I love animals and had long had cats as pets. Through my large-animal veterinarian, Cynthia Linner, I was introduced to Tonkinese, and I fell in love with their charming personalities; I had to have one. My first Tonk was Sinko. He was not a show-quality cat, but his personality convinced me that I had discovered a quite extraordinary breed.

I began showing cats unintentionally. I saw champagne mink Bobby as a kitten, and I wanted to take him home with me. When I was told that his owner wanted to show him, I volunteered to show him myself. Bobby and I were both novices, but we had lots of human help in learning the ropes, and Bobby turned out to be a natural show cat who instinctively reached out to people. I later showed Rudy as well (seen with Bobby in our Tonkinese gallery), although he was conspicuously less fond of being shown than Bobby.

It didn’t take long for me to decide that I wanted to breed cats, as well as show them. I began looking into obtaining Tonks for breeding, but I had also had been introduced to Bombays, and breeding them was also attractive. (Frank, who is color-blind, had a preference for working with the black Bombay, which would have freed everyone from having to make subtle color determinations!)