After a very long "dry" spell at Avicats, we have two new babies--Tropikoons Isabella of Avicats and Tropikoons Elisabetta of Avicats, aka. Itsy and Bisty. Their mom is CH Avicats Alessandra Benucci, our red girl who is living with her co-owner, Stephanie Boulter. Stephanie had her hands full--Sandra had an incredibly large litter of nine babies! Also, check out our boy, one of only two kittens we have had in the past two and a half years--Avicats Mattia Pascal of Angtini. Lastly, for folks interested in seeing the different colors of Maine Coons, we have added a complete listing of all cats on this site grouped by color. Someday maybe we'll have all the colors represented (if I ever finish adding the photos I keep getting to the site...I apologize in advance to anyone whose cat should be here by now!)
CH Avicats Lambrusca of Mellowmaines had two of her babies become Grands in CFA. Congratulations to her owner, Brenda, on the lovely GRP Mellowmaines Asti and GRC Mellowmaines Valpolicello!
This Spring, we decided to again show our cameo boy, CFA GRC, RW Avicats Orlando Furioso. Orlando had a terrific career as a "whole" cat, and now that he is neutered, we thought it would be fun to show him again in Premiership competition. At his very first show, as an Open, he was given Best of Breed in his first ring, and 3rd Best Cat in show, placing him over many lovely regionally and nationally ranked cats. As a Premier, he finalled in nearly every ring and quickly attained the title of CFA Grand Premier ("GRP"). Thanks to judge Gary Veach for granding him in his final! Best of all, Orlando still loves shows.
We finally have kittens to show again! We are excited to announce that Avicats Alessandra Benucci ("Sandra"), at just one day over four months old, won a best of breed and finalled at her very first show! This was a nice surprise as she was competing with a large class of kittens, many very mature and about to enter the adult class. She is the daughter of Orlando and Amaretto and is a deep red tabby with a very big purr.
In other show news, CFA GRC, GRP Avicats Nuvoletta of Stormwatch had a fantastic time at the Maine Coon Cat club show- she was best MC in Premiership! Congratulations to her owners on doing such a great job of showing her. We also have new pictures of Nuvo, check them out to see how a mature Maine Coon looks.
Congratulations to Jenny and Jaana of Escape's cattery as well- their kitten out of FIFe EC Avicats Astraea Escape's, DM was a World Winner! Wow! Follow the link on mom Straya's page to see the Escape's website and this beautiful kitten.
We finally have a litter this year! They are babies from CFA GRC, RW Orlando Furioso and CFA CH Angtini Amaretto of Avicats, born July 28. We are very excited about this litter as both parents are lovely, typey cats with people-loving personalities. It is a colorful litter as well. They look like they are turning out to be as nice as their parents.
This litter is even more special because it was the only one we have from Orlando, who is now neutered. While Orlando is both beautiful and a great "stud cat," we like to keep our cats as our pets- and we don't want to keep them confined as a stud must often be. So we neutered him and he is now even more outgoing and people-oriented than he used to be.
Our show update: we don't have much to report here as it has been a quiet year- show life is not as exciting when you are showing female brown tabby kittens! But at any rate, Amaretto did very, very well and became a Champion- we are certain she would have become a Grand Champion as well, but she was nervous at shows and when we saw that she was not getting comfortable at them, we did not think it would be fair to stress her by continuing to show her. It is unfortunate, because even as an "Open" at her first adult show she was made best of breed over all of the Maine Coons (including two Grand Champions that won Regional Wins this year!) and finaled as Third Best Cat in show. But that's how these things go.
So for now, we are showing our only kitty who is not yet titled- our newest addition, Coonoquan Evviva of Avicats, a cute, happy, and "feral" looking brown tabby girl whose grandfather is Orlando's brother CFA GRC Avicats Versace of Coonoquan. Thank you Steph, for a lovely girl!
We want to congratulate Jenny and Jaana on the continuing success they are having with FIFe EC Avicats Astraea Escape's, DM. She was again Best Maine Coon breeding female in Finland, this time for the year 2001. This is a great accomplishment for her and her owners. Congratulations!
Our Sophie had a routine heart screening by ultrasound this week and we are happy to report that, as expected, she is again completely normal. She is over five and a half years old so these results are excellent. (Although to our knowledge we have never produced a cat with HCM, we like to screen on a routine basis in order to prevent this condition- seen in all types of cats, pedigreed or not- from happening as best we can.) We also have new pictures of Sophie on her page- we need better ones, but they give you an idea of how a Maine Coon kitty matures.
