Sunday, 04.22.2012 - 5:43 pm.
I never thought I'd be attending and participanting in a Cat Show, let alone holding a winning cat in front of the public and cameras. Let's take a moment to LOL. I'm both indifferent and very proud.
See, Andrew's long time friend Karin, also our cats' vet, organized the first Cat Show here in the south. We've been helping her since january or february with stuff like designing the poster (Andrew is a pro, I tell you, he has an eye for design), the sign-up form and creating the event on Facebook. And of course, we'd participate with Marla and Nico, to support her event even more.
She kept herself together throughout the whole thing, although at times she'd have nervous breakdowns. I didn't see her much yesterday at the show, but I think she pulled it off. She suffers from anxiety and depression, exacerbated by working in a profession where she gets to face and fight the worst of the animal world: the owners (or as they should be called, "guardians", since pets and animals are not things to own, but that's a whole different topic). The worst part of dealing with animal suffering and healing is enduring the ignorant or just plain stupid people around it, she's told me quite a few horror stories.
Marla took it all very well, we even dressed her like Business Cat and was quite the sensation (among the few people who were aware of the meme). She was sweet and friendly to anyone that approached the big cage she shared with Nico. She was possibly the only cat to be like that. The rest were like Nico, looking indifferent, sad, bored or simply miserable.
With all reason! As the day went by, I started to get increasingly annoyed and upset. I imagined myself living in a world where other beings were so much bigger than me and took me in their hands at will to carry me and immobilize me, kept me caged and approached my cage to talk gibberish and poke me constantly. I wanted to get my cats out of that.
Especially when they took Nico to teach vet students how to hold different breeds of cats. Marla is usually pretty friendly but when she's in a situation in which she's lost control of her body (e.g. at the vet) she hisses and goes crazy. Nico, on the other hand, goes limp and gets all submissive. So he spent like 20 minutes being held by this people, and other people that wanted to learn how to hold different types of cats. I couldn't bear to watch, because I knew it was for teaching purposes and they weren't hurting him at all, but I kept putting myself in his place, in a scary, strange, crowded place, with loud noises and hands all over my body holding it in different poses.
Anyway, that's why he won. He was like Mister Congeniality because to a human's eye he was very helpful and nice and acted the part of many cats, him, a humble red tabby. On the other hand, we retired Marla from the competition about two minutes before the steward came to get her. She had been Miss Congeniality herself all day, but as soon as an old lady came to her cage, she started to hiss. Some 20 minutes later, this lady's daughter's five cats were placed next to us and Marla kept hissing at them.
The old lady sat between her cage and ours, and started doing annoying things, like talking to our cats like they were babies, telling people that came by that Nico's name was Tiger as if the cat was hers, and telling Andrew and I that Nico wanted water and was thirsty (Andrew asked "why do you say?". She replied: "Because it looks as if he feels bad" [of course he does, he is stressed!]. Andrew said: "And have you given your cats water?", and she said "...no". And stopped talking).
She also tried to stick a piece of paper into the cage to poke Nico, as trying to cheer him up. I snapped and told her to please not do that, it was against the rules (it was, really; and it's common sense. Also a child was banging on the cage later on until I stopped him). She tried to establish a conversation with Andrew and me a few times but we didn't follow. We were a bit rude and I wondered if I was being ageist, we knew the lady didn't have any ill intentions, but objectively, she was annoying and stressing our cats and us even more. Deep down I felt sorry for her, though, because it was her daughter who brought all her cats and she left her alone the whole time to look after them. At some point she sighed and said out loud that she was bored.
Not long after the cats and the old lady got there, Marla started hissing to everyone that came by and started attacking poor Nico, who wasn't in the state to defend himself at all. We inmediately put her away in her individual cage, she even hissed and tried to scratch Andrew; she never hurts us. We put her facing a wall to isolate her somehow from all the madness. Right on time to tell the steward that she was too upset to participate.
Nico was taken away about ten participants later, I didn't even approach the judges' table to see the evaluation. Some friends from my master's classes came by to support and it was like a little get together. We finally heard the verdict, after an excruciatingly long time (for the cats and me, anyway). Nico was mentioned and the judges said they couldn't overlook how nice and friendly and helpful he'd been so they gave him an award. We went up there twice, once for the recognition, in which I couldn't get him out of his individual cage; and twice for the final showdown in which another cat won. That's when I held him and pictures were taken. And we got a gift bag with a cat's pillow and a badge and some kind of big cristal diamond with a commemorative pin. And a bucket of fine food for each cat.
When I was holding Nico in front of everybody, I was very proud and couldn't believe it and felt I was proven wrong. Andrew and I discussed a lot whether to take him or just take Marla, since she seemed more appealing for a show, in terms of personality and appearance. Turns out there were like three black cats and not one red tabby aside from Nico at the show, when we'd expected the opposite.
I was proud of this little cat. We picked him up just ten months ago, when he was three months old, abandoned, underfed and alone in the country, full of worms and spending his life under the chilling autumn. We adopted him just in time to save him from winter and he was a little savage. Over time he's become the most loving thing; he has his wild moments but he also nests with us whenever he can and rubs his face against mine when I'm in bed and purrs loudly over the smallest stroke. It's like a Disney story, he was an abandoned baby and now he's a champ.
I really wished he could understand what was going on. I was proud of him and people were clapping and I was happy about winning something, anything (we didn't even consider that a possibility when we signed up). But the stress he was put through is not worth it. When Andrew put Marla away in her cage he said "never again" and I sighed with relief at the thought. It's just a human recognition and humans tend to overblow silly things. They said he was friendly and docile, but he was only very stressed.
All things considered, Andrew and I had a lot of fun, the show went pretty well, there were many cats, and people were pleased and enjoyed themselves. There are plenty of Dog Shows and it was the first Cat Show in the region. A lot of people turned up and it was nice because your cat didn't need to be pure breed to participate, it was open to anyone as long as the cat was in good health and nice enough to be handled for a minute or so. I also attended some of the talks about cats that were scheduled before the show and I learned a thing or two about breeds.
I understand the human point of view. It's a get together of people who share the knowledge and the love and admiration for these beautiful animals. Our vet friend is in love with Ragdolls and just a few weeks ago her gorgeous cat gave birth to a couple of adorable little cotton balls; she is just starting her breeding business. But she's also into any type of cats and we share many views on animal rights, like advocating for spaying and neutering (usually people reject that because they equate identity to genitals, and breeding to self-actualization).
I was relieved to see that, as soon as we got home, the cats inmediately got back to their usual selves and showed no sign of stress. They didn't understand any of what had happened but in retribution, we fed them tuna. Now that's something they really care about.
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