LAKE ELSINORE -- It's not a dog; it's a cat that acts like a dog. Confused? Don't be. It's a "puppykat," a new breed of cat developed by Lake Elsinore resident Dawn Houston.
Houston says she stumbled across the puppykat seven years ago, when two wild cats she had rescued mated. Their offspring were very puppylike, she said, so she gave them the new moniker and began breeding more of them.
Three years ago, she said, she began breeding them full time.
Houston, who said she has rescued animals most of her life, has big plans for the puppykat.
Already, she has registered the breed with the Rare and Exotic Feline Registry.
And she plans to continue to breed and sell puppykats -- she guesses she has already sold more than 40 of them in the last seven years for between $275 and $675 -- so that she can raise enough money to fund future cat-rescue efforts. Those efforts include plans for responsible breeding education programs and plans to get lax breeding regulations changed.
The puppykat, Houston said, has become popular with people who like their pets to have certain traits more commonly found in dogs. Like their canine counterparts, puppykats are more social, curious and playful, she said. They'll even come when you call.
Their physical traits -- mainly their folded ears and shorter tails -- are also doglike.
"A lot of people that would have never gotten a cat are now open to owning a cat," Houston said.
Kent Broussard bought two cats from Houston about a year ago. One of them was a Manx, the other was a puppykat.
He said that, while the Manx is standoffish and tends be content on its own, the puppykat craves the attention of humans and is much more playful.
"She just has to be around people," the Laguna Beach resident said. "She loves being petted. She's a little sweetie.
"She definitely follows you in the other room like a puppy. That's a perfect name."
While the results may be adorable and Houston may have found a market for the puppykat, her breeding hasn't been received positively by everybody.
Breeders and cat lovers from across the country have sent dozens of e-mails and letters criticizing her for mixing the Scottish fold, Manx and polydactyl breeds, something they consider dangerous to the health of the cats.
But Houston asserts she's being responsible.
She takes great care to make sure the cats she uses in breeding don't carry the same dominant genes, she said, thus eliminating potential dangerous genetic threats to the cats.
Plus, she isn't doing what many breeders do, Houston said, in overbreeding their cats by inbreeding or by making individual cats have too many litters. Those can each have detrimental effects on generations and generations of cats, she said.
"If you do it wrong, it could be traumatic," Houston said.
Houston also shot back at the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, whose members have heavily criticized her the last several weeks after reading a news report about her breeding. They have sent dozens of e-mails and letters, she said, many of which have been less than pleasant.
PETA researcher Dan Paden said that his organization was contacted by more than 100 people who complained that, through her breeding, Houston is contributing to the overpopulation of cats.
The organization issued an action alert through its Web site, he said, asking people to contact Houston and ask her to stop the breeding. It also urged them to ask her to donate the money she has made through selling puppykats to spaying and neutering programs.
The alert calls Houston's plan of breeding puppykats in an effort to help rescue other cats the "most dim-witted idea ever." It states that breeders like Houston "have created a tremendous overpopulation problem that forces animal shelters across the nation to put millions of dogs and cats to death every year."
Paden said PETA has never before issued an action alert for a breeder like Houston.
"No one before has ever proposed that purposefully breeding animals is a good way to help fight the overpopulation crisis," he said. "It's unique in its irony. It's unique in our response."
But Houston said that those who have accused her of contributing to the overpopulation problem don't know what they're talking about.
There will always be people out there, she said, who prefer to buy cats from professional breeders instead of shelters. That market will always exist, she said.
More importantly, Houston said, every cat she sells is spayed or neutered before it is released to its new owner.
All the fuss raised over her puppykat breeding is much ado about nothing, she said.
"I know what I'm doing," Houston said.