We’re very pleased to share that Sylvia now has Champion status after winning First Place and Best of Breed in her open classes at the Tonkinese Breed Club and National Cat Club GCCF Shows this weekend.  She will now be “Ch. Chorus Silvia” on the pedigrees of her kittens. Agatha also won First Place and Best of Breed in her open classes at both shows too – so only needs another 1st/CC to be made up. We’re delighted for both girls – Sylvia for setting such a good example and Agatha who took the whole show in her stride, given it was her first.

Three “back to back” shows were running at the Bracknell Leisure Centre this weekend (the third was the was Colourpoint and All Breed Society show) so there were nearly 400 cats present. Our own Tonkinese Breed Club show had 46 entries of which 31 were show-status Tonkinese. Four Tonkinese were shown as pedigree pets and the remaining 11 were other pedigree pets entered into our show, but not Tonkinese.  The committee pulled out all the stops to support the club table, raffle, sponsoring best in show pens, and Julia Craig-McFeely deserves a special mention for encouraging so many of her kitten owners to bring their cats to the show.  Lizzi and I spent quite some time in the afternoon taking photographs of all the TBC entries – I’ll be editing those over the next few weekends and they’ll be uploaded to the Club website at www.tonkinese.info soon.

Julia was delighted that Rameses Tobermory (TOS n 21 32) d.o.b. 06.08.2019, a gorgeous brown tabby kitten from her most recent litter won the overall Best in Show prize, awarded by GCCF Judge Sandra Woodley.  He’s a real stunner and it was no surprise that he won despite the very strong competition!  Julia also brought Ramintha to the show, although he was a little shy (or perhaps just chilly!) and spent much of the day cosily snuggled in his blanket.

Here’s a few pictures from the day…

Champion Chorus Silvia

Champion Chorus Silvia

Agatha

Agatha

Rameses Tobermory

Ramintha on Exhibition

The Show Floor

The Show Floor

Agatha did well!

Christmas Rosettes!

Best wishes, Mike & Lizzi

Celia

Dulcie

We were delighted to receive the following Progress Reports for Celia & Dulcie – a lovely pair of girls from Sylvia’s first litter born on 1st May 2019. Their new owner is a primary school teacher, who was inspired in the middle of writing her pupils’ end of term reports, perhaps by the level of “help” she was receiving!

We enjoyed these a great deal!

REPORT CARD

DECEMBER 2019 – CHRISTMAS TERM

NAME:  Celia (formerly Celia SMITH)

DATE OF BIRTH:  1^st May 2019

SUBJECTS:

READING:

Celia is in the early stages of reading.  She appreciates books, and chews the edges of them very attentively.  She can order pages, and settles on them.

WRITING:

Celia has not begun to write yet.  She makes paw marks on paper, and, frequently, spreads trails of cat litter from place to place.

MATHS:

Very good awareness shown.  Celia can recognise addition and subtraction, chiefly in biscuit amount.

SPORT:

An Olympic champion in the making!  Celia swings, dangles and climbs anything and everything.  Her balance is very sure, and she can walk along the narrowest of ledges.  An example to the others!

MUSIC:

Celia tries.  Her singing is a little hoarse.  She can manage two notes – “No, I don’t want to do that” and “I am unhappy.”  She should try to increase her range – perhaps practising “I am happy” and “That was nice” during next term.

OVERALL COMMENT:

Celia is an incredibly lively little girl.  She is never bored, always showing interest in all activities, although she can get a little over-excited.  She is full of energy and curiosity.  She must be careful with this, for sometimes it can lead to danger.  In all, a term full of promise.  I look forward to seeing her progress!

REPORT CARD

DECEMBER 2019 – CHRISTMAS TERM

NAME:  Dulcie (formerly Dulcie SMITH)

DATE OF BIRTH:  1^st May 2019

SUBJECTS:

READING:

Dulcie is in the early stages of reading.  She enjoys sitting, listening to stories and thinking about them – although she can lose attention and fall asleep.

WRITING:

Dulcie has a precocious ability in writing on computer.  Her typing is quick, perhaps a little erratic, and the results can be unexpected.  She clearly enjoys this activity, although further practise is required.

MATHS:

Dulcie shows good ability with division and fractions.  She can separate whole objects, although, as yet, she cannot explain her working, or put them back together again.

