Tag: Champion

Kitten Update

Katie’s kittens are now a week old and doing well, Kia is almost at her due date, and Dàrna is back from stud and looking pregnant. Fiona won her first two CCs at the double show in Doncaster on Saturday, also the first two CCs for our prefix!

The Kittens

Katie’s kittens are growing well, both having sailed past their double-birth-weight one-week target at about five days old. As of this morning, they are a good bit over 200g, and the boy’s eyes were just starting to open in the inner corners. He is hilarious when he’s eating, because he does the same sort of huge ‘star-jump’ motion that his half-sister Lainni did last year!

Katie feeding the kittens
Katie with the kittens

I haven’t actually checked genders again since I first decided on them, so I really ought to have another look now to make sure we do have one boy and one girl.  I haven’t the faintest clue whether they are Asians or Tiffanies at this stage, only that they both look to have about the same length of coat, though I could be completely wrong there!

Face-shot of the boy at day 8
The boy's cute little face - his left eye is just starting to open

The girl shouting
The girl shouting - she's the 'gobby' one of the two

Pregnancy Update

Kia is now very close to her due date – I’m thinking either tonight or tomorrow night.  Jinny is in with her at the moment, and the two of them seem to be best mates at the moment.

Kia looking pregnant
Kia looking 'lumpy' and pregnant - note the kitten lump on her left side!

Kia and Jinny rubbing against eachother
Kia and Jinny rubbing against eachother. Jinny is fantastic with Kia, putting up with being manically cleaned on a regular basis!

Kia has started to move into her birthing box, though she prefers if one of us climbs in there with her.  I turned her heat pad on the other day, and then spent about half-an-hour hunched up in the box with her to keep her company whilst she rolled around on it.  Her box has a lid on it, because she quite likes caves, but at least it’s a good bit bigger than Katie’s, otherwise we’d never fit!

Kia in her birthing box
Kia in her birthing box, looking grumpy because we weren't in with her!

We collected Dàrna from Ally and Arty on Monday, and she is definitely still looking pregnant, and eating lots, so fingers crossed there, too.

Show Update

We were down at the Humberside and Lincolnshire double show on Saturday.  The two clubs hold their all-breed shows in the same hall, and cats can therefore enter both shows.  We had only taken Fi, but she did us proud, winning not only our first Cagaran CC (Challenge Certificate), but also the second – taking the certificate in both shows!  She now only needs one more to become a champion, so fingers crossed she can do that the next time she’s out…

Nor’East Show and Pregnancy Update

Our Ocicats do well at show, and the Tiffanies show some more potential signs of pregnancy.

We attended the Nor’East of Scotland show today, and had a pretty good set of results, the most significant being Breckin making up to Champion (her 3rd CC), and Kia getting her qualifying Merit (4th from a different judge – actually her 6th, I think).  Jinny got her 2nd GMC (Grand Master Cat) certificate, Monty got his 2nd PC and Xaria took the Reserve Imp and another PC (her 14th?).  Call crashed and burned (3rd in a class of 3), but we expect that when we take Call out – he was only there as the ‘free’ 5th entry (Breckin was added later, after missing out on her 2nd CC at the Essex).

Kia has started calling for the first time, which might be a further indication that the older girls are pregnant – she could have been waiting for their status to change before starting.  I have honestly never heard an animal make such a strange noise: she sounds like a cross between a bull-frog and a rumbling tummy!  The other cats all keep stopping what they’re doing and running along to peer at her whenever she starts, because they can’t figure out why she sounds so odd either!

Dàrna has started climbing onto, into or under everything in the house, as if she’s looking for something.  I’m not sure if she’s searching for a nesting site, although it would be rather early for that.  She’s never been up on the wardrobes before, and doesn’t usually go under drawers etc. but she’s been both on the top of and underneath the wardrobe and the chest of drawers in my room, and in and out of every high or low space in the house!  She also appears to be suffering from ‘morning sickness’: she looks queasy from first thing in the morning until early evening, and the only meal that she’s eating properly is her tea.

And Down Again…

Our Tiffanies come home again (hopefully pregnant!) and we attend the Bedford Show.

Well, that’s the girls back from stud, so now all we can do is cross our fingers and wait!  Very excited, but also rather nervous now that we have our first two potentially pregnant girls.  We stayed with Tracy and Gary on the Friday night again (what would we do without them?!), and then drove over to Amanda’s on the Saturday morning to collect Katie before the Bedford show.  Thomas Goss (one of Pippin’s owners) brought Dàrna up to meet us at the Bedford & District Cat Club show in the afternoon.  When they got to the hall, it was 22°C outside, so she couldn’t stay in the car, and Thomas was also able to arrange for her to have use of a quarantine pen for a couple of hours.  We can’t thank him enough for that!

We had a couple of cats in the show – Katie made up to Champion (her third CC) and Annas got her 4thImp, from John Hansson, no less (and beating Lolly)!  Unfortunately John withheld the PC on Monty, but at least with John you always get a good reason – he felt that Monty needed to develop more ticking (which he says is always slow on the fawns), that he has a bit of growing still to do, and that he looks ‘a bit girly’ at the moment, which is common to early-neutered boys.  Apparently that will come with time, but it is likely to be slower than an entire boy would be.

On Satuday evening, Tracy and Gary had a barbecue in their back garden, which was lovely.  We shut our lot in the livingroom, and kept the kitchen door shut as a sort of ‘air-lock’ in between the conservatory and the livingroom.  Then we sat in the garden with the conservatory doors open, which meant Tracy and Gary’s boys (Hammond and Jeremy – spot the theme?) could come and go and also get to spend some time with them and us.

