Does it make you mad when..

I have never had a pure breed cat, and probably never will, but I do have a deep respect for responsible breeders trying to preserve their breeds. Cross breeding on purpose is wrong and stupid. If irresponsible people continue to do it, one day there will be no pure bred cats and that would be a shame. I have a feeling that people who do this sort of thing are also the kind that believe in "letting nature take its course" and get no vet care for the mother cats or kittens.

Idk, it doesn't really bug me. It only bugs me when people breed irresponsibly, just for money or just because they like kittens. I have a half maine coon kitty but I don't go around bragging about it, plus I rescued her from a shelter so I obviously didn't get her from an irresponsible place. I look at it this way- how do you think that breeds are created? They are created by crossing different 99% of the time. And then there's always that factor that mistakes happen. I don't really let that excuse slide- if you are a responsible pet owner then you will have your pet altered, no matter what. If not, then you're asking for a mistake to happen and therefore it's not really a mistake. I do think that it's bad to breed pedigree kitties with different non-pedigree kitties and basically be a backyard breeder because then it is disrespectful to the person that bred the purebred, plus it's just plain irresponsible because they are not respecting the individual breed.

Then again, when you think about it, there really isn't a "purebred" out there. They were all mixes at one point and time.

Unfortunately, this is becoming a big problem with the Ragdolls. It is started by breeders that don't S/N and don't follow up for enforcement. We S/N all kittens but all you have to do is look in the LA times on Sunday.

We got a call from a guy that was willing to pay $1000 for Stud Services from my male to his DLH.

I have wondered about this in my area. I've been seeing a lot of what look like really poor ragdolls and have seen breeders advertising in the local papers occasionally. I wonder if my own Sherman is out of that some how as he acts and looks like a poor quality ragdoll. I don't consider him anything other than "fluffy".

Unless a cat is a registered purebred or came from such stock you just have a DHS/DMH/DLH. I think shelters using breed names to label their cats by is part of the problem.

Yes, but I do my best to educate where I can. There are many backyard breeders out there getting "purebred" cats from each other to breed. The reputable breeders will neuter/spay when the kittens are 3-4 months old before they go to their homes.

I agree that's part of the problem.

You cannot call it a breed mix unless you know one parent was of that breed. A long hair shelter cat is not a MC mix etc.

I usually just sigh and shake my head when I read, he's a XXX breed mix we got him from a shelter.

Raggie BYB's are a big issue over here, if everyone spayed/neutered before placing kittens it couldn't happen. But that is up to each breeder to decide, cannot make them practice early neutering.

Breeders creating new breeds, still have to register with a governing body and have a clear goal/breed standard to work towards. It's not just crossing breeds or moggies and selling high priced kittens.

My friend is starting a new breed.
It is a slow process.
The new breed is Helki.

I've seen several cats in the HHP category at shows who are (known) crosses of two different breeds from accidental litters.

Regardless of species, deliberate crosses are done to set type, enhance a characteristic such as increase milk production (cows, goats), fix wool quality (sheep), increase speed (horses). Also, oops babies happen by the same token - I have a horse who is an oops babym fortunately he was registerable (DNA typed) and did his stint on the track. From what I have read, cat breeding isnt much different, type has to be set as do characteristics, and any registered animal is just one oops away from producing unregisterable offspring and the oops can happen in a split second.

Oops babies aren't the biggest part of the problem it's the people breeding Domestic LH/SH on purpose. Ragdoll/Persian & Ragdoll/Tonk crosses are big here at the moment and would you believe people pay twice as much for them as a registered pedigree?

I would believe it, remember, I come from the horse world where the biggest scam going is the Gypsy Vanner which is a hairy, spotted cart horse and sell for thousands of dollars and are nothing but the horse version of a mutt - they sell for meat price in Great Britain and are shipped over here and people will pay 30,00 US dollars for one of those nasty looking, ill-comformed things, and even more if it has balls and is black and white. Scrub stock going at those prices when good, broke registered stuff goes cheap.

Hi Sohni - I have two retired race horses, they do nothing but stand and eat all day. Both earned their retirement

I absolutely hate that. Specially if the new owner of the cat brings it out constantly that his/her cat is half-this'n'that like it's supposed to make the cat somehow better (or even worse, keeps calling the cat i.e. 'Ragdoll' if it's a mix with possibly some ragdoll in it). IMO it's just the opposite, I think automatically that the cat is bought from a BYB on purpose and that is something I do not accept. If someone tried to sell me a cat as a half-something, I would never buy it. If the cat was sold as 'a regular DSH/DLH', it would be much better.
Our domestic cats have remained quite pure, and I hate it when people are ruining it by mixing it with other breeds.

I dont understand why people are willing to pay so much for them, as they are effectively moggies, just with one/two pedigree parents. But, while people are willing to pay silly money for them, people will keep doing it.

It doesn't make me angry at all.

A cat is a cat, and a crossbred cat's more likely to be genetically healthy anyway. I used to breed Persians and let me tell you, I saw the effects of inbreeding in cats I bought as breeders from supposedly reputable catteries.

As for "overpopulation", a cat is a cat, again. I don't see what's so much worse about breeding a non purebred cat vs a purebred cat. It's still another litter, whatever opinion one might have on that.

There will ALWAYS be unwanted pets, sadly, no matter how much we restrict them, and demonising everyone who decides to breed their animals is just what the animal rights extremists want us to do.

has anyone ever read this?

http://tebreezcockers.com/page28.html

Really? You have a reliable source (link perhaps?) to show us some statistics that moggies are healtier than pedigreed cats?

