We had three demands when we planned a litter. They were
prioritized:
1. The health
2. The temperament
3. The looks
Health
We wanted all our kittens to be healthy cats with a long life
before them. Anyway it was not that simple to ensure.
Of course we only bred on healthy cats. To our knowledge
neither the sire nor the queen suffered from any diseases. It
often was young cats who were bred, and you couldn't tell if they
would have any diseases when they got older. Fortunately the
Russian Blue in general was a healthy breed, but there were
Russian Blues who died too young.
It is not possible to guarantee that a kitten will be sound and
healthy the whole life, but one thing can be done: avoid
inbreeding. Inbreeding generally reduce the immune defence
system of the cats, even if the parents are healthy cats
themselves. We never did inbreeding, and we even didn't use cats
who were close inbred themselves in our breeding.
Another topic that came up was Russian Blues with blood
group B. Cats with blood type B are not less healthy cats
than cats with blood type A, but problems might occur when a
blood type B queen gives birth. That's why we only used blood
group A cats for breeding, and we even didn't breed cats that had a known risk of being carrier of the blood type B gene. It
was no guarantee, but we didn't want deliberately to contribute to
more kittens with blood type B - or being carriers of the gene -
being born.
Temperament
It was important that our kittens were sweet cats who the new
owners wold be happy about. We worked a lot to socialize
our kittens. They were handled for a long time each day. We
fiddled with them all over, we examined their ears and mouth, and
we cut their claws when they were very young. We also exposed them
to many noises such as the hoover, music and so on.
It is difficult to guarantee that a kitten will have a temper
for shows. Our females were all good show cats, and we preferred
a sire that has been shown without problems. However we could
not be
sure that the kittens would have a temper for shows as well, but if
the new owners wanted to show their cat we offered to keep the
kitten so long that we could show it once ourselves to see how it
reacted to shows.
Despite
all our intensions several of our kittens after Lilit (and even
Lilit herself) developed behavioural problems. In fact all the
females including our own Sarantoya have had problems being with
other cats, and one of them even was aggressive towards one a
the owners and had to be put down. Every
time the cat has been very frightened because of something, and
it appears that she has thought it was the fellow cat (or once a
human being) who had caused this "something". It
probably happens often for cats, but usually they get friends
quickly again. Unfortunately not always for our female kittens. The
first time it happened we thought it was because of a postnatal
depression, but now that it has happened several times, we are
sure it must be a hereditary defect. If we had known we wouldn't
have bred neither Lilit. However the first incident took place
when Lilit and even Sarantoya had already got their kittens, so
not much could be done about it.
The looks
When the two first demands were met it could be necessary to
compromise with the exterior.
It is much easier to decide the looks of the kittens when you
inbreed, but we didn't do that. It is a kind of jeapardy when you
avoid inbreeding. What we could do was to choose a sire
that we thought was beautiful and would complement the queen.
What is a beautiful Russian Blue? Many details can be
pointed out, but what we valued the highest was a good
expression: Large eyes set wide apart, the characteristic
profile af the Russian Blue with a distinct angle right over the
eyes and a good strong chin. We prefered a broad head and
the nose should not be too long. We wanted the body elegant yet
muscular, and we wanted long legs and a long tail. The
eyecolour was a must.
Pointed Russian Blues:
In older days siamese cats were used in the Russian Blue
breeding, and not too long ago some tried to breed pointed
Russian Blues. It is a part of the history of the Russian Blue,
and no Russian Blue can be absolutely certain not to be a
carrier of the siamese gene.
We never had any pointed kittens, but anyway the
issue didn't worry us because pointed Russian Blues are exactly
as healthy as full blue. Our females had no known risk of being
carriers, but we didn't avoid a sire that had a known risk if he
had other good qualities. We always would inform the new owner of
the risk.
If we had bred pointed kittens they would not be sold for breeding,
and the price would be reduced.
White spots:
Some Russian Blues have a few white hairs on the chest, some
have a white spot. This only matters when it comes to shows.
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