The Magnificent Bengal Cat – ALC’s to SBT’s

By C. Esmond Gay – Lord of Burrough - Sarez Bengal’s

1st Written 19th October 1996

Re-written June 2003

I adore all types of cats both wild and domestic, but I can’t help but love the stunning Bengal Cat more than any other type of pedigree feline in the world! I shouldn’t have favourites, but I just can’t help it! I am totally addicted to this outstanding breed! They are unique, they are beautiful and they make the most adoring and loyal pets that I have ever had the pleasure of owning. I would like to take this opportunity to describe these delightful cats in the way that I have perceived and experienced them whilst keeping and breeding from my 60 Bengal cats that live within my family home. I write this article in the hope that others can learn from my experiences and then enjoy for themselves the many pleasures that the Bengal brings!

When Sarah and I first started breeding in the early 1990’s the Bengal was a new breed of pedigree cat. The breed as we know it today was created throughout the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s by a lady called Jean Mill and a geneticist called Dr Centrewall in America. The Bengal cat is a hybrid between the Wild Asian Leopard Cats that stalks the jungles of central Asia, crossed with a domestic cat. From there it is then bred from ‘Bengal to Bengal’. The first hybrids from the mating between the wild Asian Leopard Cat and the domestic cat are called ‘F1’s’.

‘F1’s’ are incredibly rare and tremendously difficult to breed because not only is the Asian Leopard Cat very difficult to obtain, but also because even if one can buy them, only 1 in 20 Asian Leopard Cats will breed with a domestic cat - this is a devastating ratio!! To make matters worse, any hope of hybridising is made impossible if the Asian Leopard Cat is brought up in the presence of other wild cats (which most are). Therefore anyone trying to breed ‘F1’s’ must rear the Leopard Cat within a domestic environment which is made very difficult because one needs a wild animal licence and proper enclosures in order to keep such wild cats – and ‘domestic rearing’ isn’t normally allowed under such licences. It is also very difficult to hybridise from the wild Asian Leopard Cat because like the Scottish Wild Cat, this wild feline is one of the few cats in the world that is almost completely untameable. Sarah and I were very lucky that our ALC’s did remain tame but that was only because of the devoted love that we gave them and the fact that we were with them 24/7.

These early generation Bengal’s are the most majestic and most beautiful of all of the varieties of the Bengal cat. It is nearly impossible to distinguish them from their wild parent and this leaves them with very wild looking features, a beautiful golden coat covered in pitch black, backward arrow shaped spots and fully formed rosettes. Most of the ‘F1’s’ in America are untame as they’re reared outside, but through careful breeding and rearing the kittens within a family atmosphere, my fiancée and myself proudly own many F1’s - and our ‘F1’s’ are known to be the tamest and the most domesticated ‘Generation One’ Bengal’s in the world! We brought our first three ‘F1’s’ when they were babies but since then we succeeded in hybridising from two of our many Asian Leopard Cats, “Sarez Little L” and “Sarez Apollo” and have bred many of our own baby ‘F1’s’ from them. I will mention this in more detail later within this article.

Our ‘F1’s’ repay our love by giving us their dedicated loyalty and undying love. We are very privileged to own these very scarce cats, and when we brought our first three, we had to pay circa £35,000 each due to their rarity – they were after all three of just four in the whole of the UK! And we also kept all the ‘F1’ females that we have bred from our ALC’s in later years, but the little male ‘F1’s’ are sold to deserving homes with price tags from £10,000 upto £60,000. And the rarest kitten that we ever produced was F1 “Sarez Zeus” – he sold for £100,000 because he is a complete one off. People may say that this is expensive but our prices do reflect the astounding tameness of our babies and please do understand that over the years Sarah and I spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on our ‘F1’ breeding program.

