Norwegian Forest Cat Breeders

Norwegian Forest Cat Breeders is the second most popular keyword search for the Norwegian Forest Cat as far as I can tell. That is why I am making this post on the subject. Of course, people will be looking for cats to buy and they won't find any on this site. But stick around guys. Although I am not a cat breeder I know a bit about cat breeding and cats generally so this post, I think and hope, will be useful. In any event, you get nice pictures ullustrating this post and lots more nice pictures on this site too. Also, I have no axe to grind so what I say is completely objective.


Norwegian Forest Cat. This is a fine cat photographed by Helmi Flick. The photo is copyright Helmi Flick.

If I where looking for Norwegian Forest Cat Breeders, it seems to me, that you have to think of these things in this order:

1. Do an Internet search (that's why your here). You can tell quite a lot about a cat breeder from their website (if they have one). First does it have a PageRank? PageRank is a Google term. It measures the number of inbound links to a website. If there are a lot of good links the rank will be higher. This is because inbound links indicate a website contains useful information that others want to link to.

In also takes time to get a lot of inbound links because it takes time to build a site that people want to link to and it takes time to find that site.

You can find out the rank by installing a Google toolbar. It will show in the form of a white bar in the middle of the toolbar. You can also find out PageRank on some websites. One is the free Page Rank Checker.

So the site has a page rank, probably somewhere from 1-4 (10 is the max but it is rare to go higher than 5). Note: this sub-domain site at the time of making this post does not have a page rank because it is brand new. It takes time and presence to get a page rank, a good reason why a breeder's site with one is a good indication of the breeders longevity.

2. Next thing to check is the Alexa rank. This will give you a clue as to how much traffic a site gets. It is a bit like knowing how many potential customers Norwegian Forest Cat Breeders have. It is not going to be absolutely accurate but it is a good guideline nonetheless. You can check the Alexa traffic rank of all sites that you visit by installing an Alex Toolbar. It won't hurt anything and it's free. Go to the Alexa site and scroll to the base of the page to see a link (bottom RHS) for installing this. You will find that most cat breeder sites have traffic ranking at about 2m - 10m. That is 2 million. This means the site is ranked the 2 millionth site of all websites in terms of traffic. There are about 100m -200m sites. If any of the Norwegian Forest Cat Breeders have an Alexa ranking of below 1million it is doing well and is one that I would bookmark.


Norwegian Forest Cat photograph copyright Ack Ook. Reproduced under Creative Commons license. I love the facial markings.

3. Of course, once you have isolated the good websites you have also found potentially the good cat breeders. The above are all very good signs. After all it takes a lot of motivation to build a good website and motivation is a good quality for good breeder but not the only one.

If the cattery has no website it may, and probably will, be listed in one of the online cattery directories. It may not even be there. As you are going to have to visit the cattery this is not that important. The advantage of a website is that you get a chance to check out the catteries before visiting and get a feel for their quality.

4. The next stage will be the location of the cattery. It is a must to visit it so it should be within reasonable driving distance. Once you have the right signs from the website as to the quality of the cattery, you'll need to see it and smell it to check first hand how good it is. How big is it? Are the cats well socialized? Is it clean? Good Norwegian Forest Cat Breeders will answer your most probing questions politely and with confidence. Think about the health issues that I have mentioned and raise questions.

Do you get a contract? If so read it carefully. In fact I would get to see a copy before I visited to give time to digest it so that I could ask questions about it when I was there. What about neutering and spaying? The cattery will probably do this for you. What is their policy if you have difficulties? Do they take the cat back if there are unforeseen behavioral difficulties. This will be exceptional as good Norwegian Forest Cat Breeders will ensure that the cat is well socialized to humans and other animals allowing the cat to integrate easily. But remember cats do take about 6-9 months in my experience to settle into a new place. If there are problems look at what you are doing. It is as much likely to be something that you are doing as due to the cat's personality. Cats are reactive and behave naturally.


Norwegian Forest Cat Photograph reproduced under a creative commons license and copyright Faustenator

Back to health issues, the most important of all. I think that if the cat you are looking at has, say an upper respiratory infection (cat flu), I would seriously consider not proceeding despite what the breeder says. You might like to have a skim through some of the illnesses that cats can suffer from before searching for your cat. Some infections such as URI can be carried and spread so can be hard for the breeder to eradicate. They can be fatal in young cats, especially. Your new cat may also bring the infection to your household and if you have a cat already this would be very unfortunate.

I personally wouldn't take any excuse from the breeder for any infection. Either the cat is healthy or she isn't. Your new cat is for life whatever her condition and if she is ill this may be a long term condition requiring lots of treatment, expense and worry. Hope this post helps a bit.

Photo - 2nd Picture down from top is copyright Quatre Mains and reproduced under a creative commons license.

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