Certified cattery

When you start looking for a kitten, you run into acronyms: TICA, CFA, CCA, MAPAQ, ANIMA-Québec. They sit side by side as though they all meant the same thing. They don't. Some govern a place, others register a cat. And among all of them, only two mean that someone actually travelled to see how the animals live.

We breed in Saint-Sauveur, Québec, Canada. Here is how catteries are overseen here, what each of these names really covers — and what you can verify yourself, with us or with anyone else.

In Québec, a municipality decides which activities are permitted on its territory, and animal breeding is not allowed everywhere. It is the first layer of oversight, and the one nobody thinks about.

Our breeding activity is authorized by the Town of Saint-Sauveur, through a resolution adopted specifically for our property, at the end of a formal process that took several months.

Few catteries go through this. It places our activity within an official framework, known to and approved by its municipality.

This is the legal layer. MAPAQ is Québec's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Anyone keeping fifteen cats or dogs or more must hold a permit from it. Young animals under six months of age, kept with their mother, are not counted toward that total.

The permit is valid for twelve months and must be renewed. It comes with inspections, which may take place without notice.

• Below the threshold of fifteen animals, a cattery is not required to hold any permit — so the absence of a permit does not, on its own, tell you very much.
• The permit governs the physical conditions in which animals are kept. That matters, but it says nothing about socialization, veterinary follow-up, or how kittens are placed.

Our permit is active, and our inspections are up to date.

ANIMA-Québec is an independent Québec organization devoted to animal welfare. It certifies breeding, boarding and daycare facilities after an on-site audit. Nothing obliges a breeder to go this far, and that is exactly what makes the certification worth something: no one goes through it out of obligation.

The programme looks at housing, physical health, mental health and welfare, permanent identification of the animals, breeding management, emergency protocols, sale conditions and the breeder's continuing education — and the evaluation does not stop there.

At the time of writing, about fifteen catteries appear in Québec's public directory of certified facilities.
Mon Chat Mouton is proud to be one of them.

What an ANIMA-Québec audit looks at

The evaluation guide given to certified facilities is confidential, and we will not publish its contents. What we can tell you is what happened here.

The audit is demanding. It is carried out by specialists in animal care, who assess the cattery as a whole.

• The condition of every animal is examined.
• The cleanliness of the premises is verified.
• Protocols are reviewed one by one: cleaning, disinfection, quarantine of newly arrived animals, emergency measures in case of fire.
• The cattery's records are validated: each animal's health booklet, veterinary follow-up, the tests required for the breed — which must be current at all times — and a reference from the veterinary clinic that follows the cattery.

And the detail goes further than most people imagine: floor area per cat, lighting levels, ammonia levels in the air. These are only examples — the criteria cover far more ground than we are able to describe here. Things a buyer would never think to ask about, and that a serious cattery measures anyway.

And certification is not something you earn once and keep: it comes with rigorous ongoing follow-up of certified facilities.

Our certification is active, and our audits are up to date.

This is where the confusion runs deepest, and it is understandable.

TICA, the CFA and the CCA-AFC are registries. They register cats and pedigrees, define breed standards and run cat shows.

• TICA — The International Cat Association, an international feline registry.
• CFA — Cat Fanciers' Association, a feline registry founded in the United States.
• CCA-AFC — Canadian Cat Association / Association féline canadienne, Canada's registry of pedigreed cats since 1960.

These are serious organizations and their role matters: without them, a pedigree would mean nothing at all. Our cattery is registered with them.

But it is worth being clear about what that means: a registry registers cats, not premises. Being registered with TICA, the CFA or the CCA does not mean anyone has ever come to see the cattery. That is neither a flaw nor a criticism — it simply is not their mandate.

A word about foreign pedigrees, since the question comes up often. A breeder chooses the registry their cats are recorded with: most often one that serves their own region, though nothing requires it — several registries operate internationally.

That is why a number of our breeding cats, brought in from Europe, carry WCF papers — World Cat Federation, a mainly European federation. This is normal, and those lines are then registered here.

How to check a breeder yourself

You do not have to take our word for it, and you should not take anyone's word for it.

1. Consult the public ANIMA-Québec directory. It lists the certified facilities that agreed to appear in it, and that list does not depend on what a breeder claims on their own website. One caveat: a certified breeder may choose not to appear in the directory. An absence is therefore not an answer. If the cattery you are considering is not listed, write to ANIMA-Québec with its name and contact details — they are the ones who can tell you.
2. Ask for the MAPAQ permit number if the cattery keeps fifteen animals or more. A breeder in good standing gives it without hesitation.
3. Ask to see a breeding cat's pedigree, and which registry your kitten will be recorded with. This is usually possible. A breeder may, however, mark it void before sending it to you: these are private documents that belong to them, and the precaution protects against fraudulent use. It is also, precisely, what third-party certification is for — it spares you from having to demand private documents in order to feel reassured.
4. Ask for the health test results of both parents, not just a general statement of good health. The required tests differ from one breed to another — a serious breeder knows exactly which ones apply in their cattery, and why.
5. Ask to see where the kittens live. An in-person visit is often declined, and for a legitimate reason: the risk of contamination in a nursery is real. Video carries no such risk — some catteries give registered families live, continuous access to their nursery. That is what we do here.
6. Read the contract before paying anything. With us, a copy of the final adoption contract, marked void, comes with the priority reservation form: you know exactly what you will be signing before you place a deposit to join the list.