Hello my friends, Spot here!

 

Are you having a nice weekend, my friends? We had a fantastic one! Or at least Annie and Spike did! I think it was one of our most successful show days ever 😆

 

So, here’s a bit of background before I get into the detail as it’s all a little confusing for a cat like me 😉 So this is what my mummy told me…

 

Yesterday, there were 4 smaller shows all taking place at the same time in the same location.  Within the cat shows we go to (GCCF), you get “All Breed Shows” where, as the name implies, all breeds recognised by the GCCF are eligible to take part; and you get “breed shows” where there are only either one or a few breeds of cat eligible.

 

One of the advantages of being a Pedigree Household Pet like Annie is that you can go to all of these shows, as they always have a HHP section 🙂

 

So yesterday we had the Tabby Cat Club, which Spike was entered into, he couldn’t enter any of the others. Then we had the Burmese show, the Colourpointed British Shorthair Show, and the Egyptian Mau show. Annie was entered in the Egyptian Mau show (Title Class, Best of Colour Class, and Side classes) AND the Colourpointed show (Title and BOC only), as HHPs could enter a max of two shows if desired. See! I told you it was confusing!

 

It was a pretty routine, if foggy, drive to the show – another early start but they all arrived safe and sound and went through all the usual stuff for a show 😉 Then before you knew it, it was time for morning judging to start 🙂 Being 4 smaller shows meant that the results were quite quick at being displayed, and Annie’s were first so let’s see how she did…

 

In the Colourpointed show, she was awarded her Imperial and Best in Colour too!

 

Then for the Mau show – she again got her Imperial and Best in Colour! For her side classes, she came 1st in the class “The Cat the Judge would most like to take home” so she was unbeaten with one result to come, Prettiest Female, and then it was there! Daddy went to look and saw that she came….second! 😯 Ah well …. you can’t win ’em all.

 

Still… Annie had lots of pretty rosettes on her pen 🙂

 

 

 

But the best was yet to come! My mummy’s friend came over and said to my mummy she was very lucky to have a bottle of Prosecco on Annie’s pen! Mummy hadn’t realised, so she rushed over there straight away (amazing what a nice bottle of fizz can achieve 😯 )

 

 

But better than the fizz, was the reason it was there! Annie had won Best in Show Pedigree Pet! 🙂 Yay!

She was beaten, however, by the non-Pedigree Pet for Overall Best in Show Household Pet, so because it’s a smaller show, they only had the Overall BiS in the posh BiS pens, so that’s why Annie didn’t make it over there this time 🙂

Here’s a pic of that beautiful rosette (and fizz), taken at home:

 

 

And here’s her other rosettes, taken at home today 🙂

 

 

Phew! So Annie now has 4 Imperial Grand Master Cat certificates, and needs just one more to be awarded the title “Imperial Grand Master Cat”. But the next show she is entered into is the Supreme Cat Show – the biggest and the best in the country! There’ll be tough competition there for sure!

 

Now onto our Spikey boy….

 

He was quite chilled at the show, as ever, and started off the day alert and ready to go! 🙂

 

 

Unlike Annie, he had not been awarded an Imperial certificate before (to be fair, he’d only been in one Imperial class before 😉 ) and he was up against 3 other handsome boys, including our friends’ Egyptian Mau, so it was a tough class and no chickens were being counted 😆

His results took a bit longer than Annie’s but they were worth waiting for as, not only did he win the Imperial class, he also won Best of Breed too! Clever boy!

 

Then for his side classes (which have pretty boring titles compared to the HHP ones 🙂 ) – he was in the Junior Neuter class which he came 1st in and then in another tough class of 4, he also came first in the Visitor class! Wow! This meant that Spike had had a “Red Card” day, which basically means that he won every class he was entered into!

 

So, remember I told you that my mummy went rushing to Annie’s pen to make sure no-one nicked have a look at the bottle of Prosecco and her rosette? Well, when she was there, she also visited Spike (they were very close to each other at this show) and would you believe it? There on his pen was a “Best of Variety Neuter” Rosette! This means out of all the neuters in the “Foreign” section, Spike was judged to be the best!

 

Well, as you can imagine, my mummy nearly jumped around the hall in glee! 🙂 🙂 But instead she went rushing round telling everyone she knew and insisted that they all came to look at his pen … “sigh” …. I’m just glad I wasn’t there as I would have had to disown her, I’m afraid 😆

 

So after all the excitement, mummy went back to her stall and actually managed to serve some customers 🙂 And a little while later, they called out on the tannoy the cats that were being put forward to the Overall Best in Show Pens. So, this is where, for each category (Foreign, British, Oriental etc) you get Best Adult (entire cats), Best Kitten, and Best Neuter – these are Best of Variety. The judges then choose which is the best on the day of out those three, and they are the ones that go in the Best in Show posh pens! And from there, all of the different winners from each category are judged against each other for Overall Best in Show!

