tipping even with the palest blue coat color--important and specified in the standard.
Some people that I had met recently were willing to help me show Silver Lining. He got to be quite a seasoned traveler (lots of frequent flyer miles), since Judith Shaw, Haine Grammling and Mark Hannon lived on the east coast and I lived in Cincinnati at the time. I entered "Silly” in every show that one of them could take him to or when I could show him. This was the first experience I had ever had with a kitten or cat that finaled regularly. I was thrilled. With their encouragement Silly went to a lot of shows.
At that time I knew nothing about "campaigning” or even that there were AWARDS at the end of the year. I probably wouldn't have even gone to the Annual meeting except that it was in Cincinnati that year, so of course I signed up for the various functions. When his award was announced I was so excited I jumped up and managed to step on my long skirt. It took what seemed like an eternity to figure out why I was unable to get up and get myself untangled and up to the stage. I still have that small plaque he won for Second Best Shorthair Kitten (the top five were all longhairs). I think it was one of the most exciting moments of my life.
Silver Lady was a very special cat. She was exquisitely silver and simply glowed and had, in addition wonderful green eyes. I spent a lot of time with the litter, looking at them, playing with them and watching them grow. Lady was very much my special cat and she was always close by. She had a pectus chest and I worried a lot as she was growing; sometimes kittens can wind up with compression of the lungs and even growth failure. However, she had no symptoms from this, even when she accidently got bred. Her pregnancy, labor and delivery were completely normal and her kittens were gorgeous and normal. My research on this problem suggested that this was considered to possibly be related to a nutritional vitamen imbalance. This led me to investigate the composition of the available vitamen supplements and to identify "Fauve” and "Nata-Fauve” vitamens made by Nutra-Vet Corporation in Poughkeepsie NY. I began using those and do so to this day. I've not had another case of the pectus
When she was 5 years old I decided to start showing her again. Her coat had become very plush as she matured, but her color was always wonderfully silver.
She was able to hold her own with the youngsters and win her grand championship.
Silver Lady stayed with me through 16 my years in Cincinnati and moved with me to NJ. As was the case with four of my very senior RBs, they were, I think stressed by the move away from their life-long home and when they got to NJ they just faded (pined?) and I lost them in that first year here. More than any other breed I've ever had, RBs are home bodies and they bond very closely to their person/family/home--the familiar things in their life. They don't meet strangers or strange places well, especially when they are old.