SPORT:

Dulcie shows excellent promise in the high jump.  She can scale up poles and has very accurate landing skills.  Very accomplished!

MUSIC:

At present, Dulcie’s music skills are developing.  She can manage one note, but the length of it is extremely impressive.

OVERALL COMMENT:

Dulcie is an adorable girl.  She loves sitting with people and being involved in all activities.  During sport, although she shows much ability, she will often sit and watch, and should try to be more active.  In lesson time she often falls asleep, so I would counsel trying to go to bed earlier, and having a better evening routine.

Being 12 1/2 weeks old now, it’s nearly time for our gorgeous kittens to leave us and start working their magic out there in the world. These are very grown-up and well-adjusted Tonks who are completely ready to take the world by storm – they’re an absolute joy and we’re so proud of them, and our amazing Saffy – a fabulous last litter for her. It’s worked out this time that they will head off in stages over a couple of weeks, so we’re going to enjoy some of them for a little longer than usual which will help us all adjust. We can only let them go knowing we’ve done our best to find them great new families; we’ve enjoyed meeting such lovely people and we know the kittens will delight everyone.

On Saturday, all but Joy had their final vaccinations and health checks, and passed with flying colours. They were exceedingly well behaved and once again caused quite a stir in the waiting room! Joy’s vaccinations are due in just over another week. This weekend was spent preparing all their paperwork and making sure we have their kitten-packs ready – we always think of them heading off with plenty of food and toys, and a blanket to keep them warm…

Saffy will be spayed in December, so that we can look after her over Christmas when we’re both at home and things will be peaceful. Ahead of that we’re looking forward to the Tonkinese Breed Club Show in a couple of week’s time where we hope that Sylvia and Agatha will do well. It’s a lovely show being in December, and is usually very festive!  We’re thinking ahead to our next litter, which will probably be in the late spring, and we’re excited about the potential for another new stud boy coming to the UK as part of the initiative to extend the UK Tonkinese gene pool. This current litter is very special in that they are one of the first few litters sired by Ramintha of Rameses – who was imported from Thailand.  Together with Saffy he’s produced outstanding kittens, and we’re going to be very interested in their progress.

There are plenty of new pictures this week – although the light indoors was quite poor later this afternoon. Click on a kitten to view them all! We thought it would be interesting to remind everyone where we started – and to embarrass the children with pictures of them as babies!

4 Tonkinese Pattern & 3 Burmese Pattern Kittens

Saffy’s Kittens

Joy

Joy

Joy

Joy

Joy

Joy

Delia

Delia

Delia

Delia

Charlie

Charlie

Charlie

Charlie

Petal

Petal

Petal

Petal

Rose

Rose

Rose

Rose

Rollie

Rollie

Rollie

Rollie

Sophie

Sophie

Sophie

Sophie

Tonks – Zonked – After a tough day with the kittens!

Best wishes, Mike & Lizzi

You’d be amazed quite how much noise 28 kitten paws can make as they thunder up and down the stairs in this house. Add our youngest Agatha who has regressed to her kitten-hood again and the noise is quite considerable! The new scratching tower is a very great success with the kittens – as you’ll see from our photographs this week – we were very lucky to find another one second-hand.  It’s lovely to see Agatha playing with the kittens – she is enjoying their company a great deal. George, on the other hand, remains cautious, but still tries to pinch the kitten food (if we let him). Saffy has stopped worrying about the kittens completely now and we are starting to think about a date for her to be spayed.

Over the last couple of weeks everyone has been having a quite significant growth spurt and we’ve seen this in previous litters from 9-12 weeks.  With it comes another change of shape – bodily proportions now seem much more consistent and it’s easy to mistake Agatha for one of the kittens when they are playing together.  Joy’s vaccinations and health check went well on Tuesday evening and she continues to put on weight as expected – she is the smallest kitten, but by no means behind where a kitten of her age should be. By comparison she’s quite a way ahead of Penny who was the smallest kitten in our last litter of seven – and Penny has grown up into a very robust Tonk indeed!

We are still exploring options for Joy’s new family and hope to conclude that over the next couple of weeks. This week’s pictures are mostly of our velcro-kittens throwing themselves up the new tower with abandon – we hope you enjoy them!

Hello up there / down there!

Joy in profile

Joy

Joy

Rose being weighed

Are you coming up then?

First to the top!

Hmm. How do I get down?

