My husband took me to Tennessee to meet Ms. Brandt who had purchased this Tonkinese from Becky Gardland's cattery Asclepius who was also a Veterinarian/Breeder in Nashville, Tennessee. She loved the cat and would not sell him to "just any old body". She had to meet me and talk with me before she would even consider letting me have him even though she knew she could not keep him. After an hour of discussing how I was going to take care of him, stay home with him, and love him we finally convinced her that he would not be unhappy living with us. His name was Asclepius Sr Burma because she said he was part Siamese and part Burmese so the name had to be something with Burma. Sr Burma had run loose in the hills of Tennessee and did not smell real good but he was beautiful and we took the chance that he would like us and headed home. It was a 2 hour drive and he never made a sound.

When we arrived back in Indiana I decided that the smell was pretty bad to we headed to the bathroom. I didn't know him and he didn't know me so we were off to a good start. I found some good smelling shampoo and put him in the tub with a couple inches of water. He had a strange look on his face but did not try to get out or scratch me. After towel drying him I took him out on the deck for some pictures. I had my straw hat on, because of the lack of hair following my bone marrow transplant, and pictures were taking to send back to Ms. Brandt to show her Sr Burma's new home. I didn't bother asking Ms. Brandt if Sr Burma had any surgery but I soon found out the answer was no. A big cat came up on our deck a few weeks later and he just about went through the sliding glass door. I didn't know if he killed himself or broke the glass but he was just fine except for being mad because he couldn't get to the cat outside.

Our next trip involved our friendly Veterinarian, Duayne VanHouten, who had put our Siamese to sleep a few weeks earlier. He thought Sr Burma was beautiful and should not be neutered, or as the Tonkinese Breeder's say altered, and I still did not realize why Duayne did not want to alter my new cat so he wouldn't howl and spray the sliding glass door. Duayne told me that the cat was an expensive cat and that I should use him for breeding. I just laughed because I didn't really know what he was talking about. I had never had a cat that was worth charging people for stud service. Duayne told me he would help me find a female. I called the CFA and inquired as to which of the two breeds, Siamese or Burmese, that I should breed Sr Burma with. The lady almost laughed. She informed me that he could only be breed to another Tonkinese cat if I wanted to keep his papers in proper order. So hence the search for a female Tonkinese cat or kitten.

When I was sick and could not get out of bed Sr Burma stayed in bed with me, curled up just as close as he could get. When I started recuperating from my bone marrow transplant and wanted to get up more Sr Burma did not understand. He would look up at me in the kitchen and talk something fierce. I would always ask him what he wanted and he would run down the hall, but he would only run so far. I had to come and ask him again what he wanted before he would jump up on the bed and tell me just exactly what he wanted. He did not understand that I wasn't going to be staying in bed as much. I sat in my recliner in the family room for a few weeks with Sr Burma on my arm until my shoulders froze and I had to either go to physical therapy or work it out myself. I was told I had to get up and start doing more everyday.

I bought a Cat Fancy Magazine and found all the Tonkinese Breeder's advertising in the back. I called a few and did not get any hope at all that I was going to get a female Tonkinese with breeding rights. I found a cattery in Houston where my son lives and called him to do my leg work. Rob, my son, called Kinukatz Cattery and talked with Louisa Buford for about an hour. He took his wife and daughter over to see just exactly what kind of cat I had been raving about. After spending an hour with Tom and Louisa Buford they agreed to talk to Rob's mom and see what kind of cat she really had.

Louisa Buford called me and wanted to know if I had the five generation paper on my Tonkinese that had to be bought from the Cat Fancy Association and I informed her that I did indeed have his pedigree. She told me to mail or fax the pedigree and she would try to help me since my son had told her of my illness and history with cats. I was surprised when I got a call from Louisa asking if "I knew what kind of cat I had". I told her he was a Tonkinese cat, was that what she meant? She again asked but "do you know what kind"? I told her that I guess I did not really know what he was or what she was talking about. I found out after talking with Tom and Louisa and spending hours on the computer that I had a Champagne Point Tonkinese with a pedigree better than most kittens. He had come from Asclepius cattery who specialized in breeding show quality kittens.

Upon seeing Sr Burma's pedigree Louisa was willing to send me a female that she was going to retire only if I signed away my life. Well, it seemed that way at the time. We faxed contracts back and forth for months. Kinukatz Cattery wanted Sr Burma's bloodline in their cattery and he was so proud that I had found him a wife. He just trusted me so much that he knew I wasn't going to hurt him and that I only wanted the best for him.

