Weighted Scales of Breeding

Today I am going to be talking about the importance of tailoring my breeding program. For example, some breeders like a particular feature, some a color, some focus on size, personality etc. As a buyer, or a pet owner it’s perfectly fine to prefer a color or size or health or… or… or… I think you see where I am going with that. But as a breeder, it’s not enough for us to focus on one particular thing. For us, it’s more about a weighted scale of things.

First and foremost, should always be health. Does my cat have a strong immune system? Do they pass the genetic tests? Does the veterinarian agree that the cat is healthy and structurally sound? Some breeders do a yearly echo of their cat’s hearts. Some do OFA or PawPeds hips and eyes. Honestly, the list is pretty endless. And the stories that can accompany those tests, sometimes astound me. Such as, multiple stories of cats that have recently passed an echo, then suddenly died from heart complications.

For anyone that has spent their life in the medical field, or working with animals, that’s nothing new. No test, no matter how often it’s done, will tell you when something is going to die. And the heart is a weird organ, it can look fine on an echo and still have problems. And no matter what, if you’re testing every year, eventually your cat is going to fail a test. Now, please note, I am not saying that people who test are wrong. Nor am I trying to tell you not to test your cat. If you have any kind of symptoms, lethargy, coughing etc… PLEASE TEST YOUR CAT! Always follow your veterinarian’s advice, and if you aren’t sure or don’t like what your vet said, get a second opinion!

Second should always (in my opinion) be personality. If the mother is shy, or temperamental, breeding is probably not the best thing for her. It’s possible she will pass that temperament on to her babies. I work hard to find cats that have perfect personalities. But when you’re buying a kitten for future breeding that can be seriously hit or miss. I have several adult cats here that just didn’t quite pass this hurdle so they ended up altered and removed from the program.

Third is conformation. Now here is where it gets really tricky. Because if you’ve ever spent time in the animal competition world, conformation can be a tad subjective. It was that way when I showed horses, dogs and now, cats. Trends shift with new judges, styles and breeders. As the generations pass, so to do the fads. Because event though there is a written standard for every breed, those standards are written with at least a little ambiguity. Not to mention that the various clubs and registries will have slightly differing standards. And when you have a judge who feel that one portion of the standard is more important than another, such as profile of the head versus body type or coat. That can cause a shift in a breeder’s desire to cater to that judge for points. 

I personally love the idea of showing. Even though I don’t show as much as I would like to, due to physical constraints. In my youth, I enjoyed it immensely. So, I do look to conformation as being very important. But I approach it from a different angle. I consider my cats conformation like I did when I worked more with dogs and horses. Can this cat do what it was originally designed for? Maine Coons were a cat that was capable of handling the extreme cold of Maine, USA. It was a capable climber and hunter. Bred between elegant long-haired cats that belonged to royalty and cats that belonged to sailors which had size and multiple toes for survival and balance at sea. Its size allowed it to hunt slightly larger game, such as rabbit and larger fowl and even fight off predators. This means to me, that I have to view my breeding cats through this historical lens. 

Are my cats perfect examples of this? Of course not. If they were, I wouldn’t be breeding any more. Instead, I view this as a winding path. Many cats will cross this path as I continually work to produce the perfect pairing of beauty and performance, with a lot of potential for cuddles along the way.