The Adventures of Indy and Murf

As you've read in this blog, Mod Daeng had six boys in her first litter. Four were sable (the original and most popular Burmese color) and two were mink - mink being what we call in the West Tonkinese, which is an intermediate coat pattern. Minks carry one copy of the Siamese pointed gene and one copy of the Burmese sepia gene. Mink, however, is not an accepted Burmese color in any cat registry. So given the uncertainty (at the time) that minks would be allowed even for breeding in CFA or in TICA, and with plenty of expenses that had been incurred by this project, I decided to sell and place the the two minks in a home. Har and Hok went to their forever home on December 23, 2010 and were renamed Indy and Murf.

Suz and Doug, their new and proud parents, had previously had Burmese, and their daughter and son-in-law had acquired two Burmese boys from me several years ago. Suz and Doug had been searching for a long time for new Burm companions, but they were having trouble finding what they wanted. The noses on Burmese had changed significantly in the years since they'd acquired their last Burms. They didn't like the shorter faces on the kittens they were seeing. When they first contacted me, I didn't have any kittens available and they particularly wanted sables, which I wasn't expecting in any upcoming litters.

But then I told them about Mod Daeng and the possibility that there might be kittens available in the litter, because she would likely have half minks and half sables. I told them how important it was that we used the sables for outcross for the breed. And at the time, we didn't know how many kittens Mod Daeng would have, or what sex they would be. Having six boys was quite a surprise for everyone! And in the litter there were two minks. When Suz and Doug met them, they fell in love and decided that two mink Burmese would do just fine.

A few days after I delivered the boys to their new home, which, while I was still there, the boys had immediately begun to enthusiastically explore, Suz sent me a report. "Five hours after you left them, they were sacked out for a nap on our laps. By the third night they were sleeping on our bed, and last night they were under the covers. If we do anything in the kitchen Indy is right there to inspect and comment. Murf sits and waits to see if Indy is going to get into trouble and then strikes. They are soooo loving and active and people lovers. They have changed our lives forever (for the better). . . We absolutely adore them and they are 100% Burmese in every way."

A few weeks later I got another update: "They are now developing their own distinctive personalities and move away from each other when they are interested in different things. THEN our little cottage thunders with tiny feet as they race/chase each other around and around the house and then curl up together and take a long nap . . . Doug said the biggest surprise for him has been just how smart and clever they are. They approach all problems (i.e. 'how can we get up there and get that down for us to attack?') as a group project/effort. What one can't think of the other can and you can 'see' the wheels going around in their little cute heads.

"Now, for our WOW moment. As you can see from the pictures we've sent, we have a 3rd cat added into our boys' life. I think you got a peek of the calico peering in from our glass patio door when you were here. She is a spayed female, never had kittens, has a physical and shots every year, and she is 14 years old. Her original owners just moved away without taking her. She had to survive for two years on her own 'catch of the day.' When my daughter and her husband bought the property there were 24 feral cats around here. We managed to get all in to the humane society and had them fixed (all were female). They started putting out quality kibble and milk on their veranda for them. They all seemed to get along and hung out together EXCEPT for the calico who was never included. When our last Burmese died we began to feed her a little away from the others. Over the past 10 years she pretty much hangs out in our back yard, comes in to eat dinner, and then leaves. We just call her Orangie. Well...

"The boys thought it fun to watch out the patio door at Orangie and Orangie began to come over to the door whenever she glimpsed the kittens. After a few days of this we took Orangie to the vets for blood work and physical and when all came back 100% normal we decided to let Orangie come in the house. Orangie walked in quietly and Indy went over to her and very respectfully did a drop and roll submissive approach. BUT Murf took one look and said, 'Mommy! I knew you wouldn't forget me.' And really the rest is history. We now call her Nanny. She sits and watches the boys play. She seemed confused at what they were doing because she obviously hasn't played in years. Murf of course wants (and succeeds sometimes) in nursing from her. She bathes both boys every night. If it is sunny Nanny goes outside, but checks back in on her kittens. It has been very interesting to see the relationship develop.

"The boys continue to grow. Murf is just about 4-5 days behind Indy in development. Murf did his first drop and roll (more like a scratch and roll) yesterday and did 3 more because it was so much fun."

And this month, May 2011, I received a recent update on Indy and Murf:

"The 'boys' are now teenagers and are everywhere. We are in the process of turning a fenced/screened room out of our patio for Murf and Indy. There will be a high 'cat ramp and walk' all around it so they can safely view the world and enjoy the sun and air while we sit and read.