Louisa shipped a Platinum Mink female Tonkinese, Little Sweet Angel of Kinukatz, to St. Louis, Missouri and we had to drive over there to the airport and pick her up. She was absolutely beautiful. Sr Burma was Champagne so we had not seen a Platinum Mink. We thought she was beautiful but nothing could match our Sr Burma. She was a Grand Dam in TICA and had won a lot of awards in cat shows in Texas and some of the Southern states. We had never heard of TICA or been to any cat shows so we were completely lost. We agreed to the Buford's contract which was the female pick of the litter and take some of her kittens to some shows in Indiana to get more points for her so she could "grand". We were told by breeder's and our Veterinarian that there would be no breeding or kittens in September because the cats "would not mate until the spring". Boy were they wrong. Sr Burma decided he really like this new lady that moved into our house and four days later they were mating in the middle of the hall and I was afraid to bother them so I just stepped over them and it didn't bother either one of them. I think Angel loved Sr Burma as much as we did. She was always loving on him. She arrived in September and we had our first litter of kittens on Friday December the 13th of 1996. We only had one female and Louisa said she would not take our first female so they would wait until the second litter. Angel had 6 kittens and as you know by now only one female. We kept her and named her Ekaterina after Ekaterina Gordeeva. I fell in love with the ice skaters after Sergei's death on the ice. I kept one male which I got attached to and named him Sergei, of course. So I had Katia and Sergei

I was afraid we would have to spend a week at my son's home in Houston to sell these little males because I just didn't think anyone in our Tri-State area, Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois, could afford to pay what these kittens were supposed to be sold for. I used my computer to make contracts like Tom and Louisa's contracts so my kittens would be guaranteed the same things I had agreed to. We ran an ad in the newspaper to sell the other males and the business took off. I had a waiting list for over two years just from the newspaper ad. We had 4 kittens and 30 calls. We really didn't know what to expect so we just left things up to Angel and Sr Burma. By this time we had changed his name to Burm. My husband decided that Sr Burma sounded like a girl's name so he started calling him Burm. If Burm ever got into something he was not supposed to be in to, all Bob had to say was "Sr Burma" and he immediately knew he was in trouble. I did not know that a cat would mate if she was nursing kittens. Boy was I wrong. I walked into the kitten one morning to help her feed the babies and she was interested in Burm again. They had another litter April 7, 1997.

From the April 7, 1997 litter we kept a Champagne Mink female named Princess Di. I got my certificate from CFA back on 8/4/97, and learned "my real" Princess Diana was killed in a motor vehicle accident on 8/31/97. I don't know why I named her Princess Di instead of Diana but that was her name and we still have her. We had a beautiful Champagne Point (blue eyes). We always wanted another Platinum Mink that looked like Angel but we never had one.

We kept the lovers apart for a few months after that episode. The next litter was born October 19,1997. We kept a Champagne Point (blue eyes) from that litter named Daria, in keeping with the ice skaters. Katia and Sergei had a daughter named Daria. We decided to breed her back to Burm to see the three different colors that we were told we would have.

We went to Tennessee in search of other colored Tonkinese and learned the Breeder/Veterinarian had died. Her mother, Oma Garland, was taking care of her kittens. Bob bought a Platinum Mink male and I named Remington. He was born May 5,1998. He was my birthday present that year. After talking with Ms. Garland we learned that
Burm's mother was a Champagne Solid female that produced the best looking kittens so we decided to keep a Champagne Solid from the next litter which turned out to be April 7, 1998. I don't know what they liked about April 7th but we had 2 litters born on April 7th two years in a row. We had a Champagne Solid female and we named her Amanda (Mandy) and she is still having kittens. Ms. Garland was correct about her colors. Mandy did have gorgeous kittens.

We always wanted a Platinum female that looked like Angel but we never had one. I sold Mandy to a very nice lady in Kentucky and she also purchased a Champagne Point male from us. Would you believe, as luck would have it, Mandy and the new little boy named Skipper had a litter of 2 Platinum kittens. I had to go to Kentucky to see them. I didn't think she really knew what a Platinum looked like and she was absolutely correct, she did have 2 Platinum kittens. I got the pick of the litter but it was not a female. His name is Jake and we will be using him as a stud as soon as he grows up a little more. He was born March 7, 2001.

