It is important for the Turkish Angora community to understand something about me. I adhere to the rules for the Turkish Angora based on CFA regulations. The reason for this is that TICA has more relaxed rules regarding the way all cats are bred, but on the other hand, most of the Turkish Angora community resides in CFA and follows those tighter rules. As a respected member of the TA community, I have ALWAYS followed CFA's rules regarding this breed.

However, the Savannah is not accepted in CFA. In starting my Savannah breeding program, there is only one set of rules that are important to me - the rules in TICA. This means that when breeding Savannahs, I follow TICA's rules... obviously. It is important to state at this point that the Savannah breed is a mere ten years old, and the stud book is OPEN, which means that Savannah breeders are legally registering certain cats of unknown or non-Savannah ancestry and legally using those cats in their breeding program. Because the Savannah is a hybrid between the Serval and the domestic cat, he use of a random source domestic shorthair is STANDARD PRACTICE. This is why Savannahs are registered with numbers and letters to indicate the level of hybridization in their pedigree - these notations, such as F5B, indicate how many generations have been mixed with domestic cats. In the history of ANY man-made breed, random source domestics have been used. Examples include the Maine Coon Cat, the American Shorthair, the American Wirehair (to name a few). This is just as true in CFA, even though those events were many years ago. In contrast, the Turkish Angora is not man-made, but rather, is a natural breed. The task of the TA breeder is preservationist, not creator.

Cassio, my Savannah stud male, bred by Josh Bankson, has many domestics and other outcross breeds in his pedigree. There are one Serval and 63 domestic cats in his five generation pedigree. He is a fully-fledged and registered Savannah. In fact, since the Savannah is, by definition, the result of outcrosses between domestic cats and Servals, these practices are standard in the formation of this and other developing breeds. Again, the Savannah has designations such as “F5" and “A” or “B”, which describe at what level the Serval appears in the pedigree (the F number) and at what level the domestic out-crosses occur in the pedigree (the letters A, B, C, or SBT). Breeding Patches would have followed the rules and standard ethical practices that are being used to develop the very new – and man-made – Savannah breed.

I felt I needed to comment here because, in a recent Facebook discussion among Turkish Angora breeders, a certain CFA TA breeder (who for years has made innumerable, outrageous, and FALSE accusations against me of unethical breeding practices) has said “perhaps most telling in your collapse of ethics, your willingness to welcome a cat who you claim wandered into your yard as a breeding cat, as part of a breeding program?” I ignored the comment when it appeared, but more recently I have a report of a verbal conversation with one of my friends, in which she says that I am "using a street cat in (my) breeding program.”

In both instances, the originator of these accusations leaves the reader and the listener to infer - and I believe quite deliberately - that I added this "street cat" to my Turkish Angora breeding program. She follows these misleading comments with wording that strongly implies or even outright states that the use of such a cat is un-ethical. She is NOT telling her audiences that Patches (the only whole street cat I have ever owned) was to be included in my Savannah, not my Turkish Angora breeding program.

My actions regarding Patches are perfectly ethical practices for a man-made breed. It would be totally inappropriate and in violation of CFA registry rules for me to breed a "street cat" into my Turkish Angora lines! I have never done anything remotely similar to this and would never break CFA registry rules with my Turkish Angoras (or TICA rules with my Savannahs).!

In my opinion, it is the actions of this CFA TA breeder that are un-ethical. Her actions in saying this about me are in violation of a certain CFA standard of behavior regarding her conduct.

The following is a quote used, with permission, from Spidersweb Savannahs.

"Why use non-savannahs or out-crosses in a breeding program?

“Since the Savannah breed is so new we are using out-crosses to bring in the desired traits outlined in the T.I.C.A. standard and keep the gene-pool open. When we stop using out-crosses, it closes the gene-pool, which can be a bad thing for a breed in its infancy with not many cats. The Savannah received registration status from T.I.C.A. in 2001, so you can see, this breed hasn't been around (as a registered breed) even a decade."