Last weekend we attended the Shropshire show for the first time, and it proved to be an excellent day!
We had only decided to do the show after the Shorthair/AGCS, where Lhasa won one of the possible two CCs, leaving her in need of a final certificate. Since Ayla is now an adult (scary thought!), we wanted to be able to start bringing her out, but had hoped to get Lhasa made up to Champion before that happens. Thankfully, Steve Crow loved her, so she won her 3rd and qualifying CC, giving her the title. She also won two firsts and a second in her side classes, a great result given the calibre of some of the other cats entered in those classes.
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Since Tilly was too young to be entered in the Shorthair/AGCS, we decided to enter her in the Shropshire, as her first experience on the bench. She took the whole thing totally in her stride, though we did pop her into Etak’s pen first thing in the morning, to help her settle in. They had travelled part of the way down together, but we eventually separated them after getting bored of Etak making ‘sexy noises’ at her. He is such a cradle-snatcher – just like his uncle Donny, who wanted to mate Ayla when she was about the same age! Tilly won her breed class, and then took a first and two seconds in her side classes, again a good result considering the competition and how young she is.
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Etak was our star of the show, however, not only winning his kitten class and beating Tilly for the Best of Breed, and then taking firsts in his side classes, but going on to win Best Foreign Kitten! This was his last show as a kitten, because he turned adult five days later, so it was an amazing way for him to end his ‘kitten career’. It also means that all four of the kittens whom we have kept from our own breeding have taken a Best of Variety as a kitten – Fi, Donny and Ayla all having taken Best Kitten at the AGCS in their respective years, and Fi also having taken Overall Best Foreign at the Preston & Blackpool. Fi is still the only one to have taken an Overall Best of Variety at an all-breed show, and only Donny has taken a top award as an adult, going Best Foreign Adult twice last summer, but we’ll be hoping for more of those in the future!
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2013 Matings
I have been mulling-over our various options for matings, but keep changing my mind about which girls to put with which boy. I know that I am definitely going to put Ayla to an Australian Mist boy for the first part of my cinnamon outcross, but beyond that it gets a bit fuzzy. I was going to send Fi out to stud, but the boy I was going to use is no longer available, so now I’m thinking of putting her to Apollo – since he doesn’t carry the longhair gene, the kittens would all be shorthair, and all be cream or apricot, but the type should be lovely. Dàrna was going to go to Apollo, but if I put Fi in with him then I might try putting Dàrna to Etak instead. If I don’t put her to Etak then I might put Lhasa with him, but otherwise she would either go in with Donny, or go out to Helen Marriott-Power’s cream Burmese boy, Quin. Then there’s Tia, whom I might put with Donny, but possibly Apollo, or maybe even send her out to Sandra Woodley’s classic tabby boy, Caspian! Oh, decisions.
The weekend between the cancelled Notts & Derbys and the Shropshire, we were back down in Loughborough for a family funeral, and collected Gracie from stud in the process. She is definitely pregnant, and growing well – the speed at which she’s expanding is making me slightly terrified as to how many kittens we may end up with. Watch this space!