"They are the smartest Burms we have ever had. Right now Indy is sitting under my chair making noises he knows will make me look and Murf keeps walking on my fingers as I type. I call them my 'Houdinis.' They have correctly accessed each window's and door's latch and just know if they try harder they will succeed in opening them (we are convinced they are trying to grow thumbs). They have learned the art of 'two tagging' anything or anybody to satisfy their curiosity. They make a great team. Their surrogate mama (known as Mama Orange) kept them in line and every night she would curl up on our bed while we watched TV. One, by one they would come up and do a drop and roll in deference to her and then she would put her paw across a kitten's shoulder and pin him down and thoroughly wash his face and ears!

"Two weeks ago Mama Orange died in her sleep from old age. We were very happy she got to be a Mama as she so much enjoyed it. The boys were very upset for about 5 days. They were sure she was just outside and would run from window to window. But soon they accepted the situation and turned to each other. BUT every night they still climb on my bed and now they wash each other's face and ears. Very sweet. And then they 'go for the throat' and run all over us and the house.

"They are turning into beautiful cats and everyone who comes wants to play with them and hold them. The boys just know everything and everyone means something fun and good. We just love them!! (Even when they're bad, or wake us up at 5am and 'two tag' us, or jump on our shoulders with no warning, or jump in the toilet, or demand to drink from the bathroom faucet, etc, etc. . . "

And so continue the adventures of Indy and Murf. It is such a joy as a breeder to hear how much their humans love the Burmese we raise.

The Two Minks at Four Months - Indy and Murf in Their New Life

Power Yoga Napping to start the day.


Searching for a brother to play with.












The hunt is underway.





Found a new friend!


Time to nap again after a fun day of play.

Newsflash - the CFA BC Votes are In!

I am thrilled to report that members of the Cat Fanciers Association (CFA) Burmese Breed Council have approved registering Mod Daeng in CFA! They also approved reducing the number of generations from eight to five before Burmese can be brought into CFA from other registries. This will allow us to use lines from European Burmese in fewer generations than previously, which will also help with our plans for outcrossing and increasing genetic diversity.

The next step for both these measures will be final approval by the CFA Board of Directors at their February meeting. Fingers crossed, though I have heard that many board members are sympathetic to these changes which is wonderful.

I look forward to registering Mod Daeng's four sable offspring in CFA and then I will try to get winners ribbons for at least one of the little guys. That will be fun! Even if I can't get the winners ribbons it will be a chance to show Mod Daeng's offspring to judges. The one with the best confirmation has a tiny tail fault, but thankfully the CFA Breed Council last year voted to change the tail fault language from disqualify to penalize. Therefore I think my chances of getting winners ribbons are good, going beyond that would be unlikely but that's fine. We'll see what the next generation looks like!

I will be able to register the four boys in TICA as well, though I can't show them, unfortunately. TICA has a different system and because the Burmese breed is a Category 1 (established) breed, it requires more effort to bring in imports and offspring cannot be shown for four generations. I hope that can be changed as our breed definitely needs these imports to help us gain greater health and genetic diversity.

It is New Year's Eve and a rainy, lazy morning on the Big Island of Hawaii. This is our last day here before flying home tomorrow. Re-entry into the "real world" will be tough. But I am looking forward to seeing my kitties and telling Mod Daeng and her babies the good news, LOL.

Happy New Year to everyone -- and may this new year bring you health, prosperity, and lots of Burmese purrs! ;-)

Whose Your Daddy?

I am at the moment in gorgeous Hawaii, in Volcano National Park on the Big Island. Some friends and I are staying for a week in a cabin in the forest - a primeval dense jungle of towering tree ferns, banyan trees, vines, and other trees and plants I've not yet identified. We are at about 3500 feet elevation. We are hardly "roughing it," as we have electricity and all the comforts of home, including a wireless network! And yes, we all brought our computers!

Being in such a beautiful setting, away from home and work - truly "vacating" as it were - definitely helps clear the mind and soul of stress and worries. I'm trying to take advantage of this to do some thinking and planning and writing. As I reviewed Mod Daeng's Blog, I realized I'd not posted a photo of the father of Mod Daeng's litter. Here he is.