In other news, Armida is now a Champion, and Amaretto went to her first show. She did very well for a four month old girl- she went to three rings and was Best of Breed in one and Second Best in another. We look forward to showing her this year.
We have a new kitten! Her name is Amaretto and she comes from Angtini Cattery. This cute girl is also Sophie's great-granddaughter! She is a flashy brown patched tabby whose purr never seems to stop. We'll be showing her soon.
Armida is developing wonderfully. We took her to a show this weekend with over 100 kittens entered. On Saturday she won best Maine Coon kitten from two judges and was awarded fourth best kitten in show from both judges as well. It was a fun weekend!
Streak had her babies on November 12. It has been quite a while since we have had a litter of kittens so we are enjoying them. It looks like they are: two brown tabby boys; a brown tabby girl; a brown patched tabby girl; and a silver patched tabby girl. The sire of this litter is Ogunquit, who is also the sire of Armida. We hope this litter will be as pretty as Sophie's was with Oggie.
In other news, Tina has indeed been spayed- and has healed perfectly. She spends her days on my lap. We can't wait to see her coat bloom again in a few months!
And- check out Orlando's photos- we have added a few new ones this week. They do a better job of showing his unusual color, though he rarely stops moving for the camera.
We finally have some updating to do... We are still feeling the sadness of last month's tragedies, but the cats, luckily, are oblivious to all of this. Our first news is that we are spaying Tina this week. She has given us five wonderful litters and deserves to be retired. Although we ordinarily find homes for our retired cats to keep the kitties here low in numbers and high in personal attention, we plan on keeping Tina. She is a wonderful girl.
Congratulations to Tommy (a.k.a. Avicats Alberto Moravia of JavaCats) on more finals at his last kitten show! Among his finals were two BEST KITTEN in show awards! We are especially happy that one of the judges who chose Tommy is a favorite of ours- Walter Hutzler. Tommy's kitten career has been going very well. Soon he will be an adult and competing for titles. Gina and Ernie always do a great grooming job and Tommy adores shows- so many toys and attention. Congratulations! We have added a new picture of him to our Photo Gallery.
And, check out our new photos of FIFe EC Avicats Astraea Escapes, DM ("Straya") in Finland- she is maturing beautifully. We also have photos of our new litter on our kitten page. We will be keeping one of these cuties!
Streak (a.k.a. CFA GRC Avicats Phaethusa Stria) is nearing two years old, so we took her in today for her cardiac ultrasound (we do this with all of our breeding kitties as a routine screen for HCM). We are happy to report that her heart looks great and is completely normal, as anticipated!
We are very excited to announce that GRC RW Avicats Orlando Furioso has won a CFA Regional Award for the 2000-2001 show season! He was the 21rst best cat of all breeds for the whole year in the North Atlantic Region. This was our first try at a Regional Win, and we are also happy about this because not only is he a Maine Coon but he is a rare color- cameo tabby. We are very proud of him to have won this prestigious award- especially because with the advent of puberty (and his first breedings), Orlando took a break to regain some of the coat he lost and as a result missed almost half the show season. Orlando is also a National Color winner- he was the best cameo tabby Maine Coon in all of CFA for the year, and second best of the "Other Tabby" color class (which includes all tabby colors without white except brown). He was Best of Color Class in the NAR. But most of all, we are very happy that he is such a loving and sweet boy- he loved cat shows and purred through them all. We also want to congratulate Orlando's nephews, CFA GRC RW Nascat's R/R Phantom of Coonoquan and CFA GRP RW Dixiecoons Purrfect Lil Maine-Iac, on their Regional Wins. Both are out of Orlando's brother CFA GRC Avicats Versace of Coonoquan. "Sacchi" also has a Regional Award Winning grandson this year!
We also want to congratulate Cat Moody- her "Maki" (CFA GRC, GRP Stormwatch's Tatsumaki), father to Orlando, just became a CFA Grand Premier! And he still loves showing, too. And congratulations as well to CFA GRP Tuvets Glory Hallejuah of Caromoon, who granded this week. She is out of CFA GRC Avicats Figaro of Ailurophile. Congratulations, everyone!
