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Cattery Dunoe is a Russian Blue cattery that has been actively breeding since 1986. It al began in 1984 with buying two young Russian Blue females, Dunja and Anoeska van het Mullerhouse.
Dunja(left) and Anoeska(right) van het Mullerhouse.
When these two ladies where of an age to have babies, a beautiful stud was found for them, Globury Zhivago, living in Belgium and imported from the UK by Anne-Marie Marien from Cattery Terra de Bernescot Then there had to be thought of a Cattery name. The name of the cattery became Dunoe, a combination of the names of both Dunja and Anoeska, who would become the founding mothers of this cattery.
Since then there have been born quite some kittens and the seventh generation of Dunoe-cats is now living in our home. This is the beautifull and gracefull Aline Siva Katyusha Dunoe.
Dunja and Anoeska are dead now, both more than 17 years of age. It is nice to see that familiar characteristics are still to be seen in the cats that are living here now. We see it still in the eyes, the way the cats walk and in their sweet characters.
Breeding goals, kittens and growing up
Our goal is breeding a healthy, sweet and beautifull Russian Blue cat!
Our cattery breeds the traditional English type Russian Blue. In other words, the Russian Blue as it is described in the breed description and standard of points of the GCCF. This means a Russian Blue that does not really differ from the first Russian Blue's in the catfancy, now over a 120 years ago.
Even though the exterior is a big issue in every purebred animal, this is not our first goal in breeding. Health and a steady and sweet character are. What is the purpose of having a very beautifull pet if it dies young because of some horrible disease? Or a pet you cannot cuddle because it's scared and anxious or isn't a joy to live with because of its bad character? And don't forget the suffering disease and stress cause the animal! Health and character therefore always come first! The welfare and health of our cats and kittens is more important than having a show winner. Therefore we only breed with animals that are healthy and have nice and easy characters and can handle stress well.
To be sure of the health of our breeding animals, we test our cats for PKD (Poly Cyctic Kidney disease) and HCM (Hyper Trophic Cardiamyopathy) among others. We also track and trace the health of the parents and offspring of our cats. We also take care that the cats we mate are not too closely related.
Even though a cat can be born with a great character, it still needs to be socialised to let al its great characteristic fully develop. Therefore we give a lot of tender love and care to our kittens.All kittens are born in our livingroom and get used to the sounds of daily life from the start. They get to know all sound and smells of their suroundings.At first in our big kitten cage with curtains for the necessary rest for Mum and kittens
. But soon after they leave their box and run and jump around the rooms. We play and cuddle our kittens a lot and give them lots of different toys for play and developement. Cardboard boxes to play hide and seek in and to use your teeth on, furr mice and balls to hunt and small and big scratchingposts to clime and scratch. We also stimulate the kittens from a young age to find food in a playfull way. It is a great way to let your cat use it's inteligence and it's natural tendency to hunt. We give them food puzzles, small boxes with kibble in it to fish out through a hole and other atractive and playful ways to hide food.
The cuddling does not need an explanation. Who doesn't want to cuddle a small furry bundle or stroke the soft velvetty coat of an adult Russian Blue? Even so, the cuddling and stroking also has another reason. It is a great way to feel if your cat has any small injuries or lumps. By stroking and cuddling the kittens we also try to get them used to being handled by a vet or getting their nails clipped without any stress.
A healthy start also includes good food. The first few weeks of their lives, the kittens live on the milk their Mama's make for them. This is the best start for any small animal and gives them the nescessary nutrients as well as the first and very important immunity against diseases. After weaning the kittens get Carnibest.This is a complete catfood made out of fresh meat. The fresh meat gets the intestines working properly by stimulating the developement of the nescessary enzymes for digesting solid food.
Appart from the Carnibest, the kittens also get a variety of other foods. This way they learn to eat many different things wich can be an asset in later life. For instance when they need diatary food that only comes in cans or kibble. There fore we give the kittens different flavours in canned food, cooked fish and Orijen kibble. We use Orijen for kibble because this kibble does not have any grains in it and a 75% of meat.
After all this tender love and care an many hours of our time we do want the best homes for our kittens. Homes where they can grow up into loving and loved cats. To achieve this we are carefull in the selection of the new homes our kittens go to. Preferably we place kittens together with a brother or sister or with another resident cat. A cat is a sociable animal an needs to be able to associate with other cats. A place where the cats can enjoy an outside life in safety is much prefered. But only if it is a safe place. We do not sell to homes where the cats have ungarded outdoor acces. The dangers of the outside life are too great to expose a loved companion to. Cats do need to be able to act naturaly. Therefore they need to have acces to scratchingposts, resting places where they can have some privacy and preferably some high places for a lookout. A place in a windowsill is much appreciated.With the nowadays modern designs in scratchingposts and catfurniture there is a choice for every interior in every colour.
More about our cats, kittens and the Russian Blue you can find under the links at the top of the page. If you have any questions, dont hesitate to call or mail me about them.The adress, mail adress and phonenumber can be found on the page marked Contact.
Have fun reading the rest of this website and please leave a message in our Guestbook!
Yasmin and Lyasjko Andrej Dunoe at the Russian Blue Special in Bornem, Belgium on october 6th, 2006