CFA vs TICA Russian Blue Registration

It is very confusing trying to decipher what registration, in a specific association, actually means.

In the USA there are 2 main registries, CFA and TICA. They each have different rules for designating a cat as a 'purebred Russian Blue'.

CFA - 8 generations of purebred Russian Blue, approved by breed club president if there is something in question.

TICA - 3 generations of any other official registration bodies Russian Blue.

I will break down what this means:

1) CFA registration is provable purebred RB for a minimum of 8 generations. Generally it is a lot more than that.

2) TICA registration accepts any registration, recognized by the World Cat Congress, as 'Russian Blue' for 3 generations. This means that your cats mother could be a cat many would not consider a Russian Blue. (An example would be the mother is a shorthaired blue but her littermate could've been a longhaired blue. There is no such thing as longhaired purebred RB. This means the lines have introduced something that doesn't belong there.)

3) There is lots of registration fraud going on in Eastern Europe. WCF is a registration that is no longer accepted by CFA as valid for Russian Blues unless in depth research is done.

4) Some Eastern European breeders are sending entire kitten litters to the USA with WCF registrations. The kitten mill 'facilitator' or broker in the USA then registers the cats in TICA. Then they mark up the prices on the kittens and sell them to you. Congrats, you just bought a swap meet Louis Vuitton and didn't even know it.

5) Some of the brokers are keeping a few of these kittens and then breeding them. These cats do not meet the standards of CFA or TICA, nor is there any thought put into not inbreeding cats. Now you've got a inbred swap meet Louis Vuitton with what could be defects due to unscrupulous breeding.

In the end, CFA is the gold standard for pedigreed Russian Blues. The breeders all work together to maintain the quality of the breed.