About Us
January 28, 2011
The Two Sisters of the Three
Rivers*
Patricia & Jan Johnston [mind you, it is JohnsTon, with a "T" - we're very sensitive
about that] were born and raised in small, rural towns in Northwest Iowa. Mother
was a stay-at-home mom, while Dad was the regional manager of a livestock feed
company. We have an older brother who is a retired Anesthesiologist, Pat is a
Master's prepared Licensed Social Worker, and Jan has her Master's degree in
Nursing Education.
Our family heritage as WASP's (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), meant embracing a
hard work ethic with traditional family values, such as integrity, strength of character,
and being there when the family needed help - a bond beyond love. Respect and honor
others. Help and serve others, and through that, you are serving God as well.
But you don't just start up a cattery without a lot of planning. For her, it was 8 years
in the making, and constant learning from other breeders from the US and abroad,
about standards, genetics, and breeding in general.
Jan's neutered male
When people are looking to make a adoption of such importance as a
new family member, they want to make certain that the breeders
they are dealing with are truthful, ethical, pleasant, and respectful.
So here is a little bit about we two sisters...
Our Breeding
Our Kitty Family
Pat's spayed girls
* City of the Three Rivers refers to an older name for Pittsburgh, PA.
Lapis - Retired Breeder & Grand
Champion  [Blue with White]
She is a big help with integrating new
breeder girls into the cattery. She is 16
pounds, and no one takes any guff from
her! She is wonderful with our young
breeder girls as a sort of a nanny
Ulla is our very vocal Black with white
locket. She is the Great Communicator
- you always know what she wants or is
thinking. She is also relentless when
she wants attention!
Ilya Alekovic - "Ilya the Red".
Being such a wonderful example of
the humorous side of the Sib
personality, I have freely used his
picture throughout our website.
Expert climber, jumper, gamer,
he also is a wonderful big brother
to the younger Siberians; he
wrestles them down to give them
baths still (even if they are now
bigger than him!)
The Celtic Triskellion (seen above) that we use as part of our logo defines our
ancestry, and is personally meaningful with the number three - the three rivers
we live near - the balance or harmony we seek in body, soul & spirit - and
represents the motto for our cattery - Hands-Heart-Hearth. This is who we are.
The poster 'child' Siberian of our logo is Samei. He was a
very special kitten - and is a wonderful Siberian. He
started out as the runt of our first litter, needing some
extra help. The sweet bond that developed has held a
special place in our hearts for 'our' boy. His 'parents'
have taken some marvelous pictures of him - many which
you see throughout the website.
Our Logo
Our Life
Ever since Pat adopted her first Siberian, she became fascinated with the breed,
especially their wonderful personalities. She joined a Siberian Listserve to interact
with breeders & owners of Siberians. Through the internet groups she discovered that
she wanted to help establish the Siberian breed in America.
An opportunity came along to help a breeder, but not for Pat directly - for her
sister, Jan. A breeder had to temporarily find placement for all her breeder cats
while she dealt with a family emergency. Jan was asked if she would house, at first,
one of the breeder girls, then, also, one of the breeder boys, and to allow them to
have a litter.
Jan agreed to this, and that started a situation as being 'foster breeders', a term
we coined, since the cats were owned by another breeder, and we were just helping
with the environment and to deliver babies, socialize them, and get them ready to go
to fur-ever homes. Jan was doing this in Iowa, so Pat was doing her assistance 'long
distance' from PA, and actually was a bit jealous that HER dream was being started
by baby sister!
Jan & Pat fostered two litters from that breeding pair, while Pat started to
research and choose the kittens that would eventually be Keitta breeders. The
original breeding pair we fostered was retired so after the second litter.
There was a transition period of around two years as Jan prepared to move to PA, and
Pat prepared the cattery and researched Siberian genetic lines, along with guidance
from several mentors from Italy, Russia, the UK, and the Czech Republic, as well as
some US breeders.
So, this has brought us to the point where we were able to branch off on our own, with
our own cattery, and our own name - Keitta Siberians - "keita" [pronounced kay tah]
means forest in Celtic, thus "Forest Siberians".
Keitta Customers are saying:
"I don't know if we've told you how wonderfully
socialized we found Itsy-Bitsy to be....It was
obvious from the get-go that she loves people -- she
even loves to be picked up -- and she has never once
failed to use her litter box.  We chose her for low
allergy properties, which has worked out perfectly,
but we didn't realize all the value-added that we
were getting from your loving care."