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!

Wednesday Winners and Other Things

Well, I don't really know what to say about the winners. They are super cats, and peoples of course. They won last week too, and were the only ones to enter this week. Nevertheless, congratulations to you all! The human promises she'll post them to you, Karen, when all the Christmas madness is over.





We're a bit disappointed that the give away hasn't been more successful at generating interest. Because of this, we're going to take a break with the last two weeks until after Christmas. That way, it gives peoples a chance to get the holiday business out of the way. hopefully then they'll come and visit us and enter! Super congratulations to you, Karen, and your furries. It's awesome to win twice! Double the fun, eh?





Now, I told you I'd tell you about the human's arm today, and I better had, as she's whining that it hurts to type, and please can I be concise instead of rambling as I usually do. Rambling? I do not! I speak nothing but words of wisdom, and sometimes griping. no wonder she thinks it's rambling when it deals with all her shortcomings.





Anyway, her arm. Peoples, I have learned, have vets too, but they call them doctors or GPs which stands for general practitioner. I've always wondered why peoples feel the need to have multiple talk noise words for the same thing. Doctor? GP? General practitioner? Personally, I think vet is quite appropriate. So, she went to her vet when I was at mine, to be tested too to see if they could help us find out what the mr Bug was. They stole lots of things from her. Peepee, even poop! How disgusting is that! She allowed them to do it, didn't even spit or anything! I vow that I will work on her training for this.





Ah, where was I? Oh yes, stealing. They also stole some of her bloods, not once, but lots of times. They took four lots of blood in two separate lots, but the second time, when the needle was coming out, it really hurt, and the human's bloods kept coming out lots and lots even though they shouldn't cuz the stealing was done. When they went back inside to hide again and stopped coming out, her arm still hurt really badly, but she thought nothing of it. It's happened before when they've hit the muscle, and she knows it goes away in a day or two.





It's now been five days since they stole her bloods, and rather than getting better, the arm is getting worse. She can no longer get it all the way straight, and is having to take tablets to keep the pain at a manageable level. It hurts when she picks me up, and she's finding it difficult to do things like type or hold a pen for signing things at the work hunt. She even struggled to get my food open last night! What good are thumbs if they don't work propperly? This worried me enough that I insisted she went back to see the vet again. She says she's gonna call early tomorrow morning and try and get in to see him before we all head off tomorrow evening. I hope they don't have to amputate. It would be very inconvenient to be burdened with a human that couldn't open food for me.





In other super exciting news, our Secret Paws partner wrote to us today, and it's Hannah and Lucy! They said they made their people send a package on Monday, and we are very excited! I made my human go to the post office today to see if it was there, cuz if it was, we could have told you all about the super things inside. The human said I could open it early cuz I wasn't gonna be around for Christmas. Unfortunately though, it wasn't there. Hannah and Lucy, if it arrives tomorrow, is it Ok if I open it? Then I can take toys with me to Dogface's new home! If not, I can wait until after christmas. Your choice!





Now to a matter super important. Friends, I have a problem. I need a manly mancat to come visit me right here, right now, and I can't find one! I've been shouting and shouting for one, but they don't seem to be able to hear me, and the human says she's not taking me to see my man friend who owns his own house cuz I'm still having pudding poo and she doesn't want him to get sick and anyway, I said I was going with Dogface and I can't do that if I'm with my man friend. Ah, but all that doesn't matter now. My promises to Dogface are nothing compared with my need.





I've left him signs in both of my litter boxes. Many ladycats scent mark (peoples call it spraying) when we want to find a mancat. This surprises a lot of humans. They think it's only mancats that do it, but it isn't. Where many ladycats spray on people things, I won't. Firstly, if a mancat does come, I don't want him interested in people things. I want him interested in me! Secondly, it wouldn't be polite to scent mark the human or the things she calls clothes or the sofa where I sleep. After all, I wouldn't like it if she marked me everytime a manpeople came here. I'd stink!





With all this in mind, I choose to mark my boxes instead. I do this frequently, probably about once every half hour or so, and when I do, I shout and shout and shout no matter what time of the day or night it is, just in case he's listening. He hasn't come though. What am I to do! Friends, is there any way you know of to smuggle a mancat in here? More to the point, are there any mancats out there who would like to come, um, see my place for a bit? The human and Dogface are leaving tomorrow, so we could have all the house to ourselves! Mancat, Mancat, wherefore art thou Mancat! Maaaaaaaancaaaaaaaaat!!!

Home Sweet Home

Yes, friends, I am back! And boy am I glad to be home. Things have gotten slack around here in my absence. Stupid Dogface thinks she can get attention whenever she wants it, there's no fur on the sofas and the bed, and there isn't even any food down! Or at least, there wasn't till I got here. I suppose it's good in a way though. All of these signs show me that she hasn't been fratternising with another cat while I've been away. It's a nice thing to see.

I must tell you all about my adventure though. Last week I decided to be a real growed up cat and go and visit my man friend again. He's quite nice really, and I was starting to miss him. I told my human I wanted to go. I did this by sticking my bum in the air, holding my tail to the side and shouting. Crude, I know, but sometimes I have to make the message very, very simple before she understands it. I'd been telling her for a while, but she doesn't listen until I start pretending my front legs are much shorter than my back ones. I suspect that she thinks this is what I have to do now before I can go see him.

