January 2013 – cagaran.co.uk

Cancelled Show

The Notts & Derbys show was cancelled, but we had a good trip anyway. The rest is just an update on the cats, and some cute photos!!

I had been holding off doing another post until after the Notts & Derbys show, which was meant to be last weekend. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled due to people being afraid to travel with reports of snow on the way. The daft thing is, we had already got to Richard’s parents’ house in Loughborough by the time the show was cancelled, and the show venue is literally about 15 minutes drive from there. There was a bit of snow falling on the Friday evening, but by the Saturday morning it had stopped and the roads in that area were beautifully clear. In fact, we had the best run home that we’ve had in months.

The M1 approaching the junction for the show hall — The M1, approaching the junction for the show hall

The road into Judith's village, near Bedford

Donny thoroughly enjoyed his trip away, though, because it meant he got to spend the night with his ‘mummy’, and he came and cuddled down in the bed with me. Dàrna stayed with Richard in his old room, but she couldn’t make up her mind where she wanted to sleep, so I don’t think she and Richard had quite such a settled night’s sleep!

Donny being cute on the edge of the bed

It was good to be able to enjoy not only dinner on the Friday, but also a leisurely breakfast on the Saturday, with Richard’s parents. Since we had gone all that way, and now didn’t have a show to attend, we thought we might as well make use of the time by making some other social visits in the area. We travelled down to Rushden, near Bedford (again on fabulously clear roads!) and visited Tracey and Gary, whom we haven’t seen since their little girl, Emily, was born last summer. As always, they were very hospitable, and made us lunch, and we enjoyed getting a chance to catch up with them, and obviously meet little Emily as well. Since the last time they saw us was when Donny was a kitten, Tracey was very excited to hear that we had him with us, and asked us to bring him in so she could see him all grown up. He promptly jumped up beside Tracey and Emily, and gave Emily a ‘kiss’!

A very happy Donny cuddled up beside Emily -I know Tracey hates appearing in photos as much as I do, which is why I've tried to cut her out as best I can!

We also visited Judith Noble (Larksong Russian Blues), who is on the RACCS (Russian & Abyssinian Cat Club of Scotland) committee with us, and is a very good friend of Elisabeth’s. She has recently imported a girl from Holland, who Elisabeth was very keen to see, and visiting with Judith is always a good laugh. As usual, she didn’t disappoint!

Other Updates

We’ve had an email from the Variants’ owner, letting us know that the girls have settled in well and are becoming really cuddly. When he emailed, both girls were sitting on his lap cleaning eachother, which is lovely to hear. From the looks of the first photo I’ve had from him, they’re going to be great companions:

The Variants in their new home - Carrie on the left, Becca on the right

Unfortunately, we still haven’t found the right home for Bru, which I find incredible, given how stunning he is. We can’t quite believe that he’s the last in his litter to go! He’s developed into not only a beautiful cat, but also a rather lovely Ocicat, so I thought you might like to see a few photos of him, as he now looks.

Okay, so Fi's in this as well, but don't they look gorgeous together??	Bru showing off his gorgeous markings
Looking every inch the wild cat he is supposed to resemble	Looking like a spotty version of his granny Kia

I’ve had request for some photos of Tilly, so we tried to get some for you, but she is an absolute Minx when the camera appears, and absolutely refuses to keep still. Even with our shiny new camera, the only two photos we have that are in focus are still pretty rubbish. Thought you might want to see them anyway, though.

Tilly doing a meercat impression to sniff the tickle stick — Tilly sniffing the tickle stick

Finally, since Etak lives in the kitchen (Donny is spending most of his time up with Keela at the moment!), we’ve been using him as the practice subject for the new camera. A couple of the photos are just so daft that I had to share them.

Etak in his new bed, yawning and looking daft

Etak splatted — Etak sprawled out asleep on his towel - there's a heated bed underneath!

I also took the cutest video of Donny and Etak sharing their drinking fountain:

The boys sharing their fountain - bless!

Okay, that’s it for today. Shropshire show next weekend – all get outside and do your non-snow dances for us, please!!

We Did It!

We had a good day at the AGCS show, with Ayla winning Best Kitten, Tia making up to Champion, and Lhasa winning one CC, leaving her with just one more to go. We also collected our little Katie-granddaughter, Tilly, who is already firm friends with Ayla.

I know I normally leave it a bit longer between posts, but I couldn’t wait to share our news this time. Incidentally, we dropped the two Oci Variant girls off as planned on Friday, and they began settling in almost immediately. The family they have gone to live with seem absolutely perfect to be owned by a couple of Ocicats, so I am looking forward to some photo updates!

