MAINE COON BREED COUNCIL NEWSLETTER JUNE 2007

Our Breed Council meeting at the annual in Austin, TX was well represented by 40 in attendance.  Following the award presentation of our top Maine Coons, we had some great discussions about parts of our standard.  Before we talk about those here, I want to say a big THANK YOU to Geree Martin for all she has done for the Breed Council.  Geree is taking some time off from the cat world, and we will miss her, so hurry back, Geree.  Donna Day has graciously consented to take over as our Standards Committee Chair.  Donna will be opening up discussions among our Breed Council members on different parts of our standard.  Please give some serious thought to what may be brought up and give Donna or myself your opinion.

Betsy Gaither, our treasurer, reports that as of this writing we have almost $1,900 in our account.  Thanks, Betsy, for taking time from your life to take care of our funds. Thanks to all of you for supporting our awards booklet.  This is a great help to our treasury.

Dr. Nan Moses, our Health Committee Chair, reports:  refer to WSU website, 
www.vetmed.wsu.edu/deptsvcgl for the latest information about HCM.  Nan also states, that we should not forget about screening for Hip Dysplasia, and checking for luxating patellas.  Please remember to ultrasound for HCM as well as doing the genetic testing.  Another concern that is on the forefront of feline medicine is feline heartworm disease, HARD which stands for Heartworm Associated Respiratory Disease.  It presents very differently from canine heartworm disease and now vets are recognizing the signs as the number of diagnosed cases are one the rise.  For more info on this go to www.knowheartworms.org/.    Thanks so much for your watchful eye, Nan.

Many, many thanks to Tylene MacKay for all her hard work in putting together photos for our award booklet.  Great job.  She also worked hard to get you ads included.  They looked great and blended in well with the awards.  Thanks very much.  Also thanks to Joel and Camelle Chaney and Norman Auspitz for helping me go to Cleveland and spend a Saturday afternoon putting the booklets together.  And I must also say thanks to Marianne Harris for helping us with the printing and use of her office.

Ok, now on to our topics of discussion; ears, eyes, profile, color and pattern, and tail faults.  As promised at the meeting I would open a discussion on the judges’ list and see what they thought.  Even though our standard only says disqualify for a kinked tail, I got many interesting responses.  Many of the judges fell that all breeds should be careful of any tail abnormality and many of them will not use a Maine Coon that has any abnormality in the tail.  Some considered any kind of calcium deposit, even at the tip in the same category as a kink.  Some thought we should include, in our standard, more descriptions of tail abnormalities and  consider having them in the disqualify section.  We can pursue this if we like.  Donna Day will be discussing eyes and ears with many of you.  We have some ideas from the meeting and will blend them together and see what you think.  So be on the lookout for discussion on those.  Then we will talk about the profile and color and pattern.

There will be no International Show this year, but I will hold an informal Maine Coon Breed Council meeting at our 4/6 show in Indianapolis, IN on Nov. 17-18, 2007.   Our Breed Booth will be there, after which I will return it to Grace Ann Cox for her final touches.  Grace Ann did a ton of work to give our Booth a face lift.  Thanks, Grace Ann.   Hopefully I will see many of you there.

Respectfully submitted,

Martha Auspitz
MCBC SEB