Aby-a-Day – May 10: My Aby is unique!

You wonder why I make jokes about Jacoby’s calmness in the show ring? Well, since a picture’s worth a thousand words, I’ll illustrate. This is how most Abyssinians behave on the judge’s table and in the ring cages:

(This is Jazzy Abys Buddy Rich, a grandson of Jazzy Abys Fats Waller, who was a contemporary of Gun-Hee entered in the show 5 years ago.)

(This is the Aby kitten Abycastle Mozambique of Aby’licious.)

(This is Khamsin’s Magik Karpet Ride of Soledado, the one girl Aby in the show this weekend.)

(This is Cousin Taz.)

See? Active, playing, even in the cages they’re watching everything that’s going on. And then there’s Jake:

(Jake is #131…facing the back of his cage.)

Jake just stands there majestically.

He is friendly, cordial, polite…

…and he gives the distinct impression that the judge could turn his back and walk away, and he’d just stay there and wait for him to come back.

Something tells me I’ll never have to worry about hearing the dreaded cry “CAT OUT!” in connection with Jacoby.

Something tells me I’ll never have to worry about fire alarms, either.

And part of it is, he was trained to be a therapy cat before he was trained to be a show cat.

His lack of typical Abyssinian hyper-kinetic perpetual motion in front of the judges may cost him some points. It’s not really supposed to, since they’re judged against the standard rather than on their personality, but he’s so calm he tends to flip his ears back so they don’t look as upright and alert as they should.

He’s also more food-oriented than toy-oriented.

Still, all in all, I’d rather have a cat who’s unfazed by a rattling truck, the hissing airbrakes of a bus, and the slamming shut of train doors than a cat who jumps all over the place at the slightest little thing…

…and if it means he gets compared to a British Shorthair once in a while, well…so be it.

Abys in Need: Abyssinian and Egyptian Mau in Iowa Shelter

Stories like this always make me sad. Two seven-year-old bonded buddies, King Louie the Aby and Little Dragon the Egyptian Mau, are looking for a new home in Iowa. They’re being fostered on behalf of the Animal Rescue League of Iowa in Des Moines. It doesn’t say why these two gentlemen are in need of a new family, but they’ve been homeless for over a month already.

King Louie is a purebred red/sorrel Aby. He’s a little chubby, and he’s the shyer of the pair.

Little Dragon is a striking silver Egyptian Mau, and he’s said to be “like a dog” in many ways.

According to the website: These guys are a friendly pair who make themselves at home quickly. Dragon, a purebred Egyptian Mau, is the more affectionate, outgoing and vocal of the two. It may take a little longer for him to warm up, but once he does, he’ll be your best bud! He actually acts like a little dog sometimes — he likes being roughhoused, head-butted and scratched. Louie, a purebred Abyssinian, is a watcher-on-the-sidelines. He observes everything, and you can see how intelligent he is as he considers every situation. These boys are a great pair and love each other very much. They need a very quiet home with either older kids or no kids and preferably no other pets. Louie has a tendency toward bladder crystals, so he will need to be on special food for the rest of his life.

If you know anyone in the area who needs a couple of lovely boys, please contact Carol at cgriglione@arl-iowa.org.

Space: The Feline Frontier

Disclaimer: These are not Abys. But I had to share this with all of you because it’s awesome. I mean, what could be better than cats…in outer space? And you know that Abyssinians were the first spacecats…

Anyway, behold: Cats in Space:

(If you watched Star Trek on the local independent station after school, you’re really going to love this.)

Also check out the “Making of” video…The kitties will assimilate you! Resistance is futile!

