When we started our breeding career/hobby we did what a lot of people do we purchased a couple of females from different breeders, & we got their permission to breed. We purchased 2 a boy & a girl that were papered with the CCA, and we got 4 others that were not. We knew what we were looking for in the breed before we even started, eyes were important but personality was the biggest, our first cats were phenomenal, just gorgeous, and we produced very nice kittens. Unlike most we were trying to decide if this was a one time thing or did we really enjoy it, could we handle the losses, could we handle the extra work, the huge cost, and above all else did we enjoy doing it??!!. The answer ended up being that yes we did love it, it was very hard work, you make little to no profit if you do this right. But we both LOVE what we do.
Above all else we were going to do this very different from all the breeders we had met in our gathering of our initial "stock". The actual cat was to come first, I know its a surprising concept but some might be very surprised at what you can find out there, all for the almighty $.!! We wanted to make sure that the new owner of our kittens had very little to do when they took their new kitten home, and keep in mind when we purchased our first go round of cats we did not get anything, not even food!!
Once we obtained Caleb from France we knew that pedigree was the way to go, we now have almost completed the lines that we are happy with, we soon will be retiring the remaining non-papered cats. I hope this page will help people understand what registered really should mean.
One of the most interesting ones that I have come across is the T. C. A. , which is the Traditional Cat Association, this registry allows people to send in their cats PHOTO and they are given a registration number. & then the breeder sends in the litter & gets a sheet of paper with useless information on it. There is no pedigree, no lineage once so ever!! I think we all thought that this association was good, but I think once you know the difference then its a scam, these people call these registration papers but you can't register the kitten with any other registry.
In Ontario, we have the CCA, this is the Canadian Cat Association, this registry requires a pedigree with at least 4 generations.
There also is T.I.C.A., this is The International Cat Association, this one also requires 4 generations.
The CFA, which is the Cat Fanciers Association, requires at least 8 generations for Siamese.
There are other associations but they are not popular in Canada, I've seen people advertising ACA registered but they don't have a website, so makes me wonder. People have no problem interviewing their breeder, but just assume that registration is registration.