You may like to check back over previous posts where the SE breeders have been accused of selling mongrels! I wasn't being deliberately offensive about the oriental, merely pointing out that it too was a mongrel once and that it was bred purely for a different eye and coat colour to the siamese. How many breeders are breeding pure orientals in the UK? or anywhere for that matter, or do you all still cross back into Siamese? If we are going to talk about crossbreeds and varients, does this not merely make the oriental a siamese variant? We still cross back to other breeds because the SE is not fully developed but surely the oriental gene pool is large enough that you shouldn't need siamese bloodlines. Again, a legitimate point and question, not mud slinging.
I did not join this thread to throw insults as some of the oriental breeders have done towards SE breeders, I joined it to point out some facts and ask that you research things more thoroughly before you cast aspertions. The SE is a product of several different breeds if you take the time to look. The bengal and oriental are just the first stage of development. I'm not sure what your reasons for disliking us are but whatever they are, manners cost nothing. There are unscrupulous people in all breeds including your own but I'm sure you wouldn't want to be tarnished with that brush. You obviously have little background information on the SE and therefore making derogatory comments as have previously been posted are totally uneccessary and unfounded.
I would also like to point out that I bought my first SE from an established and respected oriental breeder as have most other UK SE breeders.
Karen Sausman of Kingsmark has spent several painstating years trying to develop the SE and is fully behind everyone coming into the programme. Her ideal was to breed a cat resembling a serval, without using wild cats to do it, not to jump on the bengal bandwaggon. She and many other SE breeders already have success in bengals. We, as all breeds, have codes which are there to clarify at which stage of development our cats are. We haven't yet reached SBT anywhere because there is still a way to go. If Lauren, as you say, you are all for new breeds, why does the SE offend you so much? is it purely because it uses your own breed as part of it's foundation?