Beautiful Blue steals my heart (British Shorthair)

Member Name: mickeyhunt

Product:	British Shorthair
Date:	14/08/09 (169 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Loyal and loving shorthair, they develpe strong emotional bonds

Disadvantages: None what so ever

I first fell in love with British shorthaired cats in 1995 when I acquired my little princess Casey. I had seen the cats in an advert (for sheba cat food I think) and I loved how velvety their fur looked and the big round bright orange eyes. I found a local breeder from Cat World and contacted her. She had a litter available and we went to see them and I was hooked straight away. She was just a tiny bundle of fur who at 4 weeks did not want to leave the comfort of her brothers and sisters. I had to wait a further 8 weeks for her as the breeder did not like letting them go before 12 weeks. I also broached the topic of breeding, but the breeder was not keen and usually stipulated no breeding. However as she got to know me she relented and agreed to help find a stud when the time came.

This was still a long way off when I got my little baby home. I already had two cats Toby and Ginger two lovable moggies. We lived in a flat on the seafront which unfortunately had a busy road in front, but we hoped that she would only want to explore out the back and would be safe. We had lost a black kitten (Toby's brother) about 4 years previously, but both Toby and Ginger had developed a good road sense and we hoped Casey would too. As she got older I began to get more and more apprehensive about letting her out and one early summer day we were at home and had the double doors of our ground floor flat open onto the small balcony outside. It was next to the pavement and road, but too far for Casey to jump upto so I thought. At some point in the morning I suddenly noticed that Casey was missing. I searched the flat (it was only small so that took 5 minutes) but to no avail. I started to panic about the wall and the road. I was in tears as I was sure that she had jumped up and got onto the pavement and was either dead, stolen or lost. My husband was just as frantic. He walked up and down the road calling her name. I was in such a state I could not think. I just sat on the settee and cried. He came back empty handed and my stomach started to churn. I got up to rush to the loo feeling sick and as I walked by our kitchen which was part of our open plan lounge a moving door caught my attention. I stopped and stared and the door swung lazily open and then my gorgeous insolent little kitten meandered out, stopping briefly to shake herself. She then looked curiously up at me as if to say 'whats all the fuss about and then wandered over to her biscuit bowl and started eating. I was so relieved I just started crying again. My husband just could not stop himself laughing. We had been running around lamenting and wailing and she was playing hide and seek all the time.

After that my nerves could not take it. I immediately started looking for a house. We did not have the money for a deposit and there was no way that we would be able to sell the flat as we were in a negative equity situation, but that did not even register. My one goal was to buy a new house for my little princess. We eventually found the perfect house (after seeing over 40 - I am not fussy honestly, but they had to have a safe garden) and sat down to think how we could buy. We were very lucky at the time, because the banks were desperate to get business and lend to people and we found a bank that was willing to lend us the money and I got a loan for the deposit. The bank did not even want to know about the other mortgage. When the bank representative came out to see us to do all the paperwork, he just said don't even tell me about it I don't want to know (no wonder the banks have problems now). He advised us to sell it if we could or rent it out. From that point on everything went smoothly and in the August of 1995 we were in our new house and our cats, especially our little princess were safe.

I don't suppose there are that many cats that have a house brought for them, but Casey was so special. She loved her new home and had a lovely large garden to wander in and lots more places to hide from us. She developed that beautiful plush coat that is so typical of the British Shorthair and had the deepest orange eyes that could look at you so scornfully after having left her with babysitters for a few days if we went away. She hated to be picked up but was content to sit beside you and be stroked and adored. She formed a very close bond with Ginger my big ginger moggie and when she had her first season she made very obvious overtures to him, to his extreme horror ( he was neutered). Still he did recover from his shock but was unable to oblige her.