On May 16, 1998, we had the best looking kitten of all our litters. She was a gorgeous Champagne Mink with the large almond shaped aqua eyes that her grandmother, Angel, had. After that litter Sr Burma died. He got sick over the Memorial Day weekend and I couldn't take him to the Veterinarian until Tuesday. We spent a fortune trying to keep him alive only to learn from a necropsy that he had been poisoned. He liked to go outside so Bob built him a cage half the size of our deck and he went out there every morning and came in every night. His feet never touched the desk or the grass. He did not roam into anyone yard so we surmised that he was killed in his own cage on our deck. The necropsy showed someone had put liquid Tylenol most likely in his water and he never tasted it. I am still amazed to think one of my neighbors walked into our yard and up on our deck to put Tylenol in a water bowl in a cage for a cat to drink because "he" thought the cat howled too loud. We found out 2 years after the fact that a man said he was going to shut that cat up because he howled too much. He was only out in the daytime but he did like to talk to the ladies in the house. We didn't let another male out on the deck for a long time but Sergei, being Burm's son, wanted to go out and howl. The word was put out that we had a camera on the deck and we would shoot anyone that touched the cat, the cage or our deck. Sergei is alive, well and loves to go outside still.

We had to borrow our son's male cat which was Spanky T. Cat born on January 10, 1998, for breeding. The stud fee was that mom pay to have the cat altered after he played with the ladies we had. So it took us a while to get started again but on October 2, 1998, Spanky T. Cat and Princess Di had 5 beautiful kittens and our son got his cat back, altered of course. Spanky also mated with Daria and they had a litter on November 5, 1998. Spanky had a beautiful male that we named "Buddy" from that litter. Bob called him Buddy all the time and I just didn't think that would look good on his papers if he

was going to be our stud cat. So now officially his name is Budweiser King but he will always be just Buddy.

Budweiser King was a busy boy in 1999. We had new carpet put in two of our bedrooms and put Buddy in the other bedroom with all the ladies but did not know he was ready, willing and able to show us how good he really was going to be. Buddy was a busy boy while the carpet was being installed. We had a very busy Thanksgiving that year. He and Daria had a litter on November 21,1999. They had 5 kittens that were all sold to friends. Buddy and Princess Di had a litter on November 23, 1999 and they had 5 kittens. Bubby and Katia only had 2 kittens on November 23, 1999, and Buddy and Mandy had 3 kittens on November 30, 1999. I told you it was a busy Thanksgiving that year. We didn't know what to do. Mandy kept stealing all the other kittens and taking them to her birthing box. The other mothers would come to me and cry so I had to try and figure out which kitten belonged to which mother. I certainly knew who the father of all these kittens was. We finally ended up with a large cage half the size of our family room with 4 mothers and 15 kittens. We were still busy Christmas keeping them out of everything including the tree.

After that castrophe, we watched Buddy a little closer. We allowed Buddy to mate with Princess Di and they had a litter of 4 on 3/23/2000. We kept the best looking male kitten from that litter that was Champagne Mink because we needed a Mink to mate instead of just using Buddy, a blue eyes Point. His name was Huggy Bear because he was such a big baby that every time I picked him up he put a paw on each side of my neck and hugged me. I even taught him to give me a kiss (which the doctor didn't think was a good idea) but he was absolutely gorgeous. He weighed 8.6 pounds when he got his six month Rabie shot. He is all muscle and has the large almond shaped aqua eyes that the judges at shows look for.

The next litter was born 4/29/2000. That was with Buddy and Misty. Misty is the most gorgeous female we had had up to this point. Misty later had a daughter names Emmy Lou which now tops the most gorgeous chart. Emmy Lou looks like Misty (her mom) and Princess Di (her grandmother) but she has a different mink coat. She has a fuller mink coat and the biggest aqua eyes we have seen. There were four kittens in this litter and 2 were Minks and 2 were Points.

The next litter was born 4/30/2000. That was Buddy with Daria. Daria is a beautiful blue eyes Point and Buddy is also a Point. They had 6 of the best looking kittens we had up to this point. Breeders usually breed cats for whatever color the people in their area request the most of. We had only had one Point per litter up until we mated a Point to a Point. We had people in Chicago, Illinois and Atlanta, Georgia on the waiting list for "white kittens with dark chocolate ears" Champagne/Chocolate Points. I had a hard time explaining to people that Champagne and Chocolate were the same color. TICA calls the Champagne cats chocolate and CFA and ACFA do not recognize chocolate so they call them Champagne. When someone calls and wants a "Chocolate Point" then I have to explain to them that their papers say "Champagne Point" but that is actually the same color. The same is true with Platinum and Lilac. The first female we had was a Platinum Mink but in the shows in the South she was considered Lilac. It was hard for me to understand why one organization called them Lilac and the other called them Platinum but after having my first Platinum kitten I understood the Lilac color. The kitten almost looks "pink" in color. He has very light gray ears and his body color is almost a pink color.

