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By Ann K. Williams
Staff Writer
August 29 -- A strange hush
pervaded the Civic Auditorium this
weekend, as a crowd of hundreds kept
their voices lowered as they wandered
the aisles in the darkened, cavernous
hall.
Polite applause and cries of delight
broke the spell from time to time,
as did an occasional Siamese wail
and the broadcast warning “Cat
out!” that sent onlookers hurrying
to close the doors. “Cat found!”
was greeted by a massive sigh and
subdued laughter.
It was the 42nd annual Cat Show at
the Civic, where purebreds and even
house cats got to strut their stuff
and earn points to compete in the
Cat Fancier’s Association’s
national show at Madison Square Garden.
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| Jennifer
Carvajal, 7, and her new friend
Mango Twirl (Photos by Ann K.
Williams) |
There’s more to a cat show
than just prizes, though. Breeders
converge from Southern California,
Arizona and Nevada to sell their stock
-- in this case, darling kittens.
“This is the place to come
get a cat,” said Sue Carvajal,
who’d brought her 7-year-old
daughter Jennifer to find a playmate
for their four-year old cat, soon
to be alone when the last of their
20-year-olds dies.
Jennifer held up Mango Twirl, a Selkirk
Rex, who looked like Garfield on a
bad hair day and is known in the trade
as “the cat in sheep’s
clothing.”
Another stand-out exotic was the
Donskoy, a hairless cat like the Sphinx
who won last year’s national
competition.
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| Earl
Naab with his Donskoy |
Just one of 12 Donskoy’s in
the United States, this breed was
discovered in Rostov-on-Don in Russia
in 1987 and, after much skepticism
among cat breeders, was finally accepted
as a new, rare hairless breed.
The Naab’s Donskoy is very
affectionate – maybe because
he’s so sensitive to changes
in temperature – and “will
sleep 24/7” if he has someone
to cuddle up with, said owner Lyvonne
Naab.
But it’s not all purebreds
that win at the show.
Cats
in Need has one of the most popular
booths. A no-kill, rescue operation,
it saves as many as 500 cats a year,
spays and neuters them, give them
their vaccines and health care, and
adopts them at pet stores and shows
around the region, explained Kathleen
King, who’s volunteered for
eight years.
And ordinary house cats get to compete
as well.
“Ninety per cent (of the breeders)
started in household pets,”
explained Temmie Silver, a vendor
and former breeder who’s been
a fixture at cat shows around the
nation for 21 years.
“You kind of got taken in,
you got mesmerized,” she said
of the popular category.
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| Bob
Salisbury judging household pets |
Judge Bob Salisbury is one of eight
who evaluates the household pets.
Unlike the purebreds, household pets
have “no written standards,”
said Salibury. “Beauty is in
the eye of the beholder...whichever
one strikes the judge’s fancy.”
He looks for cats with “sweet”
temperaments. “Growling or hissing
and snapping at the judge is not a
good thing to do,” Salisbury
said.
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| Angel Paws
wins first place in household
pets |
Cats aren’t the only commodities
at the show. Vendors of cat toys,
ceramic cat mugs, cat t-shirts, scratching
posts, even cat wine – “French
Cat Chardonnay” – line
the walls.
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| Temmie
Silver and her eleven-year-old
daughter Samantha show their wares |
Silver and her family started following
the shows in 1986, traveling across
the county in a converted van and
trailer.
“Back in the old days, we partied
like crazy,” she said, as she
showed a photo of a huge cake she
handed out to the crowd on her daughter’s
birthday.
She’s noticing smaller crowds
now, and thinks the higher ticket
prices have something to do with that.
Back when she started in the ‘80’s,
there were “so many people in
the aisles you couldn’t get
the cats to the show,” Silver
said. “Everybody was throwing
their money about, hundreds and hundreds
of dollars on anything with a cat
on it.”
Still, with 300 cats to judge and
hundreds of happy, curious spectators,
it looks like the Cat Fancier’s
Association’s annual show in
Santa Monica isn’t in any danger
of folding soon.
For show schedules and information
on cat judging, visit the Cat Fancier’s
Association website. http://www.cfainc.org/
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