Registering a pedigreed kitten with the Cat Fanciers' Association ("CFA") is imperative to a breeders goals as a show cattery. Many pet buyers never send in the registration papers to the CFA. Not registering your kitten directly affects our goals as a breeder as well as negatively impacting the CFA and its ability to fund the many programs that benefit cat owners and cat breeders.

When a litter of kittens is born, the breeder sends in a Litter Registration form to the CFA registering the litter. After registering the litter, the breeder receives a Cat Registration Application (commonly referred to as a "Blue Slip") for each kitten. The Blue Slip is what a breeder gives to each owner to register their kitten with the CFA. The Blue Slip reflects the following information:

As you can see in the example above, there are spaces for letters of a registered name. The breeder's registered cattery name is always listed as a prefix, and no one can change that. A registered name can be up to 35 characters (alphabetical, numerical, punctuation, and spaces between characters). The breeder's registered cattery name is subtracted from the 35 character allowance. For example, our cattery name is "Pelaqita" so a kitten owner would have 26 spaces for the registered name portion, including spaces. Unless an owner is a registered CFA cattery, a kitten's registered name may not end in "of [insert any name]". For example, "Pelaqita Black Jack of Smith". The CFA reserves the words "of [insert name]" for registered catteries. So that when a breeder purchases a cat from another breeder they can add their cattery name on to the end of the cat's registered name. When Pelaqita Persians purchased Diggie from Cocoa cattery, his registered CFA name was "Cacao Dignity". When I sent in the registration certificate to transfer ownership, his registered name became "Cacao Dignity of Pelaqita".

Naming a kitten is a personal matter and many times new owners want to take some time to get to know their kitten and its personality before naming it. However, a registered name is for CFA registration purposes only. Often, a registered name is not what the kitten is called on a day-to-day basis, which is referred to as a "Call Name". In fact, a registered name rarely has anything to do with the call name. For example, we had a German Shepherd dog many years ago whose registered name was "Chenoa's Great Adventure". However, her call name was Rhini, no correlation between the two. MayMay's registered name is: "Pelaqita Mrs. C" as we were going to call her Marion (from the Happy Days show).

Once a kitten is registered with the CFA, a Certificate of Individual Registration Certificate is issued for the kitten. That registration certificate contains the following information:

If an owner does not register their kitten with the CFA, as far as the CFA is concerned, the kitten still reflects the breeder as the owner. Furthermore, if an owner ever decides to re-home the kitten this registration form is needed in order to transfer ownership of the kitten to the new owner or back to the breeder.

Sample of Certificate of Individual Registration Certificate.

Pelaqita Persians is a show cattery and registering our kittens (even the ones that are destined for pet or non-show homes) is imperative to our goals as breeders. Registrations are also important to the CFA as those fees help support the many causes the CFA is involved. CFA supports many things including:

Due to the importance of CFA registration, Pelaqita Persians has instituted a new policy regarding the individual registration for each kitten. Our registration policy is:

If a kitten buyer is unable to think of a name, then Pelaqita Persians will choose a registered name for that kitten and registered it with the CFA. The certificate will reflect the new owner's name and the kitten's registered name.