By Diane Deibert GC Spellbound McGyver Spellbound Cattery was registered in the spring of 1977. Believe or not, I wanted to do silvers, but unfortunately I bought a silver female and judged the whole color on that girls' personality, which left a lot to be desired! In fact, I thought, the whole Persian breed was too extreme and Persian people were snobs! Of course this was the opinion of a newbie. After visiting a show in my area, I decided Himalayans were for me., I bought several from Cat's Me-ow Cattery (days of $150.00 breeders). My first litter produced a blue-cream point female - Spellbound's Pizazz- who was my first BOB winner. I was hooked; I bought Pizazz's father (owned by Cat's Me-ow Cattery, bred by Purrring Lane Cattery) for an outrageous $200.00 - and repeated the breeding of Pizazz and got a tortie point who was my first regional winner, shown by Sue Paul, GC RW Spellbound's Sensation. The same father produced a beautiful flame point Ch. Spellbound's Splash also shown by Sue Paul. At the time I was showing a tortie point female kitten, Spellbound's Debut, that was making finals. In 5 years breeding Himi's, I produced 4 grands. Which for the time was really good because breeders did a lot of hybridizing. First, you had to produce a pointed cat; and second, it would have to be show quality. Breeders were lucky to have a breeder in the litter, let alone a show quality pointed kitten. At this point in time CPC's were not eligible to be shown. Over the years of breeding, I bought several Persians to hybridize with, including, GC Rambo Sweet Dreams of Spellbound and GC Jo-Le's Jax of Spellbound. I also bought several females from RonLyn cattery. I was beginning to produce some top hybrids and I thought I was on my way to the top. Around that time, the Fegers and I were becoming friends and Darlene offered me a blue male out of Sierra Diamond Chip, DM. When I saw what Chip was producing, I bought a male named Kitty Charm's Remington of Spellbound. I used him to hybridize and decided to breed one of my Persian girls to him. The result of that breeding was a one-show grand with 350+ points, GC Spellbound's As Is. I started seriously thinking of breeding Persians at that point. It was very tempting mainly because back then, especially, you had such a turnover in cats with Himalayans. You constantly kept your better ones and placed the adults, and as I do enjoy my cats, that was always the hard part. GC Spellbound Crusade, DM But, fate decided for me. My first husband died and I needed to cut way back on cats. I placed my Himalayans and kept my Persians. I was contemplating getting out of cats, when I married for the second time. With my new husband's encouragement and help, I got involved again. We bought several Persian females who went on to grand. We got to be friends with Bob and Cheryl Lorditch and even attended their wedding! Cheryl had just started to produce some really good Exotics. She was campaigning Chocolate Chip when she produced a real nice white male. She offered him to me as she was having trouble keeping him white. His name was GC Jovan Chiller of Spellbound. In the mean time I had a litter from a RonLyn female bred to Remington, a beautiful pale blue-cream (favorite color), a big girl, but not quite grand quality. Her name was Spellbound Powdered Sugar. After we granded Chiller, we let him run with the girls and, yep you guessed it, he helped himself to Powdered Sugar! One morning I was changing the litter pans and instead of the usual, there were kittens in the box, 7 of them! I was stuck with a scrawny, coatless white male that was all head and looked like an alien. He turned into GC Spellbound Crusade, DM! Crusade was not an easy grand, he got coat but no weight, and to this day his top weight is a big 8-1/2 pounds. But what a great stud cat, never has sprayed, breeds anything put in with him and boy, was he a once in a lifetime cat. I never have had a litter from him to this day that hasn't had at least one grand quality kitten in it. His second litter bred to a Maison de Chat breeder female produced GC NW Spellbound Cruising, and his third litter produced, the same year, GC NW Spellbound Tom Cruise, who went on to produce GC NW Spellbound Estee Lauder. The next breeding season he went on to produce with one of my girls, out of GC, NW Mystichill Houdini of Jovan DM, GC NW Spellbound Flurries. After campaigning Estee Lauder, I had some health problems and sold most of his offspring. I am proud to have received his DM by myself. He is behind a lot of winning catteries, both Persians and Himalayans. I did some bi-color breedings but I was losing my focus; bi-colors frustrated me. I produced some nice females, but they would call and lose their coat and/or weight before I could grand them. GC Spellbound New Vision In 1996 after Cheryl Lorditch, Jovan Cattery, decided she was really finished breeding, she offered me several of her Exotic girls, but I said "no," I didn't want to go into a new breed. She got down to her last Exotic female that she had made into a pet, Sanova's Midwest Chip of Jovan, a brown classic tabby out of GC, RW Red Sky's Wooden Ships, DM, and GC, NW Jovan Chocolate Chip. Cheryl said, "This is it, my last Exotic female; you have to take her." So I took her and bred her to GC, NW Spellbound Tom Cruise. She produced two kittens, including one that looked promising and was a shorthair, but a mackerel tabby, and he was GC Spellbound New Vision. I rebred her to Tom but she needed a C-section and she had ruptured her uterus. I had her spayed and she is now our pet. That left me with one Exotic, New Vision. I was left with a decision to continue breeding Exotics or just forget it. I decided that if I was only going to have one Exotic, maybe it was better to have a male and selectively breed some Persian females to him. I had several litters from him in 1997 including GC Spellbound Cub Scout and Ch Spellbound Cuisine. GC Spellbound Cub Scout When Cub Scout started breeding, friends from Germany took New Vision to use in their breeding program. In Cub Scout's first litter with Spellbound Beamers (an Exotic), I had 7 kittens and only one longhair. I just finished showing the male I kept, GC Spellbound McGyver, a brown mackerel tabby and white, as a kitten. He has had a great kitten career with highest scoring kitten in our Exotic Breeders club show. He competed in 54 rings and finished with over 1600 points which hopefully will be enough for a regional kitten win. Also shown this year was my premier out of New Vision, GP Spellbound Just Cause, shown beautifully by Tracey and Scott Schiller. Breeding and showing Exotics has been both rewarding and challenging. I hope to breed for silver patched tabbies and, naturally, some white Exotics in the next year, and hopefully another regional winner. I love the breed and have met some of the nicest people in the fancy that breed Exotics, too, and who are very supportive of their breed wins. It wa a great honor to be asked to write about my achievements, and I want to thank everyone who has helped along the way ... Ch Spellbound Cuisine GP Spellbound Just Cause

Check out the Spellbound web page. Email Diane at: dnbcats@aol.com