Our "grandkitty" Elroy

This is an "artsy" photo of Tlingel El Roy, our son's cat, who we are babysitting for a couple of weeks why his "daddy" is on vacation in Florida. El Roy was in the last litter we raised.

Raising purebred kittens is harder than one might expect. I am happy to leave that to others now and just have fun judging cat shows.

Almost all Birman breeders follow an alphabetical naming of their kittens by year. As one of the pioneer breeders of new colors in Birman, my friend Ann Hoehn and I started another tradition of adding a word that represents the generation they are away from the outcross. El Roy was a fifth generation born in the R year - 1994.

Since 2007 is the E year, we can always count back to figure how old our Birmans are. That makes El Roy a lucky 13 years old.