As well as being the ONLY breeders of ‘F1’ Bengal’s we are virtually the only breeders in Great Britain to be producing ‘F2’ kittens, and once again these are incredibly rare and are very difficult to breed but in a different way to the difficulties of breeding ‘F1’s’. The ‘F1’ male is ALWAYS infertile due to the hybridisation from the male wild Asian Leopard cat (genetically the same thing occurs with mules). And so the F1 female can only be used for breeding - but as the female ‘F1’ mothers have more wild instincts, the birthing process of their ‘F2’ babies is far harder than the straight forward breeding from an SBT (who are normally the mothers of ‘F1’s’). The ‘F2’ Bengal is the direct Grandson of the Asian Leopard Cat and as with the ‘F1’s’, the ‘F2’ kittens have incredibly wild features, very much like the Asian Leopard Cat - they look almost exactly like their ‘F1’ parent both in markings and in the fact that they have a very wild face as well as having the ‘air’ and the unique ‘presence’ of a TRUE wild cat.

All GOOD QUALITY Bengal’s, no matter what generation have incredibly soft ‘mink like’ pelts rather than fur – but do beware of poor quality Bengal’s which are normally ‘ticked’ and can feel a little ‘rough’ to the touch. The coats of all generations of Bengal’s are not classed as ‘fur’ because they have inherited the soft coats that nature bestowed upon their wild ancestors. Good quality Bengal’s also inherited the ‘glitter gene’ from a foundation cat called ‘Millwood Tory of Delhi’ which Jean Mill found in India - this makes their coats glitter as if they have been sprinkled with gold dust when one sees them in the sun or under a bright spot light.

Unfortunately, the Bengal has also inherited the wild cats ‘camouflage’ coat. I shall explain this by saying that wild cubs such as the Lion cubs, Tiger cubs and Asian Leopard cat cubs all develop very long ‘guard hairs’ at about three weeks of age. These guard hairs camouflage the little cubs within the undergrowth thus protecting them from predators. The guard hairs disguise the spots when viewed from the front but if the cub is seen from behind, then the beautiful markings can be seen underneath the guard hairs as they lift up. This camouflage coat disappears anywhere between 4 months old and 8 months old. The Bengal cat has inherited this camouflage coat within their young and this unfortunately makes it difficult for amateurs to see the true beauty of breeding and show quality Bengal kittens during this stage of their development even if that particular kitten is of far superior quality when compared to the norm. This is a wild cat trait that has been passed down to the Bengal cat and the camouflage coat is commonly referred to as the fuzzies’.

‘F2’, ‘F3’ and ‘F4’ kittens have also inherited many of the wild characteristics that were bestowed upon the Asian Leopard cat and they therefore adore water and will quite happily swim in ponds, swimming pools or even baths as the Asian Leopard cat would do in running streams! These generations of kittens will ‘stalk’ and ‘hunt’ their toys as though these toys were wild ‘prey’ and their very vocal voices tend to be very similar to the ‘yowl’ of the wild cats rather than the ‘meow’ of the domestic cats. However, these ‘wild cat’ traits are more pronounced and prolific within the ‘F1’ and ‘F2’ generation of the Bengal cat. The Bengal also has many other wild cat characteristics that makes them very different to all other domestic cats. Even when standing still their ‘stance’ and ‘presence’ is like that of a wild cat and almost all of their traits and behaviour can be clearly seen as being directly inherited from their wild ancestors.

However, if well reared by the breeder and if kept within a family environment, a kitten such as an ‘F1’ or an ‘F2’ will be very, very friendly and domesticated and will adore human companionship. They are incredibly loyal to their human ‘parents’ and are never vicious or dangerous to children or other pets if they have been brought up correctly. All Bengal’s make most endearing pets due to their incredible friendliness as well as their unique wild characteristics. One will find that all the generations are very dependable and trustworthy (except for ‘F1’s’ that have been badly brought up) and they will love their human families even more than loyal little puppies do! They can easily be trained to be taken for walks on a harness and lead and will happily travel freely in a car without any type of cat carrier - all they want is a nice warm comfortable lap to sit on and a good view out of the window so that they can see what is happening in the outside world! If their human families play with them, then Bengal cats will readily retrieve their toys if they are thrown and will bring them back to the person who is playing with them! They tear around the house like little thunder bolts and will happily play with any other animal, be it dog, cat or rabbits or any member of their human family!!

