CFA Cat Show

On May 3rd, I drove two hours to a cat show. I'd never been to a cat show before. This was the Cat Fancier's Association (CFA) version. TICA is the other major cat show association.

I'd decided I really didn't like the TICA feral look in the Maine Coons and had chosen a different breeder, who invited me to come to the cat show to both meet her and also, just because it's a cat show. (You don't need an invitation. You can go to a cat show, just walk in the door and pay your entry fee. If you're just coming to look, it's extremely reasonable. This one was just $6!)

The cat show was in a large exposition type building. The kind where it's basically just a huge enclosed space and people can arrange stuff in it for whatever they're doing. This one had tables set longways across the space. The tables are the tables you are most familiar with for mass events: the rectangular white ones that the legs fold in from each end. Along the right side (as I walked in) were the judge's "booths". Each booth had four tables lining the back and each side, and then the front had a table in it, so the judge had a little corridor to walk.

Right before the cats were going to be judged, they'd call over the intercom for "Maine Coon Kitten 45" and if that was your cat, you would hastily extract your cat from his/her waiting tent that you'd brought and bring the cat to the judging table.

The temporary cages with Maine Coons waiting
their turns. You can see the clips!

The cats were put in temporary cages (seriously temporary--they were held together by those black metal clips you use for when a paperclip isn't sufficient) and the judge would take each cat out and put her/him on the judging table, which had a stand with a sisal scratching post on one side.

Looking at a sleepy red tabby Maine Coon
This cat was so mellow he fell asleep in his
 temporary cage waiting for his turn to be judged.

Some of the judges were women and some were men; the one I watched (with the Maine Coons) was a guy. He'd take one cat out, put him/her on the stand, and then use a feather toy to coax the cat up onto the post. That way he could see the cat's conformation without having to manhandle her/him. Of course he's also supposed to look at the way the head is shaped and all that, so there was a bit of manhandling.

One person showing their cat told me, indicating her cat "this is a five hour grooming job." The lady I came to meet had brought three cats ... does that mean she spent fifteen hours grooming? Of course, we're not talking just combing them out; we're talking bath, blowdry (which for the Maine Coons probably takes the most time!) and then combing. With lots of different combs and stuff. If you've been to a hair stylist, you know the difference between the way you usually put your hair up and the way they do it. (Unless you're one of these amazing people who actually spends an hour with their hair and makeup each day--then I don't suppose there's much difference).

So, no, you aren't really allowed to touch the cats. But if you are willing to use their alcohol wipes to clean your hands (so you don't spread disease potentially between cats), some of them will let you scratch ears (where it's not so hard to "repair" the rumple damage you do the fur!) and some of them prefer you pet the back end (where you're not putting your hands and possible viruses and bacteria near the cat's mouth/nose area) and some of them not at all.

You get better luck the later in the day it gets, because although I didn't quite follow what was happening with the ribbon distribution and judging, I think that what happens throughout the day are elimination rounds, and if your cat makes it to a judging session late in the day, it's one of the top cats. Which means there are going to be cats later in the day who are done for the day, and then their people don't mind so much about you messing up the grooming job. They still mind about the bacteria transmission, but like I said, some of them bring wipes or the squeeze bottles of waterless cleaning stuff that you can use first and then they'll let you pet.

Dylan (Ragdoll) and Steve

I met a Ragdoll from Sal-Shire Ragdolls whose name was Dylan. This is Steve (Sal's husband) holding Dylan. Dylan was a companion cat for the younger cat they'd brought to be actually in the show, so Dylan wasn't in any danger of being too mussed up for the show since he wasn't in it.

I had lots of interesting conversations with perfect strangers. Some of them, when I told them I was probably getting Maine Coons, wanted to persuade me that their particular breed was better. (There weren't many of these, actually, simply because when someone is looking for a Maine Coon, someone with say, a Siamese knows you're not headed for their end of cat-dom.) But Ragdolls have similar temperments to Maine Coons. I said that I wasn't sure about the hair-care. One of the things I like about Maine Coons is that despite being long-haired, they don't require a lot of combing (generally once a week will do it).

Sal promptly insisted that Ragdolls weren't all that hard to care for either, and that their coat fur was different "almost more like a rabbit's; here, feel" and offered me the back of her show-cat (not Dylan) to pet. I wasn't sure about this (already knowing the grooming requirements for show cats, even if I hadn't yet heard the 5 hour figure) but she said it was fine, so I petted. And really, it was very silky without feeling sleek. A very different texture. I don't know about the rabbit comment. I've only once petted a rabbit.

I also met a woman whose breed of choice were Birmans, and they nearly managed to seduce me away from Maine Coons. Mostly they didn't because, although I didn't ask price, I know Birmans are much rarer than Maine Coons and she was probably asking more than I could afford, especially for two!

The lady I came to meet was Ginger McFadden from Br'er Coon (yes, like Br'er Rabbit). I didn't think to take a picture of her (have I mentioned I'd be a terrible reporter?) but I did take a picture of one of her three cats she brought.

A Br'er Coon kitten

Also, I discovered a very interesting thing about cat shows. Most of the cats there are under a year old, and all of them except the "household pet" category were un-altered. Because they are so young, they view the entire experience as something new and cool and interesting, instead of an older cat's viewpoint of "new," which is more like mine (envision crossed fingers and me hissing, as if to repel a vampire). And because they are so young, even if they are in heat (which one of the Br'er Coon kittens was), there's not a lot of problematic behavior with them.

Although it does explain why Mrs. McFadden only brought girls ... 

