 CH
CHINUA MAUREEN O'HARA
D.O.B. 24 August, 2004
Maureen
was born first in our 3rd litter of kittens from Mietta and Rad.
Two other lovely redheads and a wonderful blue boy joined her to
complete that litter and each had the fun white paws too. We thought it
would be appropriate to use our favorite redheads for the girl’s names:
Maureen O’Hara, Audrey Hepburn & Lucille Ball. Their blue with white
brother was named Remington Steelclaw, Remi for short. We loved
Maureen’s dramatic coloring and markings as soon as she was born.
Maureen, Audrey and Lucy where our first patched mackerel tabbies with
the striking red and black markings.
We had been blessed with the dilute blue/cream patched tabbies in the
litter before so this was a treat!
We just never know what colors Mietta and Rad will bless us with and we
love that! Mighty Mo and
her big brother TC are both nicknamed the ‘tanks’!
Both had sturdy little bodies from birth. They both have tree
trunk legs and sturdy bodies to this day!
Maureen at 8 weeks old.
Mietta had not had any troubles with having her kittens, but in the
back of my mind, if she had problems with the 4th
litter Mauri would be a perfect replacement. Maureen has a great head,
dead straight profile, wonderful coat, a tail to die for and a very
solid body. All combined to
make a stunning girl! Luckily Mietta didn’t have any problems with her 4th
litter, so now I needed to work hard to convince Richard that keeping
Maureen was in our best interest anyway!
Our cattery plan has always been to keep our numbers very small,
as in 1 breeding queen at a time, so this would take lots of thought and
my best strategy to accomplish!
Maureen, being the intuitive feline that she is went to ‘war’ to
persuade Richard she needed to stay long before I came up with any
viable plans!
She became Richard’s cat!
What a novel idea!
Maureen & Lucy exploring the black hole!
Maureen
adores Richard! She would
follow him around in the morning and beg for pets…even talking to him if
he was too sleepy to notice her or to get his attention brought to her
if he was deep in thought.
She has a raspy, sexy meow talk that’s hard to ignore!
She also helps Richard when he showers and shaves making certain
he doesn’t miss cleaning or shaving a spot.
She has been known to peak around the shower curtain to check on
him so he doesn’t feel lonely and will sit on the stool or the sink
counter to supervise his shaving.
She’ll even lick his furry leg dry if she sees he hasn’t toweled off
completely! After all, she
has lots of practice doing that for herself!
Mauri
being the big athletic girl that she is loves to chase after the laser,
jump high to catch whatever is on the end of a fishing pole toy and
often begs to do either one!
NOW!
Again, that sexy, near silent meow of hers! Who could resist!?!
Many times she has nearly taken down the floor to ceiling cat tree when
she, Lucy and Purry are chasing through the house!
Yes, we have a herd of furry miniature elephants living with us!
I swear! They also adore being up high! Lucy and
Maureen often snuggle on the cabinet ABOVE our refrigerator!
Maureen & Lucy snuggling up high!
One rainy Saturday morning when we were sitting on the patio protected
from the rain by the deck overhead and drinking our coffee, I dove in
and asked Richard to think about us keeping Maureen.
She just happened to be sitting on my lap enjoying that quiet
time with us. I would answer any questions he had, but I entreated him to
please think about keeping her and not to answer immediately.
I knew the waiting would kill me, but thought that was the best
approach. Give him time to
get used to the idea. He
must have gotten used to the idea and also realized that we may never
have this good of an opportunity to keep a girl from Mietta and Rad. She
is the look and type we are breeding for. Some time during the next week
he told me that we could keep her.
Maureen would be staying at Chinua!
Yippee, hooray!
After being stunned speechless, for this was another prayer answered,
with a few tears mixed in…all was at peace.
Maureen will be a wonderful, loving mom.
She’s practiced on Mietta’s 4th litter of kittens.
Often they go to her and cuddle when mom is out of sight.
She grooms them to help Mietta out, making sure they are fluffy
and spotless! Our hope is
for kittens from her in fall of 2006.
Maureen’s 1st show was a one-day show in Columbia, MO and she
got 5 of her winner’s ribbons.
The only thing keeping her from getting her 6th ribbon that
day was that the judge was sick.
No judge, no ribbon! She
did receive 1 Best of Breed (BOB) which we are very proud of.
She still has some growing and maturing to do, so time will tell
as to her show career. The
best part of the entire ‘event’ was that she proved she is bombproof.
All the noise, commotion and other cats didn’t faze her. She sat at the front of the cage watching the entire goings’
on. When the judge took her
out of the cage, she stood at the judge’s stand and allowed them to look
her over without a fuss.
One judge even used her to compare the differences between Maine
Coons and Wegies. She must
have been on that stand for a good 5 minutes while the judge talked
about the 2 breeds…with the loudspeaker booming right overhead.
She was a champ and stood there for all to admire her!
The judge was especially delighted in her magnificent fluffy
tail…fluffed it out for everyone to see several times, commenting that
her owner didn’t need a duster, just to use her tail!
Maurie posing...look at those deep colors and white mittens!
Maureen did in fact get her 6th ribbon at the Sedalia show
and is now a Champion. But in our eyes, she has been a champion all along!
Check back to look for her kittens! We are all just waiting for Zander
to realize he has a job to do!
Maureen keeping baby Jesus warm on a
cold winter's night!
The ripple effect continues...
Mietta
• Maureen
• Lucy
• Vincent•
Rad
• Purry
• Zander |