Welcome to Stories of the Heart

I have a particular interest in health issues in Siamese and Oriental cats. If you have experienced the sudden loss of a Siamese or Oriental cat at a young age I would very much like to hear your story. Please email me through the Contacts page of the web site.

These are the stories of my brief time as a breeder of Siamese and Oriental cats.

I bought my first breeding queen Nosreteip Chantilly Lace in 2001 and became a registered breeder inspired by the beautiful cats I had owned and by Tilly’s breeder. 

By the end of 2009 all my breeding came to a halt with the confirmation of a death of one of my kittens due to HCM. My breeding queens were spayed with the exception of one who, on echo scan, proved to be so severely affected with HCM that the vet would not risk an anaesthetic. She is on long term contraceptive injections.

At the time this condition was not thought to be an issue with Siamese and Orientals. Clearly that was not the case with this family of cats.

I contacted all the owners of my kittens that I had details for and warned them of a potential health issue.

I then set about trying to find a way to make this right – meaning I wanted to eliminate the problem fron the gene pool in New Zealand Siamese and Orientals. This lead me to Leslie Lyons at UC Davis    http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/Catgenetics/ and through her to Professor Boyd Jones at Massey University. We  set about collecting genetic material (mainly blood samples) from cats I had breed and their close relations to try and identify the gene which was causing the problem.

While there is a DNA test for this condition for Maine Coons and Ragdolls there is no such test for Siamese and Orientals. It is my hope that ultimately a test will be developed and then there will be no excuse for any breeder to use a cat carrying the flawed gene in any breeding program. Hopefully this will go a long way to eliminating the condition from the Siamese and Oriental breeds and I will feel safe to start breeding again.