Do lifestyle pets actually work?

Question

My mom, dad and I have slight allergies to cats (except my dad's is pretty strong) but I love animals and find it quite hard to live with only fish (which I love but I've always wanted a dog or cat). I've done my research on them and know how to care for them. I've babysat my grandma's cat for a month with no problems and would love to have a cat of my own. I found a website (http://www.allerca.com/index.html) that sells the worlds first truly hypoallergenic cat. They were specially bred not to have allergens in their saliva, skin or fur. They were bred from regular cats and seem to work fine. Their website says they have had no cases of someone being allergic to one of their animals. I've seen them featured in magazines with all good ratings. Does anyone have any experience with these pets and does anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

My advice would be to find a local breeder and go visit the cats. If you and your parents are fine being around the cat for a few hours, then you have your answer. Otherwise, do what I did, get old enough to move out, find a place and get a cat. Worked for me. Of course, the funny thing is that my mom has always been severely allergic to cats, but my Bombay and Persian are perfectly fine! Go figure...

Answer 2

Hi there... Simon Brodie who is the creator of Allerca (hypo-allergenic cats) and Ashera ($20,000 hybrid cat) is a known con artist with a long history of criminal acts defrauding people of their money.  Their claim has not be valid as such so there has many suits against Allerca and Mr. Brodie for misleading the public.  

Here's the following articles about this man's shady business practices:

http://www.messybeast.com/asheras.htm

HE MURKY BACKGROUND OF THE ASHERA AND ALLERCA

The "Ashera" Serval hybrid recently appeared in the media as an exotic pet with a premium price tag. The Ashera is a marketing, rather than breeding, venture and its creator is a convicted fraudster with a history of leaving other people out of pocket. Both the Ashera and his previous invention, the hypoallergenic ALLERCA cat, fit into his pattern of persuading people to part with large amounts of money up-front for franchises and hyped products that appear too good to be true. His several pet-related schemes, though hyped in his companies' press releases, have attracted adverse media and legal attention.

CAT BREEDER OR CON ARTIST?

Simon Brodie, the Ashera's creator is also creator of Allerca hypoallergenic cats so this article references both "breeds" (or rather both "products" since they are commodities produced by companies). He was convicted and jailed in the UK for false accounting relating to one of his franchise schemes. Court records in the US show a string of financial offences and unpaid debts. He has left behind thousands of dollars in debts and defaulted loans, court judgments, liens, evictions and unpaid employees.

There is also the issue of Brodie's appropriation of other people's ideas and material. In 2001, Brodie was a potential investor in Transgenic Pets LLC who aimed to remove the allergen-producing Fel d1 gene from cats. Brodie dropped out and the founder of Transgenic Pets LLC later sued him alleging Brodie had kept the company's confidential material. Brodie later produced hypoallergenic cats. More recently he failed to obtain Savannah (serval hybrid) breeding stock by deception. He later launched a product that copies the Savannah, using photos of servals without permission of the copyright owner.

The claims of genetic techniques surrounding both the Allerca and Ashera cats have not been peer reviewed or independently verified. The secrecy and refusal to submit data for peer review (citing proprietary information) makes it likely the claims would not stand up to independent scientific scrutiny. Without such verification, they are claims on a par with the pseudo-science of beauty product adverts.

WOULD YOU GIVE THIS MAN YOUR MONEY?

Brodie's vanished companies include ones to create the world's most powerful computer processor and one to create a national Wi-Fi network. Other Brodie-owned or affiliated companies followed, including Integra Associates, Cerentis Broadcasting Co., Samba Wireless, Geneticas Life Sciences, ForeverPet, Genetiate, GeneSentinel, Cyntegra and Allerca.

HIS VENTURES HAVE LEFT BEHIND DEBTS, COURT JUDGMENTS, LIENS, AND UNPAID EMPLOYEES, ACCORDING TO COURT RECORDS AND STATEMENTS FROM FORMER ASSOCIATES AND VICTIMS WHILE BRODIE ENJOYS THE HIGH LIFE   (such a Lambourghini funded by Cloudhoppers). He claims to have created and sold several successful private companies and start-ups and blamed the failures on lack of investor funding and on the activities of rival companies.

Please consider visiting the website for complete details.

Answer 3

Interesting. My mother-in-law has two "hypoallergenic" dogs (bichon frisse), but I still sneeze and cough when I'm around them.

While a hypoallergenic cat sounds amazing (and probably wouldn't shed), there are some "unknowns". Any "new" breed of animal is just that-- new. No one knows how long they'll live or if there is some genetic disease they're more prone to get. So it's really a whole lot of money for some trial and error. And I personally find it inhumane that people have cross bred wild cats (I think they said they used tigers) with some funky hypoallergenic cat to create the world's first hypoallergenic, wild cat. Any breed that is cross-bred with wild has a good chance of having a lot of the wild cat's personality traits. They're usually more aggressive, more vocal, harder to train, larger, they bite more, and they're more stubborn. Many of them end up biting someone and being put to sleep at the pound. And how many of the kittens born during this "experiment" were put to sleep b/c they were deformed or something b/c they didn't have the science perfected yet?

Case and point: I wouldn't spend that much money for a cat in the first place, especially when it's one that relatively little is known about.