the nine cats we had. With hindsight we should have resisted encouragement to breed from Ali but we never regretted it.  It was hard work and gave us all great pleasure although we would never encourage others to undertake it without serious thought.

When the cats squabbled they would take refuge on Cariadd who was always rather worried about the invasion but never protested. She is hosting six cats here, one brown, one blue, three chocolate and one lilac

We have never been tempted – well, perhaps just fleetingly – to breed from our Dalmatians!! 

Pet Pride, Shadow Shot Sunday #104 - Pansy Blue

The breeders of our brown Burmese cat encouraged us to breed from her - I am more resistant to such suggestions these days! She was a pretty little queen and gave us many years of pleasurable companionship and five litters of kittens - three planned by us and two of her own desiring! In her second litter there was a blue kitten which we kept and called Pansy Blue.

Pansy had the most amazingly luminous eyes which changed expression remarkably. When she gazed at humans her eyes were soft and loving with no hint of evil but sometimes when she looked at one of her feline house mates her expression would  harden and she looked every inch the fighter though she never squabbled with the others - perhaps the look was enough!

She was blind for the last two years of her life and we so missed her loving looks though she continued to chat to us as she had done all her life.

As you can see from the photographs a 'blue' cat is really grey. Against a blue background the coat looks 'bluer'.The 'blue' is a dilution of black. Our children became so used to the descriptive colours of the cats that other animals were so categorised. One day Susannah described a squirrel as being 'blue' and that's when we had to explain that colours vary acccording to breed and species and custom. A white horse is a 'grey', red hunting jackets are 'pink', a brown-spotted Dalmatian is 'liver' while a brown Labrador is 'chocolate' ,and so on ad infinitum.
Thank you to the hosts of these memes. To see more please click on Pet Pride or Shadow Shot Sunday - and maybe you might be tempted to join in, too!

Shadow Shot Sunday #88; Camera Critters #94

My Critters have provided my Shadows this week.

My husband frequently travelled to Malaysia on business and brought back these Royal Selangor pewter cats from one trip. They reminded him of the Burmese cats we then had. Royal Selangor pewter is the world's leading manufacturer of pewter. In 1885 a young man called Yong Koon sailed from China to the Malay peninsula. He established a cottage industry employing pewtersmiths from his family and friends. About ten years later the thriving business became known as the Selangor Pewter Company. In the early 1970s Selangor Pewter moved to its present location in Kuala Lumpur and in 1992 became Royal Selangor to mark the bestowing of a Royal Warrant by the Sultan of Selangor.To celebrate its centenary in 1985 it manufactured the world's largest tankard. It stands 6' 6" tall and has a capacity of 4920 pints. 
Today Royal Selangor produces a wide variety of items including jewellery, hallmarked silver and hand-painted collectables as well as pewter.

The second photograph shows the pewter cats in company with some other cats and a couple of human critters.The figurine of the little girl asleep at her desk is called 'Forty Winks'. It was modelled by Peter Holland for the Great Ormond Street Hospital series and was produced in the Queen's Golden Jubilee year, 2002. A percentage of the purchase price went to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
The Royal Doulton sculpture of the little boy was modelled by Adrian Hughes and issued in 1991. It's called 'Welcome Home' and represents the return home of a wartime evacuee in a series called 'Children of the Blitz'.  

Thank you to Tracy from 'Hey Harriet' for hosting Shadow Shot Sunday and to Misty Dawn for 'Camera Critters'
Please click on the underlined titles to see more interpretations of each meme.

Rigs

Recently, courtesy of chick-lit (thank you, Catherine Alliott) I discovered the term 'rig'. It describes a castrated male (we're talking domestic animals here!) which retains some sexual interest – hormonal maybe? This means that the affected animal still has interest but not equipment to indulge in reproductive acts (oh, okay, SEX!) Strictly speaking it refers to an incompletely castrated male in livestock species (horse and cattle)

I think Monty Ocicat may be a feline rig. Last night I hauled him off Winston because he had taken him by the scruff of the neck – as all members of the cat family do (don't you remember those natural history programmes you watched with your family and the difficulties provoked by multi-generational viewing when something explicit was aired? Oh, where to look? Control your breathing – you're watching something entirely normal. Why are your parents clearing their throats so much and brightly suggesting a cup of tea might be nice?)

To continue, having grabbed Winston's neck, Monty mounted him and went through the pantomime of attempting to mate him, padding his back feet and keeping tight hold of his scruff. Not unnaturally, Winston objected strongly to this. Sometimes when Monty misbehaves he is given 'time out' in the conservatory, but on this occasion he was allowed to remain in company.

There are occasions when Winston tries things that Monty doesn't care for. He attempts to suckle from Monty who happens to be the same colour as Winston's mother. Our chocolate Burmese, Clown, often tried the same thing with his lilac brother Angus and well into maturity buttheir mother was brown! Monty tolerates the attention for a considerable time but once the teeth come into play as well as the kneading paws he administers a sharp rebuke and is left in peace.

I think Monty is tolerant because he is partial to kneading when curled up with Jenna-the-Labrador. He doesn't go as far as trying to suckle from her but his rapturous, increasingly loud purrs accompany ever more insistent padding until even Jenna's thick fur can no longer cushion the pain of his needle-sharp claws. She growls at him and he desists but remains at the side of his favourite dog.

Pet Pride - Burmese cats

Many years ago we acquired a brown Burmese kitten and were encouraged by her breeders to mate her. Kittens are adorable and we couldn't resist keeping one - or two! We bred four or five litters from AliCat and her chocolate daughter Sweet Pea. Kittens that didn't settle in their new homes came back to us and each of our four children had a favourite so we soon found ourselves with nine cats. Alicat also made her own arrangements on a couple of occasions with a disreputable-looking Tom cat. (I do wish people would neuter their free-roaming cats!)He must have had something about him for his offspring were beautiful. AliCat's first half-Burmese were black and would have passed as Bombay cats (a planned cross between a Burmese and an American Shorthair)

The following photographs are quite old and not very good quality but I hope they give some idea of the sleek beauty of these fantastic cats. Burmese cats are talkative, responsive and extremely affectionate.

This is AliCat's first litter. There were three browns and two chocolates. We kept a brown boy, Herbert, and his chocolate sister, Sweet Pea. Their blue eyes turned yellow later.
This is Pansy, a blue kitten from AliCat's second litter. She stayed with us and grew into a beautiful and affectionate companion. She had the softest eyes but went completely blind in her last year of life and her eyes lost their expressiveness.
Like most cats Burmese will seek out warm spots. The top of the aquarium was a great place to hang out. Not only was it warm but there was always a slight chance of a quick snack!

There are seven cats in this photograph. From left to right: Angus (lilac); Clown (chocolate); Pansy (blue); Alicat (brown); Magic (chocolate); Sweet Pea (chocolate); Singleton (blue)

Thank you to Bozo and his human for initiating and hosting this meme.

To see more lovely pets please click here.