Other People’s…well, Not-Abys: Caveat Emptor

If you’re looking for an Abyssinian, you really do need to be aware of unscrupulous breeders. Check out this advert on a UK website called Pets4Homes:

3 BEAUTIFUL FEMALE PEDIGREE X KITTENS
The Abyssinian is a pedigree breed of domesticated cat with a distinctive ticked coat. Stunning! The Mother is an Abyssinian, the Father a DSH Black & white

8 weeks old
Litter trained
De-flead
Wormed

Included (brand new):
Litter tray
Cat bowl
Blanket
Top formula milk
Royal Canin wet food
Pack of cat toys

And they are selling these kits for £220 (Roughly $350 US and $347 CDN)! thing is, the mother cat isn’t an Abyssinian at all. She’s a lovely brown ticked tabby, certainly, but she’s definitely not an Aby. There are photos of her, and the black with white father, on the kittens’ website.

I’d say they needed to check out the NAR’s “Is it an Aby” page, but I think they’re fully aware of their misidentification.

Aby-a-Day – March 12: Yes, we still have a hallway (Hipstamatic Monday)

I guess it has been a while since I’ve shared any photos of Jacoby running in the hallway.

We still do, every couple of days…I just don’t always bring my camera or my phone along.

I wish I knew what was so exciting about romping around the hallway…all of our cats really seem to love it. And they’re not the only cats who like this, apparently; just last month, a new video of Oskar the blind cat and his buddy Klaus was added to their YouTube channel showing them running in the hallway of their building!

Jake is so funny to watch trot-trot-trotting in the hallway.

He’s so businesslike, striding purposefully to our door.

Here it is! We’re home!

Aby-a-Day – March 11: “Judge not, yet you yourself be judged” isn’t really relevant when you’re a cat…

I have always liked watching cat show judges at work.

I have always wanted to be a judge…but I think you generally have to be a breeder, first.

Of course, I’ve always wanted to be one of those, too.

But I’m always captivated by watching the judges handle and interact with the cats.

This is Jacoby being examined by one judge, Elaine Hawksworth-Weitz, last weekend.

While I mostly watch the first three letters of the Shorthair Premier/Alter judging, I try to check out other rings. This is the Championship Aby judging.

Granted, it looks pretty similar, but it’s different.

This is a Championship Bengal (notice our Somali friend in the back, watching).

Despite being a tomcat, this guy was a sweetie.

I like watching the judging because it’s also a chance to see the cats out of a cage, like the silver Somali.

This Maine Coon alter was another great cat. I think he was in every final that Jake was in.

Here’s our little neighbour Sally the Sphinx being judged.

You see silver classic tabby American Shorthairs on television in cat food commercials and Saturday Night Live skits* all the time, but you don’t actually see them that often in cat shows these days.

This guy was stunning.

There was also an all-white American Shorthair in the Alter class. Look at this guy’s head! You can definitely tell that Kylie is not really related to American Shorthairs as her body type is so very different.

When you see all the different cats a judge has to evaluate, it makes you kind of relieved to be associated with only one or two breeds.

*While looking for a Toonces clip…look what else I found! And his name is Deiter! I wonder if he has a monkey?

Aby-a-Day – March 10: The wonderful world of TICA

I also wanted to share the TICA experience. It was, as I said, different. Different breeds of cats, a slightly different style of showing, and a slightly different overall personality. Not bad, just different. Kind of like when you live in either the US or Canada and go to the other country; we speak the same language (apart from that whole “couch/chesterfield” thing), we watch the same television shows, but we use different money and do our everyday things just a little bit differently.

I like different. I’m a Gemini; different is awesome.

It was also a lot of fun to see Munchkins, Bengals, Savannahs and Toygers, since those aren’t recognised by CFA. Savannahs, in fact, on January 28th 2012, TICA accepted the Savannah as a championship breed, so this was actually one of the breed’s first “real” shows.

Animal Planet has a new episode of Too Cute Kittens with Savannah kittens, and it aired for the first time on the Saturday night of the cat show. I was talking to a woman with Savannah kittens on Sunday, and it turns out that those are her kittens on the program. So now I’ve met two of the breeders who have been featured on Too Cute! Kittens, the Abyssinians who were bred by Instincts (breeders of Jacoby’s mother Catalina), and now I’ve met the Savannahs, too.

This is Janet with one of her kittens. As I’ve been telling the Pouponette’s Number 1, my camera has been having issues lately…the good photo I took of her wasn’t saved by the camera, unfortunately, so this is the best I have.