Velcro Kittens

Look mum!

What are you doing up there!?

The one that got away…

Basecamp

Tunnel of Fun

Best wishes, Mike & Lizzi

I don’t think we’ve ever seen quite so much rain as we’ve had this last month – the kittens have enjoyed watching the raindrops splashing into puddles outside and running down the big windows in the conservatory a great deal. Frankly we’ve enjoyed it a lot less, especially as it’s revealed a minor leak in the roof that I need to climb up there and fix if it ever dries up 🙁 On the subject of climbing we’ve managed to find a second HUGE Hi-Cat tower for our hallway that the kittens will love to play with when they have the run of the whole house – at the moment the adults are enjoying it immensely and giving it a thorough workout! It’s probably the largest free-standing scratching tower we’ve ever seen.

Little Joy is no longer so little – her weight gains have shot up over the last week and she’s back on track with all the others. Her tummy is much better but for the while she’s upstairs in our second kitten room so that we can keep a close eye on how much she’s eating – and what comes out the other end! She’s not on her own as our very own Delia Smith (the kitten, not the cook) is keeping her company as they particularly like to play together. If all continues well she’ll have her vaccinations on Tuesday.

Devon’s clearly popular for kittens at this time of year as Delia is now confirmed to be joining a new family who also live in that neck of the woods – she won’t be very far from Charlie. Together we battled through the weather to visit Ramintha again, and he was much admired. Despite the horrible weather we did manage to get some more pictures of all the kittens this weekend which we hope you’ll enjoy. On a final note we’re loving how much these kittens are purring now – VERY loudly! If you haven’t come across it and need a quick purr-fix before you kittens arrive – check out http://www.purrli.com!

Caught in the act!?

Charlie

Charlie

Charlie

Sophie

Sophie

Sophie

Sophie & Rollie

Rollie & Sophie

Rollie

Rollie

Rollie

Rollie

Rose

Rose

Rose

Rose

Petal & Rose

Petal

Petal

Petal

Petal

Joy

Joy

Joy

Joy

Delia

Delia

Delia

Best wishes, Mike & Lizzi

Yesterday six of the kittens received their vaccinations as planned but we decided not to vaccinate Joy quite yet (more on that in a moment). We’ve got vaccination days down to a fine art with our vets – two baskets for kittens – vaccination forms labelled up in advance at home – and the right vaccines ordered in for us in advance. Along with the health checks it takes quite a while but it’s reassuring to have such a thorough examination done at the same time. We have a production line system where kittens are decanted from one basket to the next in just the right order to avoid any confusion! Everyone checked out fine and they were very good having their jabs – and were MUCH admired in the waiting room. They had a snoozy Saturday and a quiet night afterwards as is quite typical after vaccinations – but were very much back to full speed today.

Joy has not been putting on as much weight recently as we would expect, and this has been quite vexing, although there are no changes to her behaviour or energy levels – she’s as feisty and vigorous as everyone else!  More recently she’s developed an upset tummy and it’s very obviously related so we’re working out what’s causing that whilst supporting her with some additional fluids to keep her hydration up and to balance her gut. Two different vets couldn’t find anything of note from a physical exam, and neither could we – so we’re reassured that she’s not poorly in herself. Over the weekend she’s done much better and is putting weight on, so we’re keeping up this regime and having some samples analysed to see if there’s anything to be found. As a result of missing her vaccinations yesterday Joy will not be ready to leave at the same time as all the other kittens.

Today we had a visit from the family who are having Rose & Petal, so everyone was much admired again and there was a lot of purring, from kittens and adults alike. At this stage we’re starting to put together all the information new owners will need – shopping lists for food and litter, updates to our kitten guide and contracts, and all the rest of the paperwork involved in having a new kitten head out in to the world.  In addition this weekend Hercules has helped me install and test a new washing machine – it’s one of his favourite things to watch the drum spinning round – and both Saffy and Sylvia have come into season simultaneously which is to say the least – NOISY. With such distractions this weekend we don’t have any pictures to share today, especially as we wanted to let everyone have a very restful day after their vaccinations.

Over the next couple of weekends we have families visiting who are interested in Delia and Joy, and we’ll try to take some pictures of the two pairs that are going together (Petal & Rose, Sophie & Rollie) and more of Charlie, Delia and Joy as well.

Best wishes, Mike & Lizzi