We move like cagey tigers…

Doc and I went to a cat show on Saturday. Our friends Michael and Jill have a Norwegian Forest Cat that they have begun entering in cat shows.

I had a preconceived notion of what cat shows were like, and I was none too surprised to learn that it was being held at a convention hall tacked on to a Holiday Inn next to a rodeo arena in Mesquite. I imagined that it would be full of yowling, unhappy cats and their stage-mom-crazy owners who would give off a notable “white trash” vibe. Oh, and that the place would smell like a giant litterbox.

I was right on the latter two counts, but surprisingly the unhappy meows were few and far between. Most of the cats had a glazed look in their eyes indicating that they’d long ago given up trying to fight this unnatural lifestyle of baths, back-combing for maximum fluff, eye makeup (I’m totally serious), and manhandling by strangers poking their fingers in their mouths and looking up their back ends.

Michael and Jill were a notable exception to this, of course, and their cat (a kitten, actually, at 7 months) was very sweet and a bit frightened at times. When it was Ghali’s turn in the show cage, he was alert and attentive and talkative. I think he won at least one ribbon.

We got an information sheet with our entrance fee, which explained in the Junior Showmanship section that “young people are important to the sport of pedigreed cats.” Wait, now: pedigreed cats are a sport? That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? I don’t remember having a Pedigreed Cats team at my high school or anything like that. Also, I find the names the people give their fancy purebred cats rather ridiculous. Coonunnski Teton Cody of Star Coons, Nascat Waving the Checkers!, Terrificats La Joya Negra DM (makes it sound like the cat has a doctoral degree), Idlemaine Dream Maker. I assume that these cats also have “familiar” names like Misty or Neko or Muffin and that these aristocratic names are for show purposes.

Doc thought that my preconceived notion was utterly preconceived, but afterwards he agreed with me.

We purchased an awesome cat toy at one of the merchandise booths: a little tiny hedgehog with plasticky-feeling fur on the end of a wire attached to a pole. Loki absolutely adores the hedgehog, and is performing acrobatics like I’ve never seen before.