This is an adult Savannah named Jordache.

He and his human were wearing coordinated outfits!

This is one of the Toygers that was at the show. I’d never seen a Toyger in person before.

But last weekend, I got to see two!

I never saw a Bengal in person, either. This was a Champion Bengal next to a really pretty little fawn Aby girl.

She was adorable!

There were also two ruddy Championship Abyssinians in the show.

And this incredible Silver Cinnamon Somali.

He was so gorgeous.

And good-natured!

This Siamese was actually a Household Pet.

Every time I saw this little Japanese Bobtail, I was reminded of Eyebrow Kitteh. His people actually hadn’t seen Eyebrow Kitteh…I’m sure they thought I was strange.

Dexter’s person had the most spectacular tattoo of her red/sorrel Aby…it’s certainly gotten me to thinking!

And we also saw this little lilac European Burmese. It was funny, because Jacoby saw her first and he just kind of stared at her. I’m sure he thought she was Tessie at first, and he was just fascinated with her. It was really funny.

As I said yesterday, there was also a Pet Expo going on (the cat show was a part of the larger Expo), and we had a lot of spectators coming through both days. Everyone was really well-mannered, for the most part; people asked sensible questions and the children were polite. Sometimes when there are a lot of what we used to call “Mundanes” when I was in the SCA walking around, I get nervous for my belongings; the more people who pass by your encampment, the more likely it is that something of yours may evolve legs and walk away. But I didn’t hear of any missing belongings either of the two days, which is wonderful!

We had a lot of attention around Jake’s house, because we were benched next to the only Sphynx at the show, and the kids all loved Sally.

Her people, Laurie and Michael, let the kids touch her so they would know what a hairless cat felt like.

I actually had to take her up to a ring while they were at lunch! I’ve petted Sphynxes before, but I’d never shown one…that was an interesting experience. I said it was like driving someone else’s car; I was familiar with the process, but everything was just slightly off.

I like having little kids (and older girls) come by to see Jake. I always talk to them and let them pet a real live show cat; I was just like them when I was their age, and I would have been over the moon if I’d have been allowed to touch a real show Aby when I was 12. I would have been too shy to even ask, so I really enjoy talking to kids about the cat show, Jake, and the whole show experience because I see myself in those kids. I found an article for cat show exhibitors on a Persian and Exotic breeder’s website which, personally, says everything I want to say and more; it’s a brilliant essay.

I also have Jake’s TokiPoki cards, and tiny “rock band buttons” with his name and photo on them that I give away to the really good cat-crazy kids. Those are very popular; sometimes the parents want one, too! A lot of the cat people at shows can be a little preoccupied and a lot of us deal better with cats than with people (myself included), so I always try to remember what I felt like when I just came to look at cat shows, before I was actually involved with them.

The Expo itself had a lot of booths with all sorts of pet-related products. I bought a totebag with “I Love My Abyssinian” on it (and it had green handles, too!) from Klondike Stuff embroidery, and the owner came over to me and said, “Thank you for buying a totebag.” I grinned and said, “Thank you for having a totebag with an Aby on it!”

I also got this little grey hand towel from her. It’s supposed to be a “Yoga Cat,” but I think she looks like a fawn Aby.

Another cool thing about Expos like this is that you get introduced to new products, like the new walnut-shell litter that Blue just came out with. The Northeast sales rep himself (I think his name is Greg) came around to all of us exhibitors and extolled the virtues of this new litter – and also gave us a bag to try out!

I haven’t tried it yet, but apparently nut shells in general, and especially walnut shells, have amazing ammonia gas and odor-neutralising properties. During WWI, they were used in gas masks because walnut shells were super-effective against mustard gas. According to Greg, this was discovered by accident when gas masks were stored in a shed that was broken into by squirrels, who stored walnuts inside the gas masks. When they were testing the gas masks for effectiveness against mustard gas, the men who had gas masks with walnuts in them were fine, but those without the walnuts passed out. And, as anyone who’s ever read a label on a bottle of bleach or ammonia knows, mustard gas is ammonia-based, just like cat urine. So it should work really well on cat box odor, and I’m very interested to try it!

