How To Prepare For a Cat Show.

It is not long till Monty and Deeks go to their first ever cat show! We will be attending the 'Lancashire Cat Club Show' which is in Wigan on 14th March, this coming Saturday. I decided I would do a post sharing what I have learnt so far about the process of cat showing, starting with preparing your cat for the show.

If your cat has never been to a show before, you will need to make sure they are comfortable with strangers picking them up and handling them for a period of time. This is probably the most important thing to think about, you may have the most stunning cat, but if they cant be picked up without a fuss they wont be able to be judged. Try and get different people you know to come and pet your cat, pick them up and cuddle them. If your cat is lead trained, you can take them to places like 'Pets at Home' and they will meet other people there who will no doubt want to make a fuss of them.

You will need to prepare the cat for the vetting in process, which takes place before you get into the show hall. The vets will be checking the cat for things like clean ears, healthy coats without any fleas and making sure they are in good health. If your cat has fleas/mites or anything like that, you will not be able to take part in the show. Your cat must also be in good health, not too thin, and no signs of illness.

To prepare your cats, make sure you give their ears a good clean, I just use a baby wipe, these are fine to use on cats ears and to get the 'sleep' out of the corner of their eyes. The next step is to clip their claws. Just use human nail clippers and snip off the very end, this is just to make sure the judges dont get scratched by accident. Check your cats paws and give them a wipe with a baby wipe if they look a bit grubby, if necessary you can use warm water to clean them but don't use any soap as they will lick it off and might become ill.

Clipping claws

Next, make an effort to give your cat a brush/comb. I use a moulting comb, it has metal teeth of 2 different lengths. If your cat is long or semi-long haired, you should really comb or brush them weekly anyway, and this is what I do with Monty and Deeks. For the day before the show I will give them a more thorough brushing, and make sure their mane/knickerbockers and tail are extra poofy!

Monty investigating the cat comb

For the actual show day, you will need 'show whites' which are a white litter tray, white food and water bowl, and white blanket. You can use any colour litter you like in the litter tray but everything else should be white. You can put a favourite toy in with them too if you want to. You can feed them when you arrive, but the food has to be taken out of the pen prior to judging.

Show whites

When your cat has been vetted in and you get your pen number, go to your pen with the cat and use antibacterial wipes to give it a wipe round before you put your cats in the pen with their show whites. Then you can give them a final brush and let them be calm before you have to leave them for judging.

I hope you found this useful and I will do more about showing cats in later posts on my blog, so please come back to find out more.

Have you ever shown your cat? Leave me a comment about how it went!