The dam of a total of 19 Grand offspring,
GC RW Marcus Roxanne of Anz DM is CFA's #1 producing Persian female, and #2 female all breeds.
This is her story...
In late 1989 I visited Anne Waddington of Anz cattery. Anne had offered to let me have a kitten to show and I was anxious to see what she had available.
Anne had some lovely kittens, but nothing that really excited me. All of a sudden, hidden away in another room, I spied a dominant calico kitten that stood out from all the rest."How about that one?" I asked.
No, Anne had been planning to keep that one.
Despite all her well-deserved fame with dilute calicos, Anne's true love was the dominant calico and this was the first one she'd bred that she felt was truly top show. This kitten's parents were GC Anz Nicholas Nickleby, DM and GC Myshadows Miss Markie of Anz, DM. This was a breeding that Anne did a number of times which produced 13 grands and some of Anne's best known cats.
Anne was known for a lovely, wide-open expression on her cats, but not necessarily for an extreme look. This kitten was by far the most extreme kitten that I had seen Anne produce, so I understood why she wanted to keep this one. Anne, being Anne, was generous to a fault. She said that if I really, really wanted this one, I could have her. However, Anne wanted to have some fun showing this one herself -- I'd have to wait until she became an adult so Anne could show her as a kitten.
Thus, several months down the road I took possession of this dominant calico kitten, Anz Maggie The Cat. Up until the 1990-91 show season, the bicolors and calicos competed in the Parti-Color Division.
In 1990 a new Persian division was created for the cats "with white."
I showed Maggie for much of that season and she did well. Judges liked her head type, her short body, and her flashy color. Unfortunately, she started to cycle that winter and maintaining show condition became a serious problem.
It became obvious that she would have to be pulled and bred rather than continue on to the end of the show season. While a national win was our goal, breeding her became more important.
She ended the show season with a high regional win and was the first cat to achieve the honor of CFA's Best in the BiColor Division.
That same show season I showed a black kitten, Jadon Geoffrey Beene.
Again, a national win was our goal but one that was not to be realized.
CFA handed out Top 15 kittens that year and Geoffrey finished the season at #16. One spot out of a national win.
Geoffrey was, I thought, retired at that point and I bred him to a couple cats. Maggie was the first cat Geoffrey bred. The resulting litter produced two lovely dominant calicos.
While maintaining Maggie's extreme type, Geoffrey was able to add some refinement and opened up Maggie's expression. I was delighted with both kittens.
That winter I showed both kittens to Anne and we agreed on which one was pick. I sold the second kitten and the plan was for Anne and I to share the pick kitten, named Marcus Roxanne of Anz.
Anne took the kitten and showed her a few times as a kitten, while I focused my attention on Geoffrey. It seems retirement was not meant to be for Geoffrey. I brought him to a small show on New Year's weekend and he did quite well.
The big Houston Cat Club's show in early January has always been my favorite show, so I flew down to Houston with Geoffrey to see how he'd do against the major campaigners of the season.
Well, much to my delight, he was the highest scoring cat in show and I found myself once again involved in a campaign for a national win.
This time around Geoffrey's track record at the shows proved to be more rewarding. In four short months he was able to amass sufficient points to become the 1992 CFA Cat of the Year.
After a summer break, I talked Anne into giving Roxanne back to me to show as an adult. Anne herself was involved in showing a wonderful black-&-white male, Anz Toy, who wound up the show season with national wins in both the kitten and championship classes (and later in Premiership, too). My goal was to show Roxanne to a national win. Like her mother, Roxanne started to cycle and lose condition that winter. The competition in the Bicolor Division that season was quite tough.
Three cats from that division wound up in CFA's prestigious Top 25. Alas, Roxanne was not among them. She was pulled in February and bred. She had a high national ranking at that point, but as the season progressed, she dropped lower and lower each week. Going into the last weekend of the show season she was sitting at 25th, but by the end of that last weekend, she had been passed by another cat and she wound up the year sitting at 26th - close but no cigar.
