Bengal Spirit

07/12/2023

The tree is not fluffed yet and we already have company!! Thank goodness for 500 zip ties, now let’s see if the tree stays upright! 🤪🤣

14/05/2023

We had a home fire this week which took the life of our sweet little Matsui Tattori Gin. He was the sweetest little Asian Leopard. I have thousands of photos of his innocence and silliness. He didn’t know a stranger, was fearless, and loved to snuggle and give kisses till your skin hurt.

We suffered other great losses as well:
*BengalSpirit Blueberry was our only keeper from our foundation five start up cattery. Our goal was to fill a diverse pedigree and we were on generation 4.
*MaiTai was the wildest type SBT I have ever seen. She trumped most early generations with her size, structure and beauty. She was my favorite SBT in personality as well.
*Our Early Generation Savannah program is all gone along with their kittens.

All were found, it was a sad and quiet day reflecting on the good moments with each soul lost.

The cattery buildings were touched by the heat and the siding is melted off their faces but the cats inside were all safe and sound. It would of been tragic to have lost them all, but we were lucky in this one aspect.

Our current situation is: The garage & our home is gone. We had a 4 car which our commercial freezer, 1000 pounds of food, all our commercial grinding equipment, cattery supplies and etc were all inside. We would need to completely rebuild if we decided to do so. The cattery buildings have no power to them which makes them unsafe for our animals as we keep a climate controlled environment. With the loss of my heart cat, our foundation program along with the SV program I am needing to breathe and take a pause from breeding. My heart is shattered, my head is spinning, and these beautiful souls are used to more attention than I can provide until further notice.

We have reached out to close friends and moved all our Asian Leopard Cats to Cj Rozelle Epperson , along with our Early Generation program. F1 Lagertha resides with Dasynda Rosenbarger Mosier to continue her Early Generation program.

All the kittens and their queens are safe in Michigan. I was worried one queen would deliver enroute, but she managed to hold them.

We currently have a few studs and queens to move and have reached out to a handful of good friends who may be interested. Please PM if you’d like more information and be included in the process.

Thank you families and friends for the great opportunity to work with you. Let’s keep in touch and please keep sharing your lives and our babies’ photos as they make me smile everytime I seem them.

I will follow this post with the breeding program I have kept secret because I wanted to disclose as this year progressed. 2023 was supposed to be an amazing year for Bengal Spirit, however it will be an amazing year in other ways. 🫶🏻

02/05/2023

Matsui Tattori Gin has slept with us longer than any other Asian Leopard kitten. He brings me toys all night to see if I am ready to play. Then, when the sun starts to peak he kisses my lips, cheeks, nose, eyes and places soft paws on my neck to snuggle. 🤎 We play with the handful of toys which are surrounding my pillow while I drink coffee and after a bit he drifts off for a morning nap.

27/04/2023

Sunbathing siblings! 🤎🤎
Parents: Windy X Henry Clay
DOB: March 6th
Boy Release Date: June 9th
Girl Release Date: June 16th

06/04/2023

New website is finally launched!!

About a year ago our platform changed and I had to learn new design editing software and it’s taken this long to bring it all together. Anytime I woke up early, I did my best learning in the drivers seat until the day was ready for me. There’s some missing information on the parents and exotics pages and the new Gallery needs some love but all the templates and formatting is complete. Now it’s just cut and paste and please for the love of all sanity I pray they never change the editing software again!! 🙏🏻

TICA registered cattery maintaining the exotic looking Bengal cats & kittens with a prestigious bloodline & complete health confirmation.

05/04/2023

A’Vida White Russian and HL Painted Johnny Private has one Silver Mink boy looking for his furever family.

PM Mikey Parrish for more details. 😊

02/04/2023

Random action photos for families in waiting! ❤️ Most are spoken for and will go home shortly.

31/03/2023

Nursery photos of the babies growing up! They are supper sweet and growing like weeds. 🥰

Most are spoken for, we have 1 Mink girl, 1 Silver mink boy and 1 Brown charcoal girl looking for their furever family. Please PM for more details.

09/03/2023

This is a good morning!!

Sunday evening these little ALC’s arrived and we were ecstatic! Then everything changed… 2 hours before they arrived we learn they’ve never had a bottle and are refusing to eat. 😞 The icing was they can be touched but are hissy and spitty. We went from extra happy to melt down because we know how quickly Asian Leopard kittens crash. Unbeknownst to us they were a week younger than was told, (4 weeks old) pulled off mom @ 8am that day and thrown into a car to travel across the states for 12 hours. After no food and water we try the bottle with ni**le, no way! We tried many different approaches which lead to loosing weight a little more everyday. Every feeding took an hour for TWO kittens because it was pure refusal, and a fight to the death quite literally. Aspiration pneumonia is the biggest concern with all the fighting to eat followed by lethargy and eminent crashing.

We thought they were 5 weeks old and eating solid foods and human friendly. So much for happy, healthy bonding with our new little babies. Instead we did the breeders job and lost any respect these babies had along with our desperation to keep them alive. When the breeder said there’s no contract and no guarantee after we agreed to purchase this added an element of anxiousness I haven’t felt before.

Last night we found the magic to success and this morning they not only maintained weight but they were hungry and wanted to eat!! We are not out of the woods yet, but I can see the progress which lightens my heavy heart.

I didn’t want to share the joy of our new babies when they arrived because we thought they were lost forever and that joy turned to complete sadness before I got them followed by many sleepless nights.

