Of Discrepancies, Disdain, and Determination

About a week ago a friend said to me that she had read everything she could find on the Helki and that she loved the breed, which is always a good way to make one feel warm and fuzzy. It wasn't until a few days later that I wondered if she had read the blog, or the website, or my Facebook. I didn't really connect all the dots until this morning when a light bulb came on and I realized how scattered the information on the Helki breed is. I post a lot of updates on my Facebook page. I even have a whole photo folder on Helki fur pics. That's when it hit me. Not all the info is in the same place. Then there are some sources out there that I really need to encourage updates on. While any publicity is good publicity, I think that embellishments can turn people away. I have always felt that stark honesty is the best policy, even when its burned me to the core, but I will get to that in a little bit. The discrepancies and scattered info are my fault. Not correcting the embellishments, is also my fault. On a quick side note, I do think some of the embellishments are a probably because I am a wordy person and I was not familiar with cat fancy terminology when I was attempting to describe what I was seeing and experiencing with the Helki fur.

Oh the disdain I have! Anger and frustration. I pissed off a group of people that decided, if I wasn't going to do what they wanted me to do, they would make sure to put on a full blown smear campaign. Thankfully I have had a lot of very influential people holding me up from the beginning with the Helki. They stood up for me behind the scenes and have been there to prop me up again through this entire mess. Again all I can say for certain is that I should have been more cautious with who I was doing deals with and I should have stood up for myself in the beginning and I should have backed out at the very moment I realized that things weren't as they seemed. It also lead to a few people telling me exactly what they thought of the Helki breed, most of which told me that they didn't think I had anything worth working toward. I had everyday see 'em on the street cats with nothing interesting about their coats. They said I needed to get a grip and move on. At first I was discouraged and dumbfounded. I felt I had posted lots of proof. I've taken enough pictures to make photographers sick. I've been honest, insightful, and have asked people to be ho
nest with me every step of the way.

A funny thing happens when people like me get angry. No even though I was quiet, I wasn't hiding in the corner shivering in fear. I was calculating what to do in order to help my breed, what I could do to prove naysayers wrong. The anger turns to motivation and determination to see this through to the end. There are some things that I really need to do, like taking Dr. Lyons up on her offer to see the Helki at UC Davis. There are some things I've done like increase the amount of fur pics posted on Facebook, and letting more people handle and see the breed. There are also the other things that are more exciting like, breeding and showing that I have all in the works for the new show season. Amazingly enough I've had more people interested in getting kittens as pets, and a few breeders interested in promoting the breed. It looks like this is going to be a very interesting and auspicious year for the Helki.