ForestWind Siberian Cats

Come join us on March 20 and 21 for an Allergy Open House!

We are conveniently located in Buffalo, New York - only 2 hours from Toronto, 4 1/2 hoursfrom Pittsburgh, 90 minutes from Erie, PA or  Rochester, NY, and 2 1/2 hours from Syracuse.

We discuss the necessity of an in-home challenge for you depending on your replies to the allergy assessment questions on our kitten inquiry form, and your reaction to a fur sample.

We only schedule Open House Appointments for persons who have kitten reservations with us. Reservations are 1/3 the cost of adoption. We do not charge for in-home visits. If you react to our cats while you are in our home, we refund 100% of your reservation

What is an Allergy Challenge with us like?

It might seem strange, but you will check your reactivity in your own car. This is to ensure that you are only being exposed to the FELD-1 level of one cat.

Here is a typical assessment for a person who takes a few hours to react: You arrive, knowck on the door or call, and we bring on of our adult males to your car. You cuddle and snuggle with him for about 30 minutes. If your reaction takes longer than that to begin, you leave to hang out locally (we are very near charming coffee spots, restaurants, museums and shops).You return after the length of time you've predefined with us as being necessary for your to react.At that point you can choose to test with another cat; give the all-clear; or  let us know sadly, "I am reacting."  If you react with our cats, we refund your kitten reservation100%   Unlike some breeders, we do not charge for your in person allergy challenge. By coming to our home, we feel you are demonstrating a strong commitment to adoption and we are giving you the same in return.

Before you come for your appointment, together with you, we define length of time to your typical reaction, the severity of reaction, and exactly what type (symptoms) of reaction you are looking for.

We are sorry, but your reaction must be obvious to an observer and occur while during the official allergy challenge.  If it takes you several days to react, we can not account for that in our allergy challenges, as we are unable to "control" your home environment.

Many folks would like to come into our home and meet us and our cats. We welcome this after your allergy challenge. HOWEVER, and this is very important!!  when you come into our home you are now being exposed to ALL of our cats - and not just the ones who live here now, but the ones who've been here since we started and are now retired. Feld-1 is very "sticky" (this is how researchers define it) and it is hard to get rid of, even with typical cleaning.  Since we do not have a forced air heating system, we are unable to install the electrostatic air filter and HEPA whole house filter we strongly recommend for allergy homes (we had both of these filters in our previous home and it was MAGIC!!). 

Since you will be exposed to all our cats, if you react inside our house, after "passing" your allergy challenge in your car,  we are unable to refund your reservation. So, we usually suggest that you separate your allergy challenge from your inside visit.

How many times have we had to refund the reservation? Only once since we began requiring it pre-open house appointment. And, their deposit was back in their paypal account before they got home. We later tested the same male cat that the family reacted to, and he had a much higher level of FELd-1 than our other cats.

We welcome any questions you have about our Allergy Open House practice and procedure.

Warmly,

Kate & Carolyn