Roxanne was bred to her grandfather, GC Anz Nicholas Nickleby, DM, three times, producing a total of seven grands. In the third litter was a darling dilute calico, Anz Nickelodeanne (named after Anne and Nicholas). We showed her as a kitten and she picked up a regional kitten win. We then sold her to southern California where, in the same show season, she picked up a regional win in championship. Two regional wins in different regions.
It was time to try Roxanne with a different male. Our close friends Donna & Susan Cook had a lovely cream boy, GC Quin-Jo's Just Cause of Jadon, DM, to whom she was bred twice. There were seven grands in those two litters.
In the first litter was a cream & white female, Marcus Ninja Vixen, who earned a regional kitten win the same season as Nickelodeanne.
Two regional kitten winners out of the same dam, but different litters, different sires. That was fun. So far Roxanne had four litters and while there were a number of grands and several regional winners, she had yet to produce a kitten that we felt was as good as she was.
We had not kept any kittens from her first four litters. For her fifth litter, sired by the Cooks' cream, we were delighted to see a gorgeous tortoiseshell in the litter. We named her Marcus M'Donna after Mrs. Cook.
Tortie is my favorite color and I had high hopes that this kitten would turn out to be good enough to keep. My focus that show season was a blue Exotic that we ran, successfully, for a national win in championship.
The shows we attended were selected for the Exotic. M'Donna came along for the ride and had some nice wins, but the shows were not picked for her, so the judges were not necessarily the best judges for her or the counts were not necessarily good kitten counts. With just one weekend left before she turned 8 months old, I realized she was sitting just outside of a national win.
A national kitten win had not been our goal, but there she was within spitting distance. I finally picked a show for her, rather than for the Exotic. We flew to a show in Canada and she did very well, well enough to pull off 20th Best Kitten nationally. Best Kitten that show season was Jadon Potomac, another kitten sired by Just Cause. His kittens wound up Best and 20th Best ... bookends!
After five litters, Roxanne had finally produced a kitten that we felt was as good as she was and one that excited us enough to keep. M'Donna was bred to a cream, GC, RW Jolee's Dune of Dalu, DM. That first litter produced six kittens, five of whom granded. A one-litter DM! M'Donna was not only as typey as her mother, she was also a good producer. M'Donna was next bred to Randy Primmer's prepotent boy, Ch Blueskyeyes Falcon of Boberan, DM. This litter had five kittens, three of whom have granded so far. She is currently nursing her third litter, courtesy of GC, NW Kissnhug Drakkar.
And what about Roxanne? Isn't this story supposed to be about her? For her sixth litter she was bred to a cream-&-white of Vicki Lanham's, GC Gentleheart's Tribute of Vickits. That litter produced one grand.
Her seventh litter was courtesy of GC, RW Jolee's Dune (now "of Boberan") and produced four grands, including a cute dilute calico that we have kept as a possible bicolor replacement for Roxanne.
Roxanne has had seven litters and those litters produced 19 grands which is the record for a Persian female. Typical of the Anz line, she conceives without a problem, normally has large litters of 5-7 kittens, and thoroughly enjoys raising those kittens.
Those kittens, in turn, have no problem conceiving, have large litters, and they enjoy raising their kittens.
At this point Roxanne is nearly nine years old, is still whole, is in terrific condition, and cycles on a regular basis. We are tempted to let her have one last litter. Stay tuned.
GC, RW Marcus Roxanne of Anz, DM
breeder/ owner: Mark Hannon & Anne Waddington
Sire:
Dam: GC, RW Anz Maggie The Cat, DM
#1 producing Persian female in the history of CFA
#2 producing female of all breeds in CFA
Mark Hannon & David Raynor
Marcus Cattery
Reston, VA
Email: markh_@yahoo.com
website http://www.cat-fanciers.com/Persians/