His name is Bear Country's Alan Parsons Project. He's a Champagne (Chocolate Sepia) male about three and a half years old. He's fathered several beautiful litters of Burmese, and he is my only whole male. He does tend to spray and occasionally be aggressive with other cats so I cage him but let him out nearly every day for some time romping in the sun and fresh air. I have an outdoor 2nd floor deck that is carefully netted in to keep kitties from escaping.

Alan may have some of the less desirable behaviors of a whole male, but otherwise he is such a sweetheart. I call him "The King of Drop and Roll". He loves to drop and roll frequently and without warning and expose his belly for petting, especially right in front of me when I'm trying to cross the room. He adores being petted and I give him lots of love whenever I am home. Many of his kittens have also inherited the "Drop and Roll" gene, and all of his kittens show the same kind of affection Alan demonstrates, like him they love to cuddle.

To all who are reading Mod Daeng's blog, I wish Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas in Hawaiian) and all the best for the new year. My next post will be about the two Mink boys in Mod Daeng's litter who have gone to their new home!

Photos of Burmese from the Past! 1938 and 1964

Both of the following photos were featured in National Geographic Magazines. The first, from November 1938, in an article called "The Panther of the Hearth" and the second, from April 1964, in an article called "The Cats in our Lives". Please note that any of the photos in Mod Daeng's blog you can click on to make larger.

Mod Daeng's Posse

The Posse chattering at a feather toy

Burmese cats are sometimes called "bricks wrapped in silk". And that name certainly applies to Mod Daeng's kittens, who are solid little guys. Indeed, they are surprisingly heavy for their size. I'll get their weights tomorrow when I take them in for their second set of shots.

And at 12 weeks old, their personalities are showing, as is an interesting phenomenon that I haven't quite seen before in my litters.

Mod Daeng and her kittens are very social - they want to be with me, and they wait on the other side of any door that separates them from me. I spend a lot of time with them so they are hardly lacking for attention. But they regularly follow me en masse wherever I go in the house, as if they are ducklings and I'm the mom they imprinted on. And if I manage to get through a door without them (they don't sleep with me at night, my other kitties get to do that), no matter how long it is before I come back out through that door, be it minutes or hours, or how recently I fed them -- they are in position at the door, waiting for me. I know they are there, and I try to open the door just a crack to slip my leg through and block them. But it is impossible to stem the tide! They are like a herd - they come streaming through like wildebeests fording a river full of dangerous crocodiles, fast and impossible to stop, Mod Daeng in the midst of the pack, all seven of them eager to check out the room and what I've been doing in there.

Given my other cats need their own space and aren't too happy with the Mod Daeng posse invading it, I do my best to try and catch Mod Daeng and the kittens and put them out the door. But it's like the "Keystone Cops" movies -- I'll grab a couple, open the door and put them out as three more run through my legs. So I grab them again and . . . well, you get the picture! I have to admit it's a bit annoying to have to round up the herd this every time I come out the door, but I also can't help but laugh at the absurdity of my trying to catch the fast and stubbornly insistent little Burmese imps. I finally get it done and then of course suddenly realize that whatever I had gone into the bedroom to get I left behind in all the pandemonium, and I have to do the routine all over again! As time passes, I'm sure the kittens will be more independent and not travel in a posse. But in the meantime, they flow behind me as I move through the house, up and down the stairs - the only consolation being they don't seem to have the urge to explore the outside world through the front door, thank goodness! When they were younger I had them isolated in the top floor bedroom -- but once the posse formed, I quickly gave up on that and they have the run of the house except for my bedroom.



Suphapearl Sam


The kittens' conformation and personalities are similar but there are differences. And it is difficult to know which little guy to keep and which to place with other breeders.

Nueng I think has the best head. But he doesn't have the best coat -- it's a bit light and fluffy -- and he has a little tail fault on the tip of his tail.






Suphapearl See




Song is the biggest and he is my shoulder kitty. My first Burmese male, Truffle, would leap to the shoulders of anyone he liked without warning, from the floor, and while Song's leaping ability is somewhat limited due to his youth, he gets up on my shoulders every opportunity he can and perches there happily.

Sam and See are very much alike -- both have nice, short, dark coats and they love to curl up between my legs when I'm at my desk. Their muzzles are narrower and their ears bigger than Nueng.

Har and Hok are the comedians of the bunch -- though he's a mink, Har has the scratchy voice of the Burmese, which I heard recently described by a judge as sounding like "an old attic door that hasn't been opened for years." Hok is the littlest guy, and first in line at the plate when soft food is offered morning and evening He'll also find a toy and growl fiercely to keep away any competition as he carries it off to whatever his lair is for that particular moment.

