Previous Neuters

We’ve had quite a few neuters, over the years, who are no longer with us for various reasons.  Some have been kittens we bred ourselves, who just took a long time to find their forever home; others were cats we bought as neuters and who have either passed away or were rehomed for various reasons; one is a retired breeding queen who we kept as a neuter but who has subsequently passed away.  In order of date of birth, they are:

Since Tiger was the one who inadvertently started all of this, and Dàrna is behind a lot of our Cagaran family, clicking their names will take you to separate pages detailing their stories.  For the others, clicking their names in the list will jump to their individual introductions further down this page.

Hazey & Bramble

Shorthair Moggies, Black Tortoiseshell; b: unknown, d: 1994

 

Matt and his family adopted two semi-feral sisters from the Bristol Cat Shelter in 1994, and named Hazey and Bramble. They had been found wandering a building site. They lived with Matt for a tragically short time, both being killed on a road at night within a few months: Hazey first, then Bramble a few weeks later on Christmas Eve. The advice at the time was that cats should go out at night, but despite their feral nature the road proved too dangerous.

 

Hazey and Bramble proved very good at cleaning dishes, their favourite being Tuna Napoletana, and indeed Hazey became quite round: when you scavenged for every meal, getting used to not needing to eat everything is a challenge. They also enjoyed batting at cars on the TV, and playing Scalextric: Hazey would sit by the side of the track and bat at the cars as they went past, Bramble realised that she could sit on the track and the cars would just come to her.

Smudge & Whisky

Shorthair Moggies, Black & White; b: 1997, Whisky d: 2008, Smudge d: 2016

Brothers, Smudge & Whisky

Tiger

Shorthair Moggy, Ginger (Red) Classic Tabby; b: unknown, d: 2nd May 2005
Tiger was named for the way that he walked – with the deliberate strut of a Big Cat.

He was the one who taught me (Heather) about the joys of living with cats and, in doing so, started the chain of events that led to the existence of the Cagaran family. He has his own page and clicking his name (or picture) will take you there.

Jinny (GMC Jinny)

Longhair Moggy, Brown Classic Tabby & White; b: unknown, d: 26th May 2016
Jinny is an old Scots word for ‘white wave’ – she was named because she had flowing white fur on her chest and tummy.

I adopted Jinny in January of 2005, after a potentially-cancerous lump had been found in Tiger’s mouth.  She had been handed in to the shelter where I volunteered, after her owner was taken into a nursing home due to altzheimers, and the vet estimated, from the condition of her teeth, that she was probably about four.  Since she still had excellent teeth when we’d had her well over a decade, however, we now know this could have been a very conservative estimate.

Jinny had suffered abuse before she came to us, though we suspect it wasn’t deliberate, but a result of her owner’s medical issues.  Regardless of the cause, when we got her at first she was terrified of everything and would literally toilet where she was standing if you walked into the room too fast.  I used to have to groom her on a towel because she would wet herself.

Over time, however, she slowly improved but the big changes came after we started showing her.  She won Best in Show at her first two shows and I remember watching her being held up, the first time, with tears in my eyes.  It was as if having all these strangers handle her gently, and with care, made her finally realise that the world wasn’t the awful place she’d thought.

She died of old age in May 2016, aged at least 15, but possibly older, and was the matriarch of the house right up until she died.  The other cats would always obey a command from Jinny, but also used to spend a lot of time cleaning her and cuddling up to her (probably trying to get in her good books, but very cute, all the same).

Call (Pr Elmcoon Basil)

Maine Coon, Brown Classic Tabby; 24th March 2005 – 18th August 2017
S: Kassaro Sunndancer, D: Elmcoon Amitola
‘Call’ is Gaelic for ‘Mischief’.  It’s pronounced like the first half of the name ‘Callum’.