The AGMs of the West of Scotland Cat Club and the Scottish Cat Club were yesterday afternoon, one after the other and in the same hall in East Kilbride.  Since this is only a few minutes off the M74, we decided last week that we would go straight to the meetings, rather than have to get home and then retrace our steps by an hour to get back there.  We had arranged to be able to move the cats inside out of the sun, but it wasn’t sunny when we got there, so we were able to leave them to sleep in the car.  The sun did come out just in the break between the meetings, but by that time the carpark had emptied enough that we were able to move the car into the shade.

We had worried a bit about how the cats might all get on, having had the girls away for a fortnight, but we needn’t have.  Katie slipped straight back into the ‘colony’ without a peep.  Dàrna was a little growly last night, but without malice, and had quietened down again by this morning.  Annas is thrilled to have ‘her babies’ back again – she’s spent the past fortnight pining for them!  There’s lots of sniffing going on as they get used to eachothers’ scents again, but touch wood everything seems fine.

A long way for a show!

Our Tiffanies go to stay with their first ‘boyfriends’, and some of the cats attend the Essex show.

Katie and Dàrna are now with their first boyfriends!  Amanda (Colgan – Rushbrooke Asians, Burmese & Bengals – Cambridgeshire) phoned us as we were driving down on Friday, to say that there was going to need to be a change of plans.  Katie was due to have been in the house with Jack, who lives inside because he’s never sprayed.

Amanda has a Bengal boy, William, who also lives in the house, but he was supposed to have mated one of her Bengal girls, and then been neutered.  Unfortunately, the girl didn’t take, so William is still entire.  Unless we wanted the risk of spotty babies, we were either going to have to forego this mating attempt (not really an option given which call Katie’s on) or use our ‘backup’ option of Katie’s half-brother, Charlie (Annas’s full brother).

This match should produce lovely, typey kittens, but would be too close for us to keep anything for breeding.  Since we weren’t intending to keep anything from Katie this time anyway, that’s not really an issue, so Charlie it is!

We met up with Amanda at her work, because that’s just off the A14, so is a lot more convenient than driving across to her house.  One of her colleagues came out to see all of the cats, so we had a good cuddle with them all in the carpark, and then Amanda took Katie away with her.  Even though Katie came from there originally, and I know Amanda will take fantastic care of her, I still felt terrible letting her go!

We then headed across to near Bedford, where we were staying with two of our friends, Tracy and Gary.  They have two black and white neutered male cats of their own, who had to move into the conservatory so our lot could have the livingroom and kitchen.  We had picked up a sheet and some comand strip hooks on our way across, so that we could stop the cats seeing eachother through the conservatory doors and potentially getting upset.  With the help of some handy clips that Gary had, we created a makeshift curtain across the doors, leaving their poor boys shut on the other side!  Their house rabbit, Chloe, had to be moved from the livingroom into Tracy and Gary’s bedroom, because Monty had his face pressed up to the side of her cage and was shouting in at her – very funny, but probably not particuarly nice for her!

Dàrna wasn’t at all phased by the change of scenery, and after a quick check around her new territory, was straight up onto the couch for a cuddle with Tracy and Gary.  Breckin hid under the vetbed in one of the baskets, only coming out for a quick meal.  Once Chloe was removed, Monty slunk around the place investigating every corner, but rushing behind the couch if we moved at all.  Annas was hilarious, because she walked around growling continuously, and then settled herself in Chloe’s play tunnel, growling at anyone who even considered entering!

We drove down for the Essex Cat Club show on Saturday morning, where we won the prize for the further-travelled exhibitors (442 miles to get home, according to the SatNav).  It was worth coming, though – Dàrna made up to Champion (her fourth CC/Challenge Certificate, but only her third from different judges), and Monty won his first PC (Premier Certificate).  Breckin’s breeder, Rita Leggett (Yesso Ocicats – Norfolk), was there with one of her girls, Dotty, who beat Breckin for the CC (Dotty was looking much more mature and had better spotting on the day).

Annas didn’t place in the Imperial Class (gutted, because she was looking stunning), but had a red card day apart from that, taking first in some big classes.  The Imperial was actually won by the lovely Russian girl, Lolly (Troika Aurora), who is owned by our friend Judith Noble (Larksong Russian Blues & Selkirk Rex – Bedfordshire), and is the new ‘Sheba‘ cat.  We last encountered Lolly at The Supreme, where Ann Bond-Wonneberger debated for ages between her and Xaria for the Grand, but eventually gave it to Lolly!

Dàrna is in with a stud called Pippin, whose owners are Steve Crow and Thomas Goss (Kagura Asians & Burmese).  They were good enough to come along to the show and collect Dàrna from there, saving us the journey to their house afterwards. This meant we could just head straight back to Tracy and Garys.  Just as well, really, since I had agreed to collect the results for Cat Planet, and had all of those to type up in the car whilst Richard drove back.

Today we had a fairly leisurely start, leaving about 9am.  We had arranged to collect a stud cat for Helen MacLeay (Kruzinkal British Shorthairs, Kilmarnock).  The stud’s breeder lives not far from Birmingham, so we met her in a services on the M6, and then met Helen just off the M74 this afternoon.  Thankfully we had a good run North, so we weren’t too late back (although spending an hour or so chatting with Helen in the carpark made us a bit later than we might have been!).  Annas has been wandering around shouting for the girls ever since!