As a Teenager I became aware of pedigree cats,
and was awestruck by the fabulous persian cat.  I got my first persian cat in the early 1960's 
and by using CH Ayme-Tu-Wynn Alaric of Harob, a black persian stud who was locally available 
in the Detroit area, I  was able to breed her and raise two litters.  Subsequently I kept 
persians as pets, and in 1979 acquired from Bill and Gayle Lee a very nice show 
quality blue male that my husband Mark Fisher and 
I kept as a pet.  The cat was the same breeding, but from the previous litter, as 
GC NW Lee's Let the Sunshine In, CFA Best Cat in 1981.  As the Lees said, they had been 
keeping this blue male to show, but had a very nice kitten
 in the next litter that they had decided was the cat they wanted to show.

 Well, once one becomes accustomed to looking at show quality cats, even if kept as pets,
 there is no going back!  I have always worked in the medical field,

 and have always had an interest in genetics.  I  read as much as I could about cats,
 and saw a photo in a cat book of a calico van persian female that just took my breath away! 
 At that time, bicolor persians were not yet popular, and the vans were very hard to find.  
But I decided I just had to have one, and wanted to get a cat to breed.  By spending hours on the 
phone, I was able to locate two calico van persian female kittens that were available in the USA.   
The one I thought was the nicer was in Florida, bred by Gail Olah of Connection.  
So in 1986 my husband and I flew from Portland,
 Oregon to Florida to acquire the kitten,  CH Connection Sis Boom Bah.  
I then got to know persian breeders in the northwest including Donna DeGroot of Prideomine 
Cattery,and was eventually able to acquire stud service from local males andbreed the cat. 
I registered my CFA cattery name as CALIVAN,
 recognizing the calico van persian who was my foundation cat.



My husband and I realized that we would have to acquire a male to
realistically continue to breed, recognizing the difficulties of taking
female cats who basically lived as pets to outside males.  So we began
to acquire other cats and bred bicolor and solid persian cats for a few
years, and indeed I believe we were the first persian bicolor breedersin the Portland OR area.
 In 1996 we acquired our first exotic, GC Primadowdy's Coco Chanel of Calivan
 who was sired by CH Kikicat's Truth Endureth and was out of GC Primadowdy's Li'l Munchkin 
of Calivan, a bluecream persian.  The following year we were fortunate in that Becky Orlando 
offered us a black exotic male CH Becton's Bo Jangles of Calivan who was sired by 
GC RW Del Adene J'Bustopher DM out of GC Becton's Desert Daze DM.  
Bo turned out to be homozygous for shorthair, which got us into exotics fast!   
His first litter, bred to one of my persian females, 
gave us GC RW Calivan's Sweet Pea.


Shortly after we acquired Bo, persian and exotic breeders became awareof PKD, and when my 
cats were scanned, I was stunned to find that mostwere positive, including all but one of my 
persians.  So within a year, I had retired all of the PKD positive persians, and decided to
concentrate on exotics, with the goal of eventually having a PKD
negative cattery.  PKD really hastened my transition from persians to exotics.
We were also fortunate to make the acquaintance of Linda Hiyashi Hou of Granddelight Cattery.  
From her I acquired a very nice brown tabby exotic longhair female, Granddelight's 
Hidden Treasure of Calivan.Breeding her to my Becton male gave me GC Calivan's Cab Calloway, 
GC RW Calivan's Captain Hook and CH Calivan's Sapphire of Grandaries.  When
Linda decided to stop breeding cats, she placed two additional cats with me, CH Seilkies Hanae 
Mori of Calivan, a white persian female who, bred to Bo, gave me GC Calivan's Tootsie, 
GP Calivan's Timid Prince and GP Calivan's Bo Jo; and also CH Granddelight's Tuff Stuff, 
a black exotic granddaughter of GC RW Bryn Mawr Ripley of Granddelight bred back to Ripley, 
a breeding which gave me a single kitten, GC Calivan's Tuff Dude.  
To date CH Becton's Bo Jangles of Calivan has sired 11 grand champions and grand premiers.  
Bo is currently neutered and retired, living in New York City as a much beloved pet. 
Another valuable friend and mentor is Johanna Liebfarth of Desmin Exotics, 
who has been very supportive of me, and from whom I acquired 
GC Desmin Designing Woman of Calivan, and from whom I will also be getting Desmin 
Dawn Maiden, a lovely blue patched tabby and white kitten that Johanna is now showing.    
I also acquired from my friend Peter Romich of Grandaries Exotics a nice 
black and white exotic male CH Grandaries Sockrates of Calivan who was sired by 
GC Zoticats Buddy Love of Grandaries. Socks has been siring very nice kittens for me.  
Marianne Behm of Nunza Cattery in Finland has also been a good friend, sharing her blood 
lines and insisting that I should have a website, which she developed and maintains for me.

 


So I guess I feel that to date my achievements in breeding exotics have been due to the trust 
and friendships of others who have been willing to work with me and share their bloodlines,  
years of hard work, and advice. All these factors have allowed me to continue to work 
towards improving the cats I am breeding, an ongoing challenge.

Kathy