Our other news is that Orlando's mom Sophie (CFA GRC Avicats Sophrosina Marfisa, DM) has finally had her new litter. It was a bit of a rough one this time- the first kitten was trying to make a "U-Turn" inside and as a result folded in half on itself (and tangled itself with the second kitten in line!), so she had to have a c-section. But mom and babies are all doing well. She has three new daughters. Their sire is CFA GRC RW XTC Ogunquit of Big Tree Cat, a lovely brown tabby male. The girls look like they are going to be brown and brown-patched tabbies (colors subject to change in the next couple of weeks.)
We have a domain name now- this means that to find our website, all you need to do is type www.avicats.com! You can e-mail us using that address as well (for example: cats@avicats.com). We recommend you update your bookmarks with the new address, as the domain name will always find us should our site move from Geocities one day.
We are very proud to announce another DM title! Congratulations to FIFe EC Avicats Astraea Escapes, DM and her owner Jenny Vuollet in Finland! Straya has won the prestigious "Distinguished Merit" title in FIFe (a European cat registry) for being a top producer. She had to produce at least five FIfe International Champion offspring to win this title! It is a wonderful accomplishment, and Jenny has done a great job of showing Straya and raising those beautiful litters.
We are sad to announce that we have retired (aka "neutered") Ariosto even though we know this was the best thing for him. We only have one girl we could have bred with him, but they have no interest in doing so. If we had kept him whole, it would have been at least another year without any girls, and he would have been very frustrated! Unlike his fearless brother Orlando, Ariosto would have been quite stressed by a visit to another cattery to breed, so we decided it would be the best thing for him to move him only once- to a permanent pet home. It is a shame as he has developed wonderfully- over 20 pounds, never losing his color, or his full coat and tail, and his ears are still right up tight on his head... but he will love being a couch potato and getting lots of petting- his favorite! He is going to members of the same family who adopted two of our other retirees- Nick and Todi.
We have added a couple of fun pages to our web site- containing photos of some of our "pet" kittens (placed in homes where they live happily as never-shown neuters or spays.) We invite you to visit Sophie's kids and Tina's kids. And if you have a kitty from us and you get a nice photo- send it to us! (You know how much we love to get photos of the "kids"- send us your bad photos, too!)
We are very excited to announce a new Grand Champion in CFA- GRC Avicats Nuvoletta of Stormwatch. This is especially wonderful as Nuvo is a female, and also a black smoke, but she did it! Nuvo was shown wonderfully by her loving owner, Cat Moody. Congratulations to Cat on this acheivement! This is the seventh CFA Grand Champion out of Nuvo's mom CFA GRC Avicats Sophrosina Marfisa, DM and dad CFA GRC Stormwatch's Tatsumaki. Nuvo's grand also means that all five kittens born in Sophie's first litter have earned the top titles in their associations (four CFA GRC and one FIfe EC). We are very proud of these guys!
We took two of our cats today for cardiac ultrasounds as a routine screen for HCM. We are happy to report that both kitties' hearts look great and are completely normal, as expected. The two cats we had tested today are GRC Avicats Argentina, who is six years old now, and GRC Avicats Orlando Furioso. We plan to screen Streak and Ariosto in the next few months as well.
We are finally getting a small rest from showing. We plan on continuing to show CFA GRC Orlando Furioso later this year, but he is on a break until he regrows some of the coat he lost when he hit puberty. Orlando still enjoys showing, and through the end of August was still the #1 Maine Coon in the North Atlantic and third best MC overall in CFA. We are very happy with how he has done so far, especially given the fact that he is a rare color, and we hope to have him at the shows again soon.
We have two new female CFA Grands to announce; the first is CFA GRP Avicats Acadia Maine, a daughter of CFA GRC Avicats Arethusa and CFA GRC Angtini's Jean-Claude Kitty, DM. She is owned by a wonderful family in Virginia, who are doing a terrific job of showing her. She is a brown patched tabby and white female. Acadia became a Grand in just three shows- even winning a Best of Breed over four Grands as a Premier! Congratulations to the Druckers and Acadia on their achievement.
We also want to congratulate Acadia's cousin CFA GRC Mewsicoons Daffodil of Angtini, who became a CFA Grand Champion in only two shows, and on her 9 month birthday! Her parents are GRC Avicats Publius Ovidius Naso and CH Mewsicoons Dorabella, and she was bred by Sue Sherman and is owned by Linda Komar. She is also a brown patched tabby with white girl.
