Save Money on Purebred Cats: The Right Way

There can be good reasons to choose a purebred cat. Whether we have life style restrictions and can circumvent them by knowing what kind of cat we will wind up with, or we’ve simply fallen in love with a certain breed, a purebred cat can be a responsible choice.

If we choose responsibly.

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There are animal advocates who are anti-purebred, feeling that with so many animals in shelters needing homes, it’s wrong for people to breed pets for money. But I see nothing wrong with ethical breeders preserving and perpetuating particular kinds of cats.

Not only are there many reasons all cat breeds have their fans, the relative certainty of a purebred can make Cat People out of those who might otherwise feel too apprehensive about acquiring a pet cat.

The only bad thing about purebred cats is when people look for bargains. This keeps the careless breeders in business, and results in serious misery for the cats caught in kitten mill situations, and serious heartbreak when an uninformed bargain hunter pays much more than the ethical breeder’s price tag in vet bills for a kitten with a shortened lifespan or serious mental problems.

For a look at what problems can occur from choosing a genetically damaged cat, see this article. And it describes a success story!

By only getting cats from shelters or ethical breeders, we stop the deliberate breeding of damaged cats.

So we either start a little savings program for our dream kitten, or we consider these alternatives:

Be open to an older cat. Many breeders offer retired show cats or are involved in breed rescue. We can get our dream cat faster and more affordably by adopting a cat who has already been altered and is past the kitten stage.

Good breeders are careful about where they place their cats; and don’t want to see their once-kittens abandoned. So they might have “boomerangs.” These are perfectly lovely cats who became homeless through no fault of their own, and go back to the breeder to be just as carefully placed a second time.

I admit to a level of exasperation with people who want a certain breed; but somehow don’t want to pay the going price for a kitten. I know bargain hunting is an American sport, but we are going to be feeding the cat, giving them medical care, and buying them toys and treats, aren’t we? We’re committing to a certain level of expenditure with any cat.

If we work out the price asked for a pet-quality kitten from one of the more popular, less rare, breeds, and extend it over a 15-year lifespan, we would be paying less than fifty dollars a year for the privilege of getting a healthy purebred kitten. That’s one dinner out, or a pair of shoes, a year, to get a kitten who had prenatal care for mom, was raised in a home, “underfoot,” and had their proper shots and socialization.

If we want to pay less, just go to the shelter. It’s not only cheaper, but more sensible, to opt for hybrid vigor over careless backyard breeding. A restricted gene pool demands care and maintenance. That’s what we are paying for.

Which leads to the other alternative.

Be open to purebred mixes. We can still get a kitten or cat with the purebred traits we want. By going to the shelter and looking for those traits.

I’ve seen Siamese with tabby “points.” I’ve seen Persian mixes with more pronounced noses which will avoid the health problems associated with flat profiles. Our own Reverend Jim may not be a purebred Maine Coon, but he’s close enough for people who meet him to exclaim, “What a lovely Maine Coon!” He acts like one, too, right down to the chirping trill voice.

My father was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room when a little kitten strolled in and started making friends. So Dad went home with a cat who is at least half Abyssinian, with all the personality.

When I say “at least half,” of course I mean that half of the genes came from another breed or breeds of cat. But the cat can wind up expressing most or all of the distinctive traits we look for in a purebred cat. Cats in a litter can wind up looking mostly like mom or dad, and can be remarkably close to the breed we desire.

Go to Petfinder right now. Enter the search options on the left hand side, and put in your zip code. I looked for “Siberian.” That’s a rare breed… but there’s eight of them looking for homes. I tried this month’s featured breed, the Scottish Fold, also fairly rare. There’s pages of them.

How the cat looks is going to determine how the cat acts. If they look like a Siamese, they are going to act a lot like a Siamese. In fact, especially if we are new to this breed, a mix is not necessarily a bad thing at all. Those purebred traits, expressed full strength, can tend towards extremes; we might prefer our Siamese a little less stubborn, or our Abyssinian a tad calmer.

So we aren’t just getting one breed; we get two!

Now that’s a bargain.

Love certain breeds?
There’s more about getting the cat you dream of at The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See MORE ABOUT CAT BREEDS.