Call was my first pedigree cat, back when Richard and I lived in Lancaster.  I bought him shortly after my beloved Tiger had been put to sleep because Jinny was still very nervous at that point, and didn’t give affection the way Tiger had.  I chose Maine Coons because I thought their temperament sounded the most like Tiger (actually, although MCs are a lovely breed, and like Asians in a lot of ways, Asians are more like Tiger because the MCs don’t have the smarts!) and I wanted a ginger, like Tiger.  At that time, everybody I spoke to seemed seemed to have brown kittens but, after a lot of searching, I found a breeder in Yorkshire with a red, and so we went to meet them.  As so often happens, however, I fell in love with one of his brown brothers (we’ve had people wait years wanting a particular colour and then fall in love with a sibling in a colour they could have had ages ago)!

When my brother got his own place, he asked if I’d consider letting Call go and live with him, because he wanted a cat but had always loved Call.  Calum only lives 10 minutes away and we were having issues with Call spraying whenever the girls were in season (even though he’d been neutered as a kitten), so we agreed.

Call developed pancreatitis and diabetes when he was about 10, but did well on insulin for a couple of years, but went down-hill after his 12th birthday and was put to sleep a few months later.  In an ironic twist, when Calum went to try and get another brown Maine Coon, after Call’s death, he ended up falling in love with a red, thus coming full circle on my own experience in choosing Call!

Ali (MC Droch Ailig)

Shorthair Moggy, Black Classic Tabby & White; 28th April 2005 – 16th November 2019
Ali was short for ‘Droch Ailig’, which is Gaelic for ‘Rascal’.  It’s pronouched ‘Drawch (ch as in ‘loch’) Alek’.

Ali came from the same rescue shelter as Jinny, but had been brought in with his feral mother, her pregnant sister, and his brothers, at only a couple of days old.  Between reserving Call, and actually going to collect him, I’d fallen in love with Ali whilst volunteering at the shelter.

Ali was definitely the most independent of our cats – even though he’d been a very affectionate kitten, he grew into quite an aloof adult.  He didn’t like cuddles, and affection had to be on his terms.  The only exception to this was my oldest friend, Carrie, whom Ali adored from the moment he met her, and she could do absolutely anything with him.  Since he loved her so much, we’d always said that he could go and live with her when she got her own place but, for the first few years of her career she had a job that kept her on the road a lot of the time.  Eventually, in 2014, she got a fixed-location job and a pets-allowed flat, so he was finally able to go and live with his one true love!

Ali died due to kidney failure at 14 years old.

Tármus (Pr Ballego Foreverinblugenes)

Ocicat-Cross, Blue Spotted Tabby; 2nd September 2006 – 18th September 2019
S: Thickthorn Butternut, D: (apparently) Temasek Sugarbabes
Tármus is Gaelic for ‘dislike of food’ – we named her that because when we got her she was called ‘Minimus’, which we didn’t like but didn’t want to go for something too different-sounding.  She was rather fat so we felt that Tármus had a nice irony to it.  It’s pronounced ‘Tar-mus’.

 

Tármus came to us having had a litter of kittens for Annas and Katie’s breeder.  She’d been moved, as a kitten, during a period of some personal crisis for her breeder, and although she was registered as an Ocicat, we suspect that she was actually one of the LaPerm outcross kittens they’d had from their Ocicat stud (Ocicat being one of the allowed outcrosses for LaPerms).  She certainly didn’t behave like a typical Ocicat, and she looked so unlike one that a judge once placed her 2nd in a class of 1 and, when I asked them (politely) what was wrong with her, they told me ‘everything’.

She was a victim of the ‘Blue Horror’, Xaria (see below), but she loved our kittens, so when the family who were going to be taking one of our Ocicat Variant kittens, Maltech (now called Simba) expressed an interest in taking an older cat as well, I offered them Tármus.  She adored their little girl, and running around in their garden, and was very happy there.

Tármus died, peacefully in her sleep, shortly after her 13th birthday, as a result of some sort of lung complication.

Gealbhan (Pontaby Zeppole)

Abyssinian, Sorrel (Cinnamon Ticked Tabby); b: 23rd December 2006; stolen January 2007
S: IGrCh One Shot From A’Far, D: GrCh Abychat Honeycomb
Gaelbhan is Gaelic for ‘Little Fire’ – named due to his rich colour and fiesty temperament.  It’s pronounced ‘Gell-van’.

