Meet Rosie
RAYANSHEL WHOLE-LOTTA-ROSIE, and Rosie to everyone here. A black British Shorthair from health-tested lines, born April 2024, and the mother of our first litter.
The one everything here starts from.
Our foundation queen. Rosie is a black British Shorthair (BSH n), born 23 April 2024 — calm, affectionate and a wonderful mother to her first litter, born May 2026.
- Breed/colour: British Shorthair — black (BSH n)
- Sire: TAPMACKS UNION-JACK (BSH a) · Dam: RAYANSHEL FLORENTINE (BSH f)
- GCCF registered
- PKD1 Normal — DNA tested at Langford Vets (University of Bristol), 11 August 2026
- Blood type B — typed and checked for compatibility before every mating
Where the name came from
Her registered name is RAYANSHEL WHOLE-LOTTA-ROSIE, which happens to be my favourite AC/DC song, so she and I were always going to get along.
The Rosie part is not really about the song, though.
My first ever Siamese queen was called Rosie. She was the first cat of mine that ever had kittens, and she lived to nineteen. I have always loved the name, and using it again is a tribute to her.
What Rosie is actually like
I have bred Siamese and Orientals since 2004, so I can tell you precisely how a British Shorthair differs. Rosie is the reason I can.
She sits next to me and purrs. Not on me. Next to me. My Siamese and Orientals are draped over whoever is nearest, permanently, whether that person had plans for their lap or not. Rosie picks the spot beside you, settles into it, and asks for nothing at all.
She is also bombproof. When the hoover comes out the Siamese leave the room as a group, at speed, with opinions. Rosie does not move. She has never once moved. (I have tested this more often than the housework strictly required.)
And she loves the other cats, which is not a given in a house with this many personalities in it. She is the sweetest natured cat we have, and probably one of my favourites, which I should not admit about my own household.
That is the breed, really. If you want a cat that follows you room to room and joins in every conversation, buy a Siamese. I breed those too and I will happily point you at one. If you want a cat that is simply, quietly glad you are there, that is a British Shorthair.
How we choose a stud for her
Rosie’s first litter was sired by GrCh HENBRITS TOPGUN MAVERICK, and he was chosen for a reason I am able to be unusually specific about.
I have judged him more than once. Maverick has been on my table at GCCF shows, gone over against the breed standard with my own hands, and I have given him Best of Breed on multiple occasions, in public, against other people’s cats, and long before we had any thought of using him on one of our girls. There is no more honest assessment of a stud than one you made yourself when you had nothing riding on it.
How Rosie came to visit him is a better story than most stud arrangements.
Some years ago, at a show down in Cornwall, I was on the show team and ended up looking after the lost property. One of the things nobody claimed was a coat, so it came home with me.
A few days later Kelli Bickerton of Henbrits put a plea out on Facebook: her son had lost his new coat at a show. I had it.
It turned out Kelli lives ten minutes from us.
We have been friends ever since, and that is how Rosie came to visit Maverick. Kelli does not normally offer him at stud, so it was not something we took lightly. It also means that when we have a question about the breed we can ask it over a cup of tea rather than by email, which is not something many breeders can say about one another.
Beyond type, both cats were PKD1 DNA tested clear and blood typed before they went anywhere near each other. Health first, then type, then temperament, in that order, every time. We kept a chocolate daughter, Highway, from the litter for our own programme, and I have written up how I chose her.
Her first week as a mother
Rosie was a first-time mother, and first-time mothers often need a hand. Hers came in the form of Paula, who sat up through the first week topping the kittens up with milk, because Rosie had not yet worked out what was being asked of her.
That is not a failure and it is not unusual. It is one of the parts of breeding nobody puts on a website: the week where the romance of a new litter turns out to be a rota, a syringe and not much sleep. It was a tough week.
Then, within a few days, she got it.
She has been attentive ever since. Now the kittens are older she herds them, physically rounding the lot of them into one heap and keeping a close eye on anyone with ideas about wandering off. She is completely devoted to them.
That is a large part of why we are keeping her daughter.
Where to next
Rosie is one of three girls here. The other two are her chocolate daughter Highway and Heidi, both still growing up. You can see all of them together on our girls page, and what a kitten from her costs and comes with is on our kitten information page.