# Pure BSH or not...



## Nawien (Dec 6, 2008)

Hello everyone,

Sorry if it's a silly question, but i was wondering how GCCF registration process is happening and if it is possible that my BSH kitten who is registered is not pure bsh.. Please don't lynch me, it's just I have some doubts as my kitten is..well not as chubby as other kitties on pics and got this long thin pointed tail, whether bsh should have a thick one with a rounded tip...Thanks in advance..


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## Gemstone Dragons (Jul 29, 2009)

Yes it is possible for a dodgy breeder to register a litter fathered to her boy for example after her girl got out and was mated by the local moggie.

It is also possible your kitten was the result of a breeder who didnt care about the breed chucking 2 cats together producing a litter without many of the breeds traits as opposed to carefully choosing 2 good examples of the breed with the hope they will pass these traits on to the litter.

Hope this helps.


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

What age did up get your kitten at ?
Do you have any photos?

Sadly there are a few unscrupulous breeders about


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

Where BSHs are concerned, it can depend on the age and the colour.

BSHs mature very slowly and don't reach their full maturity until they are something like about 4-5 year old. It's very frustrating for people showing BSHs, because show rules say a kitten is an adult at 9 months, which is fine for breeds like Siamese and Orientals which mature early, but very difficult for breeds like BSHs which mature late as they are consistently put down for immaturity! So if your kitten is still quite young, it could still 'fill out'.

If your kitten or its parents are a 'newly developed' colour, then type may have suffered to get the colour right. For instance chocolate and cinnamon British may not be as 'chunky' as the British Blues, because they're a newly established colour and that colour will have been brought in by outcrossing to another breed with different type.

However, another option is that you've bought a kitten bred from stock which isn't top quality. In cats there is a "non-active register" which prevents people from registering kittens bred from cats that the breeder thinks is "pet quality", this is designed to protect the breeder. However, some breeders don't take advantage of this and register all their kittens on the active register, which then means someone can buy a "pet quality" kitten and breed from it, producing pet quality kittens, but still able to register them, because they are of course pedigree cats.

And finally you have your unscrupulous breeder who might be mating pedigree to non-pedigree, but as long as they have entire cats registered at GCCF they could still register a litter of kittens as being from those cats, when they in fact aren't. Or they could register an 'extra' kitten in a normal pedigree litter and then declare that they are breeding from that non-existent kitten while using a non-pedigree cat in its place. 

Sadly, all systems are open to abuse by the unscrupulous.


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

feorag said:


> Where BSHs are concerned, it can depend on the age and the colour.
> 
> BSHs mature very slowly and don't reach their full maturity until they are something like about 4-5 year old. It's very frustrating for people showing BSHs, because show rules say a kitten is an adult at 9 months, which is fine for breeds like Siamese and Orientals which mature early, but very difficult for breeds like BSHs which mature late as they are consistently put down for immaturity! So if your kitten is still quite young, it could still 'fill out'.
> 
> ...


:no1::notworthy:


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

well put eileen.

all the different colours of british are different sizes and shapes, 
the blues and creams tend to be big square cats with lots of chins, but the bacardi cat who is a silver tabby is a lot smaller and sleeker and dont look the same breed!


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

Exactly! It's the same in the persian breeds and face length. The Golden Persians and Chinchillas by no means have the very flat face and nose nearly between the eyes that some of the other colours have - a good thing imao!!


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

i love the old fashioned persians too, who decided to put the new ones noses up there on their foreheads wants shooting!


can you post pictures though? what colour is the kitten and what colour eyes does it have? the eye colour can be a dead giveaway of something slipping over the fence.

tbh though, my bsh x ragdoll kittens did look a lot more like bsh than some of the ones advertised as bsh lately




can you tell which ones pure out of these two?


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

pigglywiggly said:


> i love the old fashioned persians too, who decided to put the new ones noses up there on their foreheads wants shooting!


