Thread: How to Choose???

Wow, that's a lot of good advice. I think generally it's probably true that I need to go and visit a few more breeders, just to get an idea of what the standard is. I looked around the facilities of the breeder yesterday, where the cats and stud cats were kept and everything seemed very nice and clean. There were separate pens for the boys and girls, and the kittens with their mother were inside with the family. I am not sure how to suss out the socialisation efforts put into the kittens. It seemed like they were fully integrated into the familiy hubub, with washing machines whirring, TV going and general household noise not fazing them too much. They seemed to be played with and a lot of their toys were out. I definitely don't really think it was a kittenmill - the general impression I got of the place was that it was clean and nice. I suppose I am just very insecure about my own inexperience.

We talked about vaccinations and he said they would be receiving a full course bar FelV, as some owners decided not to have that one as it might be distressing for the kittens. Is this accurate? I didn't mention that I might like to show at some point - I realise from reading your replies that I should really have. I am not totally sure about this yet anyway. I have never been to a cat show, but thought it sounded like fun from what I read, and it is something I should look into properly. I have a bit of time to make a final decision now, and I will try and contact more breeders in the meantime.

The boy or girl dilemma really stems from my experience with pet hamsters when I was a child. I had three in successions, two boys and a girl. The boys just always seemed a lot more docile and 'handleable' than the girl, who would get defensive very quickly and bit me on several occasions (something neither of the boys did). Since I am looking for a smoochy cat, I am worried that this might be some gender related trait rather than a personality thing. Is this applicable to cats? Do you find the boys to be more docile and calm and the girls to be more defensive/moody? I realise this is probably a terrible generalisation, but I wonder if there is an emerging trend - maybe stemming from the potential need to defend their litters? Does neutering make a difference to personality? Obviously my hamsters weren't neutered at the time (but never had young either), so it's impossible to know. Wow, I feel like the questions never stop!

Thank you all so much for sharing your MC experience with me - I would really love to learn all I can before committing, so keep the advice coming!