Showing a Ladycat

Friends, today is a day of necessary evils that I put up with firstly because I know I have to, and secondly because it means that I end up looking like the most beautifulest ladycat I possibly can be. Yep, today is the day I get prepared for show, and it takes such a very, very long time! I know I've told you about this before, but I also know I have new friends now who may not have seen those mewsings. This time though, even if you've read about preparation before, there's something new! I've got lots and lots of pictures to show you! So, here goes.

The human always follows a similar routine for getting me ready for show, and it usually starts a week before the actual date. This time though, it's going to be only four days before, as I'm going to show on Saturday. Incidentally, if any of you are closish to London and want to come see me, then let me know and I'll tell you how! Sorry, I can't reveal where I will be on here, cuz if a judge read it, they would disqualify me for identifying myself to them before the show started. I know some of you live relatively close though, and I'd love to meet you!

Anyway, back to my story. The show preparation starts normally with a bath. This used to be a relatively simple process before the human learned more about what she should have been doing. It used to be only a quick suds up and rinse in baby shampoo, but now? Oh for the return of those simpler times!

She wets me down with a shower while I sit in the tub. When you're bathing somebody with as much hair as me, you gotta make sure you get right down to the undercoat, and this isn't an easy job! Unfortunately, this means that all the floofiness leaves my fur and leaves me looking a little, well, there's no other word for it, bedraggled. I'm sure you can see this from the picture. I also get very cold, so the human has to make sure the water is nice and hot and that the house is well heated and free from drafts before I go in there, as otherwise, I'll shiver.

once I'm wet, she needs to de-grease my coat. Even though I don't look greasy, there's grime and dirt in my floof that even my eye can't see! There are a number of different things you can use for this, and all it takes is an application and a rinse. The human won't tell you what it is, as we don't want this blog to turn into a product recommendation type place!

After this step, she applies an anti-fungal shampoo to me. The smell of this lingers right down deep, and prevents any nasties from deciding I'd be good to live on whilst I'm at the show. It's more a preventative than anything, but the human feels better knowing that I'm less likely to pick anything up. unfortunately, this has to be left on for ten minutes. This is the worst part of the bath. I don't get cold, cuz the human puts me in a horrid PTU right by the radiator with a towel over it to keep in the heat. it actually gets quite steamy in there! I complain all the while though, as I always do at even the sight of a PTU. I hate the things, Ok? They're my excuse to sing!
 
Once I come out of there, it's back in the bath for another quick rinse. And this is where the fun starts. Do you remember a few days ago I asked if you'd ever seen a purple ladycat? Well, you're just about to! The next shampoo my human uses is a colour enhancer. It doesn't dye my coat or anything, but it does make the colours more dazzling to the eye. It makes my ivory white whiter and gives my seal tortie face, feed and tail lots more tortitude! At least, that's my excuse for showing tortitude later on that day. This stuff is purple! See? Doesn't it look weird? I wonder if I'd get points for being the only purple cat at the show!   This stuff rinces off real easy, and so does the last shampoo the human uses, which is a texturiser. This gives my floof loads of extra volume, and when it's all dry, much more floofiness for the judge peoples to fuss over! It smells nice to the human too, but I have to say, I don't care about it one way or the other.

When I'm done cuddling, the human unwraps me and spreads the dry part of the towel on her lap. Then it's time for the drying and the combing. This is the only part of the bath that I show an active dislike for, and the human knows it. She says if she had more moneys she'd buy me a cabinet dryer which is like a PTU with gentle blasts of air that come out from all over, but they cost a lot, so we don't have one. Instead, I get to be dried by an uber powerful hair dryer with that all important cool air setting. This dryer is so powerful that it literally blows the water out of my fur. The human combs my coat forward when she's drying it, just to add a little extra volume. I often give her a bitey during this bit, but it's just to remind her who's boss when she's trying to dry my back legs and my lady bits! I can't have her thinking she can do that unchallenged!

Drying takes about half an hour, and by the time that's done, I am hopefully looking floofy and glorious! That aside though, there's only one thing for a ladycat to do after enduring all of that torture... Eat treats! These are some of the yummy ones sent by everyone at House of Cats, and I ate loads and loads of them! Can you tell how much I'm enjoying them? I have my human trained to always give me treats after a bath, cuz I deserve them! Well, I deserve them all the time! Do you hear me, human?