Next to the Br'er Coons were the iCoons from Florida. They are friends, and Mrs. McFadden was the one that started the iCoons' lady upon the Maine Coon path. The iCoons cattery is apparently located on a farm like place where they have cows and horses and dogs and fish and who knows what else. She had brought her oldest daughter (college age) who was very nice to talk to and patiently posed with one of their cats for a a photo.

iCoons

Next to them was a lady who wasn't their friend, and of whom I disapproved. She specializes in white Maine Coons. But because the CFA breed description doesn't specifically say the cats have to be able to hear, she deliberately breeds for deaf cats so they do better in the show ring (the noise of the crowded show hall doesn't bother them). Well, they are certainly pretty, but come on. You're supposed to breed for temperament, so the cat has the mental and emotional ability to handle the noise, not breed for a deformity that makes the cat not a particularly good pet or (heaven forbid a show cat have to fend for itself) hunter. Maine Coons are supposed to be "natural" cats. It's one of the reasons I like them, compared to the Persian with the unattractive squashed face or the Siamese with the elongated triangle head.

White, pretty, but deaf, Maine Coon

Although a cat show might be boring if you're just there to watch the judging (and it was, since I had no idea what was going on) the rest of it is interesting. Most of the time the cats' people aren't involved in the show rings, so you can talk to them. And there are vendors around the edges who have cat stuff. 

Mrs. McFadden showed me a cat toy she got in Vienna that is a retractable feather wand. What a brilliant idea, I thought; instead of having to securely put the toy away after playtime so your cat can't entangle themselves in the string, it retracts into the handle. Also makes it take up less storage space. I googled retractable cat wand toy when I got home and found that amazon does indeed have something similar. (I have faith in the 'net's ability to produce, eventually, anything.)

There was also a lady who makes drawings of cats that are not only attractive, but funny. She has an eye for cat behavior. She sells cards, but unfortunately I didn't have her money of choice. I just had a credit card and enough cash to get me in the door of the cat show. Or I would have bought a box and my friends and family would be getting them for birthdays. Of course, she has a website. And I will probably get some, eventually.

Most everyone was very nice to me, but a woman who had an Ocicat was very snobby and quite nasty, actually. Apparently there aren't many Ocicats ("There are only 20 of us!") and breeding them is like, I don't know, being exclusive and thus everyone who shows the slightest ignorance must be actively shunned. Also she didn't really understand genetics. (You can have a mixed breed cat who shows, say, Ocicat traits, like various personality traits or body structure or coat pattern, without ever having had a pure-blood Ocicat in their bloodline. Because the genes for an Ocicat had to come from somewhere! It's just chance that a mixed breed cat may have combined a few genes in the same pattern, enough to give them the characteristic coat pattern maybe, without the full Ocicat genetics in place.) 

At the very end, right before I left, it  happened again. I was escorted by the Birman lady over to a woman in the household pets show area (very small number here) who had a Maine Coon from a breeder in my state (which I'd actually already eliminated). Her Maine Coon was a, wait for it, red classic tabby. Just like Pippin. 

Only huge. He was three, and probably one-third again Pippin's size. The lady who owned him (both the women were very nice to me) was demonstrating how amiable and nice and lovely her cat was, by illustrating he didn't mind her turning him over, cuddling him against her, etc. He, the cat, truly didn't mind. He obviously was quite fond of his lady.

The fact that he was bigger than Pippin ever was helped my reaction be less acute than when I went to Megacoons and played with a red classic tabby kitten just like Pippin had been when he was a kitten. But I was still overcome and had to leave rather abruptly.

I'm getting tired of these kitty expeditions ending with something abruptly reminding me of how much I miss Pippin. Especially when I still have to hold it together long enough to drive home. At least this time it was only two hours on the road.  

On the way home, I saw a wreck in the oncoming lanes which had the entire interstate shut down on that side. I was going fast(er than the speed limit but we're not going to mention that now are we) so I didn't see much, only an 18 wheeler with the trailer ripped open, like the entire side and top were missing, and the contents piled up in a cascade coming out of the side, with steam or smoke rising from it. The cargo was not distinguishable as anything. I think it was steam, and the cargo had been on fire, and just got put out not long before I came by, given the presence of emergency vehicles (including a fire truck) at the scene.

My father before he retired drove 18 wheelers for over 50 years, so I asked him how in the world a car and a truck could get together to cause that. Now I'd seen an unmarked car with the truck, the police cars, and the firetruck, but the car itself didn't look damaged, so it could have been simply an unmarked police car, or even the unfortunate person in the car closest to the accident. Daddy said it could have been the truck all by itself. You've seen the ripped up piece of rubber from a truck tire lying along the side of the road (if you're lucky) or across the road (if you aren't.). He said when those initially peel off, they are hot enough that they could ignite cargo if it got thrown up against and through the side of the truck instead of out along the road.

There weren't any ambulances at the scene, so I don't think anybody was hurt (based on my guess that if the firetruck had time to get there and put out the fire, the ambulance had time to get there too if it was needed). But I sure felt sorry for the miles of cars at a standstill on the other side. And very glad I was headed this  way, not that way!

So that was the cat show experience. I'm glad I went. It was very interesting. I liked seeing all those different breeds "in person", so to speak. But it was very tiring for me.

I looked later at the list of cat shows for the CFA. This was the closest, geographically, they ever got to me. There's even cat shows in St Petersburg, Russia, and in China, and New Zealand (I forget who told me they'd gotten a cat from a breeder in New Zealand in order to get a cat without any of the bloodlines here in the States. Now that's dedication to out-crossing the bloodlines!). And in all kinds of other places: Malaysia, Japan, Switzerland. I think the closest one again is in Florida. I'm very glad I went to this one, even though it was extremely last minute (I got invited Thursday morning; went that same Saturday!) And I just don't do last minute very well!