We almost had Christmas kittens with the next litter. They were born 12/28/2000. This is Emmy Lou's litter. There were 5 kittens in the litter and we kept 2 females because we wanted a Solid female and, of course, Emmy Lou, a Champagne Mink. We wanted to keep those large almond colored aqua eyes in our Cattery.

We almost had Valentine kittens but they were born on 2/16/2001. I have just been missing the holidays but only 2 days. Buddy and Princess Di had a litter of 4 kittens. We didn't keep any of those. Our son, Jeff, took the big baby or runt of the litter because Debbie wanted him. He was so spoiled that every time you walked into the kitchen he cried. He would look at the plate of food and then back at me. I would put down another can of food and he would look at it and cry. I would do this as many as four times and then I would just give up. He was very picky and I knew from reading all the books that a cat will not just eat anything. I always thought if they got hungry enough they would eat but the books say that is not true. It is certainly not true in "Gordon's" case. He just followed you around and cried. Jeff has since sprayed him with water in the kitchen and made him eat in another room so he did not cry and follow them around while they were eating.

The last litters are out of the playpen and running all over the house. Just this morning when I was feeding them I would swear that they multiplied over night. We have 2 from the June 23rd litter of Misty and Buddy. The next litter was just 8 days later on July 1st with Princess Di and Buddy. We retired Princess Di by having her spayed so she can just run the house and be the grand dam around here. We had another litter on July 1st with Misty and Huggy Bear. They had 4 kittens and all were Minks since Misty and Huggy are both Champagne Minks. We had an unexpected litter on July 23st from Dolly and Tom. We just acquired Dolly and Tom from a lady in Nashville. My partner had purchased a Platinum female and the other two came with her. Cherylene could not house another male cat because of spraying so we acquired him. We did not know Dolly was already pregnant until she started getting bigger and bigger. She had five kittens, all different colors. Dolly is a Champagne Solid and Tom is a Champagne Mink but there must have been some Platinum in the background because we have a Platinum Point and a Platinum Solid from that litter. Dolly is very dark Champagne and I thought her kittens would be but they are beautiful kittens and not one of them will be as dark as she is. Tom is a very light Champagne Mink with gorgeous aqua eyes so the kittens must have inherited all his genes. We had the last litter on August 1st while our granddaughter was visiting from Germany. Candy is a gorgeous Blue Mink and we didn't know what to expect because she mated (unexpectedly) with Huggy Bear before we knew either one of them were ready. She had 5 kittens and they are 5 different colors. Some times I have a hard time telling the Candy's Blues from Dolly's Champagnes (brown) because they almost look like they are the same color until you get into the light and see the difference in the gray and brown. I say gray but they are really called Blue.

I hope our next litter will be with Candy, Blue Mink, and Kobe, Blue Solid so we can see of all the kittens will be Blue. Tom Tonk to mate with Misty because we could not stand the yelling. We thought she would quit after a few days but after a week we decided we would just let her mate with Tom. This will be the first litter we will have with Tom as the litter with Dolly and Tom is not considered ours by CFA because we did not own the cats at the time of mating. We own the litter as they were born here in our Cattery but the CFA says they are not ours on paper because we did not have them at the time of mating. We own both male and female and all the kittens but the papers do not reflect that. The next litter with Tom and Misty will be ours and they are both gorgeous Minks so I will add to our history plus more and more pictures when they become available.

This is my story so far. I hope it continues. I am supposed to go for my bone marrow biopsy and yearly check-up in two weeks. I think and hope that I am still in remission because I have to take care of all my babies. I know if it had not been for Sr Burm in 1996, I would probably have just given up. I was sick, didn't want to eat and didn't want to get up and do anything until Sr Burm came along and insisted that I talk to him and make sure I took care of him. Then when Angel came into our home and Sr Burm's life it changed all of us. The kittens were so beautiful and as we watched them eat, grow and play everyday it made us wonder what we had done for entertainment before they came into our live. I thank God for Sr Burm because I promised Ms. Brandt way back in 1996, that I would love Burm and take good care of him. I had to keep my promise to her. Just by taking care of him I found myself doing more and more around the house, getting better check-ups and overall conquering something that was supposed to have killed me within two years. I can't forget that day in 1994, when I was told I only had two years to live but my husband took care of me and made me get well and Sr Burm made me take care of him. So now the cycle continues. I take care of them and they supply me with lots of love and companionship. It makes us happy to see a couple adopt a Tonkinese kitten that loves the kitten unconditionally. We get pictures and cards on Holidays and I can honestly say we have never had to take a cat back because someone was unhappy with their Tonkinese. The Tonkinese are very special lovable cats and I think everyone should have at least one.