TRIBUTE TO MELITE

The Colourpoint Breeder's Group Magazine (SA) wrote a tribute to Melite upon her retirement from Cat breeding.
by Brenda Cauldwell.

Since the death of Daan, her husband, Melite has sadly given up cat breeding. She had previously stopped breeding colourpoints in favour of self persians, which she insisted presented fewer problems. We would like to record for the sake of posterity some of Melite's colourpoint achievements.

After the tragic death of her daughter, Melite bought two colourpoint kittens from Camie Asquith; Katushka Sir Lancelot, a male and Katushka Anushka, a female. On receiving their pedigrees sometime later, she found them to be brother and sister and thought it unwise to breed them. She bought a seal point kitten, also from Camie. This was mated to Anne Cubley's Lintoron Domonic Melite says it was a 'good luck mating', producing a picture book seal point kitten, Melite's Nikita. Her photograph, taken in Durban, appeared on several cat products.

Melite then found Ingrid de Wet of Incatique, and bought new males and colourpoint tabbies from her. She found these to carry chocolate and went on to produce many fine chocolate and lilac points, together with their tabby and torties. Melite says she was 'ahead of her time' with these colours new to South Africa and judges refused to accept her first lilac tortie, 'M Lady Melite's Chocaleen, as such.

Leonie Pretorius of Jaleno was terminally ill with cancer. Melite managed to buy some magnificent cats from her, to strengthen her breeding stock.

The artist in Melite was very colour conscious. She loved to breed a colour new to the country, going on to self chocolate and lilacs and then chocolate bicolours. 1992 was a particularly good year for Melite. She championed three different colour tabby points: Melite's Lulu Lullaby, a blue tabby point female who went on to grand; Melite's Furry Vanilla, a chocolate tabby point female and Melite's Magnolia Prince, a lilac tabby point male.

I remember Melite's cats most for their beautifully groomed white coats. You could always spot a Melite cat at shows. She always showed lots of cats, often bringing up to 10 cats all the way from Bethal.

Melite feels that her best cats were Incatique Le Luv Bug a cream point tom. "Bugsy" had beautiful boning and a magnificent round head and produced many fine kittens. He was a bad tempered cat, as were some of his offspring. Another favourite has been Kizu Ellis Brown, a chocolate point. His type was not particularly good, but he came from a good English line. His bite was perfect and he corrected the poor bites in Melite's cattery. His outstanding temperament spread down to his offspring.

Melite feels that the best kitten she produced was our 1996 colourpoint of the year - Melite's Tamarisk Prince, a lilac point male. Unfortunately he was monorchid and had to be euthanased after surgery to bring down the other testicle resulted in septicaemia. She also liked Melite's Choc-chocanola, a female that unfortunately had very difficult births and now been spayed.

Melite attributes her success as a breeder to continually upgrading her toms; to being able to 'stick it out' and not be discouraged when things went wrong. She could never afford to import cats and had to do the best she could with what she could get. Melite once told me she regarded herself to be an 'aggressive breeder'.

Melite's cats have all been placed with good breeders, where she hopes they will continue to be successful. She has decided to stay in Bethal, where she feels at home and is now breeding Chows hoping to 'breed out colours new to South Africa'. She is also giving painting and art lessons.

We wish Melite everything of the best and thank her for her valuable input into colourpoints.

As published in The Colourpoint Breeder's Group Magazine (SA) Issue 6 - December 1998.

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