by Amanda Stephenson

Created on: January 13, 2009

Long, lean, elegant, sleek and beautiful to behold The list of an Ashera's positive traits rolls on and on. For the privileged few, owning a wild cat is generally not an unthinkable luxury. Lions, tigers, panthers and pumas can often be found on the grounds of the homes of society's more fortunate. The question is not in whether or not one can afford the animal, but whether it is right to do so. A tiger does not want to be fed; It wants to hunt. A lion is not genetically predisposed to sit beside you in your home and take in the evening news- He has other things he would rather watch over.

The Ashera, however, is not a wild cat. They are a domestic species, bred to have all the splendor of a big cat in a housebroken, 30-lb. package that will conveniently refrain from mauling visiting in-laws. It seems the perfect compromise, and people are flocking to drop $22,000 on one of their own. Twenty-two thousand dollars. That's a lot of money. Moreover, that's a lot of money to pay for a cat.

I own cats, myself. I love them dearly, as most pet owners do. I am enthralled, day to day, just by the sight of them; Long, smooth lines, supple muscle and soft fur, alert, intelligent eyes and characters that change like the weather. I frequently wonder if there has ever been any other animal out there so beautiful and fantastic as the compact little ball of wonder that is the domestic cat. They amaze and entrance me, they delight and enthuse me, and neither one of them has a single ounce of pedigree to their name.

Anybody who has ever owned a cat knows that the connotation of "ownership" is misleading. Any domestic cat asserts their authority in no short order. They survey their homes with pretentious airs, hunting and killing feet and houseplants with impunity. Throw rugs and recliners are vanquished in short order, laser pointers are stalked and assaulted, in some cases bookshelves and racks of DVDs fall victim to their impulses. The very notion of a collection of crystal figurines or any other breakable assortment is so far-fetched as to be unrealistic and unthinkable. Any cat, regardless of their size or breeding, has some "wild" in them.

As Da Vinci said, "Every cat is a work of art." As with art, though, the appeal of the feline is different for everybody. While anybody with a paintbrush can hammer out a few well-positioned nudes on a canvas, that doesn't make it "art" in everyone's eye. The beauty that one can find in a Van Gogh or a Monet is not to be found in paying

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