Pardalis Ocicats

Saturday saw the 4th Championship Show.  For the second year running we teamed up with the Tabby Cat Club who also held assessment classes for the Ocicat Classic, meaning Lexi was able to gain two more merits at the one show!  She had some wonderful comments from the judges - “A pretty girl of very good type”, “lovely bright green eyes”, “clear classic markings of bright warm chocolate…very clear contrast” “excellent temperament and condition” and “A real Ocicat”.

Our Fizz did us proud on her first show outing as an adult by gaining her first challenge certificate, 2 more and she can earn the title of Champion. Both our girls did well in their side classes too with a mixture of 1st and 2nd places.

Florence, Lexi’s daughter, brought her strokers Lorraine and David so they could witness her gaining her first Grand certificate.  Not content with just being called Premier Pardalis Genesis, she’s aiming high for the Grand Premier title

New homes have been found for all of Fizz’s rainbow litter.  We’ve been very lucky to find such wonderful homes for them all and I just know they’re all going to be spoilt rotten!!  Three left yesterday and it’s already very quiet around here!  I’m looking forward to seeing their photos as they grow and will keep posting them as they arrive in the new owners album.  We need a few kitten free months now while we prepare to move house.  We’re not going too far but we’ve some busy times ahead! I’ll hopefully be able to get to a few more shows with Fizz and Lexi once we’re settled starting, of course, with the Ocicat Club Show at Alcester on 3rd October.

Belated CONGRATULATIONS to Thickthorn Meadowsaffron!! Many thanks to Ron and Barbara Darby of Silversmoke for entrusting us with Saffi’s beautiful daughter Lexi.  Saffi’s good looks are being passed down and Florence (Pardalis Genesis), her granddaughter is already doing well on the show bench and has gained her Premier title. Hopefully, once the Ocicat Classic has reached Championship status, Lexi herself, will be up there with her title winning relatives

Premier Pardalis Genesis, aka Florence, won her well deserved Premier title at the Midland Counties Cat Club show on Sunday.  Florence is Lexi’s daughter and has been doing us proud at all the shows she’s been to, having been shown from a young kitten.  She won three open classes in her first three shows as an adult (from nine months) which wins her the Premier title. Well done Florence!!!

Lexi and Uno have now both achieved 4 merits each to help move the Ocicat Classic breed recognition on to the next stage.  Uno got the final one needed at the Suffolk and Norfolk Cat Club show yesterday.

A total of six cats have now gained the required number of merits for us to complete the preliminary stage and put in the application for the next and final stage.  The next stage will take longer as more Ocicat Classics and breeders will need to be involved, but the commitment is there and hopefully it won’t be too long before this beautiful breed can be shown on equal footing alongside their Ocicat siblings.

I was woken at 1am on Friday morning by a rustle coming from the litter tray.  I rolled over thinking ‘hope it’s not a smelly one’.  Then I heard a squeek.  I jumped out of bed and looked in all the obvious places that I’d prepared to give Fizz a choice of where to give birth.  The nice cosy cardboard box by my bed,  the Sturdi where the kittens and mum usually spend their first 3 weeks until they get too active and are ready to come downstairs, and the kneehole in the dressing table.  But no, madam had decided the covered litter tray was the place to be!

I lifted Fizz and a wet kitten out and transferred them both to the cardboard box.  The poor little mite had bits of litter all stuck to her!  Luckily it was clean litter :-)  I brushed off what I could while Fizz had her second kitten in the comfort of the box.  A total of 5 were born by 2.30am.  All good weights, not much difference between them all.

They’re all putting weight on nicely and finding their lungs!  Fizz is a great mum, she’s only left them to stretch her legs a few times and she covers them with the blanket when she’s gone.  We’ve got a black silver and a lilac (maybe lilac silver) boys and chocolate, blue and blue silver girls.  It’s lovely to have them all different and such a nice variety of colours.  Well done Fizz!

Fizz is looking swell!  We’re expecting her happy event by the end of the week.  Difficult to tell if she’s bigger than last time.  I think she is, though that could be down to it being her second pregnancy rather than there being more kittens.

It was very warm during this stage of her pregnancy last time and she was sleeping a lot.  This time she’s far more fidgety and awake, really quite restless.  I think we’ll both be glad when the kittens have arrived and we can all get some sleep

Fizz went to stud a few weeks ago and we can safely say it was a successful visit and we’re expecting to hear the pitter patter of tiny paws in about 6 weeks time.  This time she went to a beautiful Blue Silver -  Grand Champion Thickthorn Cus Cus giving us the possibility of Black silver or Chocolate silver kittens.  We’re really looking forward to having kittens around again!

Lexi’s daughter has been shown at a few cat shows now and is maturing into a little champion!  Yesterday she was entered into the Coventry and Leicester show and won her open class, getting best of breed too, and came first in all 4 of her miscellaneous classes!  Well done Florence! Following in grandma’s footsteps - Imperial Grand Champion Thickthorn Meadowsaffron.

Our third showing of Lexi to get another merit brought us to Maidenhead last Saturday.  Only three cats in the Assessment this time but our beautiful girl walked off with the Best Assessment Exhibit earning her a large bag of food and a helium balloon to play with and us £20 and a bottle of bubbly - very nice! Her side classes were a good size and she got thirds in each of them, so we were very happy with that.