Domestic Wildcats Sells Sick Kittens - domesticwildcat.com - Domestic Wild Cat - Taran Nolan

[Nuagent]

This has been my introduction letter to breeders, which paints a detailed and acurate portrayal of our home and family.

We have become attracted to the Savannah breed recently because we learned that some people with cat dander sensitivity do well with them. My husband has had cats (as I have) and he has a slight allergy. Nothing that prevented him from having cats in the past, but it would be nice to find a breed that has a lesser incidence. What really attracted us (after the hypoallergenic factor) was our belief that a breed like this would transition well into our family. We have two children; age 6 and 2. From the time that they have had the ability to use their hands, they have been taught “gentle touch”. Primarily because we also have 3 Pug dogs and 2 female guinea pigs. Our Pugs are rescue dogs, 2 males age 11 and 8. One female, puppy mill breeder age 4 with a very strong maternal drive.

We are not typical 2014 parents in that we do believe in pets being allowed person space and our children learning to respect animals boundaries. I have had cats my entire life; from kitten, to street strays and in between. Our animals have all died from old age; we have never returned an animal to the shelter or sold it because of issues that we felt we undesirable. If anything, we seem to absorb those types into our pack. We never kennel our animals when we go on vacation, we always have a pet sitter stay at the house because we have 2 dogs with significant separation anxiety due to their past; and we have no desire to stress them further. We only believe in indoor pets. Our dogs go out for walks/bathroom breaks. Other than that, everyone is inside, in air conditioning and sleeping in our bed. I believe that caring for pets helps develop empathy and responsibility in children, however I also realistically acknowledge that I will be the caretaker. We are in no rush to buy the first kitten we see. Rather, we are looking for the perfect new member of our family

 

[Nuagent]

That didn't work, how do I copy and paste?

 

[admin]

It looks like it worked very well....please start a new thread under Savannah kittens or cats wanted, since this is no longer about domestic wildcats

 

[Nuagent]

I am sorry. Back to the topic at hand.

 

[admin]

I am sorry. Back to the topic at hand.

No worries...you just needed to start a new thread if you are looking for a Savannah kitten.

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

IMO, I would consider a cat with no papers not to be purebred. It's something like $15-20 for the breeder to register the whole litter so it makes no sense for the cat not to have papers. IMO, big red flag.

Completely agreed! No papers means no guarantee the cat is even the breed it is represented as!

As Dantes says, it is cheap to register a litter so when you are paying $1600 for a kitten there is NO good reason not to get papers. The breeder can mark them "not for breeding, not for showing" when sold as pet only.

Nuagent, most Savannahs are sold as pet only, the prices are NOT because of showing although breeding rights will cost more. Many cat breeds will cost ~$1,000-1,500 for a good quality pet kitten. That's what I paid for my British Shorthair too. But if your criteria is but wanting a "cat" then of course there are options...shelters have lots of worthy cats. The danger when you look for a "bargain Savannah" is that you will get a badly bred one that looks and behaves nothing like the breed, or you may not even get a Savannah but some scammer offering mixed breed spotted kittens on Craigslist...and oopsie they've mislaid the momma's papers somewhere but they truly are Savannahs! ;-)

 

[Dantes]

Completely agreed! No papers means no guarantee the cat is even the breed it is represented as!

As Dantes says, it is cheap to register a litter so when you are paying $1600 for a kitten there is NO good reason not to get papers. The breeder can mark them "not for breeding, not for showing" when sold as pet only.

Nuagent, most Savannahs are sold as pet only, the prices are NOT because of showing although breeding rights will cost more. Many cat breeds will cost ~$1,000-1,500 for a good quality pet kitten. That's what I paid for my British Shorthair too. But if your criteria is but wanting a "cat" then of course there are options...shelters have lots of worthy cats. The danger when you look for a "bargain Savannah" is that you will get a badly bred one that looks and behaves nothing like the breed, or you may not even get a Savannah but some scammer offering mixed breed spotted kittens on Craigslist...and oopsie they've mislaid the momma's papers somewhere but they truly are Savannahs! ;-)

On a side note, TICA registration papers are also *not* a guarantee that a cat is "pure bred"...maybe this is less of a concern with SVs, but in the Ragdoll world it's super-important, because in order to have a pure bred Ragdoll you must have bred Ragdoll-Ragdoll...in other words, Ragdoll bred to any other cat is not a Ragdoll at all...but yet TICA allows registration of any cat as Ragdoll that has one Ragdoll parent. This makes it *really* complicated if you're trying to figure out if the cat is what they say it is...and shows why it's important to get the pedigree of your cat (if you're concerned about getting a pure bred cat, anyway, and if you're paying a lot of money, wouldn't you be?) so you can see where the cat actually comes from. The irony in the Ragdoll world is that so-called "nonstandard" Ragdolls (as said above, mix cats that aren't even Ragdolls at all) are often bred by backyard breeders, and they charge crazy exorbitant prices for them, much more than you'd pay for an actual Ragdoll.

Like I said above though, since not all SVs (and certainly not all SVs of high gen) are SV-SV breeding anway, this might not be as important here, but I think it's important to know. Maybe breeders can comment on what you're looking for with the TICA registration and pedigree. In any case, "know your breeder" is really important if you're paying for a pet, otherwise you might as well adopt from the shelter.

I know that's a little off-topic, but I thought it was important to know that while NOT having papers is a huge red flag, having papers isn't necessarily a green flag, either.

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

Agreed, I didn't say papers meant it was a purebred but that it was the breed it was represented as.

TICA is a genetic registry and hence allows outcrosses, and this is a GOOD thing for many breeds. It means TICA Burmese are often healthier than other registries simply because they can outcross and then work towards SBT (what we consider "purebred" as three generation pedigree only of that breed). This is not where our breed is right now...in years past we needed outcrosses to develop our breed. Now there is less call for it and so one might question why the outcross (convenience or some other intention?).

I do agree, it is important to know if the papers would be SBT or A,B,C (the registration codes will start with A,B or C if not purebred) as an outcrossed Savannah (A means one parent is not a Savannah) should be a lot cheaper (unless F1 as all F1s are considered outcrossed as the Serval is not the breed), and realistically should not be expected necessarily to look or behave Savannah and not the other parent's breed.

 

[Dantes]

Agreed, I didn't say papers meant it was a purebred but that it was the breed it was represented as.

Sorry, I didn't mean that you did say that...just that when I went to buy my first-ever pure bred cat, I had no idea how to go about it. I knew to look for the breeder's membership in TICA, so I did that...but ended up with a cat with a very questionable pedigree, and all sorts of other problems. It was a *really* hard lesson to learn, and I just didn't want people thinking that membership in TICA or the existence of papers was any guarantee that they were getting a good, "well-bred" cat.

Backyard breeders can also be TICA members, and can supply papers for their cats...but you still want to avoid them. Figuring out who to go to can be tricky when you're just starting.

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

Absolutely! TICA membership is as easy as filling out a form and paying membership...there's no other criteria hence it isn't a gauge of how good a breeder someone is.

i do think though that generally the breeders that register their kittens likely are a better choice than those breeding without papers... but there's no absolutes and always exceptions to such things!