I have to give credit where credit is due, without Baranchri Vanillapod (Rowan) our current quality of cats would not have been possible. The impact that he has had on the South African Somali breeding programs has been incredible. I will always be grateful to his breeder, Barbara Bullivant, for selling him to me.
It all began when Janet Cook (Abymoon) and I discovered that we were the only breeders of Somalis left in South Africa. The last breeder of non-silver cats had closed their cattery and neutered all of their stock. It, therefore, fell to the two of us to continue the breed in the country. Trouble was, both of us were silver breeders. I decided to take up the challenge of starting a new non-silver program and import a new stud, but I had to make sure that whatever I imported wouldn’t damage our silver program too much.
You see, the holy grail of silver breeding is a black silver with no “tarnishing” (the tea stain sometimes seen in the white parts of the coat). Unfortunately, the ultimate non-silver cat has a rich undercoat colour which translates into LOTS of tea stain in silvers.
So, I contacted our continual support for the last 2 decades or more, not to mention the doyen of silver breeding (before she closed the program down), Teresa Guldagar of Dushara Cattery, to ask for her advice. She suggested that I look in the UK, as they seemed to be breeding cats with excellent type, but not very rich in colour. I began my search and happened upon Barabara Bullivant of Baranchri Cattery.
What a fantastic happenstance that was. She had a ruddy boy, from a Ruddy father and a silver mother, available. I absolutely loved to look of him and we agreed that he would join us at Valinor. The rest as they say is history.
Since his arrival our lives have never been the same, not to mention the Somali breed in South Africa. His character is second to none and he transfers that onto his children and grand-children! The kittens that he produces are better than he is and have taken the South African show scene by storm.
For the last 2 years he has been in the top 5 studs in South Africa and I’m hoping that one day, he will achieve top stud. In addition to his breeding achievements his showing achievements have been equally spectacular. He has won the Best Foreign Entire category on 3 occasions and won the Best Entire on one occasion. He was placed in the top 10 in both shows at World of Dogs and Cats 2017. In 2017 he was second highest Gauteng qualifier for SACC Cat of the Year and was placed 10th Best Entire in South Africa.
We love him to bits and will never part with him under any circumstances. He did managed to escape once, by unlocking and opening our kitchen back door. He was gone for 3 days. Those were the worst 3 days of our lives. Although, it turned out they weren’t the worst 3 days for him. He found a house that he liked and moved in, happily sleeping on the owner’s bed, but not letting her catch or touch him. Thankfully, we got him back and his wandering days are over.
In 2023, Rowan was retired from stud duties and is now happily living out the rest of his days at Valinor. He is still The Man and I doubt that anyone will try to topple him from his podium.