Our Neuters

Following the death of our old moggie girl this year and with the recent arrival of our little Abyssinian girl, we have four neuters, all of which are pedigrees. The adults have all been shown on several occasions, with some success. With the exception of Sonia, who was spayed because her inappropriate toileting necessitated a move to Apollo's pen in the garden, they live with us in the house, helping to socialise our kittens after vaccinations. In order of age, they are:

Annas, Dàrna, Sonia and Abbie.

Dàrna and Sonia are retired breeding queens and therefore have their own pages, whereas the others were bought as neuters and share this page. Clicking on their names above will take you to their individual information on this page, or direct to Dàrna and Sonia's own pages.

Annas (CH & UK & I GR PR Rushbrooke Kahlua Over Ice, ALH n / 68 - Tiffanie, Black (Self))
Annas is Gaelic for 'Surprise' - named because I bought her as a surprise gift for Richard, who had been saying since we started dating that he would like a black cat. It is pronounced exactly as it looks.
Also known as 'Blackness', 'Black Beast' and 'Small Black'

D.O.B. 05/12/07
Annas' Pedigree (opens a new window)

Annas came from Amanda Colgan (Rushbrooke Asians, Burmese and Bengals) in Cambridgeshire. When we bought her, we had never shown any of our cats, and hadn't considered doing so. Annas was purchased purely because she was a black cat with a nice personality, not because she was any particular breed. When her brother won Best Foreign Kitten at a show, Amanda suggested that we should try showing Annas. We did so, and found that we really enjoyed it, so we kept doing it.

Unlike Call, and some of our other previous pedigree neuters, Annas is really a rather good example of her breed and made up to Champion just after turning 13 months. We then had her spayed and started again as a neuter. She made up to Premier at the Durham County in May 2009 and then started on Grand. She won her three Grand Premier Certificates in four shows, from Val Kilby, Carol Jones and Linda Ashmore, picking up one Reserve Grand from George Gow on the way. This made her the UK's first Grand Premier Tiffanie! At the Supreme in 2009, Sue Luxford-Watts then awarded her the first UK Grand certificate ever given to a Tiffanie.

Over the next seven shows, she won her five Imperial Certificates, from George Gow, Anne Gregory, Val Kilby, John Hansson(!) and Helen Marriott-Power, making up to Imperial at the Durham show a year after making up to Premier there. This made her the first ever Imperial-titled Tiffanie, but she didnt stop there, winning her second UK certificate (from Maria Chapman) at the Supreme in 2010, making her a UK Grand Premier, and the first UK-titled Tiffanie. Having won a pile of breed firsts, and also picked up a couple of Best Foreign Neuter wins along the way, she has now mostly retired from showing, though we do still bring her out occasionally, and she has won three Olympian Certificates - again, the first of these awarded to a Tiffanie!

Annas was half-sister to our first queen, Katie, who had the same sire, and is also second-cousin to Fiona, whose grandsire was litter-brother to Annas' grandsire.

 

Abbie (Pontaby Zinnia, ABY o / 23a - Abyssninian, Sorrel)

We started out calling Abbie by her pedigree name, Zinnia, but then Richard started calling her Zinnie-pig (as in Guinea-Pig), so I decided we needed to come up with something else. We spent a few weeks trying to decide what to call her but by that time she'd got so used to being called 'Aby' that we decided just to give up and giver her that as her name. We therefore have one of probably thousands of Abys called Abbie, but hey-ho.

Abbie is our third Pontaby Abyssinian, and brings back a little piece of our beloved Gealbhan. Over the years since we had our previous Abys, I'd stayed in touch with Lorraine both at shows and on Facebook, and when she posted a photo of Abbie back in June, I couldn't resist going round to meet her. We're not wanting to breed Abys so I was interested in her purely as a pet and therefore wanted a kitten who was comparatively laid-back and calm (for an Aby). Abbie is just that: she's very sweet, gentle and cuddly and although she still has her mad moments, she wouldn't be an Aby if she didn't - that's half the fun. I'm delighted that we've another sorrel baby in the house and, best of all, she's a One Shot granddaughter, so is a niece of Gealbhan's.