Cats Primped and Fluffed for 'Best of Best'
There's cattiness and competition backstage at the CFA-Iams Cat Championship.
NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2007 — -- Their noses powdered, their hair blown out, 325 of America's beauties gathered this weekend at Madison Square Garden to compete in one of the nation's top beauty contests.
No, it wasn't the Miss America pageant, but there was plenty of cattiness backstage. It was, after all, the 2007 CFA-Iams Cat Championship.
The morning started off rough for New York native Caroline Scott and her American Curl cat, Madeline Curlbright. After weeks of preparation, something happened on the way to the show that could have cost little Madeline the competition.
"If a kitty throws up in her carrier in the car service on the way to the show, you stay calm," said Scott. "This morning it happened after you bathe the cat for two hours straight and blow dry every little hair. They get in the carrier and you hear [burp]. That's the worst sound a show person can hear."
Scott was one of hundreds of owners facing the pressure of competition this weekend as her cat competed to be named Best of Best. And like many of the owners showing this weekend, Scott takes this sport seriously.
The scene at Madison Square Garden was straight out of the movie "Best in Show," a popular 2001 mocumentary about the world of dog shows -- only cats were the star of this show. Backstage, hundreds of cats and their owners aligned in rows, greeting visitors and waiting for their opportunity to face the judges.
Each cage was elaborately decorated -- color coordinated to the resident cat's eyes, or following a theme crafted around the cat's country of origin, like the elaborate display Sandy Adler designed for her Sphynx cat, Ammi Dermis.
"When you come to the show, they give you a cage and everybody decorates it in a different way," said Adler. "I did kind of a gold sphinx, because that's what the name of the breed is."
