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“WEGIEKATT CATTERY,” you ask?!?
Well, it REALLY all began in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1983
with the death of my dearly beloved rabbit, Emily!
One can blame it all on Emily!!
My then-husband, Pat, came home from work one day, only to
find me bawling my eyes out over the death of Emily.
Feeling sorry for me, he made the mistake of saying, “Well,
why don’t you go out and get a cat to take Emily’s place.” I did, and the rest is history.
In that I am able to do little in moderation, I “accumulated”
fifteen alley cats within a period of two years or so.
Fortunately, we had plenty of room and lots of help (our two
boys, Greg and little Pat.
 Well,
one day while sitting in the veterinarian’s office, little Pat
pointed out a magazine article on Norwegian Forest Cats that had
pictures of the most beautiful cats I’d ever seen.
I had to have one!
Or two!! Or
three!!! In fact, I
absolutely HAD to breed them!!!!
So, within a
year, I had placed all but one of our alley cats, had “collected”
ten Norwegian Forest Cats (or “Wegies” as we so like to call them),
and poof -- WEGIEKATT CATTERY HAD BEGUN!! My first female,
Katie, came from Mary Buckmaster in Virginia, and my first male came
from Margarete Leleithner in Germany.
definition of "raised underfoot"
even
a joke picture is worth a thousand words
In 1987, we
moved to Lake Forest, Illinois, having purchased a huge house, whose
purpose was primarily to house in style all of our Wegies.
Although the
cats and kittens roamed the house, I also had an elaborate set of
walk-in, 10’ X 10’ hardwood cages built in our 60’ X 20’ basement.
It was during this period of time that I built my reputation,
so to speak. There were three articles written in the national cat
magazines on my Wegies, my life and on
WEGIEKATT
CATTERY. Also, my
cats made innumerable covers and were in several advertisements for
cat products. It
was while living in Lake Forest that I developed my love of showing
-- often showing 8 to 10 cats at a time!
It was also while living in Lake Forest that
I added four more breeds to my cattery: American Shorthairs,
Longhaired Scottish Folds, Birmans and Silver Persians.
We pulled up
stakes in 1991 and moved to Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
Once again we had a large house (a three-story oceanfront
house) with lots of room for our five breeds of felines. Since
Pat was no longer in the banking business, we opened up a new
company, called FOR CATS’ SAKE.
We tried unsuccessfully to make a living by breeding cats and
selling cat products at various cat shows up and down the eastern
seacoast. Things
devastatingly didn’t work out and all of our own personal showing
ceased to be. We sold
our house, kept our Wegies (my favorite breed of the five) but
placed the others, and we moved to a two-bedroom apartment in nearby
Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
 Fortunately, Pat
got a new executive-level job which involved all of us moving to the
San Diego area in 1994.
However, our marriage finally fell apart after twenty-three years,
and I moved back to Florida one-and-a-half years later.
With one stud, two breeding females, and four altered Wegie
pets, I eventually bought a charming house in Waynesville, North
Carolina (basically, a suburb of Asheville) where I lived
very happily for
three years.
The next stage
of my life started in 1999 when once again, I pulled up stakes and
moved to Flemington, NJ, in order to marry my second husband Robert
Hudson. He had been a kitten customer of mine since 1992, and we got
reacquainted once again via the internet. We were only married for
three years, however.
I have now moved to Matthews, North
Carolina, a lovely little town! It's really more a suburb of
Charlotte, though you'd never know it......dairy and cattle farms
abound !! I was lucky enough to find a townhouse that had just
started being built.......and what a THRILL it was to design it
exactly as I wanted!!!!!!! I don't know whether the cats or I like
it better!!! I've lived in so many different places, and I've been
now breeding under three different names ... Gavin, Hudson, and now
again, my maiden name, Harriman. No matter the place, no matter the
name, though, one thing is for certain ... I'll always be breeding
Norwegian Forest Cats!!!!! They are my TRUE joy.
Love, Patti
=^..^=
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