Rambling aside though, I got my wish. I got to go in my super cool girlie pink PTU (Ok, so the PTU part isn't cool). The human and I have come to an agreement though. When we're sitting still, she takes me out of the PTU for a cuddle, but when we're moving, like when we have to change from one noisy thing to another (she calls them trains), I go back inside. No, this is not because the noise scares me! I shout at her all the while that I'm in the PTU just to make sure she remembers I'm there, alone, foodless!

We went on two noisy things, then walked a little, at least, the human did. Then we got to the house where I'd been before. The people lady that looks after my man friend took me out of the PTU and carried me to go see him. Ah, I remembered this place well! In fact, I lost no time in running around and checking it all out. He owns his own house as I've said before, and if we are to have baby kittens together, the way I see it, his house is mine. I made this abundently clear by jumping on his favourite spot. It's a chair that's in the outside bit of his house, and it makes a really good place to sit and watch the squirrels, birdies, and even the other girl cats.

Speaking of girlcats, they hissed and spat at me something shocking when I first got there. I think they were jealous. One of them told me that he was her man, and how dare I be in there with him. I just spat back at her. Silly girl. He is mine. "Who's in the house and who has to share with all those other girlcats, eh?" said I, and this made her real, real mad. I didn't mind though. I knew she couldn't get at me.

My man isn't very well trained yet. He kept trying to sneak up on me and get my chair back for himself. I decided that, before we could make a family, the training needed to start. He needed to be put in his place. So every time he came near, I hissed really good, just like the human does when I do something really, really against the rules, and thwapped him until he ran away. Eventually, it started to work.

Over the next few days I watched him, but the training never stuck for long. I kept having to reinforce it. In the end, I decided that he simply wasn't ready for the responsibility of parenthood. The others laughed at me when I mentioned it to them. They say he's already a daddy, but I know it isn't true. One of the older ladies was quite nice though, and she gave me some good advice. "Smack him down, girlie," she said to me late one night when the others were all asleep, "but don't do it all of the time. There comes a point where your needs for, ah, a good time, outweigh the necessity of moulding him into the perfect gentleman. He's a male. They are driven by instinct and primal urges. You can't hope to make them into something new overnight."

I thought long and hard about this. I was forced to admit in the end that she did have a point. I mean, I wasn't planning to stay with him once the babies were put in my tummy. He was only going to be a short-term lover, so was I expending too much effort? This was days after I'd arrived though, and what with the upheaval of moving and travelling and fending him off, I'd quite lost the urge for what the nice older ladycat called a "good time". Maybe next time things will be different. I just don't know. It's not next time yet, after all, so why worry about it?

The human came to get me a short while later, and I must say, I was glad to see her, but not as stressed out and worried as last time. This meant I didn't have to cling to her like crazy when we got home. I knew she was coming back for me this time, you see. I'd been there before, and I know when I go to that place, it's only for a short time. I did give her some good face rubs when I got home, but I was more interested in making sure I had enough food in my bowl for the next week or so. Oh, and the water! Gosh, I can't tell you how good it was to get water that tasted like it should again! The human said she thought I'd explode with the amount I drank, but it just tasted sooooo good!

Last night was good too. The human was extra specially cuddly with me, but the pillow beside her doesn't seem to want me on it. Every time I try, it tips me off. Funnily, the human's hand is always nearby when this happens. I can't really understand it. When I sleep on the human's pillow nothing happens, but when I go on the one next to her, I just get thrown off. The human says this is because she has something called Asthma. Having me sleep round the top of her head is fine, or even behind it, or even with my face cuddled against hers, but when she has my whole body beside her face, she coughs and wheezes a lot. She says my head doesn't have as much fur on it, but when my body cuddles her face, she breathes in more of it and it makes her chest hard to breathe with. I don't get this. She can cuddle with her face and it doesn't make a difference. She says that when she is sleeping, I am close for a longer time, so she gets more of my fur. Also, her breathing is deeper, so it travels further that way. Peoples are very strange. I mean, whoever heard of anyone getting aggravated by fur! It is coming into the colder weather here too though, and the human says that doesn't help either. I just wish the pillow wouldn't be so mean. Stupid pillow.

Oh, in breaking news,The Babycat
has posted on his blog. He has just been nutered. He doesn't know what this is though, and it's not a subject a well brought up ladycat can possibly discuss without a little embarrassment, even if he is just a babycat. Hopefully some of you mancats can give him some worldly advice. By the way, the beginning of this post does not imply that I think all mancats run on instinct and are untrainable. Many of you grow up very nice, but I wonder how much that has to do with having what my human terms as "the snip"? I think you've all had it, and you are all nice. Even my man friend is nice. He's just, well, persistent. Do you mancats think that having the operation makes it easier to treat ladycats with the respect we deserve? I'm very curious. The first mancat I went to see for having a family with was nice too. He wasn't as persistent as the new one who owns his own house, but then he was much younger too, so I'm not sure how much has to do with age and how much to do with not having the operation. Please, enlighten me!

For now, I shall enlighten my food dish... Quite considerably!