Burmese Or Asian Purebred Cats?
by Jackie
(Spain)
Murphy, Mistral and Slick
I have to tread very carefully here, but I want to place this experience anyway, as I would like to hear some opinions.
When I set out to find a Burmese kitten 2years ago, I found a lilac boy (which I wanted) on the web. It was too far away for me to go and have a look and as I created a good relationship with the breeder by e-mail I trusted her implicitly.
Our correspondence went on for some 6 weeks. One week before the kitten was going to be flown out to me I was offered his litter brother for free as they were so close. After long deliberation I decided to have him too (I did pay, however, towards neutering etc). And they are great, I love them both to bits and the Burmese is the most human-orientated cat I know.
However, 1 year later I had the chance to go and visit the breeder and wanted to chose another kitten from her. She talked about her different prefixes etc and when I returned home looked up her British prefix, out of curiosity.
There I found an Asian studcat with the same date of birth as my boys, same mother, but different father. When I asked the breeder by e-mail, what the story was, she explained that as she needed an Asian kitten for a friend in the UK, she decided to put 2 males on the same queen. As in the litter of 6 there was one dark kitten, she assumed it was an Asian and it went to the UK as stud. The others were sold (full price) as Burmese.
As I had showed her pictures of my boys she told me that she now thought that they too are Asian, as their colours were getting so dark. My lilac one is like a fawn ticked one and my blue one is getting browner by the week.
I phoned the GCCF and the cat club in Spain and the Trade Description Act people, who all were fuming, but could not do anything for me. She was unrepentant and said her conscience was clear. I told her that there were 3 good reasons for feeling guilty about what she had done, 1) the GCCF, 2) TICA in Spain and 3) the Trade Description Act, who said I should get my money back.
She then offered to do just that but wanted the cats back, which is what I'll never do.
Why I am rather angry is the fact that I do not know what I have, where I implicitly wanted a Lilac BURMESE. The pedigree is worthless, I cannot show them and I cannot ever buy another kitten from this breeder as I cannot condone what she's done.
I wonder if that 'Asian' kitten now at stud in the UK is really an Asian, does the new owner know what happened?
I am sure that accidents can happen, but this was done deliberate and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. After all this I decided to not have another Burmese, because of my geographical position, but searched for an Oriental and found a pukka breeder with a super litter. Now I have a wonderful bicoloured Oriental with my lovely Burmese/Asian? boys and also gained a great friend in the breeder.
Looking forward to feed back.
Jackie