Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | winter 2010

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GOOD BREEDING
DONNA FULLER HAS THE HEART OF A CHAMPION

It all started with a little gray kitten. Donna Johnson Fuller wanted a cat, and she didn’t really care what kind of cat it was. So she and her husband went to a cat show to shop around for breeds.

Fuller’s husband, Charles, thought the Siamese were too noisy, the Abyssinians were too busy, and the Persians had too much hair and funny-looking flat faces. He liked a little gray cat that was just sitting there, acting like it knew exactly what was going on. He told Donna if she wanted a cat she could have one of those.

It was a Russian Blue.

She got her first Russian Blue from a California breeder. The kitten was a sweet little guy and made a perfect pet. After awhile, Fuller thought he needed a playmate to keep him company during the day, so she contacted another Russian Blue breeder and bought a female kitten.

By this time, Fuller (’68 industrial administration/accounting) had attended a few more cat shows, and she thought it might be fun to enter the new kitten in a competition. In her second outing – to a Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA) show – the kitten was awarded best short-hair and fourth-best kitten.
“I’ll never forget it for as long as I live,” Fuller said. “I was hooked instantly.”

Thus began a “cat career” that has lasted more than 35 years and taken Donna Fuller to cat shows around the globe. Since 1974, her Tsar Blu line has produced 16 national wins, more than any other Russian Blue breeder in the U.S. And Fuller has become a sought-
after all-breeds judge known for her efficiency and professionalism.

TO RUSSIANS, WITH LOVE
Fuller’s first little winner never made it to another final, but the breeder who sold her the kitten saw that Fuller had the desire to become involved in competition, so he sold her a male.

Fuller named him Dr. Zhivago.

“He was really my first show kitten,” Fuller said. “I suspect if the breeder had known how good he was he might not have sold him to me. Dr. Zhivago is behind virtually everything that established the Tsar Blu line.”

Dr. Zhivago had “huge green eyes and a nice ear-set, things that are very set in my line and are hard for other breeders to get.” He became a grand champion. During the competitions, Fuller met one of the top Russian Blue breeders of the time and convinced her to sell her one of her kittens. That kitten, Velva’s Cobalt Baron, became a double-national winner for Fuller during the 1974-1975 season.

“Basically, everything went from there,” Fuller said. “I arrived on the cat show scene in a big hurry. It was sort of like, ‘Who is this girl from California with that Russian Blue? Where the heck did she come from, and why is she always at every show we go to?’”

The breeding line that started with Dr. Zhivago produced what Fuller describes as “the most beautiful cats in the world.” Four years into competition, Fuller was winning with cats of her own breeding.

A NATURAL PROGRESSION
Today, Fuller continues to breed and show top-quality Russian Blues. But in 1984 she did what she said she’d never do – she became a judge.

“In the beginning, I said I never wanted to be a judge,” she said. “I loved the competition, loved the showing, and that was all I wanted to do.”

But after 10 years on the competitive side of the ring, Fuller realized she could accurately identify essential characteristics from each breed and had been active in CFA to the extent that she was qualified to become a judge.

Back then, it wasn’t unusual for Fuller to work all week, take a red-eye somewhere Friday night, judge all day Saturday and Sunday, take a red-eye Sunday, arrive home at 5 o’clock Monday morning, take a shower, and go in to work.

She didn’t do it for the money.

“The pay for judges, well, you do it for the love of it,” she laughed.

By the early 1990s she was going to cat shows 50 weekends out of the year, about half to judge and half to show one of her Russian Blues. In the summer of 1994, she was offered a guest-judging position in Australia for four consecutive weekends. She had taken early retirement from her job at Pacific Gas and Electric the previous year, so she jumped at the chance of spending a month in Australia, all expenses paid.

“It was absolutely fabulous. After that, I got invitations to judge in Asia, so I went to Singpore and Hong Kong.” She now routinely guest-judges at cat shows throughout Australia, Europe, and Asia.

THE BUSINESS OF CATS
Donna Fuller is unabashedly competitive. At Iowa State, she chose a curriculum – accounting – in which there were no other female students. When she graduated in 1968, she found no firms in the Midwest that were willing to hire a female accountant.
She found a job at an accounting firm in San Francisco.

One of her first clients was the University of California at Berkeley, which proved to be a bit of a culture
shock for a small-town Iowa girl (she grew up in Boone).

