Our cat show days are over

Okay, it's only taken three cat shows to convince me that cat shows aren't really Lily's thing. I had held out hope that her behavior would improve and the judges would see what a sweet, adorable kitty she really is.

At the cat show yesterday, Lily instead went from bad to worse (if that is even possible), morphing into a vicious (and pretty much dangerous) ball of claws and teeth.

And I, of course, felt terribly guilty about putting her through the stress. So guilty that I bought her a lovely new cat basket. :-)



(Click on the collage to bigify. Note the expression of the kitty next to Lily in the lower right-hand corner photo!)

This was a national cat show, with 160+ cats from all over the Midwest and as far away as Florida. Nearly all of the participants were cat breeders, and there were some absolutely beautiful cats there, many of which I'd only seen in magazines. I quickly figured out that the breeders were also the ones showing the 35+ household pets, which are their cats that don't meet breed standards. So poor Lily was at a real disadvantage, since all of the cats (and their owners) were much more experienced than us.

All kitties were evaluated by four judges in four different rings, meaning Lily had to be taken out of her Double-Wide (properly referred to as a benching cage) and put into the judging ring cage four times. The first judge (see the middle picture on the left) was the only one who could handle her. She lunged dangerously at all the other judges. She even lunged at me, to the horror of everyone watching. I've never seen anything quite like it, and I felt badly that Lily was so upset.

A nice exhibitor from Minnesota told me that it was probably the high ceilings and the bright mercury lights causing Lily's stress. That was nice to hear, but I knew better. :-)

Household cats are separated into short-hair and long-hair, then again by spay/neuter and by coat color/markings. I learned that Lily is actually a "blue McTabby" -- a tabby with mackerel markings (vertical lines that extend around her body like ribs) as opposed to classic tabby markings (which look like a bullseye on the kitty's side). Since she was the only blue female spay McTabby, she was the only one in her class and got two blue ribbons. She also got two red-white-and-blue ribbons, which I assume mean the same thing.

Lily's behavior was so bad that we took the ribbon and ran from the ring each time. She actually had a third blue ribbon for a brief moment, until the ring clerk came to her Double-Wide and took it away, replacing it with a red-white-and-blue ribbon. "We're almost out of the blue ribbons," he said nicely. Right.

So what did I learn?

* No more cat shows for Lily. Mommy gets it now. :-)

* I MIGHT do another cat show with a future kitty, but we must start when the kitty is six months old. Starting early seems to be the key.

* We were WAY out of our league in this show, but that was okay. I learned a few things and got to see some amazing kitties, some with four-inch fur and some with no fur at all.

* Cat people are generally very nice.

* Crazy cat ladies really do exist. I met a few of them yesterday. :-)

* There are some beautiful and exotic cats in the world, but none could be more loved than our Lily and Tinsel.