Cat Breeds We Have Worked With

Note we will be adding pictures on this page.
During the 1990's I fostered bottle feeder kittens that were found in garbage cans. Day olds that had been thrown out by unscrupulous people. I have no words to express my disdain for these awful souls. We raised 65 kittens for the North Shore Animal League in Port Washington, NY, over a period of about 18 months. I kept one of the kittens, a favorite likely part Maine Coon with extra toes. She went back for spaying but evidently they missed and she eventually had several kittens.

We decided to breed purebred Maine Coon cats and I favored the Polydactyl ones that had at least one paw with an extra toe. My research showed that the extra toes had been part of the breed since the beginning of the breed but the cat associations had specifically banned them from being shown in the championship classes. I joined a group that ultimately forced The International Cat Association to accept the Poly Maine Coon cats on an equal standing as the non-poly Maine Coons. We worked with Dr. Solveig Pflueger, head of the TICA Genetics Committee who was also in favor of acceptance of the Poly Maine Coons.

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Dr. Pflueger had also joined the study of a new cat breed that had come about in a feral cat population. A pair of identical twin males had been born in a litter of "ordinary" cats by a feral mom. The two kittens were very different. They had curly hair with glitter and satin look. Solveig ask me if I wanted to work with the developer of the breed. What a great idea and challenge.

I also added the Siberian Cat breed because there was a need for hypoallergenic cats. This helped with the cost that came with the Tennessee Rex work but the development of the new breed quickly took over work with the Siberians and it had to be adjourned.

We bred several litters between 2006 and 2008 and then went before the TICA Board of Directors to request advancement. The breed just advanced to "Registration Only," a terrible disappointment for the founder. About that time I also was found to have lost one of my hips -- it just vanished without any apparent external trauma. Months of hospitals and surgery put an end to most of the breeding and the Tennessee Rex work was put on hold indefinitely.

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In 2012 Dr. Pflueger sent me the Tennessee Rex cats . The originator had discontinued advancement work and here was a way to get advancement going again. The cats I received just carried one of the genes. The gene being recessive it took inheriting the gene from both parents for the cat to have the curls and satin. . It took two generations of work with these carrier cats plus bringing in genes from a domestic long hair cat before we had our firat curly hair kitten.

Success at last. We now had the ball rolling abd soon other breeders joined the development, Our first full Tennessee Rex sires several litters then was flown to a breeder in Poland to start the development there.


Block 6In 2019 we finally advanced to Preliminary New Breed and have been presented to over 50 TIBA judges . Our work now is to expand the breeders and cat population to move on to Advanced New Breed..

Go to the chapter about the Tennessee Rexx

Page Revised 7 March 2019
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