Gealbhan was our first experience of a ‘Foreign’ breed.  He was a real live-wire and a fabulous cat to have around.  He was definitely my cat, rather than Richard’s and would refused to do as he was told if Richard asked, but then immediately obey when I asked, which drove Richard nuts.  Gealbhan would sleep underneath me (yes, completely underneath – never did figure out how he got there without waking me!) at night, and one of his favourite ‘games’ was to stick his paws underneath Richard in the middle of the night, spike Richard with all his claws, and then quickly withdraw his paws to underneath me again.

In those days we used to let the cats out into a secured garden.  One day, though, a wild rabbit had hopped into the garden while we were taking things in and out (we had a run we could shut the cats in if we had the gate open) and although we tried to chase it back out, it was determined to stay so we just left it.  Unfortunately, the rabbit then chewed a hole in the mesh on the gate and Gealbhan, being a typically inquisitive Abyssinian, couldn’t resist exploring the world beyond the gate, and disappeared.

When we started making enquiries among our neighbours, some of the local kids told us that they’d seen him being scooped up from the grassy area in front of our house, and put into the back of a van, which then drove away.  There had been a spate of thefts of pedigree, and pedigree-lookalike, cats in our area so we assume he fell prey to that.  We missed him so much that we ended up getting the Devons, Tármus, and Annas, to fill the gap he left!

Amlach & Coimhlion (Pr Velvarex Amlach & Pr Velvarex Coimhlion)

Devon Rexes
Amlach: Brown Tortie Spotted Tabby, 26th November 2007 – 12th July 2015
Coimhlion: Cream Smoke, 26th November 2007 – 13th August 2022
S: Rexivel Reuben, D: Cloudborn Viole Tin Velvet
Amlach is Gaelic for ‘curl’ and Coimhlion is Gaelic for ‘perfect’.  Amlach is pronounced as it looks (but with the soft ‘ch’ as in the word ‘loch’), and Coimhlion is pronounced ‘kawv-lin’.

After Gealbhan was stolen, we missed his very people-oriented temperament, even though we still had three other cats, and so we went looking for another cat to fill the gap.  After reading up on the various breeds, we settled on Devons and ended up with these two little aliens.  Devons don’t behave like normal cats, being completely oblivious to feline hierarchies, and talking in grumbles, growls and squeaks instead of miaows.  They also don’t play like normal cats, preferring to stand up and box like hares, then grash their chests together, wrap their front legs around eachother, and roll around the floor, growling and squealing.

When we found out we had Tritrich in the household (see the Tritrich page for more details), the vet suggested we rehome any of the cats who tested negative and the Devons were the only ones who did, so we found them a home locally.  They’d been bullied by Xaria while they were here, and were so much happier in their new home that it completely changed our opinion on the idea of re-homing adult cats.

Unfortunately, I suspect that the negative TF results may have been a false-negative, because Amlach died of IBS (a known side-effect of TF) in 2015.  Coimhlion had to be put to sleep due to a sinus tumour in 2022.

Annas (Ch & UK IGrPr Rushbrooke Kahlua Over Ice)

Tiffanie, Black Self; b: 5th December 2017
S: Ch Rushbrooke Silver Bullett, D: Ch Rushbrooke Bonnie Lass
Annas is Gaelic for ‘Surprise’ – she was called this because I (Heather) bought her as a surprise gift for Richard, who had been saying since we started dating that he’d like a black cat.  It’s pronounced as it looks.

Annas was the cat who made us fall in love with the Asian breed and so, in many ways, Cagaran is her legacy as much as it’s Tiger’s or Dàrna’s.  I bought her purely because she was a black cat with a nice temperament, rather than because of her breed.  When her brother won Best of Variety Kitten at a show, her breeder suggested that we should try showing Annas and, in doing so, got us completely hooked!  Annas turned out to be rather a good example of the breed and became the first Tiffanie to win the Imperial title, and also the first to win the UK title, and the first to win an Olympian certificate, though the Olympians arrived a bit late in her life for her to actually get the title.