It feels like we are on the right road to success, finally. 🥹 And now I can share our story of these little fluff balls I adore. 🤎🤎 We haven’t named them yet for fear they weren’t going to see the next day. If only the breeder made different decisions we wouldn’t be in this situation. It was easy: Wait a week & feed the babies. That’s all they had to do.

HL Painted Bengals Hector Loyola and Bengal Spirit’s future programs of diverse lineage pairing non-related ALC’s continues to expand. With Kharistan Bengals and Exotics CJ Epperson’s knowledge of pedigrees and cats we are able to make sound decisions and build a healthy, strong Asian Leopard and Early Generation program.

08/03/2023

Things don’t always work out the way we expect. Blueberry Moonshine went into labor Feb 26th and delivered three babies all stillborn. It was sad but she seemed at peace and receives lots of snuggles and love from her humans. This was her first litter so we decided to give her another chance in the distant future but let her body rest for now.

This morning she started spotting and I just knew it was the dreaded pyometra. Went into action and started the rounds of antibiotics and checked her temperature. Oddly her temp was normal-high, 102.8 so we decide to monitor closely at home instead of rush her in.

About noon I check in and she’s having back to back contractions. 😳 Umm, okay we are going to have a baby! 3 hours later another stillborn baby arrives without the placenta. This is NINE days after her labor! The placenta must come out so I waited a few more hours and lots of contractions and Blueberry is getting exhausted. Scott assists with oxytocin and the placenta never comes. We discussed how her temperature was normal this morning, however when a queen goes into labor their temp drops to under 100 degrees. With this information we realize she does have a spiked temperature. Not knowing the full scope of the situation we take her in, do an X-ray and our vet is not happy with what he sees He makes the call to go in. Sure enough the placenta never dislodged from the horn wall. ☹️ He expressed the placenta and zipped her up.

Blueberry is now home and recovering finally without additional concern about an infection.

This is how we breed. At all costs we save the queen and this time it was our beloved Blueberry. 🤍 The only girl we kept from our foundation five.

A retained placenta, 1.5 week later birth, c-section, no viable babies but we have a healthy Blueberry. 🤍

I wonder what tomorrow will bring. 🧐

03/03/2023

Playing with a new watermark as I watch Athena’s belly roll and bump. The countdown begins.

Athena is our oldest cat, she was born in 2018 and trained all our maiden queens how to mother. I’ll never forget the day Bailey’s first litter cried and cried for three days. Bailey only stayed with her babies if I was right there. On the third day, Athena who also had week old kittens got in Baileys space and dead eye stared her down. Scott & I thought a cat fight was eminent. Athena locked eyes with Bailey for an uncomfortable time in which Bailey left her glare and sat on her babies and never left them again. 🥰 I have no idea what Athena said to Bailey but it was powerful, calm and perfect.

Athena stays with her babies till 15 weeks old and always looks for them when they are gone. Today my hubby woke not feeling well, she snuggled him until he was ready to get up. She didn’t insist or demand anything, just curled up by him. Athena continues to teach love, grace and timing. This is her last litter regardless of outcome. She will unite with her furever family as they are excited and patiently waiting her arrival.

Countless people had wanted her including all our adult children. One willing to hide her in their college dorm. 🥰 She is softer than any fur I’ve touched and simply amazing in temperament and beauty. 🤍

I do not have another matriarch to fill her shoes, but then again I’m not sure I ever will. We do not keep animals in the cattery atmosphere because it’s not the best life they can have. Our love for our babies keeps us honest and allows the thought to move them on sooner than later.

These next few months will be special in many ways. Athena you can’t go yet, stay a little longer. Let me love and coddle you just a little bit more. 🤍

Vicki Dalgord

03/03/2023

Baby Toast looking all cute today! 🤎

25/02/2023

Baby watch has begun! Blueberry Moonshine is a Blue Snow Lynx maiden queen and none of her babies will be snow!! Isn’t genetics a crazy thing. 🤍

She can have Brown, Silver, Blue and Blue Silver.

🤍

20/02/2023

All Silver litter with clear backgrounds, large beautiful open rosettes, and no tarnish.
A’Vida White Russian and HLPainted Johnny Private was a fantastic first pairing with 100% healthy babies.

15/02/2023

Babies! Brown and Silver. Mom is from France & dad’s our very own Henry Clay.
Love the spots and dots! 🤎

13/02/2023

I don’t care how old you think you are, no one leaves this nest unless I say so! ❤️ A’VidaWhite Russian.
!!🤎

09/02/2023

Babies!! 🤎🤎🤎 more coming but loving our maiden queens litter already!!

07/02/2023

Rushed these babies to CJ’s at midnight for 24 hour care to come home & see more babies!! Ugh, thank you CJ for coming for the rest & mothering these beauties while we run to Georgia for the day! Back up at 3am to catch our flight, it’s gonna be a LONG day!

26/01/2023

Our little F2/2G Snow Lynx baby Bengal Girl is starting to express her beautiful markings. She is super sweet and raised by a domestic Bengal mom.

BengalSpirit.com

21/01/2023

Mister Hansome Snuggle Bug is Lagertha’s F2/2G Early Generation baby Bengal. These pictures show his sweet personality and beautiful markings.

Please PM for more information.


BengalSpirit.com

20/01/2023

This sweet little peanut found her furever family!! Amarull by Morning’s baby girl, Chloé. 🤎 She is snuggly sweet and feisty too. 😊

19/01/2023

A’Vida White Russian X HL Painted Bengals Johnny Private has an ALL silver litter with huge rosettes, clear background, short tails and raised by a very sweet domestic Bengal. Please PM for more details.

BengalSpirit.com

18/01/2023

Trying to work & focus with a pocket pet is my krptonite. 🤍