I’m sure Jake is, too. I just hope he doesn’t try to eat it like he did the corn-based World’s Best Litter!

Aby-a-Day – March 8: Downtime during the cat show

One thing that people don’t know about cats is, they love hotel rooms.

It’s really funny. I’ve heard this from a lot of people at cat shows, and I’ve seen it in my own cats. Something about a king-sized bed, institutional art, and a “do not disturb” door hanger really appeals to kitties.

I got Jacoby a large, leopard-print catnip kicker from one of the vendors and that + hotel room = crazy fun times for Jake.

Some combination of catnip and king-sized bed just really appealed to Jake; he was rolling and kicking like a mad thing!

Kick, kick, kick.

Bite, bite, bite.

Good times!

Eventually, Jake settled down and watched the latest episode of Too Cute! Kittens on Animal Planet with me.

Despite being around other cats all day long and having three feline roommates back at home, Jake was still captivated by the kittens’ onscreen antics.

Or…maybe he just wanted their toys..?

Aby-a-Day – March 3: And off to the show we’ll go

Wow. TICA is…different. It’s amazing. We started late, did eight rings, and still managed to finish bang on 5pm.

Another thing they do is, when you check in, you get your catalog and you get a rosette for each cat with a little card the show name on it. And then, as you make finals, you get another little card with the judge’s name and the award won. So you get one rosette per show, with everything you accomplished right there on that ribbon. It makes the rings a little less festive, because they don’t have all the day’s ribbons on display, but it does make packing up easier!

Then, too, TICA recognises some breeds that CFA doesn’t.

Like Bengals!

And Munchkins!

This is only the second Munchkin I’ve ever seen in real life (the first was at Pet City in Tokyo).

And they also recognise some colours that CFA doesn’t, like this Silver Cinnamon Somali. So it’s a bit like going to England; people speak the same language, but they drive on the other side of the road and they use some different words for things.

So, how did Jacoby do at his first day of his first TICA show?

In his first ring, a shorthair specialty ring judged by Brenda Russo, he was 5th Best Shorthair Alter. Brenda asked me his lines, and when I mentioned Instincts, she told me she knows Chris! The Aby world is small, my friends.

The next ring he finalled in, there were too many boycats, so three of us had to sit with our cats in the audience. Thank goodness there was a kind stranger to take photos for me!

Jake was Alberto Leal’s 8th Best Allbreed Alter. And he sat very nicely throughout the final, too.

And then, in Solveig Pflueger’s ring, he was named 7th Best Allbreed Alter.

Not bad for his first show. I’m not entirely sure what it all means, pointwise, but here were 18 shorthair alters and 36 alters today. However, tomorrow is another day. Literally. Today, Jake was the only ruddy Abyssinian alter, but tomorrow he will have competition: Supreme Grand Champion Alter Pentaclecats Dexter Morgan. So, stay tuned tomorrow, Abyfriends, and find out what happens when a Red Sox star base-stealer meets a serial killer!

Cats in Need: Clark Kent in West Philly

I just wanted to boost this signal on this, because it needs to be spread around the internet. When I first saw this, I wasn’t aware the report about Clark Kent was originally from Thanksgiving when I shared it. Clark Kent and is currently recovering well (but with kidney problems) in a foster home. His “owners” were charged and ordered to appear in court but were MIA (shocking, I know, that they didn’t bother to show up). I’ll share any further info I come across about Clark. It could happen to any cat. All this guy did wrong was get sick…and have bad people.

Via Citykitties:

A good samaritan found this cat today in a gutter by Clark Park, West Philadelphia, half dead. He is now at the Cat Doctor with a body temperature of 90 (normal is 102) and blood PCV of 8. The Cat Doctor housecat, Diamond, is currently donating blood to save his life. During the exam, the vet found that this cat has a microchip. When called, his "owners" reported that he was acting sick, so they put him outside. If this makes you as angry as it makes us, please channel your anger in one of two ways: visit our website at www.citykitties.org and make a donation to help us pay for his care, or share this post and encourage others to do so.

