And Pearl makes three ....

The more I read about cats especially maine coons, the more I felt that I wanted to venture further into this world and try my hands at becoming a breeder. So it was off to another round of visiting the petshops and calling up or sending emails to various catteries in KL/Selangor.

Ok I hear you, NEVER BUY PUREBREED CATS from petshops but if the local breeders are not answering your calls or responding to your emails, what do you do? I confess that I am a very impatient person, when I want something, it is NOW and not LATER. So what happened next was entirely my fault so be it.

Finally, on 19 February 2011, I managed to find a petshop that have two pure bred female maine coon kitten (of breeding quality and intact) and a male maine coon kitten for sale. At that time, I had already found out that local breeders prefer to keep the female kittens and only sell the male kittens and that most local breeders do not sell intact kittens. So when the shopkeeper told me he had two intact female kittens, I immediately asked to see them.

Pearl in front, Amber in the background

The first time I saw Pearl and Amber, I was struck by how Amber looks so elegant with her white ruff and her brown coat. Pearl was much thinner (more like lithe) and had silver, white and brown coat. I wanted Amber but when the shopkeeper opened the cage, Pearl was the one excitedly greeting me, Amber scrambled as far away as she could. When I picked her up, she snuggled against me and I was struck by how cute her overall face was - absolutely cute, foxy like. And she was purring and meowing at the same time. Or maybe like me, she is a talkative kitten. He he he, you've guessed it, I am dead.

The shopkeeper told me that all three kittens (the two girls and boy) were from the same litter but Pearl was the only one who had the case of fungus when she was a baby hence that is why she is smaller that the rest. She also had a scrawny looking tail which I was told will fill up a bit when she grows older. Hmmm, little did I know that it will take a miracle for that to happen!

Before I left the shop, I placed a deposit for her as I did not bring enough cash for her. The shopkeeper said that he will arrange for the necessary registration papers (with TICA) and that she has already been vaccinated from the necessary evil. I saw the registration slip that he showed me but since I didn't know how an actual TICA registration slip looked like, I could not comment whether it is genuine.

Okay, I know the warning bells were there - fungus, smallest in the litter, scrawny tail but look at her, she's sooo adorable! :) :) :)). Despite the warning bells, we picked her up on 27/02/11.

He he he, imagine, I only started learning about cats from 5/2/2011 and boy, do I have a long, long way to go!

More photos