It
took me thirty-three years to find the breath-taking lilac point Himalayan
I fell in love with at eight years of age. Thirteen years prior to finding
it, a chocolate point female was my first step toward that goal. But when
she came into heat, she became anorexic and started losing her hair. I
had no one to breed her to and thus no choice but to spay her. She became
a beautiful pet and companion to my flame point girl.
In 1996 I called a chocolate Himalayan breeder that I was referred to, Teresa Schroeder of NewDestiny Cattery, seeking a lilac point for a pet. She told me that she had a lilac point Himalayan, but that he was breeder quality. When I asked how much she wanted for him, and she responded, I nearly dropped the phone. She then explained how difficult it was genetically to produce a show quality chocolate or lilac point and therefore even breeders come at a premium. My science-oriented nature found the challenge impossible to refuse.
That was the beginning of Donegal Cattery and my second career as a Himalayan and Persian breeder, specializing in chocolate and lilac. My “real” job is selling pharmaceuticals. I have a slogan I’ve shared in my profession: “Some people are so desperate that they would sell cats to buy drugs. I sell drugs to buy cats.”
It
was a slow beginning, finding and acquiring the right cats, and employing
my plan of a two-sided breeding program. I would need to breed visual
to non-carrier on both sides, keep the best, then breed their offspring.
It has been six years, and I’m still working on the second generation.
To improve my chances of producing show quality, I’ve used well-known
Himalayan lines such as Jolee, DeMiara, and Jasea, to name a few. Of my
own first generation breedings, I am currently showing a blue point carrier
that is doing very well in the show rings: Donegal’s Colcannon. He
will be going to Leah Wilson in his new show home in December.
Through an extensive web search, I found that several European breeders
had already achieved visual show quality by incorporating chocolate lines
abandoned by several US breeders, with their Persian lines. For that reason,
my next chocolate carrier on reserve (a blue-cream Persian found through
this website), is a combination of the older, well-
developed
chocolate lines with three generations of Persian outcrosses. She is a
beautiful show quality cat from Natalia Drogaleva of Rarity Cattery. I
am also bringing in show quality Persians that don’t carry chocolate
to help further broaden the genetic pool and develop new carriers with
my existing visual lines.
I am in total agreement with my experienced, chocolate-breeding predecessors regarding how to strive for show quality. I have bred visual to carrier and visual to visual and at best produced breeder quality. A good show quality carrier to carrier breeding will provide the best chance for producing that showable, and better yet, grandable visual.
Even
though is took thirty-three years to acquire that beautiful lilac point
feline seen perched in his glory in my neighbor’s window, it was
worth the wait. Beyond that desire has developed the passion for breeding
the chocolate and lilac colors. I realized early on that my goal of producing
the show quality visual could take several years to achieve. So, in addition
to the love I have for my Himalayans and Persians, I often refer to this
as my long term, artistic, science project.