Francine's Story

Snugglebugs Francine

Francine

In Evvy's first GRX litter there were two kittens who had the curly coat of a full German Rex breed. Pengelly and Francine. We decided to keep Penny, the boy, but found homes for the two hybrids, and Francine. Athos's breeder Dorte wanted to have a GRX and chose Fran. She did not want to add different breeding to her cattery but was interested to see how well kittens from Fran would turn out, so we did a deal with her that if we arranged to mate Fran then Dorte would foster any kittens until they were old enough to go to new homes, provided that we made the necessary arrangements.

At that time the only GRX in Denmark were our breeding pair, Evelyna and Gerd, together with their four kittens. By the time that Fran was born we were hoping to soon get another female, but there were very few males available anywhere. After discussion of the pros and cons, both with Dorte and the national breed council, we decided to try a single father to daughter mating which would hopefully be beneficial to the continuing revival of the breed. Once Fran was old enough, and calling!, Dorte brought her back to us and within three days, left to themselves in our bathroom, Gerd mated with his daughter and Fran went back home. The result was four very pretty girls which were accepted by the national BC and registrar.

Dorte's human daughter Cecelie, although very young was delighted to have kittens to care for and when we visited Dorte to see the kittens, Cecilie proudly showed them all to us and told us what names she had given them. They were from Danish fairytales - Askepot, Aurora, Rapuntzel and Guldlok. Here is the whole group of child and kittens.

Cecilie with kittens 1 month old

Dorte decided another in her family would like one of the kittens and we were left with arranging to find homes for the others. We could not have them in our house as they were not yet vaccinated and we were worried that the two problems we had had with earlier litters might recur as our adults were still with us.

When they were old enough Dorte took them to be vaccinated and chipped and we then arranged for a friend of ours to foster the three. That was Britt who lived on Langeland. Britt had a room she kept available for her own litters and it was clean and empty at that time. It was also convenient as Britt had a friend in Switzerland who wanted one of them and could combine a few days visiting with collecting Rapuntzel. Guldlok also was adopted to another country, and another friend, Ismo, offered to collect her when he was attending a show in Denmark and take her with him to deliver her to her new home in Finland! (Although she now lives in Germany as she did not settle well in the Finnish home.)

Here is Rapuntzel (the darkest one) making friends with her new owner while Myrtle watches. That was on 12th August 2008.

making friends


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