Living with 60 Bengal cats allows Sarah and me to view them and their behavioural aspects at their very best! They are obviously not ‘pack’ animals, but they readily put up with each other and actually love their fellow feline companions. When we have finished our work we do not need a television set to keep us occupied because our 60 dear “children” will keep us happily entertained as they tear from room to room reeking havoc as they pass and using either Sarah or myself as ‘platforms’ to leap from as they pounce on their unsuspecting siblings, companions or anything else that dares to move!! Sarah and I will often laugh at their charming and mischievous antics and then later on in the evening, we will have the comfort and joy of experiencing many tired, furry little bodies perched precariously all over our laps, chests and shoulders!! Pure heaven!!!!

‘F3’ kittens (the Great Grandchildren of the Asian Leopard cat) can start to loose their intriguing wild looks and wild faces and the contrast between their background colour and spots can be less defined than those of the ‘F1’ and ‘F2’ Bengal. ‘F4’s’ and ‘F5’s’ do not have quite as many wild characteristics as their ‘F1’ and ‘F2’ counterparts and the wild characteristics that they do have are less intense and less enhanced when compared to the ‘F1’ and ‘F2’ Bengal. ‘F4’s’ onwards (commonly referred to as “SBT’s”) really are very beautiful IF they are good quality, but are much more ‘domestic’ in appearance even though some can have truly stupendous pelts and wonderful markings! Obviously, their faces do not resemble their wild ancestors as much as the ‘F1’s’ and ‘F2’s’, but a good quality ‘SBT’ can have very good markings on their bodies - this is the type of quality that Sarah, myself and a few other breeders have strived to produce through sheer hard work, a lot of thought and a massive amount of planning!

The wild face that the breed has lost by ‘F4/SBT’ can be put back in by using very high wild blood ‘F1’s’ and F2’s’ in their ancestry – that is why Sarah and I bred a number of 75% wild blood ‘F1’ females as detailed later in this article (and more so in my article “The Majestic F1 and F2 Bengal”) – so that the amount of wild blood put into subsequent generations is almost doubled – and thus, the wild features are also doubled. But one does have to ensure that such high wild blood early generations are hand reared and handled constantly to ensure that they’re tame… the more wild blood a cat has, the more unfriendly it COULD be in the wrong hands. So extreme measures must be undertaken to counteract this.

The temperaments of the normal ‘SBT’s’ are 100% domesticated and at this generation they will behave much more like domestic cats even though a clear difference in their characteristics can be seen. ‘SBT’s’ are very endearing and make truly wonderful pets for a person who wants a ‘very different’ and exotic pedigree cat and who wants a ‘leopard spotted cat’, but only in the form of a domestic cat. I realise that I tend to sound very biased on behalf of the ‘F1’s’ and the ‘F2’s’ within both this article and ‘The Majestic F1 and F2 Bengal Cat’ article, but these are MY opinions and my opinions alone. Please remember that even though I sound tremendously biased, many of my Bengal’s are SBT’s - ‘F4’s’ and ‘F5’s’ - so I am being as honest as my opinions and experiences will allow me to be.

There are four very different types of Bengal cat. The ‘Golden Marble’ Bengal is a very majestic looking cat that has beautiful rosettes and a horizontally flowing pattern that is unlike that of any other domestic pedigree cat. It is called the ‘marble pattern’ after the wild species of ‘Marbled Cat’, which it resembles. The Marbled Cat is a tremendously rare wild cat that is so highly endangered that there are none in the whole of Europe. Within my conservation programme I am trying very hard to import this species of wild cat into this country so that a constructive breeding programme can be set up for them in the hope of saving them from extinction.

The Marble Bengal has large swirling patterns and horizontal streaks of gold and black and pearlescent white covering their bodies. All of their markings are outlined in bright, glittering gold and if one sees them under the sun their coats appear to be covered in gloss lacquer and the gold markings sparkle like gold dust in the sun. I have found that such cats are an ‘acquired taste’, very much like a ‘fine wine’, as the beauty of a good quality Golden Marble is quite breathtaking to the eye! Sarah and I have been lucky enough to succeed in breeding the first ‘F2’ Golden Marbles ever to be born within the country - we are truly proud that our hard work in producing this colour of the Bengal cat within this generation has finally paid off!

