PR Cagaran Bragoil (Cheeky)
Bragoil is Gaelic for 'Cheeky', pronounced Bragawl - so-called because of her cheeky temperament
Also known as 'Cheeky-bit', 'the Bitlet' and 'Swirly job'
OCI o 22 / 73 41k
Ocicat Classic, Cinnamon (Classic Tabby)
Inbreeding Co-efficient: 6.1% (10 generations)
D.O.B. 13/07/12
Cheeky was from our first litter of full Ocicats, our previous Ocicat litter having all been Variants. Her Dam is Grace, our Ocicat Variant girl, and her Sire is Rosemary Caunter's Cinnamon import boy (Catiators Redhotcurry of Thickthorn).
Anita Bryce (Anizz Ocicats and Tiffanies) had asked for a kitten from the litter and since she is planning to continue working with Ocicats, whereas we were already thinking about giving up, it made sense that she should have the best kitten in the litter. We did, however, want to keep something from our foray into the world of Ocicats and I wanted to keep one of the cinnamons, but also wanted to be able to show her, so that only left Cheeky, even though she was never going to be a top show cat. As it happens, her cheeky temperament meant that she was already our favourite so would probably have ended up staying even if she had been one of the Variants, and therefore not able to be shown in the Pedigree section - we'd just have shown her as a Pedigree Pet.
The reason she wasn't really a show cat is because her head was rather too round for an Ocicat, her profile had too deep a break and her eye shape was more Burmese than would be ideal. As she grew, her type continued to develop in an increasingly Burmese direction and we therefore decided to include her in our Asian cinnamon outcross programme instead of our Somali girl, Sonia, because the latter had developed a narrow muzzle, weak chin and straight profile, making Cheeky a much better match for our Asians. Cheeky was therefore mated to Eiteag, to produce the second of our first-generation litters.
Unfortunately, she proved to be a terrible mother, not only having just one kitten, but then dragging her kitten around the room by her umbilical cord, jumping on and off the furniture to the point that her kitten ended up with a hernia. As if that wasn't bad enough, she then rejected her kitten so that I had to give her to Ayla to raise alongside her first litter. Thankfully, Cheeky's kitten, Hailey, has inherited her Dad's relaxed, gentle temperament, rather than Cheeky's highly strung and hyperactive one.
We neutered Cheeky to prevent the risk a repeat of that first delivery and she spent a couple of years living as a companion for her brother, Bru, during which time we showed her up to Premier. In late 2014, we finally found the right people to give him his forever home, but he and Cheeky were so close by that point that it didn't seem fair to split them up and she ended up going with him as a companion. That means that her daughter, Hailey, is all that is left in our household from our foray into Ocicats, but Cheeky and Bru are very happy in their new home and that's the most important thing at the end of the day.