Today, Pearl competed in the Ely & District CP Pet Cat show. There was a great turn out of 46 cats and the quality of the entries was very high. It was meant to be a fun day out for both of us, but it ended up being far more than that...
The non-ped shorthair female open class was huge - there were seventeen cats and so the class was split into three sections according to age. Pearl was in the section for cats between three and nine years of age and bless her, she absolutely hosed up in her section of the class. Then in her miscellaneous classes, she picked up two more firsts (cat homed from Cats Protection & cat from CB postcode), a second (cat shown in best condition) and a third (cat shown before but not won BIS). She then went on to be judged as the best local cht which was really brilliant. She gets a lovely trophy for that, and she also won a lovely trophy for winning the cat homed from Cats Protection class, two brilliant helium balloons (which kept her amused) and of course, some absolutely beautiful rosettes.
But imagine the feeling when she beat the 16 other cats in her section to be judged as best non-pedigree shorthair female and as a result, get her first ever BIS nomination!
I must confess that I was in tears... The little lass went across that judges' table like a dream and gave a really good account of herself. I've never seen her show so well, it was astonishing to see my shy little girl behave in such a confident and nosey manner and take everything in her stride. The steward commented on how well she handled.
She didn't quite make it to Best in Show - that was won by a gorgeous ginger & white longhair boy called Jaffa, but by all accounts, she gave him a run for his money. Even so, I am so unbelievably proud of my little girl and to see her go up as a BIS nominee was a dream come true, especially when I think of what she looked like when she came to me.
And when I thought things could not get better they did, because I then went on to win the photo show with a photo of Pearl as well! (That's the second year in a row that Pearl has won that - oops...)
Have attached a photo of Madam Pearl chilling out in her pen!
[attachment deleted by admin]