 
Totally agree: victory:


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## Nawien (Dec 6, 2008)

Wow am very grateful for such a detailed replies..Sorry for a late answer, had to help my mate move the house all day..
I was so exited when I was finally able to get a kitty of my own, I was searching for a while and then this breeder came along and "sounded right" I was looking for a self blue or chocolate kitten, but when she brought a tiny silver kitten I... totally fell for it. I guess we all been there when you looking at it and thinking, you gotta be mine, no way am letting THIS go.. lol 
I know you will kick and stone me.. I haven't seen parents, as she said that her boyfriend keeps the stud boy, as she fosters several cats (pregnant) as well as her breeding queens, but honestly when I saw that kitty i just wanted to snatch it and get it home.. But again I got her as an indoor pet and she had been registered on non-active. She came from a litter of golden-tipped +2 more like her which i believe is silver shaded spotted, but to be honest breeder couldn't even give a proper name to her color calling it black tipped first (which she certainly isn't) However she used to work as a veterinary nurse and she is legal microchipper (well at least she claimed so) Don't get me wrong she was a very lovely lady and in no way I would intend to disrespect her as a breeder and I don't care even if my baby gonna turn out to be a moggy I will still love her to bits as she is the weirdest (in a wonderful way) tamest purring machine I have ever seen in my life..)) Just confusing that being a breeder you certainly should be able to at least name the colour properly..
_*It is just interesting to understand how a system works because people like me tend to see all these confusing GCCF's TICA's and think it's a guarantee of getting a quality pet.*_ I got a pedigree paper, which is basically a family tree printed out and laminated, not sure how should it look like, is there am official document, or is it up to a breeder how it would look like..And is there actually any way to check if parents are existing registered animals?
Also I see what you mean saying that BSH maturing slowly, I got her on her 13th week and she was a proper lanky skinny thing with thin long legs and a longest tail I've seen lol she is 6 month now and starts filling up, she weighted 900 grams when I got her, she is 1.9 kg now..Also she was TINY comparing to her brothers I think she could have been a runt or maybe because she wasn't from that litter at all.. Again, that what makes me think it could be a dodgy kitty )))

Anyway, pics from approx couple of weeks after I got her..:


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## Nawien (Dec 6, 2008)

pigglywiggly said:


> i love the old fashioned persians too, who decided to put the new ones noses up there on their foreheads wants shooting!
> 
> 
> can you post pictures though? what colour is the kitten and what colour eyes does it have? the eye colour can be a dead giveaway of something slipping over the fence.
> ...


The blue one is a cross I think.. x


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

Did you get a pink slip with her as this is the registation paper?
Shes very pretty but Eileen and Piggly will be able to tell you more about her colour
Try taking the name of one of her parents off the pedigree and putting it into google and see if it brings anything up(It may not as its more for the cats that are shown)


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## Nawien (Dec 6, 2008)

Thanks, yes i got the registration paper which was done on breeder's name and i have to change it into mine (still didn't get around to do it yet..) x

Also here is a pic how she looked next to the kit from the same litter..


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

She looks like a silver spotted with not very good patterning to me, although that could improve by she gets to her adult coat - too many markings to be a British Tipped. The other kitten looks like a brown spotted to me, but I'm no British silver expert.

Can't really judge her eye colour yet as it's still changing from its baby blue.

I agree that the breeder _should _be able to identify the colour of the kittens they are breeding, but again I don't know enough about British silvers or tipped to know what they look like when kittens. I remember years ago Barry and I collected a British Tipped kitten for a friend up here. The breeder was a very successful breeder and lived in Warrington and we were on our way home from a cat show in Wales. She was 13 weeks old and looked like a little snowball. Definitely no tabby barring or body markings, just black tips on the end of every hair, so I would have thought that should make them easy to identify. Maybe the breeder is just a novice? Did she say if it was her first litter.

Not everyone keeps a stud cat though, I never did, so no-one who came to me to buy a kitten ever saw the father, but they certainly saw the mother.

