There was a Birman Cat Show on in town, so we just had to go and check it out. After all, some of the cats on display could well be related to our Muffy. We just love the shows that offer “golden oldie” prices, as this one did. These cheaper prices for pensioners must bring a whole lot more people through the doors, and no doubt they will all buy tickets in the raffles too, and have a cuppa at the cafe on site.
Club banner
Birmans are known as the “Sacred Temple Cat of Burma”, and the legend tells of the Kymer people who built beautiful temples to worship their gods. One of the temples housed a beautiful golden goddess with sapphire blue eyes, who watched over the transmutation (change into another form) of souls. One night raiders entered the temple and killed the priest, who was accompanied by Sinh, a white temple cat who never left his side. As the priest died, Sinh placed his feet on the fallen body of his master, and turned to face the golden goddess. Immediately his white coat turned golden, his eyed turned turquoise, and his white legs shaded down to a velvety brown. But where his feet rested on his dead master, they remained white, as a sign of purity. By the next morning, all the other white temple cats had been transformed as well. Seven days later, faithful Sinh died, and carried his master’s soul to Paradise.
We walked around the hall, admiring all the cats. Originally Birmans had seal colour points, as Muffy does, but over the years breeders have produced chocolate, blue, lilac, red, apricot and caramel colours, all recognised by the cat club.
Checking out the cats
It was interesting watching as the judging was done. One by one, the cats and kittens were carefully lifted from their show cages and carried over to one of the five judges presiding over their judging table. Judging is carefully done to the New Zealand standard, and the cat is checked, point by point. Hygiene is very important, and we noticed that the judges sanitised his hands and the table between handling each cat. Cats must be easily handled, and we saw a hissing cat quickly returned to his cage, so presumably the bad mannered cat was penalised for his outburst.
Judging underway
Our one and only venture into the show ring was back in 1997 when Muffy was just a kitten, not just any old cat show either, but the National All Breed Show. Muffy was bathed, shampooed, blow dried, brushed and combed to make sure she looked her best. Sadly, our kitten didn’t win a ribbon, but her breed line did extremely well. The “Supreme Longhair Best in Show” all those years ago had the same sire as our Muffy! The rules were quite strict back then, and only white towels were permitted in the show cages for the cats to lie on. These days the rules have been relaxed and many of the cages were rather decorative, with coloured drapes attached and fancy cushions of all hues.
Decorated in blue
Hiding under the satin cushion
All the show cats were beautiful, and we must admit that we have a real preference for the original seal point colour-way. We arrived home to see how our elderly old girl was coping all by herself. There she was in the hall way, keeping warm right in front of the “night store” heater. She had curled up for a snooze on the carpet, and welcomed us in the door with a “where have you been?” meow. We won’t tell her we have been looking at young kittens, she might get upset!
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