The ‘Golden Leopard Spotted’ Bengal has dark backward arrow shaped spots covering its entire body on a light gold background. There is a wide variance of colour intensity within the leopard colour class. The ground colour can range from a silvery pearlescent grey to a sandy buff or a bright gold. As kittens, Leopard Spotted Bengal’s go through many stages before they develop their true colour. Again, these cats have a metallic sheen to them and they also glitter as if sprinkled with gold when they are in a bright light or in the sun.

The ‘Snow Leopard’ Bengal has a pearlescent white background that is similar in colour and beauty to that of a pearl and these cats have dark backward arrow shaped spots all over their body. Their coats sparkle like the other colours of the Bengal but the definition between their spots and background colour is not so well defined and contrasted in the same way as the Golden Leopard Spotted Bengal. ‘National Velvet’ and ‘Sarez Sonny’ are our stud cats who are producing phenomenal Snow Marble and Snow Leopard kittens as they have the ‘dominant’ snow gene. Normally snow kittens are pure white at birth and will develop their markings as they get older.

‘National Velvet’ and ‘Sarez Sonny’ are different because they are producing snow kittens that already have all of their markings at birth and these markings just get darker and darker and seem to have more contrast between the spots and background colour than other snow Bengal’s that I have seen. I am very pleased with this because it is my aim to breed a Snow Leopard Bengal that has a pure white pearlescent background with intensely black markings so that it can truly be called a ‘Snow Leopard’ or a ‘Snow Marble’, rather than being a ‘white cat that has silvery grey dappled markings’, which seem to be quite common. We have also succeeded in breeding quite a number of very rare ‘F2’ Snow Leopards.

The ‘Snow Marble’ Bengal is a pearlescent white variety of the Golden Marble and these Snow Marbles also have a beautiful white pearlescent background and like the Golden Marble, they have incredible dark rosettes and dark swirling patterns covering their entire bodies. The Snow Marble is the most sought after breeding cat because they are the only variety of Bengal’s that guarantees to produce all of the different varieties and colours of the Bengal cat. However, at the time of writing this article, they are almost as rare as the ‘F2’ Bengal’s because they are extremely difficult to breed and are currently being bred by only a very few breeders. And even rarer are the beautiful little ‘F2’ Snow Marbles that we have also bred. I believe that we are the main breeders of F2 – SBT Snow Marbles in the country and I am proud to say that once again they seem to be the very best quality that I have seen - NOT because of me, but because of ‘National Velvet’ and ‘Sarez Sonny’ and the genes that they carry!

There are now several other colours of the Bengal including Silver and Blue. I did breed several Blue Bengal’s in the late 1990’s but I was horrifically persecuted for this by the other breeders – and even by the GCCF as they over stamped all ‘National Velvet’s’ kittens paperwork with a “warning – may carry the blue gene”!! But now that other breeders are producing them, they have a mass of support. I don’t feel that these should be accepted colours but as the Bengal carries these genes, such blue and silver kittens are inevitably bred and will therefore become popular. My personal view is that there is NO blue ALC. There is NO silver ALC. And therefore these two colours should not be accepted. As the breed grows people tend to forget why it was first created by Jean Mill – to REPLICATE THE ASIAN LEOPARD CAT. Yes, I fully admit that there is no snow ALC either – but that was an accepted American and GB colour way before I entered the fancy so who am I to try to change history?

‘National Velvet’s’ and ‘Sarez Sonny’s’ superb quality kittens proves to me that breeders of the Bengal cat must find cats with the correct genes. This can be done by looking deep into pedigrees, talking to many UNBIASED breeders who, if they are honest and reputable, will tell you whether their breeding cats in the past have produced mainly show and breeding quality kittens. Look at photos of these babies. Look at the parents. Are they superb quality? Do they carry all of the genes, which produce all of the different colours of the Bengal cat? If you are happy with the answers then you stand a good chance of purchasing a good stud or breeding queen. Why is this important? Because ALL breeders, even novices, must strive to improve upon the quality of each generation of kittens that they produce. I.e. the kittens that are produced from a mating should hopefully be of better quality than the parents - if the right genes are present!