If you have a pink slip then that is your guarantee that the kitten and it's ancestors are all registered cats (although as said earlier that _can_ be got around).

I would have thought that 900g is underweight for a 13 week old kitten, though. My kittens at 13 weeks would have weighed anything around about 1300g or more and my cats are nowhere near as heavy boned cobby built as BSHs are.


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## Nawien (Dec 6, 2008)

Thanks, it wasn't a first litter as she said she had been breeding for a few years and certainly had a previous litter from same parents as she showed me pictures. My kitty had and still has yellow eyes with orange tint on them and she has a very diluted tabby pattern which breaks into spots and tiger-like stripes on front legs, but again, very faded.. Father was a silver tabby with more prominent pattern than hers according to pics and mum was allegely a tippy but i can not vouch as I never saw her.. Regarding weight, she was so tiny she could fit into my palm comfortably sitting when i got her and if you look in the last picture with her brother, how chunky he is and what a skinny little thing she was. I took her to vet initially for a check and she said she thought that kitten was younger than 13 weeks.. However within 2 months she doubled her weight, is it normal? I don't overfeed her and she is very active kitten..

Am not very bothered about the breeder's competence and in no way i am trying to get at her, just wanted to understand how the whole registration works.. Also my friend is a mad cat lover and she keeps saying that kitty's tail and legs are too long for BSH, she makes me paranoid )))) x


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## 206vic (Sep 8, 2009)

she certainately got bsh in her but their coat doesnt look dense enough to be full to me unless its just how it looks in photo. kittens should put weight on at a rate of 30 grams a day and weigh approx 1 kg at the age of 9 wks. as for registration if the breeder has a bsh male and female and a moggie female they could let the bsh male mate the moggie female and still use the bsh female as their mother on paper.


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## croc&chewy (Sep 21, 2009)

Nawien nothing to do with the topic of this post but your little kitten just melted my insides :flrt::flrt::flrt::flrt::flrt:


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## Gemstone Dragons (Jul 29, 2009)

Awwwww how gorg!!! :flrt:

I loved tipped and silvers but until i move to a bigger place the 2 i have are enough :bash:


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

Nawien said:


> The blue one is a cross I think.. x


so wrong!!!

the blue one is very very pure and looked like this on his first birthday!!!










your kitten is gorgeous!!!

looks very british to me, the ear shape is right as is the eye colour for a silver, the brother is a mackeral tabby, yours is the silver version.
silvers will never be as chunky as a blue
tbh she`s a bit too pale in colour and not very distinct in markings, but that`ll probly be because the breeder used a silver tipped

but a stunning cat non the less.

the cats pedigree form the breeder printed out and laminated dosnt have to be on an official form, it just has to have the ancestors pedigree names and registration numbers on the be signed as genuine by the breeder.
its the pink slip bit thats the official `papers`


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

Nawien said:


> Father was a silver tabby with more prominent pattern than hers according to pics and mum was allegely a tippy but i can not vouch as I never saw her..


I'm trying to understand why you didn't see the mother? Did the breeder give you a specific reason why not? 



Nawien said:


> The blue one is a cross I think.. x


Wrong on all levels, that British Blue is a very typical kitten - actually he's gorgeous!!



206vic said:


> she certainately got bsh in her but their coat doesnt look dense enough to be full to me unless its just how it looks in photo.


As has already been explained colour can affect type if the colour is a new introduced colour to that breed, but it can also affect coat. A silver coat has a totally different appearance and feel to a solid coat, because of how the silver gene affects the hair. I've never bred British, but I've bred silver and non-silver Somalis and the coat texture and thickness is definitely different.


206vic said:


> kittens should put weight on at a rate of 30 grams a day and weigh approx 1 kg at the age of 9 wks.


30g a day? :gasp: Where did you read that??? I bred cats for almost 20 years and never had a kitten gain that every day.

Ideally a kitten should increase by their own birthweight each week and your average kitten weighs between 85g-120g at birth. If you are suggesting that a kitten should increase by 30g a day that's 210g a week, which would make a 9 week old kitten almost 2Kg and that's almost unachievable regardless of breed.


