A bit about Shadowlea

Snoozing with Mum

We bred and showed Border Collie dogs in a small way for some years and took great delight in the pups and in the pleasure they brought to families who bought them. The prefix was “Shadowlea” as in Shadow the Sheepdog.

Ron and I had always loved animals – he as a country boy and me as a city slicker. His cats had been farm cats and mine suburban moggies. My daughter and I saw some Aby’s at Royal Melbourne Show in about 1986 when she used to show horses and we decided we had to have one when our current old white cat went to Cat Heaven. We didn’t actually wait that long, and along came our first Aby kitten in early 1988. We had our first litter in 1989 then in 1991 I saw an advertisement in the paper for a “Silver Abyssinian”. Ron and I thought this sounded interesting and went to have a look. We became hooked on Silvers! We purchased a male kitten and the breeders, Monica & Jim Leicester (Rudesha), found a couple of females (non-silver) for us. The male turned out to have a blockage in his reproductive plumbing and was neutered and went to a pet home. Luckily, we had purchased another silver male (Rudesha Silver Shadow) from the Leicesters and he was shown successfully and sired some nice kittens.

We still breed and show Silvers, but there were virtually no non-silver Aby’s on the show bench. We thought this was a shame and in 1995 bought a female, Nile Rock A Bye, and then Nile Red Caprice, from George Kennedy and had the good fortune to purchase Karolais Hell Raiser from Karen Lawler. These three cats formed the basis of our breeding programme, producing kittens with wonderful temperaments and good type and Hell Raiser passed on his outstanding colour. Riokay Somewhere in Time and Devaraja Code Red have provided the necessary outcrosses and now we are breeding the grandchildren to each other and to our latest acquisition, from Wendy McDonald, Haldis Champagne Charlie, son of the outstandingly successful CCCA Diamond Gd Ch Gold Gd Ch Nile Oberon and Db Gd Ch Kismayu Double Dash. Fortunately, none of the cats we have purchased have had restrictions on them, except for Devaraja Code Red, so we are able to share these lines with other breeders and also encourage new people into the cat fancy.

Ron had his own prefix of Ra (for his initials Ron Arbuthnott as well as the Egyptian Sun God) for a while but he has become besotted by roses and doesn’t have time to go to cat shows any more so all cats are now in my name and will have the Shadowlea prefix.

I had originally scoured Australia for tawnys not carrying blue, but blues have grown on me so we now breed the full collection of colours and even have a blue stud, Karolais Smokestack Lightening, who has produced some lovely blue and tawny kittens.

Gardening with Dad

We have lots of cats in the house, as well as in the cattery. In fact, the house seems to be run for the benefit of the cats!

We have been told that we have too many cats and I sometimes agree. There were never any Open Studs in Victoria, where you could take a queen to be mated and you couldn't buy a show quality kitten either, so it was necessary to keep a sufficiently large number of cats to keep a reasonably open gene pool, especially as we had silvers as well. I don't go out to work any more and the children are all grown up, so I have all day to devote to the cats.

GOALS

To breed & show healthy, happy, loving Abys and to bring the breed to the forefront of the cat world, so that people will no longer ask “What does an Abyssinian look like.” I would like them to be universally recognized for their wonderful qualities.