The Shows

Both the AGCS (Asian Group Cat Society) and RACCS (Russian and Abyssinian Cat Club of Scotland) had very successful shows yesterday. RACCS had a total of 59 entries, which is excellent for a first show. The Best-In-Show line-up was excellent, and included cats and kittens from both old and new prefixes. The overall BIS was a stunning Aby kitten, who had won over quite a few of the judges during the day. It was great to see all our hard work coming to fruition, and I think quite a bit of alcohol was consumed, though I didn’t actually manage to grab any. I did get a piece of the delicious cake, though!

The RACCS club table laid with alcohol and crisps

On the AGCS side, I was disappointed to hear that Steve and Tommy were not going to make it due to Steve having injured his ankle during the Christmas break. It did leave the way clear for a different prefix to win Best Adult, and this year it was Rocadanne Candyfloss, a Bombay, who took that award. I am absolutely thrilled to be able to say that we won our Best Kitten award again this year, making the hat-trick. Fiona the first year, Donny the second, and now Fi’s daughter, Ayla. As usual, Ayla was an absolute poppet, couldn’t have been sweeter, and also had a ‘red card day’ (winning every class she was entered). Best Neuter, and the overall Best in Show winner was the same cat that won Best Neuter last year, Teignage Sirpouncealot. It is always lovely to see two Tiffs in the Best in Show pens. Perhaps one year we’ll manage to have a Tiff in every pen!

The Best in Show pens with occupants - Ayla is being nosy as usual!

We also had Etak at the show, and he was equally beautifully behaved. We put Ayla into his pen in the morning, and the two of them were utterly adorable, munching their food side by side. Etak was placed second in his open, but had fabulous results in his side classes (first in all of them), even beating the boy that he lost to in the open. Different judges have different opinions, and that’s just the way it goes, sometimes!

The kittens eating breakfast side-by-side

As well as the kittens, we had taken Lhasa and Tia, both entered in the AGCS and the Shorthair, and therefore with the potential to win two certificates on the day. Tia did just that, making her up to Champion in three straight shows (two days!). She had a red card day in the AGCS, and had three firsts and a third in the Shorthair. As often happens at double shows, however, the two judges disagreed about who was the better between Lhasa and her competition, so Lhasa won the CC in one show, but was placed second in the other. She just needs one more certificate to become a Champion, but Ayla is old enough to try for CCs at the next show we go to, so Lhasa might just need to wait a bit!

There were another two Cagarans there on the day – Tracey had taken Quinn to support the two clubs, and Anita had taken little Breagha, though she could only be entered in the Shorthair show. Quinn didn’t have a particularly good day, not winning the Grand in either show, though she did have some good side-class results. Breagha was given her 1st and Best of Breed, and placed well in her side classes against strong competition.

Another New Arrival

We seem to have had a bit of an influx of new cats recently, between Sonia coming to us for the cinnamon outcross, and Lhasa and Tia arriving due to their owners giving up breeding. We have, however, got another new arrival, but this time a teeny kitten.

If you’ve been following this blog, you will know that we lost our first queen, Katie, last summer, and that I was concerned that we had lost her line? You may remember, however that her daughter, Cailin, went to live with our friend Anita, back in 2011? Cailin is still entire, so when we lost Katie, I asked Anita if she would consider mating her and letting us have one of the kittens. She said that she would be delighted to give us something back, and so together we chose a boy who is virtually unrelated to our existing cats. The resulting pedigree brings together a lot of fabulous prefixes – Kagura, Nemorez, Vervain, Kevona, Kennbury, Fandango, Merinda, and of course Amanda’s Rushbrooke.

Cailin had her kittens back in October, and our kitten came home with us yesterday, looking and acting so much like her granny that it feels almost like we’ve gone back in time and brought Katie home again. Her name is Tilly, which is from her pedigree name (chosen by us), which is Tilleadh gu Cagaran, or ‘Return to Cagaran’.

Ayla cuddled up on top of Tilly — Tilly cuddled up in the covers, underneath Ayla

She and Ayla travelled home together in one basket, and when I woke up this morning, they were sleeping on top of one another, snuggled in the covers. She is an absolute sweetie, and I am delighted to have a little bit of Katie back in the house.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from the Cagaran Cats, with a series of photos from the Christmas shoot.

So we’re into 2013 already – Happy New Year! It seems hardly any time since we were out to celebrate my Grandpa’s 80th last Hogmanay, and yet at the same time, so much has happened in the past year.

We did our usual Cagaran Christmas card, with a photo of some of our recent kittens. Like last year, we had the same photo on three different designs of card, because we couldn’t decide which design we preferred.

