Alabama Paws & Claws Cat Club hosted a 3 day, 20 ring Meow-dis Gras Celebration in Anniston Alabama this past weekend.

As the TICA show season begins to wind down for the year, and many of the more seasoned exhibitors are working hard to earn regional points before it’s closed (April 30th), competition really starts to get tough!

Thankfully, we aren’t striving for Regional points, and we attend these shows more for the fun of it (to meet new people, to learn, and to prevent form going “cattery blind”), so we decided to enter our boy Orion, and brought Stormy Nite and Anchored Hope as exhibitors.

Hope is just three months old and this was her first time attending a show. She did such a good job traveling in a car (4 hours there, 4 hours back), and staying in the hotel.

In the show hall each day, while we were waiting for Orion to be called, we used an open ring to practice entering and exiting the show cages and being handled on the judge’s table. Hope was extremely tolerant and willing to show off her stuff. Storm, on the other hand, would immediately protest with a growl or a hiss. Despite our best efforts and intentions, this made it pretty clear to us that Storm simply does NOT enjoy showing.

As for Orion, the first day of the show things went really well. He was awarded Best of Breed in three rings and made a final in the most senior Judge’s ring. We had high hopes for the rest of the weekend, but unfortunately he had different plans.

By the middle of the second day Orion made it clear that he was NOT happy about the smell of the intact females he was forced to sit next to in each judge’s ring. He finally made his opinion on the matter known by marking his show cage.

Despite a couple minor setbacks, all in all it was a really fun show! We got a chance to meet some amazing people, and we even learned a few more helpful grooming tips to help prepare for future shows.