What is pet-class
This article is for those who is looking for a kitten.
While buying a kitten the breeder will offer you to sign a sales contract. In this contract, except the housing conditions for the animal and procedure of settlements will be the class of the kitten assigned: pet, breed, or show. If the show-class is well-known and pleases the buyer, then with the pet-class there are a lot of obscures. In our country there is a wrong opinion that pet is a breed defect, a second rate animal, with defects or health problems. Sometimes even experienced breeders can say: "Well, half of the brood are born pets". It seems that we forgot to give the translation of the word "pet" - domestic favourite. It is a loving, tender, beautiful animal, BUT not for breeding. Why not all 100% of the kittens are for breeding?
The matter is that the felinologist-breeder doesn`t "multiply" cats for sale. Every breeding cattery has its breeding programme that is made to get beautiful healthy competitive animals with an interesting genofond. For this "honorable" business the breeder chooses several kittens from the brood, the rest of the kittens please the owners as their pets. Who is suitable for breeding?
1. The kittens of an interesting brooding line, the unusual and rare in color animals or the ones that have special breeding features, that the breeder would like to fix for the generation. It is clear that not the whole brood, no one wants to multiply the breed. Very often the breeder sells these kittens with a condition of the first copulation under his/her control, because he/she knows it well what partner this animal needs.
2. There are such situations when the breeder succeeded in getting an animal of a rare breed lines - for example, brought from far-away or copulated it with a rare representative. In such cases the breeder tries not to spread the rare line, but to work for several years at them by him/herself. Don`t be offended, because all the breeders want to have at their cattery the "highlight", an exclusive one. From this brood the breeder leaves one or two animals for him/herself and the rest (beautiful and rare) sells as a pet-class, with a condition of a castration or a sterilization.
The sales conditions are "written" in the contract. If a kitten is sold as a pet-class, usually the buyer doesn`t receive the broodline documents before the castration (sterilization) of the animal. Sometimes the broodline documents are given but with a mark - "without the right of breeding". In many breeding catteries the kittens of the age more than 4 months are sold, that are already sterilized. In the sales contract it is often written "the buyer is obliged not to use the animal for breeding", the breakdown of this clause will cause a fine.
Of course, an unfair buyer can bind its animal without any documents. But according to a longstanding experience of breeders there would be nothing good out of the "undesirable" copulations. The first brood of such kittens at the age of 1.5 months is distributed among friends and kith. After that the owner of the cat runs into euphoria: played with the kittens, "gave pleasure" to a she-cat, settled the kittens, didn`t spend money on food, vaccination and care, on the next brood will be rich. But the practice shows that to sell the kitten without documents, advertising, the club support is very difficult. The kittens stay up to 5-6 months with the owner, the expenses on accommodation are higher then the sales price and the grown-up he-kittens try to "be engaged" with the mother-cat and the sisters. After that the kittens are sold for a ridiculous price, rousing fair blame from serious breeders, because their longstanding and hard work of breeding the qualitative animals becomes of no value.
Every breeder wants the potential buyer to evaluate his/her possibilities soberly and choose the right kitten. Because the breeding is a difficult and diligent work, that asks for the full discipline of excellence. The breeder chooses the certain type of the owner for brood kittens - the responsible, hard-working, concerned person, who has free time, ready to get special knowledge and of course without financial difficulties. That`s why the price for the brood kitten can be twice higher the price of the pet-cat. Abroad there is no practice of selling kittens for breeding to beginners. The kittens` owners start the way of filinology with the knackered and only being sure in their interest, can buy the animal of a breed-class. That is very clever, the accident people are cut, who wanted to breed only for money or freak.
By the way the myth about the profitability of breeding is no more than a myth, at least, at first several years of the breeding cattery existence. The kittens don`t grow like a roadside grass and the brood animals are not similar to country cats that bring up the kittens up to 4-5 months without man`s interference. The cats` breeding means financial expenses, sleepless nights, and the lost of individual freedom at the period of breeding, and also exhibitions, the visits to a veterinarian, the cat`s yelling at the periods of estrums, the harsh smell from the marks of the brood he-cats and a lot of other problems. The cats, especially the ones of the eastern group, mature at the age of 6 months, and regularly shriek the house at any time round the clock. And how many problems with the growing kittens it is not even necessary to say - it is the topic for a different article. That`s why think it properly if you need all these difficulties or all you need is to enjoy the friendship with the beautiful and devoted creature. If you are an amateur, don`t be scared to buy a kitten of a pet-class, it will save your money, nerves and time for your favourite work and rest.
Maria Popova.
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