All in all, these little guys clearly have the personalities we love in our Burmese cats. Soon the minks will be going to a pet home. I'll be taking the others to a TICA show in Sacramento in January, then the following weekend to a CFA show in Stockton to show the judges what the first generation of Mod Daeng's offspring look like.

And let me take this opportunity to send my best wishes to all of you for the Holidays! I hope this beautiful season of light and and the coming new year will bring you joy and good health and lots of time to cuddle with our beloved purring Burmese babies!



Suphapearl Sam and Suphapearl Hok

The Color Tests are In

"Oh goody! More Evo for us!"

The Monday before Thanksgiving Mod Daeng, her six kittens, Bear Country's Alan Parsons Project of Burma Pearl (father of the litter), Gray Mark's Agate of Burma Pearl ("Aggie"), Lois True, and I all drove up to UC Davis. Our purpose in going to Davis was twofold -- first, to microchip all the kittens and the father (Mod Daeng and Aggie already being microchipped), and at the same time to have swabs taken for parentage, color testing, and for research.

A couple of days before our Davis trip I had taken the kittens in for a health checkup and their first shots. I also devised a plan to identify them. Given that I do not have a microchip scanner at home, I wanted to be sure to be able to distinguish them once the color tests were in. It was a twofold plan: first, to shave a small section of hair on different legs on each of the six kittens, and then to put little slim hairbands of different colors around each neck. Very scientific, ha!

I also had established a new cattery name in TICA and I plan to do the same if Mod Daeng is registered in CFA. I wanted to do this so that it would be easy for anyone to identify cats that I bred from Thai import lines. The cattery name I have been using for my Burmese is Burma Pearl (Burmapearl in TICA). Mod Daeng is a Suphalak. Supha in Thai means good or beautiful and lak or laksana means characteristic. Thus, a Suphalak cat means a cat of beautiful characteristics. And so I decided my new cattery name would be Suphapearl - meaning beautiful pearl. And as you know, pearls come in different colors just like Burmese!

I also decided to name the kittens - somewhat systematically. The names I chose are the numbers one through six in Thai.

Suphapearl Nueng (nueng is number one) no leg shaved, purple hairband
Suphapearl Song (song is number two) left front leg shaved, blue hairband
Suphapearl Sam (sam is number three) right front leg shaved, pink hairband
Suphapearl See (see is number four) left rear leg shaved, orange hairband
Suphapearl Har (har is number five) right rear leg shaved, red hairband
Suphapearl Hok (hok is number six) two rear legs shaved, yellow hairband



Suphapearl Nueng & Suphapearl Sam


After the microchips were all put in (the kittens were very brave!), Leslie Lyons came down to meet us. We talked about what we wanted to accomplish and then Leslie took us up to her lab. About half a dozen of her students gathered, and Leslie talked to them about the Burmese breed, Burmese genetics, and what we are trying to do to improve genetic diversity. We also briefly discussed traditional (my cats) versus contemporary Burmese and the head defect, as some of the students present were working on that project. She also gave me some background about the Korat genetic diversity project. One of her students is working with her on a scientific paper about the successful increase in genetic diversity in that breed that has been achieved through outcrossing to Thai imports.



Suphapearl See and Mod Daeng

Finally it was time to obtain DNA from the cats which Leslie did herself. She took swabs for us for the parentage and color tests, swabs for the Cat PHIR database project, and swabs for her lab's research. The test forms with the swabs were marked with the microchip numbers for each cat. As we took each cat out, the students were able to get a good look at them (and hold and cuddle each of them for a while!), and as they did we compared Mod Daeng's look to 21st century American Burmese like Aggie or Alan, and talked about the challenge of working towards achieving that look in Mod Daeng's descendants, while also achieving and maintaining greater genetic diversity for the breed as a whole.

Last week I received the reports from UC Davis on the color tests on the six kittens. As I expected, two are minks (Suphapearl Har and Suphapearl Hok) and the rest Sepias. All carry brown (the father, Alan, is a champagne/chocolate sepia). My one disappointment was that none of the kittens carry the dilute allele. We thought the father did but now it has been confirmed that he does not.

What are the kittens like in personality and conformation? That and more photos will be in my next entry which I plan to make this weekend.