Hello, I’m Kelly, the owner of Totallycoastal Cats UK. I have been a proud owner of Pixiebobs since 2008 and have been fascinated by them since 2006. When I began my journey into this breed, I noticed a lack of centralised information. There were no readily available books on the breed, and the only way to learn was to reach out to breeders around the world for their insights.
In late 2009, I stumbled upon a Yahoo group where breeders communicated—a precursor to WhatsApp, where messages were exchanged via email. It was in this space that my passion truly flourished, allowing me to gain a deeper understanding of the breed's history and the collective goals of the breeders and the information flowed freely.
When Facebook emerged, some members migrated to the platform while others preferred to stay away. The yahoo group stopped when the service was let go of by Yahoo, and with it the community exchange of information began to dwindle. People seemed to retreat into their own circles. A few Facebook groups popped up, but they only featured sporadic posts with pictures here and there, and the vibrant discussions faded away and the community spirit seemed to have gone. At that time, there was also a database in construction containing images and articles sent to a breeder in France, but contributing and loading went through one person only and that wasn’t very practical. So it stagnated and loading information stopped. Eventually, the cost of hosting the database was not covered, and it was taken down and discontinued.
In 2010, I had the idea to use Google Blogger to recreate that database, but as it gave additional features such as tags, search boxes, language translators and more. Plus, individuals could upload their own content, without it bottlenecking with one manager, it seemed to be the perfect solution. Not only that, breeders could hold on to all their documents and photos and not need to send them anywhere. They could load them at leisure in their spare time, rather than a big job of bundling everything up to send via postal service or the en mass scan in documents. So this was a much more user-friendly method.
I was already using it for my own cattery blog. So, I began adding records to this platform since it was accessible to everyone, and was free of charge. This is how the Breeders Research Resource came to life.
Initially, it started with informal listings of notable cats, but it soon evolved to include cattery information, breeder details, articles, clippings, pedigrees and other historical documents that warranted recognition.
Before long, it grew to exceed the scope of my personal Totallycoastal blog, and as social media gained traction, my cattery posts shifted there. I renamed the blog to reflect its new purpose, added tabs for research, and created a dedicated page for TCUK content. While it may still be referred to as Totallycoastal’s blogspot, it has transitioned beyond that, now serving as a platform to help catteries preserve their pixiebob history and image archives and as a breed research/learning resource.
So as to not lose any of my own historic content from the initial TCUK sole usage, I have added one tab that will take you to a page, where you can access our early days blogspot, but also links to our social media to keep up to date with our more recent history.
If you’d like to contribute your own cattery story please reach out through the contact us tab. We are here to assist you in preserving your history and knowledge. If you're researching bloodlines to better understand your cats' backgrounds, I hope you find this resource beneficial.
