Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-27904998-20160901163247

I exhibited in my (and my cat's) first cat show last weekend. I have a silver tipped British Shorthair. She's really still a kitten at 10 months old, but they treat cats as adults after 8 months.

It was really busy and loud because it was part of our National Exhibition, so people were there for other things, not just to see a cat show. Most didn't even know there was a cat show on.

My cat, Ada (pronounced Aida), did pretty well actually. The breed standard is established by the original British Shorthair cats, which are Blue coloured. It's really a battleship grey. 😆 They are very muscular with a cobby body. When they cross-bred Blues with other breeds to get the other colours many decades ago, the cats lost some of the muscle and had longer legs. In Europe and the United States, they actually separate the other colours into their own class. We don't have enough cats in Canada to do that, so the Silvers compete against the Blues.

Ada was voted second best of breed by two judges. There were eight judges in total, so she didn't win anything. But being voted second means she beat out one or two other Blues! And one of them was male. It's rare that females win, even Blue females, because they don't have the muscle mass. It would be like grouping men and women together in a body building contest. LOL I think the judges in this case were looking at other features. Ada has a very pretty face and nice eyes.

Unfortunately all the people and the other cats meant that Ada was getting very stressed. She started hissing at the judges. At the end of the second day, she even took a swipe at one of them. Fortunately they took in all in stride and that particular judge still gave her second place. 😄 Part of the problem is that they can't put two males side-by-side in the cages, so they put poor Ada in the middle... and she fought with both males. The judge chastised the males for fighting with the girl. ROFL

So overall it was a very interesting experience and more fun than I expected. I will probably show Ada again and will definitely show the male cat when I get one. I am looking at breeding Brits and am trying to get a male kitten. 