These 'reputable' catteries you speak of.. If a breeder is unable to read pedigrees to see what matings are going to be too inbred/otherwise bad, they shouldn't be breeding (none offence..).
I don't know about US, but over here the mixed breed litters are way more inbred than purebreds. The kitten mills keep using the same cats over and over again, if a kitten doesn't sell they keep it and breed with it also (with it's own parents/siblings) etc. I'm actually keeping track on a Scottish Fold/BSH mill, they sell fake-registered cats for hundreds of euros (usually for $600) all the time, the litters are very bad looking and the amount of litters they have on one female per year is as many as the cat can breed. They sell a lot because we don't have any 'real' active Scottish Fold breeders here at the moment.
We also have this person known as 'The Cat Emperor' who keeps selling mixed breed cats for high prices, saying that he won't sell to a person who will mutilate (meaning spay or neuter) the cat, or keep it indoors. He advertises his kittens as 'fruits of a secret blue-blood affair', 'royal kittens without inbreeding, from almost pedigreed parents' and the parents are mixes of eachother and god only knows what. Many reports have been made (he keeps them under horrible conditions), but still he keeps doing it.. I think the problem is more clear in a country this small (human population 5 million), when compared to for example US. Here you can see thing go bad faster. We have to import a lot, and for example most of my cats have the inbreeding percentage way under 1% in 9 generations. How about yours?

What makes me mad is irresponsible breeding no matter if breeds are mixed or not. I try to educate people so they don't buy kittens from such breeders. If no one's buying the kittens at least most of the breeders have to stop.

Oh, they read the pedigrees, they deliberately inbred the cats. They told me this was perfectly okay if done right, all breeders did it, and sure I could provide a link, but I'm actually afraid that if I do these people could come after me. I had to part with these cats after I lost my job and therefore my place, and therefore my cattery so they got nothing to take from me, but I've been a victim of breeder harassment. If you like I could PM them to you. But the one cattery in particular I'm talking about is a TOP Persian show cattery that wins many prizes, or at least was a few years ago. They sold me a cat with: Breathing problems, tearing eyes, stunted growth, frail immune system and, interestingly for a breeding cat, sterility. I called them asking about the LOUD breathing problems I'd noticed as soon as I was no longer in the {very noisy} cat show hall and they told me it was just bubbles up his nose from the bath they had given him. A return/refund was out of the question as far as they were concerned. $1500 for him. I just paid it off last year.

Kitten mills aren't real catteries, I don't think there's a soul around who thinks that sort of thing is okay at all, I guess unless they're the ones running the place and making money off it, I would think there's some self deceit or denial going on about it then otherwise how could those monsters even live with themselves.

The healthest cats I've seen, generally speaking, are moggies.

I read and I couldn't help myself from smiling. Living in a social democratic country with strict animal protection laws... I quite like it.

I disagree with the "socialised medicine is evil" part of the article. I posted it to show people what is happening with anti breeder legislation in our country {and others} and how the breeders themselves are being tricked into it and further propagating the argument against the very things they live for.

If these people really wanted to help animals, and the unwanted pet situation, they'd be using their hefty funding to fund low cost spay neuter, and aids to people to help them keep the pets they have rather than give them up due to whatever reason they do. Kind of like animal social services, keeping them in the homes they're in by offering people alternatices to dumping them. You wouldn't eliminate all pets being given up, but it'd help.

Heh...I'm rather poor and can't afford doctor visits or copays, here in the good ol' US of A. I usually self diagnose over the internet and buy my medicine overseas. {So far it's worked :P} So you won't see me fighting legislation to socialise health care in this country. But I don't see that as impinging on freedom when all I'm free to do right now is forgo "health care" that would put me on the streets.

Anyway I didn't want the topic to stray off the issue, I just wanted to put my 2 cents.

Stupid legislation is always stupid no matter the social system. I get the point, of course we have to think ahead when propagating new laws and such.

Personally I'm not against all non-purebred breeding (horror, horror, my youngest queen is hopefully pregnant with a British Shorthair... she's a Devon Rex) and I think the debate often lose the grey scale. Not everything is black and white.

Of course I live in a country with "only" appr. 100 000 homeless cats so we don't have the same major over population problem as you have in Northern America (or Australia with 18 million ferals that kill off their quite unique fauna) so I probably will have a different view on the matter. But sure, if we don't do anything the number of homeless cats will grow.

But no matter what kind of breeding you choose I believe it's important no ask yourself why you choose to breed. What kind of responsibility that is gie you? To many never ask themselves those questions and the victims usually end up being the ones we claim to love... the cats.

Breeder legislation isn't the answer to the homeless cat overpopulation issue because most cats in shelters are produced by feral cats breeding on their own. Since no one owns them, breeding bans aren't going to do a thing to stop them, funding for sterlising them and keeping their numbers at a controllable level is what needs to be done. But AR activists love breed bans and breeding bans. Anything that brings domestic animals one step closer to extinction is a thumbs up from them.

What's happening is that the commercial breeding facilities {MILLS} are getting exemption from all the anti breeder and anti pet laws being passed because they have the money to lobby for the exemptions. So as things continue this way, what will happen is that the mills will, more and more, become the sole source of pets outside of shelters, which also won't see much improvement because pet stores provide no support for issues with animals once the animal is bought and taken home.

And that's of course a problem if serious breeding per se is fought and eventually eliminated.

Luckily we don't have that kind of direction on the animal protection laws here.