What about personalities? Sarah, myself and a few other breeders have always believed that it is a very bad idea to breed Bengal kittens or any other types of pedigree cats within outside pens or cages. We feel that breeding in this method can be cruel and unnecessary and therefore in the case of Sarah and me, even though some of our queens and all of our studs live in huge enclosures outside, all of our Bengal kittens live within our family home as if they were our own children. When the queen is pregnant she is taken to one of our ‘nurseries’ upstairs which are basically bedrooms that have all the luxuries that growing baby kittens thrive on playing with! When the kittens are 7 weeks old they come downstairs and mix with all the rest of our cats. It is very hard work to keep the house clean and tidy, but this I insist upon due to the possibility of infection being spread and the health of our kittens is of paramount importance - however, the joy and fun that our many Bengal’s bring us by being free to scamper around our home makes this hard work well worthwhile.

Any kittens that receive such an intense amount of human attention are very friendly and very gentle and they adore playing with both humans and other cats alike and their personalities are very confident and outgoing thus making them ideal loving family pets. Within our home, as soon as a stranger visits they are immediately smothered in kittens as our babies’ leap from the tops of doors, cupboards and tables onto the visitor’s unsuspecting shoulders and perch happily on their human platforms! Like other breeders who rear their kittens within a loving family home, our kittens happily go for walks on a harness and lead, but do not like to venture outside on their own as they always love to be with their human companions and will follow them around ones garden staying loyally by the side of their ‘human parents’ without any need for a lead. We put a lot of time and effort into developing the personalities of the kittens that we breed and this dedication ensures that all of our babies make unique and very loving family orientated pets.

We know that if Bengal kittens are not given the love and dedication that they deserve from an early age, then the babies will grow up to be frightened, nervous and not very loving. When we first started breeding we had to purchase cats from certain other breeders who had not kept them and bred them within ideal family environments. To this day these same cats remain wary and nervous even though we still smother them in undying love - if you are purchasing a Bengal kitten, then please ensure that they are outgoing, confident and affectionate because otherwise you will be missing out on half of the fun as the personality of a confident and affectionate Bengal is the most wonderful thing in the world!! As far as pets are concerned, I believe that their personalities are more important than their looks - a beautiful looking cat with a wild and unpredictable personality is not going to make as endearing a pet as a poor quality kitten with a personality that is so dedicated and loving that he or she never wants to leave your side!!

By working together, breeders of the Bengal cat should only improving in the quality of their kittens. One has to work down the generations in order to improve this quality and within the years that I have been breeding Bengal’s, I have clearly noticed the outstanding developments that certain reputable breeders are now achieving. When the Bengal first came the Great Britain, a lot of them were ticked, unpredictable and not of very good quality. Over the years, I have witnessed the quality of the Bengal cat go from strength to strength so much so that I believe that I and some other breeders are now able to tell what the quality of kittens from certain litters will be like just by having previously attempted these matings as well as using logic and past experiences.

Some reputable breeders are no longer producing poor and ticked quality kittens and are instead producing fine and majestic examples of the Bengal cat which are far more beautiful to the eye than they have ever been before! Such kittens are now more common as breeders are realising that we cannot just breed the same quality of kittens and must only improve upon all aspects of the Bengal cat by ensuring that top quality kittens are bred from without restrictions. Also, certain ‘poor’ quality breeding lines must be improved upon by inputting genes that will be of benefit to the quality of these particular pedigrees.

A number of years ago I realised that it was no good just keeping the same breeding stock, as the kittens that these preliminary queens and studs produced were far more beautiful than their adult parents. We have therefore neutered many of the Bengal’s which we brought from certain other breeders years ago and are now breeding from cats that we have bred ourselves which I believe to be quite stunning in quality! These cats in turn will eventually be neutered thus ensuring that the country is not ‘flooded’ with cats of the same pedigree, and their children or grandchildren will take their place as our breeding cats within our house thus improving the lines continuously as we breed from generation to generation.

