This has been an exciting week for us, with Tassy/Keela going off to her new home, and some of Dàrna’s kittens in their first show.
Keela Moving Out
As I mentioned last week, we were hoping to be able to drop Keela off on Friday, since she wasn’t going to be able to attend the show. Thankfully, her new owners, Anita and Robert were able to be in on Friday afternoon, so we took the day off work and drove down during the day. The kittens had all travelled down in one large basket together, so we just lifted her out and carried her in.
When we put her down, Anita’s Ocicat girl, Lani (litter sister to our Oci, Breckin), and her Ocicat Classic, Azy (3/4 sister to our Oci Classic, Kia) immediately began following her around. Keela initially saw Azy, who looks very like Kia, and obviously thought she was Kia, so ran up to her, expecting her friend. When she got close enough to smell Azy, she immediately stopped, looked at her in consternation, and then hissed at her and ran away. Smelling a strange cat, when you are expecting to smell one of your friends, must be a major shock!
Other than that little surprise, though, she was quite happy exploring around Anita’s front room. We stayed with Anita and Robert fora delicious dinner, which gave Keela a bit longer to settle down and get used to her surroundings before we left her. We seem to be making a habit of taking kittens to their new homes and winding up being catered for by their new owners – excellent!
AGCS Show
We stayed that night with our friends Tracy and Gary, near Bedford. We are very lucky to have them as an excellent stopping-off place in that area, because I have now lost count of the number of times we’ve been there with cats in tow.
When we were getting ready for bed, I was stroking B-B and discovered that he had burnt his ear. On Friday morning when we went in to get the kittens out of their room, he had been asleep with his head between two blades of the oil-filled radiator that we use to keep their room nice and warm. I thought nothing of it at the time, but obviously he had been like that for too long, and now had a burn-blister on his ear. We did try rubbing a soothing cream into it that night, but by the morning it was still clearly visible, and we therefore had to leave him at Tracy and Gary’s. I was gutted, because he is undoubtedly the ‘pick of the litter’, and the best show prospect of the lot, but there was nothing we could do. Poor Tracy had the terrible hardship of having to spend the day cuddling B-B on the couch!
Dàrna and the other two came along to the show as planned, and took the whole thing in their stride. Ben/Tabh was totally laid back, but Fiona was a little bit wide-eyed in the morning, so we moved her into his pen for a while, and let them eat breakfast together.
By the time she was moved back into her own pen she had relaxed into the experience. Steve Crow came over hoping to see Keela and B-B, because he wants to see how they develop, but of course I had to give him the disappointing news that neither kitten was there!
We watched both Fiona and Tabh being judged on various occasions, and were delighted to see that they were giving the judges cuddles and kisses, and purring throughout. They behaved beautifully, letting the judges handle them without wriggling, and standing nicely if they were put on the table. Of course, being cute kittens, most of what they were getting was just lots of cuddles, which the adored! Tabh in particular thought that he was in heaven – I don’t think he can imagine a better way to spend a day than with a series of people giving him cuddles, and time to sleep in-between! Some of the judges thought that he might be a blue-based caramel, and Steve agreed that his colour has changed a bit since he saw them at the start of December, so we have decided to change his registration to 68 43ns.
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Fiona won Best of Breed, beating her brother and another three lovely Tiffanie kittens. It was fantastic to see so many Tiffanies there – I think there were something like nine or ten in total, which is the most I think I’ve ever seen at a show together. There were also some lovely Asian shorthairs, and plenty of beautiful Burmese, so Anita and I took the opportunity to go around and help her get better acquainted with the type that we are looking for in the Tiffanie breed. Hopefully, she now has this clear in her mind, so that she knows what she is trying to breed towards.
Dàrna was in a bit of a mood, because she had decided that the weekend would be a good time to come into season. She did cheer up a little bit when she heard Steve and Tommy – presumably because she thought they might be going to take her back to visit Pippin again! She did well, though, winning the Reserve Grand.
Our day was finished off beautifully, when Steve Crow came over to say that we needed to take Fiona up to the top pens – she had gone Best in Show Kitten, beating a beautiful little Bombay, among others. Overall Best was Steve’s Tiffanie adult girl, Aurora, who is beautiful, and how lovely to see a Tiffanie taking the highest award! I do think B-B could well have taken Overall if he had been there, but there’s no good thinking about that now!
Hopefully the kittens will continue to enjoy shows as much as this in future, and will have many successes ahead of them. If they can do half as well in their other shows they’ll make us and their new owners very happy!