Annas was half-sister to our first queen, Katie (who had the same sire), and also second-cousin to Fiona, whose grandsire was a litter-brother of Annas’s grandsire.  She’s the only one of the cats that Richard took with him when he and I split up and, since she’d originally been a gift for him, I couldn’t exactly complain.  I do miss my little black beast, though, and I think Fi does, too.

Xaria (UK IGrPr Dushenka Xariabella [also MC Xaria])

Russian Blue; 5th January 2008 – 15th August 2015
S: Shoelina Independence, D: GrCh & IGrPr Dushenka Tashabella

When Xaria’s breeder heard that we were interested in having a Russian at some point, she offered us Xazzle, because she wanted her to go to a show home.  Xazzle loved being shown and took it so seriously that we were seriously tempted to keep a spare rosette in the show bag to put on her pen if she hadn’t been given one.  If she didn’t win, she’d come home grumpy and take out her irritation on whoever was her current target.  She’d been very much in her brother’s shadow at her breeder’s and I think that when she came here she decided she was never going to be in anyone else’s shadow, ever again.  As a result she was something of a tyrant in our house (though she’d been very sweet and demure at her breeder’s) and it was actually something of a relief when Tracey came along and the two of them fell in love with one another.  Our house was much calmer with Xazzle out of the mix.

Unfortunately Xazzle died of kidney issues when she was only seven.

Monty (Pr Pontaby Montagna)

Abyssinian, Fawn (Ticked Tabby); b: 30th June 2009
S: Abychat Pinballwizard, D: IGrCh Pontaby Fragola

We used to own Monty’s cousin, our gorgeous Sorrel, Gealbhan, but after he was stolen we missed having an Aby around and so told his breeder that if she ever bred a Sorrel girl out of Gealbhan’s dad then I wanted her as a show neuter.  I’m not entirely sure how we ended up being persuaded to take Monty (who wasn’t female, sorrel, or a son of One Shot), but we did.

Unfortunately, he turned out to have a parasite called Tritrichomonas foetus, and ended up passing it to all our other cats.  After being treated for the parasite he was temporarily re-homed with a work-colleague of a friend, to prevent him becoming reinfected while we cleared the rest of the household (you can read about this process on the Tritrichomonas foetus page of ‘Our Story’).  He and the little girl he was living with became inseperable, however, and so the move ended up becoming permanent.  Unfortunately he escaped out of an open window in their house, a few years after moving there, and has never been seen since.

Dàrna (IGrCh & GrPr Dayjoy Orla)

Tiffanie, Chocolate Tortie Silver Shaded; 26th February 2009 – 12th April 2021
S: Kevona Simply Awesome, D: Farash Loralei Lee
Dàrna is Gaelic for ‘Second’ – she was our second queen and we tried to go for something not too different from the ‘Orla’ she’d been used to with her breeder.  It’s pronounced ‘Dawr-na’.

Although she was our second queen, she has had probably a bigger influence over our breeding than any other cat we’ve worked with, and so we consider her to be the true foundation of our lines.  She has her own page and clicking her name (or picture) will take you there.

Quinn (GrPr Cagaran Dòrlach [also GMC Quinn])

Asian Variant, Brown Tortie BCR; 24th August 2011 – 31st July 2023
S: Graham (IGrCh Bambino Nationalvelvet), D: Dàrna (IGrCh & GrPr Dayjoy Orla)
Dòrlach is Gaelic for ‘Handful’ because she was full of ‘tortitude’.  It’s pronounced ‘Dawr-lach’.

Quinn was the only girl in Dàrna’s second litter and I’d planned to keep her but, at her first vaccination, she turned out to have a heart murmur.  The vet advised that it could be due to different parts of the heart growing at different rates and, therefore, might disappear as she grew, but we didn’t want to risk it, so kept her brother, Donny, instead.  We neutered her and kept her to monitor the murmur and, sure enough, by the time she was about six months old it had completely disappeared.

