Читать книгу The Cat Handbook - Karen Leigh Davis - Страница 35

The cost of a purebred cat can vary widely depending on the breed you’re trying to acquire, availability (some breeds have waiting lists), geographic location, bloodlines, gender, and color, among other factors. Breeders typically structure their pricing according to whether an individual cat is pet quality, breeder quality, show quality, or top show quality. Cats in each category are purebred and fully registrable in the cat associations.

Pet-quality purebreds are the most affordable. If you have no real interest in showing or breeding cats and you simply want a nice purebred companion, then a pet-quality animal is your smartest buy. The pet-quality designation in no way means that the cat or kitten is less healthy or less desirable to own than a show-quality animal. It simply means that, in the breeder’s opinion, some minor cosmetic flaw makes the cat unsuitable for show ring competition.

Breeder-quality cats also fail to meet the show standard in some small way, yet they possess enough good qualities, in addition to their excellent pedigree, to produce potentially outstanding offspring. Breeder-quality kittens are typically priced in the middle range, selling for somewhat less than their show-quality littermates, but for more than a pet-quality animal. Of course, the only reason to spend the extra money to buy a breeder-quality cat is if you plan to breed. In fact, some breeders will sell their breeder-quality cats only to other experienced breeders.

Show-quality cats are the most expensive to buy. Breeders consider their show-quality kittens to be out-standing examples of the breed, based on the breed’s written standard, and they anticipate that such kittens will perform well in the show ring. Few breeders will sell a top show cat–or one that shows considerable show ring promise–to a novice owner.

If you’re interested in buying a kitten for show, carefully study its pedigree. If the kitten comes from a line of champions or grand champions, those cats’ names will be prefixed by Ch. or Gr. Ch. The more grand champion titles that appear in the first two or three generations of a kitten’s ancestry, the better the chances that the kitten, too, may grow up to be a winner.