Why did you choose

[Kazz]

Why did you choose the breed of cat you have or why did you choose a Moggie.
Or why did you change from Moggie to pedigree or pedigree o Moggie???

[random]

I chose to have a meezer because I have wanted one since I was about 6 or 7! My Auntie had 2 girls and bred one of them, Sophie, but my mum wouldn't let us have a kitten as we had a rather dominant lad (moggy) at the time. Ever since then it has been my dream to have one of my own. I knew all about them from such an early age but later on my parents didn't feel that amount of money was appropriate to buy an animal.

I got my moggies because, plain and simply, i'm a sucker for a sob story! I would have had 4 meezers but the mogs 'needed' somewhere. Vitaani was being kept in a small dog crate as the woman who got her had another cat and a dog that didn't like her and she had her in this cage for 2 weeks. I was expecting a much bigger kitty when I went to get her, I had assumed the lady got her at 8 weeks as the norm so she must have been about 10 weeks, but in reality she looked to be about 6 weeks maximum to me, so the lady must have had her from about 4 weeks. She's turned out fine though, but she is a very small cat.

Tucker I got with his sister Nipper as a stray mum had decided to give birth in one of my friend's barns. She kept mum but was desperately seeking homes for these babies, the rest of the litter went to friends of hers too, but she hadn't a clue about cats before this event so I gave her a lot of advice and helped her with socialising the babies and weaning them. She'd never owned a cat before and now she dotes on her little girl, it's like it was fate, lovely!

[dandysmom]

Well, I grew up with a ginger moggy, but as a girl enjoyed a series of books about an husband and wife team of detectives who had a very clever Siamese; so when I was able to get a cat of my own. went for one. When he died, I got the Aby simply because I'd admired the kittens in the neighborhood pet shop (didn't know back then about backyard breeders and that pet shops weren't the ideal way to get a cat, but Sultan was healthy, well socialized and a very regal cat.) Then Misty, a blue torbie, adopted me. After Sultan died too young, I went for a Singapura simply because I'd read about them in Cats magazine and thought they were a lovely breed; then adopted Patches, a brindled tortie, because she needed a home. And a friend who knew Misty found Leia for me as she knew I'd like another blue torbie; they aren't what you call common.
So, it wasn't actually a decision to go from moggy to pedigreed and back to moggy; it was just sort of the way it happened. I love them both equally.

[sammy]

I've never had (or wanted) pedigree cats, although having now had experience of x-maine coons, that's what I would go for if I ever do go for pedigrees (maine coons that is!)...

Quite honestly though, I'm quite happy with moggies. I may be wrong, but I think on the whole they tend not to suffer so many illnesses, and I can't see why I should go for anything else if I'm not showing.

All our moggies have been rescue cats and all of them have actually chosen us - this is particularly true of Purdie who we recently homed from the RSPCA. We wanted a tabby, but she (black and white) leapt into my arms purring and that was it! Much as we'd have liked a tabby, Purdie is an absolute delight and I couldn't be happier that she chose us!

[Grete]

Long answer :

I've had cats since I was about 7 in varying numbers up to 4 at a time. The first cat I fell in love with was a dainty tabby called Suki that I begged my parents to take on when her owners needed to rehome her as they were being posted abroad (I was an army brat).

Several years later we had moved away from the army and a very timid little girl started to creep in through the cat flap and take some of Suki's food. She was horribly thin and her coat was in an awful state and again I begged my parents to take her in so started the process of getting her to trust us. We wormed and gave her a flea treatment when she'd let us and she gained weight, turning into a gorgeous semi-longhaired tortoiseshell (I cleverly named her Tortie). She'd been beaten, her tail broken and also had a spinal fracture that had just been left to heal so it's no wonder she didn't want to trust us at first.

Then my mum got Bubbles the first and Squeak - the first cats we'd actually sought to get and they were just a bundle of mischief until Bubbles fell ill with Feline Leukaemia and had to be PTS to stop her suffering.

Suki and Tortie were by this time very elderly and the month after Bubbles went to the rainbow bridge, Suki went into Renal failure and was also eased from this world. Tortie followed her within the month - took her final sleep in a neighbours garden.

I wouldn't say they had all been great friends but they were affectionate with each other and were all comfortable being around one another.

I left home around this time and took in two beautiful boys from the RSPCA - Ollie was a long haired fluffball that was ginger and white and his brother Hardy was the same colour but short haired.

I got cat broody again and bought 2 kittens from an advert in a paper (something I won't do again but I didn't know any better at that point) and Camikazi (Cami) and Harlequin (Quinnie) joined my brood.

When I split with my boyfriend, I couldn't take them with me and as I mentioned before, I ran out of time before I got settled and could get them. Ollie and Hardy went to a good friend of mine and the two youngsters went to the RSPCA. I still think about them and wonder how their lives have been.

Squeak then came to me when my mum needed to rehome her and then along came Bubbles and I have already told you their stories

I desperately want another cat now as a companion to Bubbles and it will be a moggy again. Too many precious kitties need the love I have to give.