 

Well… my mummy had just finished serving a customer when they called out the cats to go to the posh pens. And wouldn’t you know it? Spike’s pen number was called!! 😆 People say they have never seen someone rush around the floor in such excitement before! And the best thing was, my daddy and our breeder, Sue, were stood near Spike’s pen, but had not heard the announcement so were completely unaware! Not for long though, as I’m sure you can imagine by now 😉

So off Spikey went to the posh pens and soon made himself at home!

 

 

 

Then it was time for the overall judging. The judge came and looked at every cat and cast her expert eye over them 🙂 Spike was a very good boy and let her take as long as she needed 🙂

 

 

 

And then it was time to make up her mind! And she chose…. the British!! Oh well, like we said for Annie, you can’t win ’em all, and everyone was as pleased as punch (or even prosecco) that Spike had got as far as he did as it was a fantastic achievement! (btw – amongst all his prizes was a nice bottle of pink fizz for my mummy to guzzle share too! 🙂

 

Here’s Spike’s collection of rosettes 🙂

 

 

So there we have it! A fantastic day, that will remain a fond memory for many moons to come.

 

Take care my friends!
Love from

Spot

xxxxxxxx

 

 

Hello my friends, Spot here!

 

We hope you have had a lovely weekend? It’s been a wonderful show weekend for us here in our World 🙂 After a few disappointing results at recent cat shows, the excitement from yesterday more than made up for them! 🙂

 

And of course it was little Annie pesky who stole all the limelight… Spike pesky says he hopes one day to have his turn too but in the meantime, he was practising his Clint look in the cat garden today. He thinks he needs to look more mean and moody to impress the judges, but I’m not so sure 😯

 

 

So back to yesterday… it was dark and raining when the hoomins woke us up… that didn’t bode well for the day. The rain carried on pretty much all the way to the show which was in Manchester, UK, so not as far as some shows they go to, around an hour and a half’s drive.

 

The hoomins and the peskies got there nice and early, as usual, before anyone else and before anything was open so they had to sit in the car and chat amongst themselves for a few minutes and listen to the rain. Pretty soon, others started to arrive, so mummy could unload the car (getting very wet in the process) and start to set the stall up. Then the vets were there shortly afterwards so daddy could take the peskies to be vetted in and settle them in their pens where they had some more breakfast 🙂

 

A couple of hours passed… more people and their furry friends had arrived in the show hall which was full of hoomin and cat chatter; mummy’s stall was all set up and it was time for the judging to start! As per the usual GCCF rules, the judging is anonymous so all the hoomins have to leave their cats for the morning, whilst anxiously looking for the results on the boards as they are posted.

 

And what great results they had (mostly)! Here they are in detail 🙂

 

Spike:

He came first out of three in his title class, but the judge decided not to award the Imperial certificate. My mummy said she was expecting this to be the case, so it wasn’t a surprise and still nice that he came 1st out of three lovely cats.

There was a bit of a wait to find out his Best of Breed class, and when it was posted, my mummy was disappointed to see it was awarded to the cat in pen 160. Spike was in pen 166. …. then she thought she’d have a look at the lovely Bengal in pen 160 – only to find out he was a Russian Blue! 😯 😯 Now, only a Bengal cat is eligible to win Best of Breed for Bengals!

So my mummy went back to the results board and could see that the judge had not written the second ‘6’ very well! It looked like a zero at first glance, but when you looked closer, it was actually a 6! Pen 166! Spike had won BoB after all!

So my mummy went to the show managers desk to clear up the confusion, and they confirmed that pen 166 had won! The show manager went over to pen 160 with my mummy where the Russian Blue had two BoB rosettes! Now, of course, in a single show you can only win BoB once – twice is being greedy 😆 But of course one of the rosettes was Spike’s and pretty soon it was placed on his pen where it should be 🙂 🙂 It’s a good job mummy checked!

That just left Spike’s side classes – he came second out of three cats in both of those, so not wonderful, but not terrible either. Kind of in the middle 😆

 

Annie:

Wow! What a day Annie had!

