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Published Sunday, November 15, 2009 in Local

Sharpsburg cats eye-catching breed

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Newnan Times-Herald

The finest and fanciest felines in the world will be converging on College Park next weekend, and several hairless wonders from Sharpsburg will be among them.

R.C. Cola (officially known as Rumor Control) will be representing his fellow Sphynx cats in the Parade of Breeds at CATlanta: The Cat Fanciers International Show.

"He is really great with people. He does really well representing the breed," said R.C.'s owner, Judy Webb Gunby.

R.C. will be the only Sphynx in the Parade of Breeds. It's all old hat for him, though. He got to do it last year, too. "He loves the attention," Gunby said.

When a cat is selected to represent his breed, "it is really, really important that each cat is amenable to handling, and just a really, really good advocate or representative of the breed," Gunby said.

The show will be held next Saturday and Sunday at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park.

Gunby is a breeder of the Sphynx, often known as the "hairless cat."

The cats not really hairless. Instead, most Sphynx cats have a fine coating of downy hair; petting them feels a lot like touching suede, a peach, or even a baby's bottom. Some have more hair than others, a few have a fairly hairy tail. A few, known as "sticky bald," are truly hairless but still have hair follicles on their skin.

Some people who are allergic to typical cats can tolerate a Sphynx. However, they are not hypoallergenic, Gunby said, and have the same saliva as all other cats. In many cases, it is this saliva that causes an allergic reaction.

The International is the biggest show in the world for pedigreed cats. It's known as the "Westminster" of cat shows.

The International is not just for competitors and breeders of pedigreed cats. It's for all cat lovers.

"The International is going to be a lot of fun," Gunby said. "People from all over the world will be there."

"It is the place where everyone wants to bring and show," she said. But it's not a typical cat show.

"It is all about presenting the breed to the public," Gunby said. The breed showcase allows visitors to get up close and personal with dozens of breeds, from the ancient Persian to newer breeds like the Sphynx.

"And there's going to be fantastic vendors there. People from all over the country will come to sell cat things that you can't even imagine exist," Gunby said.

"If you want to buy things for your cat, the place to go is the International, because you'll get a much better deal on everything," she said. The quality is very high, but the prices are good, too, she said.

There will be boutique cat food and cat litter vendors with information about why their premium product is worth the cost. "There will be people with cat beds galore and cat carriers and cat cages. Everything is cats," she said. "There is so much stuff to see at the International. You would just be amazed."

The Nov. 21-22 show runs from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $8 for adults. Children 6 to 12 and seniors over 62 enter for $6. Children 5 and under enter free. You can print a $1-off coupon at the show's Web site, www.cfainc.org/catlanta.

Gunby, who owns the SkinZin Cattery in Sharpsburg, has been breeding Sphynx cats since 2001.

She started out with Burmese cats. Gunby said she wanted a Burmese cat like the one she'd had as a teenager, and started looking around for a breeder who would let her have an intact -- not spayed or neutered -- cat. "I wanted to have a litter or two. I thought they were super nice," she said.

She had a hard time finding a breeder who would let her have an intact cat. "It is hard to get intact cats that are nice," Gunby said. She finally found a veterinarian in Atlanta who was "amenable to sharing her cats with me," Gunby said.

She bred Burmese for two or three years.

Then, one day, "I saw a Sphynx, and it was all over," she said. "I had to have one, and I was able to get one finally."

Her veterinarian friend recommended that she try to get a cattery name, and SkinZin was born.

Nearly-hairless cats are a good fit for Gunby. You'd be hard pressed to tell, but she's actually allergic to cats. She gets along just fine with her Sphynx cats and the other haired cats who also share her home, but "when I go to a cat show, after being there ... my eyes are bloodshot, red and itchy," she said. "It wrecks me to go to these cat shows."

But it doesn't stop her. She spends many weekends on the road traveling to different shows all over the United States.

Gunby is fiercely protective of the Sphynx breed, and works tirelessly to protect and improve it.

Because it is so unique, the Sphynx is "a very exploited breed," Gunby said. It is important to only breed healthy animals and to not pass on genetic defects, she said. Of particular concern is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Thanks to the wonders of modern science, Gunby can get a complete DNA and disease profile of any cat she decides to breed.

"When you are breeding any cat intentionally, you want to make sure that your lines are safe and worthy of being reproduced," she said. "You don't want to put sick cats out on the planet. There's too many of them already."

"There are a lot of backyard breeders that aren't really doing the work they need to do," she said. "I'm proud to say that I am the founder and key coordinator of Sphynx Research."

For Gunby, a cat's health is always the biggest concern. "You are breeding for health, number one, temperament number two, and type, or confirmation, is always number three for me," she said. "Because if it's not healthy, I don't care how beautiful it is, if it's not healthy, I don't want to propagate that line."

To introduce hybrid vigor and expand the gene pool, Gunby has recently tried a hybrid cross. First, she found the perfect momma, a domestic short hair with good lines and perfect health. That cat was bred with a hairless male. All the babies will be haired, but when they are grown and are subsequently bred to a hairless cat, statistically, 75 percent will be hairless, Gunby said.

Raising and caring for a hairless cat is a little more involved than for a typical cat.

The kittens are particularly susceptible to temperature changes. All kittens, of any kind, have a reduced ability to regulate temperature -- that's why they spend so much time snuggled up with mom. For a hairless cat, it's an even bigger issue. "It is very critical to keep them warm," Gunby said. "All of my kittens are on very expensive heating pads."

It's also important to keep the kittens and, to a lesser extent, the adults extra clean. "They don't have the hair to protect them," Gunby said. Adults need to be bathed, and when it's cool, a little jacket doesn't hurt.