Cat fanciers crowd mall for show

Press, 28 April 1980, Page 6

Cat fanciers crowd mall for show

By GENEVIEVE FORDE Cat fanciers galore crowded the Riccarton Mall yesterday to see 670 of New Zealand’s best in the National Cat Show.

With 4000 people and their children and about 670

caged cats (an average entry) the air was getting heavy by the time the prizegiving came round at 4 p.m. Most of the cats, if you could get close enough to see them in the press, looked half asleep from lack of oxygen, or boredom, silently fitting at the back of their cages away from the protruding fingers in search of the feel of a fluffy cream Persian long-hair or a slinky grey Manx or a smooth Sealpoint Siamese. If I’d been a cat cooped up there all day I probably would have bitten off all the fingers coming my way but even the fairly fierce-looking Seal Tortie Burmese called Sazanami Tortie Zena with the notice above its cage, “Do not touch this cat,” didn’t look as if it had ttie energy to spit at any intruding fingers, let alone take a piece out of them. Earlier in the day, during the judging, one long-haired cat had ripped a judge’s shirt. Whether this affected its chances, no-one was pre-

pared to say. The most exotic cat present was Excelda Aye

|Tisme, an imported Scottish ■Fold, the first of its kind to ■be shown in the South Island; a thick-set soft grey : short-haired cat with cauliflower ears — the crinkled (ears being the unusual feature. i Other unusual breeds represented were Devon and iCornich Rex with their big [ears like rabbits, and the| iKorats and Abyssinians. i The cats were worth thou-, sands of dollars, according ! to Mr Peter Gibson, administration officer for the show and an enthusiastic cat owner. He said good breeding females were worth $2OO and stud cats fetched $300; up to $lOOO being paid to import some cats. The Scottish Fold had changed hands yesterday for an "undisclosed sum,” he said. The last time the national annual show was held in Christchurch was in 1976. This one was held under the auspices of the New Zealand Cat Fanciers’ Association. Two local clubs, the Canterbury All Breeds Association and the Canterbury Short Hair Cat Breeders’ Association. helped with the organisation. “We’ve been here since 6 o’clock this morning,” said [two of the workers, Mes-

Idames Jean Taylor and Fran [Higgins, both Siamese breeders.

Siamese cats were not neurotic, just intelligent, said Mrs Higgins. “You can teach them to fetch, open doors and windows, and use a human toilet. They’re a cross between a cat and a dog. It’s because they’re more intellectual that they bear a grudge if they have an owner who is nasty to them, but they’re not nasty themselves at all.”

She pointed out that although short-haired cats were the largest section in the show, it was a long-hair which had taken to a judge.

The 16 sections under which the show was judged were divided into cats and kittens and spayed (neutered) or non-spayed. Among the awards to come to Canterbury' were the best Siamese-Oriental neuter-spay kitten,. Braemar Flambeau Mau, owned by A. K. and J. M. Dawson, of Christchurch; the best short-hair cat in show (not including Siamese), Gr. Ch. Namparra Cream Caissa (Imp. Eng), owned by D. A. and A. Frost, and the best shorthair kitten in show, (not including Siamese), Chindah Cream Sophia, owned by Mrs A. M. Rowlands and Mr Rowlands of Kaiapoi. The best long-hair cat in the show was Kimberley Dawn Creation, owned by Mrs W. J. Okey, of Palmerston North.