Mrs. Norah Andrews - Kyina & Talisker Cats Breeders of Russian ...

Sia,mese are Prohlent CatsBv ELSIE KENT, well known judge and breeder who was forvears Hon. Secretary and Show Manager of the Siamese CatmanyClubI TEM on the agenda for aI Siamese Cat CIub AnnualI General Meetins :" In view ol tt-r. increasinenumber of cats placed at stud-,many of whom are below thereouired standard. membersshould consider methods of grading,and empower the Committeeto take immediate steps to maintainand improve the quality ofbreeding males piaced at publicstud. "Quote from Mr. Marshall,Secretary o{' the New ZealandGoverning Council of the CatFancy :" With your huge Siamese Clubit is very disconcerting to learnfor example how another judgeand yourself have on differenttimes expressed your difficulty infinding good enough specimensto send to New Zealand. Whyis there such a large percentage ofpoor quaiity Siamese ? "And, judges during the pastshow season have commentedmanv times on the falling qualityof the breed.According to the above, the cat whichis different is not on the up-grade, butdeteriorating badll'. Why?Firstly, I do not think the Siamese bredto-day arc r.ery much worse than themajority which appeared before the war,except that there are more of them. Inthose pre-war days we had a few reall_vgood cats and a vast collection ofinferiorones. lVe also had the horde of commerciallyminded breeders who purchased alemale kitten, sent her to the neareststud and sold the resultant kittens for asmuch as could be obtained. At firstsales were brisk, but when the marketbecame flooded, prices dropped andSiamese queens were hawked around forpractically nothing. At the outbreak ofthe war the live-stock market crashed.and only the really serious breedercarried on.Came the end of hostilities and theSiamese cat was once again a raritl ,prices were high and so once more thecommercial element appeared withexactly the same result and to-day thegenuine breeders are at z discount,Such breeders are quite concerned aboutthis state of affairs and they are castingaround for a soiution" The same breedersare also worried about the quality of thenumber of Siamese with the Championshipdangling round their necks.Weird Judging ResultsThe serious breeder may look to theSiamese Cat Club for guidance, butnowadays I fear he or she may look invain. Once upon a time should theClub look upon a certain point with disfavour,Club judges were united inpenalizing the fault and before long itdisappeared for the simple reason thatthe breeder knew it was useless toexhibit such stock. To-day everyonejudges to their own particular fancy andwe get the weird results of half-a-dozenSiamese judges at the same show allputting up a different cat, which, evenallowing for the personal element) cannotbe right.Various suggestions have been putforward in an endeavour to stem theSiamese flow towards the alley cat.From one leading breeder comes theidea that the Governing Council StudList should be divided inro secrions.The first should be headed " Approvedby the Siamese Cat Club " and wouldcontain the names of all those cats whot3