The Chapel Hill Herald, March 2, 2002, page 3
Cat owners try to put on the dog for agency’s annual fund-raiser
The 30 entrants were often indifferent and occasionally hostile, and two tried to take their leave without permission
by Lois Carol Wheatley
PITTSBORO—Cats do not groom for, train for or perform for a cat show. The most agreeable of cats will, at best, tolerate and marginally cooperate for a cat show.
On the long list of things cats couldn’t care less about—and probably pretty high on the list—is the prospect of winning an award of any sort at a cat show.
Cat owners were the real competitors last Saturday at the 13th annual My Friend, My Cat show, a benefit for Chatham Animal Rescue & Education (CARE), held at the Chatham County Council on Aging.
The feline mood at the show ranged from casual indifference to open hostility, as cat owners hauled in about 30 of the little darlings, most of them complacent and willing to bear with stoic endurance the stroking and adulation that seemed to be their plight as pretty kitties. But a couple of renegades showed up who wanted no part of the lavish attention, the fabulous prizes, the fame or the glory.
Fluffy, for example, flew out of his cat carrier and hit the judge’s table running. Veterinarian judges caught and held him while peeking in his ears, prying open his mouth to look at his teeth and going over very inch of his sleek coat. His tail jerked and twitched, and his hostile green eyes shifted from a confrontation glare at the audience to a relentless scan of the ceiling for exit signs.
Later, an all-points bulletin had to be issued for Fluffy who, while believed to be somewhere at large in the building, also could have slipped out a door.
Harry was even worse. The swipe of a claw and the hiss of a wild animal persuaded the judges not to reach in his carrier to pull him out. The carrier was re-closed and returned to its owners straightaway—with a bared fang dangling out from a zipper. Later, Harry somehow managed to wedge himself under a piano in a corner of the room and yowl like a banshee until he was permanently removed from the premises.
Fluffy and Harry certainly wouldn’t have been contenders if there had been a Miss Congeniality prize, and the level of feline hysteria in the room dropped perceptibly when Harry went home, when Fluffy was apprehended and brought to justice, and when word got around that no one so far had received any sort of shot.
Barnum & Bailey furnished the model for the organizational structure of the show. Three rings were set up so that simultaneous judging took place; for example, Best Senior in ring one, Best Calico in ring two, and Best White in ring three. This posed a bit of a logistics problem for someone who brought in a senior calico, and it also went a long way toward maintaining the overall atmosphere of general pandemonium.
Cats entering the Longest Tail contest either curled up their tails or sat on them. Despite his best efforts to guard it, Shadow had the longest tail at 12.4 inches. Also under protest, Charlie took the award for Longest Whiskers, at 10 inches.
All rings came together for the two final CATegories: Best Rescue and Best in Show. Best Rescue turned into a storytelling competition, taken over by the human competitors, and Best in Show pitted the blue-ribbon winners from all the separate categories against each other.
The rescue stories were all heart-rending, but the winner had an edge because his interests were represented by a small curly-haired girl who explained, with a lisp, that she’d asked Santa for a kitten for Christmas and Santa apparently delivered a whole litter. “My mom was driving up the road to go to a meeting and there were these kittens,” said Cheyenne, the curly-haired girl. “When we found them, they were really tiny, and we had to use a bottle to feed them. Figaro was the biggest.”
Going head to head for Best in Show were Best Senior (Abbey), Best Red Tabby (Tabatha), Best Handicapped (Benny), Best Long Hair (Elvis), Best Calico (Patches), Best Grey Tabby (tie between Austin and Bill), Longest Whiskers (Charlie), Most Unusual (Kanzi), Best White (Cocoanut), Best Black (Shadow), Longest Tail (Shadow), Best Parti Color (Mardi Gras) and Best Rescue (Figaro).
Representatives from the Chatham County Animal Shelter got a little misty-eyed when Best in Show was announced. They’d first met Kanzi (whose name in Swahili means “little treasure”) behind bars, apprehended and incarcerated as a vagrant off the streets. The judges selected Kanzi “because of his beautiful eyes and wonderful coloring.” Kanzi has the markings of a tabby, but didn’t fit into any of the show’s tabby competitions. His tabby strips are in varying shades from light cream to medium mocha, and his eyes are sky blue.
Melissa Semenov, CARE president, said attendance at the show was disappointing this year. “We normally have 60 to 70 entries,” she said. The show is the chief annual fund-raiser for CARE, a private nonprofit agency that runs a foster program consisting of a network of about 15 private homes that take in refugees from the animal shelter. “We work very closely with the shelter,” Semenov said. “We have people staffing the shelter so it’s open Saturdays for adoptions.”
Last year, CARE facilitated 267 adoptions, both cats and dogs, and once a month, CARE volunteers take adoption hopefuls to PetSmart in Cary, where they get free display space on the third Saturday of each month. CARE also maintains a web site ("http://www.chathamanimalrescue.org"), where animals up for adoption can be seen.
For CARE’s annual cat show, local veterinarians donate gift certificates for spaying, neutering, deworming and shots to be used as prizes. Local merchants donate cat statues, cat baskets and cat cards. Volunteer judges were Ann Tysor of Chatham Veterinary Services, veterinarian Lisa Duff, and Randie Russell, director of the Chatham County Animal Shelter.