I’ve had lots of people ask me if the photo is real, and if so, how we got it. The answer is lots and lots of photos – 761 to be precise! I wanted the photo to contain both Ocis and Tiffs, and I was hoping to get all three patterns of Ocis. We built our ‘set’ in the hallway, by lining the window alcove with black fleece, and hanging a piece of mesh from the hook in the ceiling that we use to hang a lantern at Christmas time. I then dangled strands of beads, and tied silver bobbles onto the mesh. We poured a load of other bobbles into the bottom of the alcove (a box laid across the front, and covered in the fleece kept them in, creating a miniature ball pool), and then ran some white fairy lights through them. We also brought out a flood light and several desk lamps, in an attempt to create a bright enough space that the camera could work fast enough to catch a load of rapidly-moving kittens.

The set for the card photos — The 'set' for the card photos - you can see the edge of the fleece at the right-hand side, and the shape of the box under the fleece at the front

I brought out Etak, Ayla, Bru, Cheeky and Carrie, and put them all into the alcove. I waved a cat toy around to try and get the kittens’ attention (frequently unsuccessful, I may add), whilst Richard started snapping. We kept going for forty minutes, until we thought we must surely have something that would work. I thought you might like to share some of the ‘failed’ attempts: there are photos which contain all of the kittens, but only one is facing the right way…

The five kittens, but only Carrie is looking

Or they are facing the right way, but pulling stupid faces…

An otherwise good photo with Cheeky pulling a stupid face at the front

Ayla looking like she's sucked on a lemon — Ayla looking like she's sucking on a lemon

Cheeky licking her nose - every other cat in this photo looked perfect!

Or where four are sitting beautifully but one or two refuse to look towards the camera…

One of many photos where Ayla is too busy playing to bother looking at the camera — One of many photos in which most of the kittens look great, but Ayla is too busy amusing herself to bother looking at the camera

Another that would be fine except that Derk has looked away, and Bru has managed to partially obscure himself behind a string of beads! — Another that would be fine except that Derk has looked away, and Bru has managed to partially obscure his face behind a string of beads!

Or is obscured behind the decorations…

Almost an ideal photo, but Carrie has dropped her head to behind a bobble — Almost an ideal photo, but Carrie has leaned across to behind a bobble

Carrie pretending to be a Magritte painting (complete with reflection of Richard with the camera, and me waving the toy around!)

Or one has gone under another…

Cheeky and Bru stepping over and under eachother

All that is visible of Bru, where he has crawled under Derk

Ones where one is moving around so much that they are just a blur…

Ayla playing in the bobbles — A blurry Ayla, playing in the bobbles

Ones where some are coming, and others going…

Ayla on her way back into the alcove, and Bru on his way out

Ones where they have all abandoned the alcove, and all we have is a departing tail…

Ayla's tail departing an otherwise empty alcove — Ayla's tail heading out of an otherwise empty alcove

In the case of Cheeky and Ayla, we also have plenty where they are trying to destroy the ‘set’…

Cheeky thinking about eating one of the strands of beads...	... and going for it with another strand a few minutes later!
Cheeky trying to chew one of the bobbles off its string...	... and Ayla trying to chew through another (she succeeded, by the way)

Some are even perfectly nice photos, just not what we were looking for…

Bru and Cheeky behind, with Ayla at the front watching her brother and Carrie disappear along the corridor

The Three Patterns from the Ocicat litter

Cheeky and Bru - a nice photo of Cheeky, in particular

Mostly, we have lots and lots of photos that look like something from a spot-the-difference game, with just tiny movements between each one, in the hope of getting one that works! These are the photos chosen for the card:

The final front photo (from left: Derk, then Cheeky at the front, with Bru behind her, and then Carrie with Ayla behind) — The final front photo (from left: Derk, then Cheeky with Bru behind her, and then Carrie with Ayla behind)

... and the image from the back of the card (Ayla and Derk)

This coming weekend is an exciting one for us, because we’re going down to the Shorthair and Joint Foreign show, and dropping the two Variant girls off at their new home in Cardiff. I am always excited to see our kittens going to their new homes, and it’s particularly lovely when two can go together.

The show is exciting for two reasons – one, you may remember that Richard and I are both on the committee of RACCS (Russian and Abyssinian Cat Club of Scotland), and that club is having its first ever show as part of the Joint Foreign show. The second reason is that the AGCS (Asian Group Cat Society), of which we are also committee members, is another of the Joint shows, and we have won the Best Kitten award there the past two years. It would be lovely to win it for a third year, but one of the best things about the AGCS show is seeing such a fabulous selection of Asians turn out, so even if we don’t win, the AGCS is bound to be an enjoyable show. I can’t wait!