I took Merlin and Iris to the CFA show in Las Vegas January 2-3. I also took Goldy, mostly because I've only had her back for about two weeks and didn't dare leave her home with Miss Patchwillow.
The show went pretty well after a rough start. The woman who was supposed to do a lot of the organizing was totally disorganized. She forgot some of the most important pages in the show books and was stapling those together while people were trying to check in. The benching assignments weren't written on the books so we had to just walk around the room looking for our names. She didn't assign the benching areas correctly, mostly not giving people the full space they had requested and some names not on the tables at all. The ring schedules were totally screwed up with several judges supposed to be judging the same cats at the same time. Needless to say there were a lot of unhappy people. However, once we worked out our own benching and the clerks worked out the judging order everything went smoothly.
Iris made 6 finals out of 8 rings in HHP. Her highest placement was 5th best cat, but she was up against some pretty stiff competition. The top three cats in the region were there. I'm very happy with how well she did. She's getting much better at letting the judges handle her, not staying curled up with her tail between her legs.
Merlin got winner's ribbons from all the judges the first day. It doesn't mean a lot since he didn't have any competition, but it was enough to make him a Premier for the second day. Grand Premier is going to be a lot harder to get. I really don't expect him to start getting any points or finals for that any time soon. There are some absolutely gorgeous ruddy females in the competition. I don't really care whether he ever make GP. I'm going to keep taking him to shows because he absolutely loves it.
Goldy was not in top form and didn't make any of the finals. She's always a little timid with the judges but I think she wasn't feeling well either. She had finished her week of antibiotics for the UTI, but I'm wondering if maybe she needs a longer course of the antibiotic. She wasn't very active in the hotel room, even when we got out the laser pointer. She also has a sore spot on her shoulder. I didn't notice it until I was giving her a bath Thursday before the show. It doesn't look like a bite or scratch from one of the other cats. Initially it looked like a scrape with a lump under it and she's lost the hair around it. The bald spot actually got bigger after her bath. The only thing I can think of is that that's where she got one of her vaccinations and may have had a reaction to that. She was twisting and flipping around when the vet was giving her the shot, so it probably caused some trauma at the site. Anyway I've been putting an antibiotic ointment on it and it's looking much better, only one tiny little scab left. The lump is still there but it's getting smaller and doesn't seem to bother her when I press on it.
I took a couple of pictures of the benching area at the beginning of the first day just to make sure I had the white balance set right. Then I forgot to get my camera out the rest of the show. Too busy running back and forth getting cats to different rings.
At least three times I had Merlin in one ring at the same time as the HHP's were being judges in the opposite corner of the show hall.
The show went pretty well after a rough start. The woman who was supposed to do a lot of the organizing was totally disorganized. She forgot some of the most important pages in the show books and was stapling those together while people were trying to check in. The benching assignments weren't written on the books so we had to just walk around the room looking for our names. She didn't assign the benching areas correctly, mostly not giving people the full space they had requested and some names not on the tables at all. The ring schedules were totally screwed up with several judges supposed to be judging the same cats at the same time. Needless to say there were a lot of unhappy people. However, once we worked out our own benching and the clerks worked out the judging order everything went smoothly.
Iris made 6 finals out of 8 rings in HHP. Her highest placement was 5th best cat, but she was up against some pretty stiff competition. The top three cats in the region were there. I'm very happy with how well she did. She's getting much better at letting the judges handle her, not staying curled up with her tail between her legs.
Merlin got winner's ribbons from all the judges the first day. It doesn't mean a lot since he didn't have any competition, but it was enough to make him a Premier for the second day. Grand Premier is going to be a lot harder to get. I really don't expect him to start getting any points or finals for that any time soon. There are some absolutely gorgeous ruddy females in the competition. I don't really care whether he ever make GP. I'm going to keep taking him to shows because he absolutely loves it.
Goldy was not in top form and didn't make any of the finals. She's always a little timid with the judges but I think she wasn't feeling well either. She had finished her week of antibiotics for the UTI, but I'm wondering if maybe she needs a longer course of the antibiotic. She wasn't very active in the hotel room, even when we got out the laser pointer. She also has a sore spot on her shoulder. I didn't notice it until I was giving her a bath Thursday before the show. It doesn't look like a bite or scratch from one of the other cats. Initially it looked like a scrape with a lump under it and she's lost the hair around it. The bald spot actually got bigger after her bath. The only thing I can think of is that that's where she got one of her vaccinations and may have had a reaction to that. She was twisting and flipping around when the vet was giving her the shot, so it probably caused some trauma at the site. Anyway I've been putting an antibiotic ointment on it and it's looking much better, only one tiny little scab left. The lump is still there but it's getting smaller and doesn't seem to bother her when I press on it.
I took a couple of pictures of the benching area at the beginning of the first day just to make sure I had the white balance set right. Then I forgot to get my camera out the rest of the show. Too busy running back and forth getting cats to different rings.
At least three times I had Merlin in one ring at the same time as the HHP's were being judges in the opposite corner of the show hall.
I managed to miss seeing all three judged in the first round. I took Iris to Ring 8, then Merlin got called for Ring 3. I ran him over there, took Goldy to Ring 8 and found that I had missed Iris being judged. I went back to Ring 3 and Merlin had already been judged and was ready to go back to the benching area. By the time I got back to Ring 8 Goldy had already been judged. 
I can just imagine how much fun it would have been if I'd taken the rest of my girls for the HHP show.