After her first call (season) we put her on the pill to give us time to sort out our plans to breed. In the March of 1996 we got a Labrador puppy called Willow and things went haywire. I forgot to give Casey her pill (1/2 once every week) and during a particularly bad potty training session with Willow Casey got out into the garden and was immediately pounced on by the ugliest and meanest black and white moggie. I am not exaggerating. She got round my ankles and was in the garden for 5 minutes. As soon as I had sorted Willow out I turned round to get Casey, who was cavorting shamelessly with the local bad boy who had just appeared out of nowhere. The next thing I knew and she was rolling around on the floor meowing and he was sat practically smoking a cigarette. That was it, the moment of conception. I hoped that nothing had happened, but our luck was out and her nipples started to pink up in weeks. She just carried on getting bigger and bigger till sometime in June when she had 4 kittens, 3 black and 1 black and white. The day she had the kittens that bloody tom cat was back at the front of the house calling for her to come out. My husband chased him off.

The birth was not fun. At first she tried to give birth in the litter tray so we had to transport her upstairs to her birthing suite (our spare bedroom), Where she produced two and completely stopped. I had to transport her and the kittens to the vets for an oxytocin injection to push her to give birth, which worked a treat. Getting them breathing was fun, you have to hold them in your hand like a cricket ball and swing them reasonably hard (without letting go), but that did work and they were fine. Tragedy struck because Casey unbenknown to us was a cat flu carrier and she passed it on the kittens. We lost two, but a black and a black and white survived. My friend had the black female kitten and we kept the black and white boy and called him Felix.


In November 1996 we got a second Labrador called Freya and in May 1997 we got a Cavalier King Charles puppy called Digby. We had a bit of respite till the end of 1998 when we went back to Casey's breeder and had two more kittens Magic and Grenville two exotic boys, one black and one blue. Our little menagerie was growing.
In 1999 we decided to try breeding from Casey again and so in the march took her off her pill. Unfortunatley before we could even sort out a stud she went straight into a call, so I put her in our spare bedroom for a few days. The inevitable happened and she got out. I did not realise till I found her on the stairs with 9 month old Grenville and Magic who were actually taking turns with her!!. I managed to catch her and put her back upstairs, but a couple of hours later my husband let her out by accident. She was outside in a trice and Felix her son who had not been neutered (our fault I know) immediately did the deed (incest a game all the family can play.) We knew that one of the 3 cats must have got her pregnant and it was a waiting game. Sure enough the nipples started to pink and she gained weight. At the end of July she delivered 5 little bundles, 1 pure blue, 3 black and 1 black and white. We decided not to breed anymore scheduled in for her to be spayed as soon as she had finished rearing the kittens. The birth had the same problems, the rush to the vet for the magic injection to help her give birth and one of the kittens had a badly cleft pallet, a sure sign of inbreeding and he had to be put to sleep poor little thing. We called him Herman and buried him in the garden. I kept the blue and called him Renzo and he is now absolutely huge. I also kept the black and white female who we called Lizzy and she is a timid dainty little cat. The two black girls went to a friends mum.

After the kittens were weaned Casey went straight to the vets and was spayed. I hated doing it, but we could not afford any more mishaps. She had to wear a collar and stay indoors for 10 days, so I kept her in my bedroom. On the 10th day I took the hood off and went out to get her some food and came back into the room to find she had ripped at two stitches. I had only been gone a few minutes. Back went the hood for another few days till she went to the vets to have the stitches out.

Casey really was my little princess. She was always my cat and used to sleep next to me in bed and would come racing upstairs on a Sunday morning with my husband when he brought me a bacon sandwich. I would then have to continually push her off as she tried to steal my bacon. She also loved chips. She would steal them off my husband's plate with a deftly aimed paw. Sadly I lost Casey on the 26th July 2009. She was 14 ½. It broke my heart, but she had cancer and lost so much weight so quickly and there was nothing we could do but give her the final kindness. I still have her 3 children Felix , Renzo and Lizzie so I still see her everyday in them.

I will always love British blues and would recommend them as perfect pets. They are very loyal and loving and get extremely devoted to their owners. They do not need a lot of grooming, although they can get knots if not checked regularly.

Summary: British blues are a wonderful breed that would suit anyone who loves cats