Why buy a thoroughbred cat
Most of us have warm memories from childhood – a yard cat with fluffy playful kittens or a fat bumpkin - grandmother's cat - in the village.
Many brought home "nobody's" kittens and pitifully asked mom to leave the kitten. Someone was lucky, mom allowed them to have a kitten, and these children grew up in a happy neighborhood with a CAT. But some people can afford to buy a kitten only in adulthood. Here the question arises – which animal will live next to you: a thoroughbred or an ordinary domestic cat.
The choice should be approached very responsibly, because the cat will be a member of the family for an average of 10-15 years.
It happens that a cat appears in the house "by itself": they throw it under the door, give it to colleagues, or a kitten abandoned by ruthless people approaches on the street. If you want to have an ordinary kitty at home as a pet, take such a kitten, maybe this will save his life.
Another option is if you already have an image of an ideal cat. Then you need to look at purebred animals and choose this very ideal. A thoroughbred cat is intended for those who want to have an animal in the house with a characteristic, breed-specific appearance. Someone likes a fluffy cloud - a Persian cat, others like smooth-haired cats with prominent muscles and strict body lines. No less important is the color scheme - a mottled tortoiseshell cat or a black oriental resembling a panther, a red "sun" or a striped wild-colored cat.
It is well known that each breed has approximately a similar character.
It is very important for the cat owner to match the animal in temperament. A calm person will suit a phlegmatic teddy bear – a Briton, or a Persian. An extrovert would rather choose an oriental cat – Burmese, Oriental, Abyssinian - for active communication. An independent self-sufficient person may acquire a cat of an aboriginal breed – the Kuril bobtail, Siberian, Norwegian forest. Some people like mobile animals that play until old age. And someone will choose an "interior" cat, lying regally on a leather sofa for hours. And for lovers of delights there are a lot of options – hairless cats, curls with curled ears, short–legged munchkins. The main thing is that it corresponds to your concepts of beauty.
It's no secret that you have to pay for a thoroughbred animal, the price range can be from 100 to 2000 dollars. The price of a kitten does not consist of the amount of feed and filler used, but of the total material, moral, emotional and physical costs of the breeder to get the PERFECT animal. The ideal will be much more expensive than the average kitten of a similar breed, but the bottom line is that you have to pay for high quality. After all, a serious collector of paintings will not hang a cheap reproduction from a magazine in the house! A thoroughbred cat should be treated accordingly - as a work of art, an object of "collecting", admiring and admiring. I think that the best buyer is a person who has made an informed choice, who is in love with the breed, just like me and any other breeder.
One of my customers for 3 hours could not make a choice between a Burmese sable-colored cat and a black Kuril bobtail. The head of the family liked the coal-black smoker, but his wife could not put up with the "lack of tail" of the cat. Disagreements were already threatening a family conflict when the man asked the decisive question: "Which cat will be better for children?". Of course, for twins of 1.5 years old, I recommended Burmese. And I was very pleased after 2 weeks to hear feedback about the behavior of the kitten. "The cat does not leave the children, eats and sleeps with them, sits on the handles with pleasure, does not take offense and does not get angry if the child accidentally touches him." That's what it means - you guessed right with the breed. I don't think bobtail would allow children such liberties.
So, what do you gain by buying a thoroughbred cat? A certain appearance of the pet and a predictable character. Plus, if desired, a set of documents that allows you to take a cat to exhibitions and be proud of its achievements, the opportunity to engage in breeding.
At 2-4 months, the breeder evaluates the kitten's class. There is a pet class - a kitten for the house, for the soul, a breed class – for breeding, a show class - an animal close to the ideal of the breed, for exhibition work. The price for such kittens is different: a show class can cost 2-5 times more expensive than a kitten "on a pillow". The acquisition of a pet-class animal involves its castration (sterilization), because for various reasons it is not intended for the production of offspring. At the same time, it is absolutely not necessary that the kitten has defects or health problems. It's just that the breeder selects animals for breeding in accordance with his breeding program.
Every owner of a kennel or breeding cat wants a potential buyer to soberly assess their capabilities and choose the right kitten. When buying a cat or a cat for breeding, you need to remember that this is a difficult painstaking work that requires complete dedication, serious material and physical costs, and special knowledge. The breeder selects a certain type of owner for breeding kittens – a responsible, hardworking, interested person who has free time and appropriate living conditions. And abroad, in principle, it is not practiced to sell kittens for breeding to beginners. Owners of kittens begin their path in felinology with castrators, and only after making sure of their hobby can they purchase a breed-class animal. This is very reasonable, so random people who decided to engage in breeding out of a whim or a desire to make money on kittens are cut off. Kittens of the breed / show class are often sold on the condition that the first year or two the buyer will be engaged in breeding under the guidance of the breeder. I think this is right, because any profession needs to be trained beforehand so as not to make mistakes. And felinology is both a science, and skill, and experience, and intuition, and an element of luck. Even in order to find worthy owners for kittens, you need to know the basics of psychology, marketing, and law. And in order to raise kittens healthy, you need to be a little bit of a veterinarian: be able to give injections, deliver babies, be ready to provide emergency assistance in emergency situations. Sometimes you can hear: think of the complexity, cats give birth and raise kittens themselves, the main thing is to sell kittens. This is not called breeding, but "breeding" of cats, and has nothing to do with felinology.
So, when buying a thoroughbred kitten, you should correlate your desires and capabilities. If you want to get something predictable and close in spirit from a kitten, study the breeds and choose the option that suits you. If you are going to do breeding work, first decide whether you can do this complex and energy-intensive process. Well, if you are ambitious and ready to attend exhibitions with a "star" cat, buy a show-class kitten. And be prepared to pay for it as an exclusive.
If you just need a living cat soul in the house, and you rely on Providence about the character – take an ordinary domestic kitten for free. Just remember that a half-breed baby can grow into a "thin-voiced" and a thick-cheeked "bun" weighing 8 kg, and a hooligan fidget, and a lazy sleepyhead. Good luck finding your kitten.
The magazine "Friend of cats", No. 12, 2006