As you can see, a lot goes into making me look my best, and while it's a pain in the proverbial, I understand the necessity. Later this week, the human will put talc in my fur to make it extra big and floofy, and will clip my nails so that they are looking their best on the day of the show. On Friday, I will show you a picture of me all floofed up and ready to go.

I hope you enjoyed my bath more than I did! Happy Tuesday!

The Show Approaches

Oh yes it does, and I can't help but start to get a little bit excited about it. My human's trying desperately not to get too hopeful. She spoke to one of her judge friends yesterday (they're the nice strangers who take me out of my pen and scratch me and look at me all over and tell me how beautiful I am), and they said that the judge people who is looking at me in my most important class is a tough one. He withholds prizes more than he gives them apparently. My human says I'm not the most outstanding of show cats. She got me because she love dme, not because I'd do well at a show. The fact that I'm good enough to enter wasn't the driving factor. It's just a nice bonus. I have too much dark coat on my body to be perfect apparently, but me and my human agree that I'm the best cat there is. I told her that I'd make the judge people agree too, and she's not to worry. She says even if we don't win a single thing, she'll still be taking home the best cat in the whole show. Smart lady, my human. I reminded her that at my very first ever show, I won one of my opens where you get prizes to have a big title like champion cat, won a best of breed, and got second in another open plus one of my side classes. For any of you who know showing, the reason that there were two opens was because it was a double show. That's not bad for a first timer now, is it!

I'm also going to see a couple of old friends at the show, but I can't tell you about that until the show is over... Rules and all, stupid things.

Anyway, back to preparations. My human didn't do an awful lot with me last night. Usually the day in between powdering and the final preparations is my rest day. She did have a go at stripping me though. This sounds painful, but it's not. My guard hairs are very, very dark, and this isn't good when you're showing off your beautiful tortiness to the judge peoples. Usually, peoples pluck these out. Again, that sounds like it hurts, but it doesn't, because they don't pull the hair hard. The good ones ease it out with their fingers. Guard hairs are longer than the fluff of my undercoat, but even though the human knows the difference in length, she's worried she's pulling out my light hairs. She did a couple, but then stopped. She's asked some of those old friends to help us do it on the morning of the show. I don't mind this. I purr all the way through. The friends say it takes days to do it propperly as you should only do a little at a time, but they're going to see what they can do for us. Thank you, friends!

Tonight, I know what's coming. Hoover lady has arranged to be there when the human gets home from work so that I can have my pedicure. I don't keep my own nails short. Why do that when you have servants to do it for you. I'm a celebrity show cat, after all, and all that scratching on the post is too much effort. I'd rather dig at things I'm not supposed to, but as they're soft, they don't keep my nails short. Hoover lady is too worried about doing it on her own and needs the human to talk her through it each time. Mummycat will probably have hers done as well, even though she's not a celebrity show cat. My human is a good cat person, so she doesn't mind doing it for her.

Once my nails are done, the human is going to get out the dryer and blow all of that stinky powder out of my fur. I am crazy fluffy after this is done because my furr is sticking up all over the place. I wish we could get a picture, but I don't think Hoover lady will wait that long, and the human can't take them on her own. Once that is done, she will brush and comb all of the dead fur out of my coat. I'll be soft then, but not all the way fluffy. That is a last minute thing done at the show hall.

Right now I'm enjoying the peace and quiet of the house. I'm chasing ping pong balls (a famous cat has to keep fit and trim after all) and cleaning and cleaning myself for tomorrow's big day. My fit drive will probably go out the window as soon as I see fish, but we'll not talk about that just yet, will we? In any case, the human has a lot of work to do. When she finishes with me, she'll do Mummycat again. She needs another brushing and then the powder taking out of her coat, plus her nails clipping. Then the human has to make people food for her and hoover lady for tomorrow, and pack all of the things I will need like a blanket, litter tray, food and water, and the really important things like a ping pong ball, my favourite mousie and a ribbon for me to pounce. You're only supposed to have one toy at the show, but I get spoiled. Why? Because how could you resist spoiling the best cat in the show more than all of the others? She just hides them when the official peoples and the judge peoples pass by.

I will talk to you later on tonight and let you know if she has been able to follow all of my advice on how to make me look even more beautiful than beautiful!