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Marley’s story
Quincunx Rexray
Spex (Marley), d.o.b. 2 June 2002
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This piece was first shown on the LaPerm website and is all about
Marley,
(cream classic tabby LH)
who for many of us was the first entire male LaPerm we had
seen for real and who is such a charmer, both with his ‘ladies’
and with all the people who meet him. I came to own Marley by a
bit of a diverse route as I wasn’t planning to have a stud boy at
all!! |
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He was bred by Anthony Nichols (Quincunx cattery) and was one of
the inaugural litter born in the UK from Uluru Omaste Po in 2002.
I had been breeding Somalis and Abys for about eight years at that
time and had read about the LaPerms in one of the cat magazines. I
was interested to see that Somalis were one of the preferred
outcross breeds and, after having a long chat with Anthony one
Sunday afternoon, agreed to buy Quincunx Nancy Spongecake. Nancy
came to live with us at the Aswani cattery and we were very much
smitten by the LaPerm personality and looks. The other kittens
from Omaste’s litter went to their new homes and we new owners
(and Anthony) all formed a little group with a view to developing
the breed in the UK. Marley had settled with his new owners in
Liverpool when unfortunately his owner became very ill and she
asked me if I would have Marley. After discussing it with Anthony,
I agreed to take him and he became one of the Aswani gang in
Lincolnshire.
I
felt that it was a bit of a responsibility somehow as Marley at
that time was the only entire male LaPerm in the UK, we wanted to
use him as widely as possible to get the numbers up but also
needed to balance out the fact that all the cats in the UK stemmed
from Omaste and Windfire. We had to be careful not to end up in
circles with our gene pool two years down the line! Because I had
the boarding cattery at that time, I was a bit spoiled for space
and so was able to bring in some outcross queens to use with
Marley as well as offer him at stud to breeders who wanted to get
involved with the LaPerms.
This aspect was the best bit of having Marley and Nancy, meeting
the new LaPerm owners and these are many of the people that are
now heavily involved with the breed at the moment. I remember June
Gillies coming to see the LaPerms with her late husband, George,
and them both being wowed by Marley. George was very taken indeed
with this butch male with a soft curly coat and an endearing
‘stroke me’ yowl! Marley is not just a fab ‘person’, he also
proved to be homozygous for the curly gene (like Nancy) which was
such a benefit in the early days to fix in the curls using the
outcrosses. Marley can be seen in the background of many current
LaPerm pedigrees, which include cats bred by the following
catteries: Ballego (June Gillies); Cycada (Eddie Sipos), Nihyohi
(Toni Blackwell), Manot (Carol Otty), Jentoria (Tracey Thompson),
Goldstar (Lorna McAdam), Cloudborn (Kate Ekanger) and Bane (Sue
Pyrke). And if we look at his grandchildren then the name spreads
further and further!! One of his best features is that he seems to
pass on his personality to his children, especially the boys, who
we tend to see out on the show bench more than the girls.
Marley hasn’t been out to any shows so far as he has been a
working boy and also hasn’t had the best coat (probably a hormone
issue!). He has sired a number of kittens however, particularly in
the first year of his stud career, and has enabled us to progress
the breed faster than we would have been able to had we not had
him. Looking at the statistics on the LaPerm database and merit
winners pages (thanks Sue and Penni!) he has produced to date from
14 litters:
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5 cats who have achieved the
four plus merits needed to progress the breed
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5 cats with between one and
three merits
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A granddaughter with 4 merits
He has also sired breeding queens who have themselves gone on to
produce kittens for many breeders.
He had pretty much a year off last year as a stud, really to let
other boys be used and widen the gene pool, but he will be used
sparingly from this year on, both to new breeders with their
outcross queens and also to our later generations of LaPerms to
help fix in LaPerm type.
Finally, Marley and I would just like to say a big thanks to
Anthony for breeding such a fantastic boy and to all those
breeders who have enjoyed the results of his activities!!
Marley is now living with Louise Malone in Scotland. |
