On parade at cat show

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33858, 2 June 1975, Page 14

On parade at cat show

(By

FLEUR TOCKER)

A gallery of elegant cats sat in judgment on thousands of humans who paraded past their cages yesterday at the Canterbury All Breeds Cat Club’s thirteenth annual show.

The standard of human was generally not high, although there were some showpieces. Grooming was only fair, and clearly some of the young ones had not been washed for some time.

Tlie majority insisted on pawing at the judges’ enclosures and addressing them in such absurd terms as “Watcha puss'?” The judges were not in a position to answer back, and some odious young children had to be stared into silence.

For the better bred, the whole business was altogether too tiresome, and a catnap was the only honourable way out. Sheer nervousness kept the .less experienced awake, although some old campaigners just lapped it up. The chilly conditions were enough tp make one’s fur stand on end. Show business seems all very well for those with thick coats, or a hotwater bottle to nestle on. Fortunately, such exhibitions only last one day, and then it is back to the fireside, and some warm milk before bed. The group of humans privileged to judge the cats commented on the high standard of the entries —• more than 650 this year, an increase of about 100 on last year. PLEASING RESPONSE The president of the club (Mr P. Gibson) said that it j was pleased with the re- , sponse to the show. One rea- ' son for the increase in entries might be that people were. I now more aware of cats, and 'took more interest in the care of them. : For the Fletcher family, of ' Bisbopdale, the cat shows are lof special interest. Several I years ago they rescued an abandoned white kitten from a riverbed. It was starving and in poor condition, but the family nursed it and it thrived. The children entered i the kitten in a cat show, and

lit won three first prizes, in the domestic section. Yesterday, Frosty Fletcher, a third-generation progeny of. that cat, won three first prizes of the four classes it was

entered in. For the last three years it has also won the best-in-show award in the domestic section. It seems that even cats with dubious parentage can be champions.