The JAYHAWKCATS Story

By Connie Pelham

This all got started when our children were reading a book about cats. One line got me interested. The kids read, "Maine Coons, a large domestic cat that likes to play with dogs". We decided that, if there were such a cat, we must see one.

We found an AFCA cat show in our area, and there we fell in love with a large brown tabby Maine Coon. We could not believe the cost of a pedigree cat. At the time we had one cat, an old all white stray that came to live with us 12 years earlier. We loved her desperately but believed her to be in her final years. She passed on at the age of 20. So with the help of our daughter, Sabra, we finally bought our first Maine Coon cats. The first two that Sabra bought we now know were of poor quality. On the other hand and quite by accident we purchased a good cat. She was a large beautiful silver tabby girl who we named Elssa.

Next, Next, we attended a CFA show in Texas where we purchased an enormous blue classic tabby male who we named Buddie. He became our loving soul mate house kitty. We showed Buddie to become a Grand Premier and then were permanently hooked on showing. Buddie loved it and so did we. Sadly, Buddie passed on from a brain tumor at the age of eleven. Although we never bred him, we did go back to his breeders and purchased his sister to start our breeding program.

So here we are with our precious neutered Buddie and two intact females. We began to get serious. We bred our blue tabby girl (Buddie's sister) to a beautiful brown tabby male from the Midwest. Now we were off and running; WOW! Two of those boys went on to become grand champions and regional winners. Our silver girl also produced a grand champion and regional winner.

Our first regional winner was "Tigger." He is a brown mackerel tabby and we have to admit that we didn't have a clue what we were doing that first year. We love to laugh about that time when Tigger was the 21st best cat in the Midwest that year with surprisingly few shows. Too bad we didn't know what we were doing. In the 1994-95 show season, with a little more knowledge, Tigger's littermate brother "Picasso", became the 9th best cat in the Midwest and the national best of color.

The 1995-96 show season brought us three regional wins as well as a national color win. "BusterT" was 11th best cat and best Maine coon in the Gulf Shore and National best of color, a brown classic tabby. "Sidney" was 11th best cat and best of color in the Midwest region, a brown mackerel tabby. "Wholly Mackerel" was 14th best kitten and best of color in the Midwest region, a brown mackerel tabby.

The 1996-97 show season brought two regional wins. "Ruffen Reddy" was 14th best cat in Midwest region, a red classic tabby. "Rommel" was 12th best kitten in the Midwest region, a brown classic tabby with white. Rommel went on to receive two more Regional Awards as a Grand Champion and then a Grand Premier, in the two subsequent years.

So, over these years following we have continued to breed more and more Grand Champions and Regional winners. We have also brought in several cats from Europe and Japan in order to help keep our lines strong with very different gene pools.

We are very active with several local Cat Clubs, CFA and the Maine Coon Breed Council and have made many in roads within the organization. We enjoy showing just as much today as we did in those early years. This hobby is our passion.

People understand that we are so proud of the way in which we raise every kitten. Whether pet or show they are raised in our bedroom without cages. They are born in a large grocery store "Charmin" box and they graduate right to the floor of our big bed. It is impossible to tell you how much time we spend with each kitten and all of our cats. This truly could be a full time job. Because we both also must work to support our passion, we employee a well screened cat nanny who lives with us and loves them all as if they were his own. His name is Joe and we are so very fortunate to have him.

Again, we're proud of the quality of the show cats that we have produced, but our true bragging rights go to the fact that many people from all across the country have come back to us to purchase a second, and sometimes a third, Maine Coon just as a pet. They say, "We know how you all raise them and we wouldn't think of buying a Maine Coon from anyone else." We breed for temperament (which is a combination of nature/nurture) as well as quality type.