CH Avicats Tiffany of Tuvets has also been doing very well at the shows and is one third of the way to becoming a CFA Grand Champion. Our fingers are crossed for her and the Bowmans.
Check out our newest photos of Misu and see how she has grown...
It is with great excitement and relief that we announce our newest CFA Grand Champion, CFA GRC Avicats Phaethusa Stria. This is the sixth CFA Grand Champion her parents have produced together. Despite the very tough competition and the fact that it is very difficult for a female to Grand, Streak made it! We are especially happy about this as she has started cycling which would have made continuing to show her very difficult.
We have added a page to our site that lists all of the Maine Coon Cats that are pictured individually here, in alphabetical order. The list includes links and color descriptions. We invite you to take a look at our List.
Ariosto reached the top in CFA as a Grand Champion, so we decided to try TICA next. (We don't show in TICA very often as there are no shows in our area.) He was shown at his first TICA show last week- he is now a TICA Champion, and he also won Best Maine Coon (out of about 28), and Second Best Cat in show from judge Beth Hicks. Although we would love to continue to show him, he just doesn't enjoy it at this point (his vacation was too long), so now he can retire from showing and hopefully turn his attention to breeding.
We also have some disappointing news- we have finally spayed Cadie, as she turned out to be infertile. Nevertheless, she is a lovely girl and is a very happy pet in her new home.
We want to congratulate CH Avicats Nuvoletta of Stormwatch and her
"grandma" Cat Moody for winning Second Best of Color Class and Best Smoke Maine Coon in Region 1 for
the show year 1999-2000. Congratulations, Nuvo!
Nuvo is also less than 10 points (of 200) away
from becoming a Grand Champion in CFA! Unfortunately, her show career was interrupted as she needed
to be bred (it is not healthy to allow a mom to cycle for too long before breeding or spaying.) We
hope she will win these last few points when she is ready to go to shows again.
We had a terrific show this weekend in Ontario, Canada. We showed Orlando and Streak. Streak won best Maine Coon Champion from four of the six specialty judges and made two finals. And Orlando won Best of Breed Maine Coon from every judge- and also made every final. Half of the judges gave him Second Best Cat- and the other half awarded him Best Cat! It was an exciting show. We have updated photos of both of these cats, plus their brother Ariosto and mom Sophie on their pages.
We are excited to announce the news from Jenny Hiltunen at Escape's Cattery in Finland... Astraea (aka "Straya") has reached the top title in the European cat registry, FIFe! She is now FIFe European Champion Avicats Astraea Escapes. This is a prestigious award that takes much hard work and show success. Congratulations to Straya and to Escape's cattery on another fine achievement! Straya is from the first litter out of CFA GRC Stormwatch's Tatsumaki and CFA GRC Avicats Sophrosina Marfisa, DM.
In April we were very happy to announce that we had a new CFA Grand Champion- GRC Avicats Ludovico Ariosto. Ariosto is the youngest cat we have ever granded, at eight months old- the earliest age at which a cat can compete for titles as an "adult." Well, just one week later his littermate GRC Avicats Orlando Furioso also became a Grand Champion at eight months old! Orlando was picked as Best Champion in show by five of the six judges he saw, giving him over 200 points this weekend alone. (A Champion needs to defeat 200 other Champions- represented by points- to become a CFA Grand Champion.) We are very proud of Ariosto and Orlando and endlessly grateful to Cat Moody for letting us put her boy Maki with Sophie again to produce this beautiful litter.
Because Orlando is the fifth CFA Grand Champion that our CFA GRC Avicats Sophrosina Marfisa, DM has produced from these two litters, she now has now been given the prestigious honor of the "Distinguished Merit" (DM) title from CFA, denoting her as a top producer in the Maine Coon breed! This means more to us even than her Grand Champion title. This is a great accomplishment for Sophie, and we are beyond thrilled.
This is
shaping up to be a busy show year for us. We don't have any babies due at this time, so we are
relaxing and enjoying the company of our cats (and admiring the beautiful long coats they have grown
in these winter months). We also have more time to show our new generation of kitties. We usually
only show one or two cats at a time, so this year is an unusually busy one in that
respect.
This is also a busy time for Champion Avicats Tiffany of
Tuvets and her family, the Bowmans. She has been doing very well for them at shows. At a recent
CFA show, she was best Maine Coon kitten in show (with 7 of 8 best of breeds and 6 top ten finals.
Wow!) Congratulations Tiffany and the Bowmans!
