My first Persian entered my life as a beautiful dilute calico in 1987, we were blessed to share our lives with her 15 years and she (Miss B) is undoubtedly the reason we were drawn to this very special breed...Raising purebreds is a passion and an obsession. It starts out simple enough and then one morning you wake up and your significant other turns to you & says 'We need more room for the cats!'. Now for a feline owned human such as myself this was a dream come true! So, the journey continues in a bigger direction and before you can blink, your 'hobby' has grown into a full time job! Few understand why we would convert a perfectly good office into a nursery for the kittens or why we would opt to build a 'cat house' instead of a guest house, but afterall, our animals are our extended family, and they need their own luxury accommodations, too. Our non-feline owned friends don't understand why it is that we don't own one single working hair dryer but can readily produce 3 cat blow dryers at a moment's notice, it's just a cat thing...

My contractor laughed at me when I began designing the cattery, I wanted tunnels and shelves in placement to suit the needs of the four legged creatures who are the real Boss around here! Below you see through the front door during construction~

And of course, they must have their own kitchen~

The primary focus of any breeding program, is and always should be, to better the breed. To make a difference in a difficult business. The only way to insure this is with structure, and this means separating the males from the females and the mothers with kittens from everyone else. They, just like us, need a quiet and safe haven to give birth and raise their young, a place to feel secure. We do cage our Mothers with their kittens for their own safety and not doing so, is just asking for disaster. Below is our suite for the 'Mothers to be'~which is where they spend the last few weeks before going to the nursery to deliver~

And of course, to ensure the true parentage with controlled breeding's, which is the reason for 'Purebreds',  our boys live in their own separate quarters in individual suites~it was during the planning stages of the cattery that we realized that the Boss's House would need to have a 2nd story, and so it grew~

Our boys are our little Kings, each one is here for his own special attributes and the personalities, well, they are the light of our day, when needing a break, you can often find one of us upstairs playing with the boys. They can make you laugh when you need to most:)

It took a very special and patient contractor to be so flexible during this project. As it grew and changed during the construction phases of the cattery, I would often notice some unauthorized changes of specialty features appearing and wonder 'who's' ideas these were??

Then, I caught the real Boss whispering in my contractor's ear and knew who was really in charge!

My ever so patient contractor, life partner and husband of 20 years and counting has made my dream a reality. It is never 'easy' raising living creatures, but always rewarding and ever changing...