Clark Kent’s whole story is here on City Kitties’ website – He is declawed, too!

Click to donate.

Originally posted by at Kittypix on LJ

from a post by Kyle Cassidy

Puss in Boots: Backstage Auditions

This may be the best movie promotion I have ever seen.

Not Aby related, admittedly, but I just wanted to share. The Sphynx especially cracked me up.

I really hope the Puss and Boots movie (which opens tomorrow) lives up to the clever tie-ins and apps they’ve been releasing.

Stewie the Maine Coon: Show cat, therapy cat and World Record holder

I know this is a blog about Abyssinians, but I saw the story of Stewie (Mymains Stewart Gilligan) the Maine Coon. He’s the Guinness World’s Record-holding Longest Cat in the World, measuring 48.5″ – just over 4 feet! – from nose to tail-tip. Most cats are about 18″ long; Jacoby is a pretty long and tall cat, but he’s only about 32″ long*, a piker compared to Stewie! On Stewie’s blog, there are photos of him and his human, Robin Hendrickson…look at the one where he’s not stretched out, but just sitting there with her standing behind him with her arms around him. WOW.

But what actually caught my attention isn’t that Stewie is the world’s official Longcat, but he’s also a show cat (he was actually just at a TICA show at Cal Expo in Sacramento, CA, where I used to go to cat shows when I was a teen) and a therapy cat! There aren’t many cats who are both show cats and therapy cats.

(Image via MSNBC)

I really like this one thing that Robin told Catsparella: “Stewie visits local hospitals and rest homes and brightens the patients’ day. I hope to get him into the schools to work with special needs kids,” because that’s exactly what I want to do with Jake some day.

Jake probably won’t ever hold a world’s record (unless it’s for heaviest Abyssinian!), but it’s fascinating to know that there’s another cat out there who does both cat shows and therapy work.

*I say about 32″…I have an awesome string measure…but Jake’s really squirmy, and even with my husband’s help, I’m still not sure. So I took my best out of three.

Meet Chandra

While we were at the cat show, I took a break to go look at the display of rescue kitties up for adoption that was set up in the foyer.

All the active, lively, cute kittens were up front, working the crowd and charming everyone, but I went around the back to visit the older cats, the ones that tend not to draw as much attention, and I saw Chandra.

Poor girl seemed completely overwhelmed and a bit terrified…and she was a very unusual ticked tortoisehell – essentially, a non-purebred Abyssinian-type torbie! There are tortie Abys, but they’re mainly bred in Europe (along with the silver Abys) and aren’t recognised here in the State.

This is Chandra’s story:
DOB 8/18/2010
Hi, I’m Chandra, and you could say I have a sad story to tell. I was found by the good people of the rescue with my three kittens outside in the rain with no dry accommodations. They took us in and it was a good thing they did. I ended up with terrible mastitis and couldn’t feed my babies. I’m very healthy now and my babies are being fostered. I’d like to tell you that I’m a very petite girl who is just a love. I’m more of the quiet type and am really enjoying getting to know what it means to be petted and loved. I’ve been spayed and am now up to date on all my shots and have tested negative for Feline Aids and Leukemia. If interested, please contact compassion4catsNLC@comcast.net or call (860) 886-5085.

Poor girl! As it happens, her kittens are in the pink cage at the upper right of the first photo. Chandra may or may not be part Aby…but she does look like an Abyssinian, with those big golden eyes and that little white chin.

Raincoats, Maru? Really? Raincoats are so four months ago (Bonus Fashion Friday)

Catsparella posted about Maru, the famous Japanese cat who loves boxes, wearing a raincoat.

Jacoby actually scooped Maru on that one, as all you Aby Friends know. Jake wears his raincoat all the time when it’s rainy outside!

