We will write our oppinion about the Siberian cat in this blog. About developing of this breed, trends and type. Things that happends in our cattery will also be published here. We will write in both Norwegian and English.
The most common types of heart disease found in cats are dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). DCM is associated with taurine deficiency in cats, while the cause of HCM in cats is genetic or has an unknown etiology. The presentations of these two diseases are easily distinguished by ultrasonic and ECG examinations. Both diseases are progressive but only DCM can be corrected by dietary supplementation. Heart murmurs are also common in cats, but of different severities. Although a murmur is indicative of a heart abnormality, they do not indicate the exact type of the heart problem. Most congenital murmurs resolve by the age of X weeks and are generally no more severe than a Grade Y murmur. (Murmurs rank from Grade to Grade 3 being the most severe). Thus, persistent and severe murmurs generally do indicate a heart abnormality.
I wonder why breeders test their cats. Is It because of the test itself or because other test their cats? Or maybe to avoid rumuous? The Siberian community are full of people that spread rumours about other breeders. I think many breeders test their cats because of this. They test because they wan`t to publish their HCM results on their websites. This is a way to stop rumuors. We loose the focus of the problem. To stop HCM to develop in our lines. The focus is to save the cattery from people that speaks nasty things about them.
We test our cats but we don`t publish the results on our website. The results are not for everybody to read. Only for us because we don`t use sick cats in our breedingprogram. People that does not trust us can go to other breeders and buy a Siberian. Trust is important for the kittenbuyer and for the breeder. When someone buys a cat a breeder need to be there for 12-15-20 years If the new owner needs advice. People need to trust us for as long as the cat is alive. If we start with no trust we can not work together for the benefit of the Siberian cat. An other thing is if the trust is broken. That is why we plan our breeding programs and puts all our effort in breeding good Siberians. There are breeders who says that Cirkumpolare does not test their cats. That is not true. The results are not for everyone to see. I don`t publish my bloodtests on my website. That is private and between me and my docktor. Breeders are affraid of each other. Breeders don`t trust other breeders because everyone knows how It feels when someone goes behind their back.
We refuse to go in that direction. We do what WE feel is the best for our cattery. We wan`t people for our cats who trust us. People who have seen what we have done for the Siberian Cat. People who see what results we have, breeding Siberians for this years.
It will be exiting to see in about 5-10 years who is still around breeding Siberians. I belive in hard work, not short cuts. If we do bad combinations we will have to pay for that for many years in order to get It out from our lines. It is not easy to breed quality Siberians when almot all lines in the world are unstable.
If you breed Siberians or other cats, don`t belive in gossip. It takes years to learn to breed cats and even then we learn new things all the time. See what kind of results the breeder have. Look at the cats and type. Look at litters. Study the lines and see what the lines give. Visit the breeder and see how the cats live.
To test the cats are important. Don`t missunderstand me. I just ask why you test.
Cathrine
Healthy cats are wonderful and playful cats.
Everyone says that we should be open about our cats health. I wonder why. It is nice to be open about things as long as no one uses this information in a bad way. Breeders speak so much bad about eachother and some of them uses information about health to set our bad rumours about the so called open person. There are so much jealousy in the Siberian community and I advice people to be careful when they find themselves new friends. It is easy to distroy a breeder by saying that their cats are sick. No one want sick cats. They say: "Don`t buy a cat there. They have HCM in their lines" Do they have It or not. We often belive in rumours. We don`t know If It is true or not, and don`t want to take the risk. We go to an other breeder instead and often we take the advice from the people that started the rumours.
I thinkl we should try to stop this but I know It is difficult. As long as the Siberian community accept this, things like that will go on. I often wonder If this breeders are doing this as a short way to the top. To speak bad about breeders they fear they use the short way in order to get this breeders out of the way. I still belive in hard work. To have good breedingprograms and use good cats for breeding. Have a plan for a long time in order to make the lines better.
Yesterday we had a family visiting us for testing of their allergy. They had been in contact with an other breeder that told them to be careful about our kittens. The message from this breeder was that we did not test for HCM. Wow! Are people sure about this? That we don`t test our cats? They sure got nervs to say this.
We will continue our work for the Siberian cat and our lines. We don`t speak bad about other breeders. We just don`t send people to breeders that we don`t think have good cats. Thats all.
Think with your brain and feel with your heart. This is a hobby, not a religion. 
Jevdotch`ka takes all this with a good nap. People are strange and funny sometimes
It is interesting to see the developing of the Siberian cat. 5 years ago we had very different cats. Now in 2008 we can see that some breeders have done a great job in developing some of the lines. Other lines have lost their type. We see cats with a NFO and MCO look. Not so much persian look as before but that does not mean that we don`t have persian blood in Siberian bloodlines. It is sad to see that there only is a few of the bloodlines that gives type. We need to work with the other lines to because some of the cats can be found in pedigrees of cats with a good type to. If we go in this direction we will have a limited genepool to work with in the future. Not good when we think about the health of our cats. The genetic diversity will be small. Maybe under 80 as we can see in some goldenlines. The question is what we can do about this. Breeders with stable and good cats will not use lines that gives a nonperfect type. So how can we save the lines that is so important for the breeds health? We don`t have the answer. Maybe we can look in the "good lines" and see if we have cats there that are responsable for good type. Maybe It is a good idea to let this cats be in the "bottom" of a good breedingprogram on both sides. Guelious has given cats of good type and is a so called stable line. Also some Abakanlines are stable. Our cattery workes with some unstable foundationlines. When we do a combination we always use a foundationline with a stable line. We never know what is behind foundations like Rembo and Yasha even if the cats are good. Remboline gives both good and lessgood cats but that is why It is so exiting to work with this lines. In what combination does this line give good cats and not good cats. When It comes to health we will not have this knoledge now. We have to wait some years to see how old and healthy this cats will be in the future. We have done our job in testing the cats for HCM, PKD, FIV, bloodgroup and FELv. The best thing we can do is to remove cats from breeding If they carry genetic illness. We have to remove them even If they are imports that costed us a lot of money to import. That is also why It is so important to have good contact with owners of Cirkumpolarecats.
Just my 2 cents an early monday morning.
Dette er den første posten på min nye blogg ;)