“This was 1968,” she said. “At Iowa State, girls couldn’t even wear pants to class. You were expected to wear skirts and nylons. Then I got to Berkeley, and the girls weren’t even wearing underwear.”

When Fuller went to work for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., she became the company’s first female manager. When she left PG&E, she was chief financial officer of the distribution business unit, overseeing a department of 350 people.

Her career was stressful. Her cat-career put balance in her life.

“During the week I was all business. I was a woman in business when women weren’t in business. I had to be ‘on’ 24/5 and constantly aware of what I was doing. There was a certain amount of having to be twice as good to be thought equal as a woman,” Fuller said.
“And so on the weekends I could go to a cat show, and it was just the total opposite of the business world. It made it easier to go back on Monday and revert into my business persona.”

She found that the cat show competition fueled an inner desire to win.

“I’ve got this competitive spirit, so when I found the cat fancy I found something that I could compete in and I could win really big,” she said. “I guess I was always that way in school and with anything I competed in. When I get into something, it’s either all or nothing. I guess it’s sort of obsessive-compulsive.”

She found her “accountant’s head” came in handy for figuring out the logical way to build up points for her show cats. And as a judge, she finds the ranking and numbering system very logical.

“Practically the whole cat fancy knows that if I’m at a show and they want to know what the ‘real’ count is, they’ll come to me instead of the master clerk,” she laughs.

WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A CHAMPION
When a litter of kittens is born to pedigreed, show-quality cat-parents, the chances are good that one of the kittens will be show quality. Two, if you’re lucky.
Donna Fuller’s breeding line has produced as many as three grand champions from one litter of four kittens – and probably four grand champions, she says, if the kitten’s owner would have shown her properly.

Her breeding program was turning out “cookie-cutter” litter after litter. Show-quality Russian Blue kittens fetch $2,000 to $2,500 in today’s market. If the cat is a grand champion, it can be worth around $3,000. And if Fuller sells a cat with a national title, she can get $15,000. (Kittens not considered show quality are sold as pets. Even then, Fuller is “very picky” about whom she sells to, and she requires the owner to spay or neuter the cat.)

So what does it take to be a champion? Why is one cat show quality and another isn’t?

It’s a complicated point system, but basically every breed of cat has a book of standards that describes everything about the cat: bone structure, body length, coat color, head shape, profile, eye size, eye color, etc. Fuller says when she is judging a cat, she is judging it against the standard, not against the other cats in the show. She is looking at how close each cat is to the perfect example of its breed.

For example, a Russian Blue’s coat is thick, with a thick undercoat and silver tips on the end of each hair. The cat is very slender, she says, like a ballet dancer. It is muscular but fine-boned.

Another breed (the CFA recognizes 39 breeds in all), the British Shorthair, has head-on-shoulders, with no neck to speak of, and jowly cheeks. A Persian should have a short, stubby nose; a full muzzle; cobby body; and a long, thick coat.

To be fully approved as a CFA judge, Fuller went through eight “color classes” alongside an allbreeds judge, with additional training for each specialty.

A JUDGE’S EYE
In her judge’s ring at the Lincoln State Cat Club show in Chicago last February, Fuller approaches each cat with the steely eye of an art critic. She examines its coat, ears, eyes, and tail. She stretches it, feels the structure of its face, teases it with a feather. Then pops it back into its waiting-cage and notes its point total.

She speaks continuously to the onlookers – mostly the owners of the cats who are competing – and entertains as she educates. She adds a theatrical flair and a sophisticated style to the judging ring. She wears a gold necklace bearing a jewel for each of her national-champion cats.

“Donna has always been very efficient,” said Yvonne Parks, manager for the Lincoln State Cat Club show. “She gives class to the show. She’s very friendly and handles the cats beautifully. She has that nice, gentle touch.”

Fuller estimates that she currently spends 40 percent of her cat-time showing cats and 60 percent judging.
“It’s still fun,” she says. “I still, after all these years, get excited when my cat wins.

Scenes from a cat show:

Fuller says cat show participants have "all kinds of personalities. You know 'Best in Show,' the dog show movie? Just put cats in there. There are pageant moms. There are people who just can't believe you didn't think their cat was best."

About the writer | Carole Gieseke is the editor of VISIONS magazine.