She was also going for her Imperial certificate but was up against two other beautiful girls. Luckily, the hoomins didn’t have to wait long as the results were posted very quickly… and Annie had won! Fantastic! 😆

Then, it was an anxious wait for Best in Class… she was up against 3 boys, two of whom were far more experienced and had much higher titles than she’s got (they were Olympian Silvers)… but Annie won again!

Then the side classes…. the first result posted was in a class of just two… but she came 2nd 🙁 Hmmmmm…..

Then the next – in a class of 6 she also came second! Much better!

But the best was yet to come in terms of side classes: In a class of 7 for “Cat the Judge Would Most Like to Take home” Annie came first!

 

What great results! Everyone was sooooo pleased! But wait! There was more good news! She only went and won “Best in Show Pedigree Pet” didn’t she? Coming out on top over lots of wonderful other pedigree pets too! What an achievement and her first Best in Show at a large all-breed show!

 

So now I would normally share some pics, but I don’t have any at the moment of the show day 🙁 Instead we took some earlier in the cat garden to show off the lovely rosettes that were won 🙂

 

 

Annie was sitting in the laundry basket being silly (as normal), so my mummy decided to pin her rosettes on there!

 

But they are so big, you can’t see her very well!

 

 

So Annie decided to see if she could nibble on them to make them smaller 😉

 

 

 

That Best in Show rosette is bigger than she is! 🙂

 

 

Of course, Spike had a well-earned rosette too, so here they all are together 🙂

 

 

And here’s what everyone really wants – the title certificates! 🙂

 

 

 

Annie now has two Imperial certificates so needs three more, each from different judges, to enable her to claim the title of Imperial Grand Master Cat 🙂 Yesterday was Spike’s first attempt at the Imperial level, so he still needs 5 from different judges in order to be an Imperial Grand Premier Cat 🙂

 

Phew! After all the excitement of yesterday, we spent today playing in the cat garden and having lots of catnaps 🙂

Take care my friends!

Love from

Spot

xxxxxxx

 

Hello my friends, Spot here!

 

Can you believe it’s been two whole weeks since the last cat show we went to? Or at least that Lula went to? Doesn’t time fly? I think I’m getting old … I’ll start saying things like: “It wasn’t like that in my day” soon 😆

 

But anyways, let’s take a little step back in time, to yesterday in fact when Spike and Annie were strutting their stuff at the closest show to us in terms of distance from our house. It was in Chester which is about 35 miles away, so only really a hop, skip and a jump!

 

It was still much too early that the hoomins woke us up, despite the proximity of the show, you would think they might have wanted a little lie in or something. But pretty soon they were on their way so the five of us that were left had a lovely snooze 🙂

 

This was quite an important show because Spike was in the Grand Premier class still waiting to get his 3rd and final certificate in order to claim the title. He has had quite a few attempts now, so it was getting a little tiresome 🙂 🙂

 

Annie, is already a Grand Master Cat, so this was her first time out in the next level up: the Imperial Grand Master Cat class.

 

They were soon settled into their pens, and even early in the morning it was very warm in the show hall, so daddy put their cooling fans on their pens which they said they appreciated very much. Within a couple of hours, they were ready to start morning judging, so the hoomins had to leave them in their pens so the judges could have a good look at all the cats.

 

Annie’s results came in quite quickly – and she was such a clever girl! Not only did she beat two beautiful girls to get her first Imperial GMC certificate, but she then also beat two Olympian Silver boys (i.e. very highly titled) to win Best of Breed! Yay! 🙂  Her judge for the Imperial said she purred in his ear when he was judging her 🙂 Funny girl 🙂

 

In her side classes, she was unplaced in one and got 2nd place in the other two, both had 5 cats in them.

 

Spike’s results were a little slower but they were worth waiting for! He finally got his third Grand Premier certificate! Yay! His Aunt Fanny (our breeder’s cat) won Best of Breed for all the brown spotted Bengals (6 of them), but he did get 3rd in a big side class (beating Fanny) and was unplaced in his other two large side classes.

 

Unfortunately, due to the way show closing dates work, Spike is in the Grand class in his next show too (and it can’t be changed), so he is going to have to wait a few weeks before trying for Imperial. Meanwhile of course Annie will be entered into her Imperial classes 🙂

 

After a very hot day for the hoomins, but not so much so for Annie and Spike, it was time to head home. On the way back, Daddy let them both out of the carrier so they could wander round the car and look out of the window! 😯 It wasn’t like that in my day 😆 😆

 

We didn’t get any pics in the show hall, so here’s some taken when they got home 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take care my friends!

Love from Spot

xxxxxxx