Cat Show Glimpse

Last weekend, I went to learn about cat agility. It just happened to be at a cat show, so of course I had to walk around and visit there, too.

I made the mistake of walking in at lunchtime, so almost everyone was busy eating rather than wanting to talk, so I didn’t take a lot of photos. Most of the cats were in their enclosures, waiting for their turns in the ring. Unlike the previous cat show I visited recently, this one wasn’t as dominated by Maine Coons, so there was a bigger variety of cats.

One of the most surprising things that happened was when I paused by a woman who was eating a personal pizza in front of her cats’ enclosure. She had two cats inside her enclosure, and her Bengal kitten was howling for some of her lunch. I didn’t realize Bengals had such a distinct voice. I made a comment about her kitten wanting her lunch, and the woman said, “Oh, she’s just a brat!” Then she unzipped the enclosure, took out the kitten, and handed her to me.

I was totally flabbergasted to be handed someone else’s cat out of the blue like that. I don’t know if she thought I was asking to hold her cat, which I know would be really impolite at a cat show or anywhere else. Maybe she thought she might be able to sell the kitten to me. Either way, I don’t know which of us must have had a more surprised expression on our face, the kitten or me. We stared at each other a minute, then the kitten scrambled up on to my shoulders. I didn’t have the presence of mind to take selfies, but I did get in a very nice visit with the kitten before I gave her back. My cats haven’t forgiven me for bringing Cupcake into the house, so adding another kitten isn’t in the cards right now.

In addition to the usual fancy cats, there were a lot more household cats at this show than the last one I attended. This kitten was a three-month-old bottle baby at his first show. Doesn’t he have wise eyes?

One of my favorite things at the cat shows are the local vendors who bring out their wares. I discovered a wonderful new cat tree builder, Furkid Furniture, at this show. He usually builds more traditional cat trees, but his whimsical ones are really adorable. I think he really missed his calling by mostly sticking to the carpet-covered type of tree when he can build tulips for a cat to lounge in!

Do you think your cat would like to lounge on a novelty cat tree like that one?

Sock Lover

Cupcake: I’ve got you now, socks! And I’m going to bite you. And I’m going to kick you.

Cupcake: Oh, hi. What are you looking at?

Cupcake: I was just taking care of the manpeep’s socks so they are ready for him to wear today.

Cupcake: Do you take care of your human’s laundry so it is ready for them to wear?

Outtake Friday

We have some random photos from recent photo shoots we thought you would enjoy even though they didn’t really fit into the blog posts with the rest of the photos taken at the time.

Ashton and the Cat Window Chair

Ashton’s standoff with Newton at the cat window included a photo of her peeking over the corner of the chair back.

When we moved to this house, we knew the cat window would be a popular hangout. The problem turned out to be that it is right next to the kitchen table and chairs, and when the chairs were pushed in, there was a very narrow space for cats to jump up. Cats can’t jump straight up and then magically change directions to go forward in the air, so they would scramble at the windowsill to make it up there. The solution was simple, pulling the chair nearest the window out at an angle so the cats can use it as a step to get into the window. Ashton is peeking over the back of that chair in the photo.

Pierre At Atention

Pierre looks so interested in something in this photo. This was part of the photos taken when he was hunting the hedgehog toy.

This entire photo shoot took place much earlier than it was published. We took the photos on a Saturday, and the next day was when he got so sick with what we didn’t know at the time was a pancreatitis attack. That scary week when he was so sick, we kept looking at these photos thinking how healthy and playful he was less than a day earlier, and we used them to explain to the vet how suddenly it had come on.

We didn’t publish any of them until he was feeling better because they all felt like they were part of that event. Thankfully, Pierre has been doing really well, and you would never know he’s a senior kitty. He is still crazy about that hedgehog toy, too!

Cupcake Dives In

The story about celebrating National Fried Chicken Day needed to be about Ashton, because she still hopes to open her Chicken Emporium someday. But we have to admit, Cupcake’s photo took the cake. Or is that took the chicken?

It really looks like she’s diving right into that KFC bucket, doesn’t it? She was actually backing out of it when the shutter snapped.

Diving in or climbing back out, she really did get some crumbles left over from Ashton’s part of the photo shoot, and that snack was what she thought was the important part!