Maybe someday Jake will be as famous as Maru…

Aby-a-Day – September 1: Friends from the old neighbourhood

When Tessie, Kylie and Angel went to the vet on Tuesday, Jacoby was left home all by himself all day. I don’t think he has ever been totally alone for any length of time before in his life.

So as you can imagine, he was pretty thrilled when we all came home. I wish I had a webcam or some sort of motion-activated video camera so I could know what he did all day! However, I had today off, and I needed to run some errands, so I took Jake along with me.

We happened to walk up the street I used to live on in Somerville, and to my delight, we saw an old friend! Angelina is a lovely black smoke and white mediumhair girl who I first met as a kitten in 2005. She is just the same age as Kylie, and she’s a real firecracker. My favourite memory of Angelina is one evening when I was walking home, and she ran up to me and dropped a mouse in front of me. It was still alive, and she looked so proud of herself! I praised her, of course, and continued homeward. That wasn’t good enough for Angelina, though. She picked up that mouse, ran as fast as she could to get in front of me, dropped the (rather dazed) mouse back down on the sidewalk, looked at me to make certain I saw it, and then caught it again. She then stood there with the mouse in her mouth and waited for me to lavish praise upon her.

Needless to say, I was overjoyed to see her again today. Jake…well, he was polite and didn’t hiss or spit at her, so that was good.

Angelina lives with a lovely sealpoint-and-white longhair named Hugo. He’s a great big lump of affection. It was good to see him again, too.

Therapy Cats Provide Hope

This is pretty awesome…a friend of mine wrote an article about therapy cats for PawNation, and they used the photo of Jacoby in his mistletoe hat!

I think there were a few miscommunications between what she wrote and what they published (for one thing, Jake and I don’t do reading programs, at least, not yet), but it’s still a great article. People are always so surprised to learn that there are therapy cats when they meet Jake, so it’s nice to get a little publicity.

This is pretty much what Jacoby does to me in the morning…

…the only thing that would make it more accurate would be to transform Bucky from a Siamese to an Aby, but today’s Get Fuzzy describes my life. Minus the carpet fibres and the barfing on the computer, maybe, but it’s always “food o’clock” in Jake’s world.

(click to embiggen)

The strip which got me hooked on this comic in the first place was very similar. It was one of the very first ones that Darby Conley (who lives in Boston, by the way) drew, and it involved Rob eating a sandwich. Bucky’s head appears over the tabletop and he says, “Is that tuna? Can I have it?”
Rob, chewing, responds, “Don’t you mean, ‘can I have some of it?”
And Bucky answers, “No…I think I could eat it all.”

And that, too, is so very like Jake, who tries to grab the food off of my fork as I’m lifting it to my mouth.

Aby-a-Day – January 12: Wordless Wednesday (Walking in a winter wonderland)

Cat Physics

DISCLAIMER: If you ever want to get anything done ever, stop reading NOW!

Okay, so this isn’t exactly Abyssinian related, but I just have share my latest obsession with you: Cat Physics, an app for iPods, iPhones and iPads.

Now, as you may have already guessed, I was the artistic, free-thinking oddball type in school. I was friends with the math geeks, but I was not one of them. So I never actually took a physics class. But you know…maybe if they’d used cats back then, I would have been more interested.

This game is seriously addictive. It’s deceptively simple, so you do really well right at the start…and then, once you start feeling really confident, you get hooked. And the challenges get harder. But by then it’s too late.

I’m not kidding. There are tons of YouTube videos showing how to get through the more treacherous levels. And once you get your ball from the white cat to the black cat successfully, you can always go back and try to improve your score. A tiny tweak here or a better bounce there can make a huge difference. Best of all, it’s only 99¢!

And with their big ears, long tails and ball rolling abilities, they do look kind of like Abys…

This is what Jacoby does to me on a regular basis…

Cat vs Human captures life with kittehs all too accurately. This is a favourite game of Jake’s.

Lately he’s taken to camping out in his fort under the chairs, and he won’t come out for love, money or treats.

He will, however, still come out of hiding for the laser pointer. For now, at least.