I agree with Piggly that they do look British, but they have very poor patterning and that could be because of the tipped cat. They could be mackerels but the lines are broken or they could be spotteds with bad linkage - either way their patterning isn't good or well definied, but that doesn't mean that they aren't British.


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## Nawien (Dec 6, 2008)

206vic said:


> she certainately got bsh in her but their coat doesnt look dense enough to be full to me unless its just how it looks in photo. kittens should put weight on at a rate of 30 grams a day and weigh approx 1 kg at the age of 9 wks. as for registration if the breeder has a bsh male and female and a moggie female they could let the bsh male mate the moggie female and still use the bsh female as their mother on paper.


She has a dense coat, perhaps doesn't show on pics, but when pinched there is barely 3-4 mm sticking out..



croc&chewy said:


> Nawien nothing to do with the topic of this post but your little kitten just melted my insides :flrt::flrt::flrt::flrt::flrt:


Thanks, she has got this effect on people)) x



Gemstone Dragons said:


> Awwwww how gorg!!! :flrt:
> 
> I loved tipped and silvers but until i move to a bigger place the 2 i have are enough :bash:


The two you have are stunning and you are very lucky) I will be getting another one after New Year to keep a company to my girlie too) We have an adult moggy cat but she is too noble and grumpy to play with a kitten lol x



pigglywiggly said:


> so wrong!!!
> 
> the blue one is very very pure and looked like this on his first birthday!!!
> 
> ...


Wow how wrong was I!) That is a one fine cat.. Well, only proves how much more research I need to put into knowing the breed better lol x x

I will take some pics tomorrow as she is 6.5 mnth now and from previous pics she has changed, she has more of a cheeks now and coat is changing color.. She has this 3 smoky stripes alongside her spine merging into one fat stripe on the tail..)) x x


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

toby my blue is a very fine cat, he was born with fat cheeks and had corners on when he was born ( he is only 4 weeks old in the picture )

they arnt usually that fat at that age, and it takes at least a year for them to chunk up.

we need new piccies of your girlie, she`s very pretty with her lovely green eyes.......dont tell me where you live tho, i`ve always wanted a silver.


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## Nawien (Dec 6, 2008)

Ok, I manage to take some pics today as Kyra was in a posing mood)):whistling2:

Firstly, this is as closest to original coat color as i could get.. She was washing herself, forgive the slobbery bits of fur.) x










This is her actual eye color.. And of course she is trying to look thoughtful and serious )))










Here you can see how she started filling up and getting her chubbiness and fatty cheeks )










And last, but not the least, she is posing and being extra cute (those back paws with a tail)) x x











Hope you like it) x x:flrt:


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

Absolutely stunning kitty:flrt::flrt:


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

She is beautiful and a stunning colour. Can definitely see the British Tipped influence though!

Can't understand why you didn't think she was 100% British though.


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## NaomiR (Jan 26, 2009)

Oh I can see exactly why you were worried she wasn't PURE bsh she did look long and gangly in the first lot of photos - I've only got the one bsh and I got him as an adult and unless I'd been told otherwise (which I now have) I really wouldn't have known that these long whispy kittens with squashed faces actually GROW into their "proper" bsh bodies :whistling2:

In fact I wouldn't be able to buy a kitten because I would have no idea what to look for :lol2:

It is quite obvious NOW (in the later photos) your kitten definately IS a pure bred bsh and a totally gorgeous one at that, but I really can understand your concerns, I would have been exactly the same :2thumb:

If cats and specific breeds are not really your "thing" it's impossible to tell, I am a "guinea pig" person and still struggle to spot imposters!!!


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

stunning kitty and pure british! love the eyeliner!

:lol2:

( i`d be round to pinch her if she was a silver classic tabby though )


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## Esarosa (Jul 13, 2007)

She is stunning. Definitely has the wow look at me factor. Absolutely beautiful :flrt:


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