Wow, sorry, I didn't mean to write such a long post

I guess the short answer there is : Moggies

[dandysmom]

What a good thread! It's so interesting to hear the stories of our cats and why/how we got them......

[Donna]

I wanted a cat, but never really looked into it. Didnt go for a pedigree because of the cost and also, as was new to cats, didnt know what breed I would want if it was a pedigree!!!

Glad I got the moggies and wouldnt change them for anything!

[borderdawn]

We always had a Cat, first one before I was born, always rescue moggies, my first real recolection was a deaf, white Cat from the then CPL 34yrs ago! Since then I have had moggies, Jessie from our Vets and Scooter from the CP, but decided about 15yrs ago Id like a long haired Cat aswell and visited a few shows, I LOVED the Persians, so I had Schnapps after around 6mths of searching. I then had a blue one, who was my sisters cat, due to her circumstances, she couldnt keep him, so we had him.

Next Cat was "Jazz" Burmese cross Persian, fabulous animal, from a very dodgy so-called breeder who I came into contact with whilst doing rescue (dogs) anyway he was wonderful. Sadly he got killed at 9yrs, and my first ever to get killed in an RTA.

His replacement was the magnificent "Darcy" another CP rescue, he was from a semi-feral mother and a probable feral male. Lovely lovely Cat but just couldnt keep him in, he was awful for screaming to get out. he would go across the main road to the golf course, some distance away, the road being a good few minutes walk from my house, which is off the smaller road, then that in turn leads to the busier road. He would just sit watching the hedges, and it was inevitable he would be hit, coming home one day he was. I couldnt face that again, it was dreadful.

Enter the British Shorthair. Laid back, pretty useless and a "cant be bovvered" attitude, very cuddly and simply wonderful! I cant want for anything else in a Cat, the fencing that couldnt confine Darcy is more than adequate, they never even put paws on it to attempt to jump, whereas Darcy was scaling a brick wall some 8ft or so high on our neighbours extension to get out.

The BSH are everything I want in a Cat, I cant see me with anything else now, except another rescue moggy.

[Darky]

I grew up with a moggy, a persian/tabby cross - she and her brother were the result of an unwanted litter from people who bred pedigree persians. No choice in the matter, I wasn't even supposed to have a cat, but I was blessed with her.

She had tabby/moggy kittens, so our cat Spike is a big tabby with a teensy bit of persian in his face.

When it came to actually choosing a cat, I just didn't care what kind it was, I just needed a cat to fill the loss of Tiger - I can never happily live without a cat close to me. I fell in love with a Devon Rex who was lovely, and the rescue place I went to tried to bond me with a load of cats before suddenly going - "Oh. None of these cats are suitable to go with a dog." Thanks for telling me that after making me hopeful, even though it was clearly written on the form we gave you and we mentioned it to you several times. Then again, this was the place that advertised kitten season like a day before I visited, claiming to have dozens of kittens, yet not a single one when I got there.

I was willing to pay £110 to rescue a kitten from there, or £85 for an adult cat. Bloody expensive, but there y'go.

But then my parents found a farm selling kittens for £20-30 (can't remember exactly) each, and as it would go towards their upkeep of the farm, they decided to reserve a kitten for me.

And so, I got Honey, my little black and white, semi-longhaired moggy. I personally think that moggies and purebred cats are fantastic alike, because they're all unique regardless of breed anyway.

[Kazz]

I'll add my story to this then.

When I was a girl my Dad rescued a lovely long haired cat who became as so gentle, I remember her being so nervous when she came she had had a litter of kittens and the chap was happily drowning them when Dad was cleaning the windows, the mother cat was calling and crying for them he'd locked her in a shed. Dad (hard man he is) broke and said he wanted a couple of kittens for his children and would the chap consider keeping two if Dad did his windows for free till he collected the kittens

The chap said Yeap no problem but there was only one left out of 7 kittens Dad went to look and there were 6bodies in a bucket and one in the chaps hand a ginger kitten the chap returned the ginger kitten to the Mother cat and she Dad said Purred like a train, he felt so sorry for her he took a bottle of milk and bits of the Sunday jointto supplement her food till the kitten was old enough, when the kit was about 5 weeks old the chap asked if he was taking the kitten as he wanted rid of the cat. Dad brought both home. Smokey as she became was an old cat we think now. She was spayed, and became the most loving cat ever, although she never came in the house. She just looked in the door the whole prospect scared the life out of her she lived happily in the shed, heating was set up for her. Her kitten a lovely ginger an dbit of white Tom called Tiger had no such worries everywhere was his domain His Mom died when he was 3 or 4 and Tiger died when he was about
6/7 (he just went to sleep and the following morning he was dead) My Dad said of a broken heart he missed his Mom. Never got another cat.
Tiger was obsessed with Dad's window leathers.

Left home and got Archie a black and white kitten he was run over and killed at about 9months. Then the vet phoned about resciue kittens and Oscar and Cleo came into my life for the next 24ish years.

So for me its moggies I do like Siamese and BSH's but can't see me with anything but Moggies.
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