A few months later, Tracey (who has since become a good friend and one of our regular kitten-cuddlers) contacted me about having a Tiff kitten (we had our E-litter at the time) and expressed interest in having Quinn as well.  When Tracey visited, however, it was love at first sight between her and Xaria (mutually).  As Xazzle climbed up into Tracey’s arms (something she never did with anyone else), I asked if she’d want to take Xazzle, assuming Elisabeth, Xazzle’s breeder was amenable.  Tracey, tears in eyes, said yes.  Unfortunately Xaria died of kidney failure in 2015 so Tracey then got Zuko, who’d loved her since he was a kitten.

Quinn started having kidney trouble at about 10 years old, and was put to sleep in July 2023, a few weeks before she would have turned 12.

Bru (Pr Cagaran Brucach)

Ocicat, Tawny Spotted; b: 13th July 2012
S: Curry (Catiators Redhotcurry of Thickthorn), D: Grace (Cagaran Altachdainn [MC])
Brucach is Gaelic for ‘Speckled’; he was from our Oci B-litter.  It’s pronounced Broo-kach (‘ch’ as in the word ‘loch’).

He was from our first litter of showable Ocicats (our Oci A-litter having been outcross ‘Variants’ with an Abyssinian dad).  We kept his sister, Cheeky, and Bru originally went to live with a trainee vet in Glasgow.  A few weeks after he left, however, he started coughing and his owner ‘diagnosed’ him as having congestive heart failure and was going to have him put to sleep.  I collected him that evening (giving her a full refund) and after tests at my own vet it turned out that he had been born with only one lung!  He stayed here for a couple of years and went with his sister when we decided not to breed any more Ocis and she was rehomed locally.

A few years later he escaped from his owners house while they were taking a delivery, and was unfortunately never seen again.

Zita (now Elsie; Cagaran Zita)

Asian Variant, Brown Tortie BCR; b: 19th April 2017
S: Brodie (UK IGrCh & UK IGrPr Cagaran Plathach), D: Fiona (Ch Cagaran Beannachd-Fionn) 
Zita is Tuscan Italian for ‘Little Girl’; she’s from our Z-litter and there’s no ‘Z’ in the Gaelic alphabet and a distinct lack of Scots words beginning with Z!

Zita was from Fi’s last litter and is a litter-sister of Zerah.  She originally went, with Solas, to live with a family who have a disabled son, in the hope that he would enjoy having them around.  Unfortunately, he would pick up their toys and wave them around, and then get upset when the girls, thinking he was playing with them, tried to jump for their toys.  We therefore took them back after a few months.  Solas went to a new home shortly afterwards, with Frost, but Zita was with us a bit longer.  Eventually, however, the family who owned her litter-sister, Ziva (now Martha), came back to ask for a second kitten and, when I told them that Zita was available, immediately jumped at the chance to have the sisters back together.  Zita now lives in Glasgow.

Rionnag (Pr Cagaran Rionnag Deuchainn-lann)

Asian Tortie, Chocolate Tortie; b: 24th May 2022
S: Laphroaig (Ch Cagaran Laphroaig of Salishsea), D: Flash (Ch Cagaran Iarratas Breac) 
Rionnag is Gaelic for ‘Star’ (pronounced ‘Roonak’).  Her pedigree name literally mean’s ‘Star Laboratory’, and is a classic example of Matt’s sense of humour – I’d started calling her Rionnag (because she’s from our R2-litter and I like the name Rionnag) and, since her mum is Flash and the Flash of comicbook fiction is based at Star Laboratories, Matt came up with calling her Star Labs in Gaelic.  Poor Rionnag!

Rionnag was from the first litters for both Flash and Laphroaig.  We were keeping her brother, Zorvi, and another kitten, Spirit, who was about the same age, and we realised that if we also kept Rionnag then we could let people see an extra colour/pattern in the ‘Meet the Cats’ section at the Supreme in the October (because you can have three kittens sharing a pen, but only two adults).  The plan had been to find her a home after the show but she was no trouble in the house and so we kept not getting around to it.  She became quite close to Sprite after he was neutered and so the two of them went together, to live with the couple who had previously owned Smudges (they called him Sirius), after he died of a heart infection.  They have Cagaran ‘cousins, because their owners’ daughter also owns two of ours!  Rionnag now lives in Livingston.