ourlife

Our life

(children, cats, etc.)

I started breeding cats in 1981, at the age of 16, under the catteryname, Okonor. Ever since my life has been focused on breeding Siamese and Oriental cats.
My son Balázs was born in 1997, and in the following year was born my daughter called Násfa.

I began breeding with the help of my late friend, Király Ilona (Balatony cattery), who in those days used to be as a third grandmother to me.

Later I realized that the best cats came from the San-T-Ree cattery, therefore I began to systematically collect San-T-Ree lines. I based my cattery on cats available for me, of whom the most well.known are: GIC San-T-Ree Dark Mascot SIA n, EC San-T-Ree Blues ORI a, IC San-T-Ree Strike SIA b, CH San-T-Ree Red Sign SIA d 21 and last but not least EC San-T-Ree Special One ORI b 24, to whom I must be grateful for my first cat to win a World Champion title, WW90.91.EC Okonor Kasmir ORI b 24, who was not only beautiful, but also the best breeder queen. EC Okonor Seherezádé DM SIA b 21 was born of the mate of Kasmir and EC Parthia Prelude SIA b. She was Best in Show in all shows of her life except for the Copenhagen World Show in 1993.

Seherezádé's perhaps best known kitten is EC Okonor Atahualpha SIA c 21, who was born of EC Fistra Freebe SIA b and who also won all shows of his life except for two World Shows (1993 Copenhagen, 1996 Arnhem) where, just like Seherezádé, he received but a title. I am most proud of Atahualpha's two Special Show victories. In 1992 in Eemnes he became the absolute winner of almost 400 Siamese- Oriental-Balinese-Javanese cats. Three years later in 1995 in Asperen he was chosen the best adult cat of the show out of 430.

For me it has always been the type that mattered, colours have never interested me much, although I also have my favourites, I prefer solid colours, specially seal point. Even today we breed Siamese and Oriental colours side by side, since we consider them as colour variations of the same race, and I have never experienced any drawback of this "cross-fertilization". All my cats' pedigrees, even those of the world champions, are full of Oriental cats. I had been working for years to stabilize the big, wide-based ears set on the side, quite successfully I believe. Nowadays our main goal is to improve the figure, for which we use the Australian (Rama) European (Mariol's, Kattilan) and American lines (Klazeekats, Shonstar) primarily.

European cats are based on English lines almost exclusively. I would not like to be misinterpreted, I have also used the best English lines myself, and with great success, too and to get the classic mean looking, aristocratic face, time to time we have to turn back the English lines. I simply feel that lately cats have become too closely related, for at the beginning the best lines were based on a very small population, which doubtlessly resulted in the deterioration of viability and of the resistance towards illnesses. I believe it is worthwhile to use totally strange cats in the breeding, nonetheless of weaker quality, in order to save the health of the breed.

Another problem is that due to in-breeding cats have generally become smaller, and not only in my cattery. Only big-sized cats can be truly graceful. If we just take a look at the most renowned stars of the past, they were all large in size, for instance EC EP WW.90.92.93. Baldrian's Teje, or EC Pendlemist the Shogun. Or think of our Seherezádé, who was the biggest female I have ever seen. Fortunately from Australia we managed to restore not only the large build but also the superb ears and the amazing profile.

There was a time when I knew all my pedigrees by heart. Today I feel that English cats have all been bred from English lines, the Scandinavians from Scandinavian lines, etc., so whatever comes after the fourth generation on a pedigree is not really relevant. If we take pains and do a little research, we will find the same ancestors in the 10th -15th genereations for all cats. It is much more important to consider the relatives within the closer generations, the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. It is essential that steady, beautiful cats appear in the pedigree for 3-4 generations.

What I expect from the Siamese cats of the future is that what is considered as extreme or over-typed - by those of course who could not achieve such characteristics - will be average. I have never seen a cat too type-typical, or over-typed, neither have I seen an ear too big, a tail too long, or a figure too graceful. However, extremety should not spoil the harmony. We must strive to live up to the the ever-lasting reputation of Siamese cats as the world's most graceful and aristocratic cats.

Of all my cats the above mentioned EC Okonor Seherezádé, DM SIA b 21, EC Okonor Atahualpha SIA c 21, WW94.CH Okonor Pogány SIA b 21, WW94 CH Okonor Corvin SIA a 21, and their mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, the ultimate favourite WW90.91.EC Okonor Kasmir are the ones I am most proud of.

