When I was still in high school our family dog cornered a kitten a few houses down in a vacant house. We took him in and he became my pet. He was a large, very handsome seal point Siamese. We named him Titter Tat who later earned the name of Bad, Bad Leroy Brown and he weighed 20 Lbs. as a young adult. While he was still a kitten I took him everywhere with me and carried him in my fleece-lined coat hood during the winter months. He became very attached to me and was like a loyal dog toward protecting me. I later found him a female kitten who was also a seal point Siamese and named her Tessa. She was very sweet and wrapped herself around my neck wherever I went. They had 4 beautiful seal point Siamese kittens before I tragically lost Tessa. I tried to find Leroy Brown another Siamese mate, but none were to be found at that time so I found a sweet 5 year old sable Burmese female. I named her Midnight Blue. She had a few Tonkinese litters then retired.
Later on I started breeding both Tonkinese and Abyssinians separately. I was in contact with an A.C.F.A. judge who bred Siamese and she was sort of my inspiration and mentor at that time. We had met her when I was originally looking for a Siamese girl for young stud, Leroy Brown. She was very friendly, but didn't have the type of Siamese we were looking for, she had the newer, sleeker look then for showing. She inspired and encouraged me to show an Abyssinian kitten with A.C.F.A. and so I did. Surprisingly enough to me my little kitten named Starstrutter placed the highest scoring short haired kitten in that show.
About 4 years later I met my husband and 4 years after we got married we decided to breed and show cats. Well, it was too hard to decide between Tonkinese and Burmese as they are both very sweet so we decided to breed both breeds separately, and my husband would be chiefly showing the Burmese while I show the Tonkinese. We started out showing with A.C.F.A. and later moved onto showing with C.F.A. which is where we stayed to this day. Well, next we had to think of a cattery name so my husband left that up to me. I told him how about naming it after my little Abyssinian show girl? He agreed, so our cattery name became Starstrutter.
My husband Dennis is now retired and has all day to spend a lot of quality time with our kittens and cats. I have summers off, and work during the fall, winter and spring months.
We breed both Tonkinese and Traditional Burmese for optimum health, vigor, even temperament and show conformation.
Our kittens are raised underfoot in single litter groups for the most part, and are never caged. We handle them from birth both my husband and myself. Our kittens come with a written health guarantee included in our contract, and we have a leukemia negative cattery. We do not believe in de clawing or allowing pets purchased from us to be allowed outside and those restrictions are written in our contract.
We use very few cages which are all professionally designed for cats, and have PVC coated wire. They are basically used for our queens only while they are in estrus, or visiting studs and queens. Our studs and queens have spacious floor-to-ceiling, clean walk-in rooms, equipped with tall cat trees and plenty of room to climb and play. They all have windows which they can look out and watch birds, rabbits, raccoons and other animals in nature.
We have kittens periodically throughout the year and occasionally retired adults.
We are a CFA registered Cattery and are members of The Tonkinese Breed Association and The National Alliance Of Burmese Breeders. Our Burmese website is Starstrutter.com