I believe that it is easier for Sarah and I to do this because we have a very large number of breeding cats and can therefore entertain a huge array of different matings thus creating new pedigrees and imputing better genes into kittens by using logic, knowledge and experience - these ‘new lines’ of kittens will eventually be bred from either by ourselves or by our many friends. I am desperately willing to help anyone who is breeding Bengal’s or wishes to breed Bengal’s and so all a prospective breeder needs to do is to phone either Sarah or myself and we will guide them using our own experiences so that they also can aid the whole of the Bengal breed and rear kittens that are better than their actual parents!

What does the future hold for Sarah, myself, the other reputable breeders and British bred Bengal cats? Well, now that we have improved upon the quality of the Bengal cat since they first came to Great Britain nearly four years ago, Sarah and I want to work deep into the future of Bengal breeding. It will take us all a long time to produce ‘the perfect Bengal cat’ even though some rather boastful breeders will state otherwise. But the “perfect Bengal” is ideally an SBT that looks IDENTICAL to an Asian Leopard Cat. And we’re all SO far away from that – even the Americans are! So in my opinion, the usage of ALC’s and early generations is of paramount importance for late generations that are bred over say, the next decade.

Some advocate out crossing to other types of pedigree cat such as the Burmese. I am vehemently against this! It brings in bad genes such as the devastating “flat chests” and even ticking. And if it does bring in wild looking features then those features are FAKE as they come from a domestic and not from a Leopard. I believe in only one out cross mating – to the ALC!

Our Leopard Cats live within truly magnificent enclosures within our garden, but which also connect to the main part of our house. When they were just tiny babies our wild animal licences did allow us to have them into our house and even our daughter “Kitten Gay” helped us to hand rear them – we wanted to get them used to everything! These adorable little cubs used to happily run around our home, playing with boundless energy with all of our other cats, but at the same time they adore both Sarah, myself and our daughter and followed us around as if they were little puppies rather than wild felines! As babies they loved nothing better than to climb onto our laps and snuggle up to us giving us as much love and devotion as little hand reared wild cubs are capable of giving - and both Sarah, Kitten and I love every minute of their delightful company!! We spent a lot of time with these special ‘bundles of joy’ to ensure that they remain tame and friendly – this made the whole hybridization program easier to achieve.

From the minute we brought our first Bengal SBT in the early 1990’s we always dreamed of breeding our own F1 Bengal’s and bringing valuable new blood into the breed. And by rearing the ALC’s properly and in a domestic environment we greatly increased our chances. As previously stated in 2000 we succeeded and “Sarez Little L” became the first UK ALC to breed F1’s. Sarah and I were jubilant – all our hard word had paid off. All the sacrifices, the risks, the financial expenditure… and the stress – it was all worth it.

Then a 2nd ALC hybridized!! We were astounded! Only ONE other person in the world had ever had two ALC’s that had mated domestic cats and that was the founder of the breed, Jean Mill herself. We had made history yet again with ALC “Sarez Apollo”! We bred numerous ‘F1’s’ and kept all the females for our own breeding program. So our total number of ‘F1’ females gradually rose to 13 from 3 ALC lines (including the first F1 line that we brought in the 1990’s).

Then in 2002 we mated several 50% wild blood F1’s BACK to the Leopard cat and after a great deal of effort these mating’s were successful - and some GORGEOUS little 75% wild blood F1’s were born – the first in Europe! I had always wanted to do such mating’s and I believed that putting as much wild blood into early generations was the best way of ensuring that the later generations would keep more wild features – especially the wild cats facial features that we had all lost in SBT’s. If (for example purposes only), a normal SBT had 5% wild blood, I felt that by breeding them with double or even triple that amount of wild blood, namely 10% - 15%, would help us to create SBT’s with wilder faces and short thick tails. And to combat the increase in wild temperament we simply smothered these high wild blood F1’s with as much love and attention that we could – and this seemed successful as all the 75% wild blood babies stayed as tame as adults as when they were kittens.