I advise to beginner breeders to concentrate on the type, and more closely, on the head. Once they got the head right, the rest will come much easier to achieve even within one generation.

However, all this will be extremely difficult to achieve if breeders refuse to cooperate, they do not help each other in order to purify the breed. Nowadays we live in the world of contracts, where selling a cat to another breeder is almost considered a crime. Most breeders protect their lines as rare treasures which they share only with a chosen few, thus it is next to impossible for beginners to receive good pedigree stock. The conditions of the contracts are not to promote the improvement or development of the breed, but to protect pre-fixed relations, they focus on who is whose friend or foe, who may get a kitten and who may not, and besides, kittens must be neutered, and males may not receive females for mating. Interestingly enough, such "contracted" breeders have already forgotten the times when they started breeding, and that they also wanted kittens from the most beautiful females - and not for castration but for breeding -, they, too, wanted the most famous and wonderful males to mate their females and that they, too, were happy to find open doors.

We refuse to follow these new tendencies. We have always been happy and will be in the future, if our most beautiful kittens find new homes with breeders who will continue the work we started, who breed them and take them to shows. Naturally it is essentially important for us too, that our cats are well looked after, that they live in a loving and caring environment and they have a long, happy and healthy life, but I believe with all REAL breeders these basic conditions are wholly fulfilled.

Nowadays we do not visit so many shows as we used to even just a few years ago (20-25 per year), mainly due to our children. Unfortunately in the past few years we have experienced deterioration in the quality of judgements as well. Very often average cats win before real stars, because judges for some tiny, irrelevant beauty mistake, - such as a little weaker jaw, lighter blue of the eye colour (for Siamese), or a little bit yellowish eye (for Orientals), perhaps a tiny bit shorter tail or a darker shade of the colour, - declare flawless, but otherwise plain cats as winners. The other extreme is when cats win with obvious defects, such as broken tails, cross-eyed or sternum, because the judges accidentally or deliberately fail to notice them. This is how, on one of the World Shows, out of the 5 Nominated adult females three were thre cross-eyed, one also had a defected tail, and one suffered from serious balance problems. I do not claim that I have never bred with cats with sternum, perhaps a little tail defect, or cross-eyed, if I considered its type otherwise excellent, but I never forced their participation in shows and I only used them for breeding until they gave a perfect, beautiful off-spring.

However, shows are still very important for me, since these are the places where one can be informed on where the other breeders are, and of course showing what we have got is also essentially important. At the beginning it is very important to go to a lot of shows, especially to the big ones, such as the World Show or the Special Shows, because this is how we can see and learn the most about the breed. Shows are of course the best places to establish good relations, which is also of no secondary importance.

Hereby I would like to thank everybody who contributed to our cattery's establishment and its development for their help.

László

Thus began

1981.

FH Cat Show

Budapest, 2012. October

WS Zagreb

Budapest, 2012. October

Linda with Padlizsán on the Best in Show

Budapest, 2012. October

WS Zagreb

Budapest, 2012. October

WS Zagreb

Budapest, 2012. October

WS Zagreb

Budapest, 2012. October

	Spring in our corridor Budapest, 2011. May
	Spring in our corridor Budapest, 2011. May

The same cactus in 2004.

Queen of the Night, white

Queen of the Night, pink

Násfa & Urmel

Budapest, 2011. April

Happy Birthday to Násfa!

Budapest, 2010. December

Násfa's 12th birthday cake.

Budapest, 2010. December

Christmas tree

Budapest, 2010. December

The presents

Budapest, 2010. December

Opening the Christmas presents

Budapest, 2010. December

Christmas

Budapest, 2010. December

Balázs

Budapest, 2010. December

Paparazzi is sleaping in Násfa's arm.

Budapest, 2010. December

The sleeping beauty!

Budapest, 2010. December

Tehénke, Elite, Rasputin, Kabala, Kissimme & Padlizsán

Budapest, 2010. December

Kabala, Paprazzi, Elite & Tehénke

Budapest, 2010.November

In the Champs

Balázs, Násfa, Emilie, Fanny & me

Budapest, 2010.November

In the Trofea restaurant

Balázs, Násfa, Emilie, Fanny & me

Budapest, 2010.November

The two beauty, Fanny & Urmel

(women in love)

Budapest 2010.November

Never again on high heels, to the castle!

Budapest 2010.November

In the Trofea restaurant

Balázs, Násfa, Emilie, Fanny & me

Budapest, 2010.November