maine coon cats
History of Katmaindu and Thorsgard
Maine Coons
I first started breeding Maine Coons in 1989. I was living in St. Louis, Missouri at that time and registered my cattery, Katmaindu, with CFA as the majority of cat shows in that area were put on by that organization. Most my early cats went back to Purricoon cattery (CFA) and the old Heidi Ho lines. I managed to grand my first cat, a female, Grand Champion Purricoon Cleocatra of Katmaindu, DM, which was very difficult way back then. Cleo then went onto be awarded the title of CFA D.M. (Also know as Distinguished Merit, which is comparable to the O.D. title in TICA). I kept a male out of my first litter from Cleo and he became my only stud male, Grand Champion Katmaindu Stormin Norman Schwartzkat, DM, who I called "Magellan". One of my greatest achievements was to finally get the title of DM (OD in TICA) on Magellan after he sired 15 grand champions & grand premiers at the ripe age of 12 years old. While I managed to produce many Grand Champions/Premiers along with some Regional Wins and a few Distinguished Merit awards early on with my Maine Coons, I knew that they lacked the large, tall ear set that would have really improved their type, thus making them more competitive in the show ring.
Norwegian Forest Cats
In 1997, I met my partner (who is now my wife) at a cat show. She was a breeder of Norwegian Forest Cats, who were very new to CFA at that point in time. I eventually moved from my home in St. Louis up to Deb's house in West Des Moines, Iowa. While I continued my small Maine Coon breeding program, Deb & I formed a new cattery, Thorsgard (named after her Norwegian stud male, Thor) and began to concentrate on breeding and grooming a better Norwegian. We were much more successful with our Norwegian Forest Cat breeding program and started working towards Regional Wins and trying to DM/OD our best cats. After 5 years of hard work we finally had produced a beautiful NFC spay (she never was able to get pregnant) who we thought maybe had a chance at a CFA National Win (equivalent to an IW, or International Win in TICA). As terrified as we were to attempt to campaign a cat on a National level, we got up the courage and were thrilled with the results. Bailey was 5th best cat in premiership on our first try.
Abyssinians
While campaigning we met many people across the country included two good friends who had a dazzling deep red Abyssinian neuter that they were looking for a show home for him as they were busy getting married. Since I was so exhausted from all the grooming and blow drying required to keep an NFC coat in great shape, I said I would give it a go despite never having shown a shorthair cat. It was a brutal race, but our boy Sizzle (NW, GP Truluck Hot Rocks of Thorsgard) came out on top as #1 Premiership Cat of the Year in CFA!! We were then given an Aby female to see if we wanted to try a very small breeding program, which we did. It was at this time, around 2005 that I retired our few remaining breeding Maine Coons that we had in order to concentrate on the Abyssinians and NFCs.