But that wasn’t our final goal – because even that amount of wild blood would be heavily diluted as we bred down to the later generations. So we bred our 75% wild blood females BACK to a 2nd ALC and eventually we bred a stunning little kitten who we called “Sarez Zeus”. He had a staggering 90-95% wild blood and he looked indistinguishable from the ALC! We were sad that we hadn’t bred a female from whom we could have bred, but “Sarez Zeus” was an incredibly successful ‘experiment’. We were desperate to prove that such cats CAN remain tame and so as with all our other F1’s we constantly handled this beautiful little baby and each night he slept either with us or our young daughter.

This cat was a complete one off – no one in the world had ever bred such a high wild blood ‘F1’. The press and the TV went mad over him and within just a few short months of his birth, he had starred on a dozen TV programs and had appeared in a mass of national newspapers. As we couldn’t breed from him, he broke our previous Guinness World Record for the world’s most expensive cat, when he was sold for £100,000! The high price reflected all of the hard work that we had put into breeding this one cat over the decades and the fact that we had spent many hundreds of thousands of pounds on that breeding program. “Sarez Zeus” remains as famous now as he was in 2003 as one can see if one “googles his name or mine. And it’s extremely doubtful that anyone will ever succeed in breeding another similar cat due to the immense difficulties involved. This little cat will remain a ‘one off’.

Our cats have enriched our existence, they have given us something amazing to work for, and they have intrigued and amazed us. And as a bi-product they have made us wealthy and quite well known. Thanks only to our beautiful little ‘bundles of joy’, Sarah and I have had the honour of appearing on 55 TV programs with our feline family and at least 75 national newspaper articles have been written about our cat orientated lives – including several front page cover stories! Our early generation Bengal’s have even advertised Armani, Versace and Cavalli fashion in magazines such as Vogue, Tatler and Country life. And because so many good things have been written and said about our rare cats, even the stars, celebrities and royalty have flocked to our door to buy our little babies.

None of this was because of me – we achieved so much solely thanks to our beautiful cats – they have done so much for us – they have totally changed our lives…

Just a few years ago I spent 6 months in a hospital. I was a danger to myself because I had nothing to live for and felt desperately miserable with my life. I came out of hospital only to suffer another devastating breakdown, but just a few months later I was introduced to my first Bengal! Breeding and improving upon this unique breed has made my life worth living – it is a joy to wake up everyday knowing that I will witness new experiences from the personalities of these awe inspiring cats.

I love breeding these beautiful pedigree cats more than life itself and for the first time in my life I have wonderful new friends within the people who have purchased our babies. These friendships are deep and undying as we all have one thing in common – a deep and passionate love for the beautiful Bengal cat – if that is something that is not worth living for, and then I don’t know what is!

Addition; Due to the astounding stress of all of our work for the Bengal breed and wild cat conservation Sarah and I retired in 2004. We had achieved a lot of our goals within the Bengal fancy and some of our dreams for wild cat conservation and so we re-homed our unique collection of Bengal’s and ALC’s (non-endangered sub species). Pauline and Frank Turnock of Gayzette Bengal’s now continues and is expanding the breeding program that we worked so hard to create. Both Sarah and I thank them dearly.

I personally remain in very regular contact with Pauline and Frank and intend to do so for decades to come. We are EXTREMELY close and every other day emails or phone calls flow between us. I continue to offer them my full support and advice on all topics of the Bengal and also wild cats. I closely follow Pauline and Franks breeding programs and their many successes and achievements - but without intruding.

Behind the scenes and behind the public eye, I will always be there for them… and the stunning cats that I once so proudly owned.

And by being so closely involved with their work, means I never really lose my beloved cats…

I am also actively helping and encouraging them to hybridise from another non-endangered species of wild cat of which they now own a number - but only time will tell if that program is successful – to date the creation of this new breed of pedigree is SO complex that it has only been achieved in very small numbers within the USA.

But such is their expertise with cats and with my support behind the scenes, if anyone outside of America can accomplish it, then its Pauline and Frank!