Every January, a fairground in my city hosts the Cat Fanciers Food & Water Bowl. When I stumbled across this event a few years ago, I instantly knew it would be a good idea to attend. I love the movie Best In Show and figured this is one cultural event that was not to be missed. I was right.
Here are the top five reasons cat shows are unbelievably awesome:
1. The parking lot. Before you’ve even entered the arena, you get an eye-full. The parking lot is filled with reliable 4-door sedans sporting personalized license plates such as: CATFAN, PURRFCT, DCLAWED, etc. I won’t even get into the bumper stickers.
2. The people. The Bowl is primarily attended by two types of people: middle-aged women and gay men. The women have haircuts two decades out of style and are wearing cotton sweatshirts decorated with puffy paint and sayings like “Happiness is coughing up a furball!” They are genetically incapable of conversing about anything but their cat and carry them either like a purse (hanging over their arm) or like a baby (hanging over their shoulder). The gay men are much better dressed and are constantly posing and scanning the room to size up the competition—they are obviously there to win. They also carry their cats like purses or babies.
3. The staging area. The staging area is where all the cats are kept while waiting to be judged. You walk down rows and rows of them, each lounging in its own decorated cat carrier. The carriers are large and I saw various themes – Gone with the Wind, Elizabethan (complete with the cat wearing an Elizabethan collar), Harley Davidson, French Country…you name it. This is a source of pride for both the animals and their owners, so no expense is spared. To acquaint you with the carrier’s occupant, there are name tags with sayings like “Hi, I’m Charley, I’m friendly, like to eat carrots and have a girlfriend named Starlight.”
4. The judging. The judging area is a miniature version of what you see on dog shows. Cages are arranged in semi-circles around a small dais. The judge removes the cats from their cages and stands them on the dais for evaluation. The evaluation consists of trying to keep the cat still while the judge runs his hands over the cat’s spine and undercarriage, checking alignment, tail length and fur texture. Meanwhile, the owners are perched anxiously on folding chairs five feet away. After all cats have been viewed, the judge paces back and forth, heightening the drama to unbearable levels before finally tacking 1st, 2nd and 3rd place ribbons on the winners’ cages.
5. The agility course. The coup de grâce of the Food & Water Bowl is the agility course. This is a large, fenced corner that contains a series of plastic jumps, tunnels and other obstacles. A line of humans stand outside the fence, cradling their cats and waiting for their turn inside. Prior to entering the course, a wrangler (for lack of a better term) dangles a series of lures in front of each cat’s face to see which one the cat swats at most aggressively. He then places the cat inside the fence and leads him/her through the obstacles with the lure. Meanwhile the owner is clinging to the fence, passionately cheering on the cat. As you can imagine, this is a complete and utter debacle. I have yet to see a cat finish the course without getting distracted and off-roading it.
These are just a few of my favorite parts of a cat show. Needless to say if you ever see an advertisement for one in your area, do yourself a favor and go. It will be worth every penny of the $7 entry fee.
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