My shihtzu two decades was sold as "pet quality" meaning he was not intended to be a show dog (or anything else really except your friendly mop) and his breeder indicated those puppies were lower cost. We have family friends who have 2 "working quality" and adopted a "pet quality" of their labradors and those working quality were pricey where obviously the pet quality was not and the pet quality lives a completely different life. However, I haven't heard the term as much outside of working breeds lately where I feel like it used to be a bigger concept? My purebred wolfhound doesn't meet the breed standard - which is fine because we don't intend to breed him and there aren't exactly an immense amount of wolves to hunt in suburbia - but he was not discounted in any way shape or form. TBF I guess they didn't know when he was a puppy he was going to be this way. I imagine it probably makes it harder to get discounted purebred kittens the same way, lower supply and you don't exactly know what quality they will be. I always say there is never any harm in asking - if you can be graceful about hearing "no" of course - but agree a more basic ask might have made them more appealing.