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The Spring, a newly opened shopping mall in Kuching, Sarawak and it’s management had decided to organize a cat show during it’s grand opening. Therefore, they had invited me to be their very first guest judge in their very first cat show in their mall on 6th-7th September which I was very excited and delighted to accept the offer. The thought of being a judge in a cat show in a cat city was certainly over-whelming! (Kuching literally means cat in Malay language). With the help of their local prestigious Sarawak Cat Club’s experienced and talented committee members, the show was a real success and flawless.

I had been in communication with both the Spring management representative and Sarawak Cat Club on making this show a success and I had gave them some ideas about activities besides just a simple cat show or exhibition. We had activities such as coloring contest for kids, fancy cat dress, breed presentation, talks about cats and expositions by some vendors. You see, for a show to be a success, I strongly believed that everyone involved must play their role no matter how significant the role is. I had even spent some time talking with the vendors and suggested to them instead of waiting for ‘walk-in’ customers, they can educate the exhibitors and members of the public by having a brief introduction of their products. At the end of the 2-days event, the vendors were happy with their sales and all this comes down to a win-win situation.

There were some pedigree cats on exhibition to educate the public. Breeds such as Persian, Exotic, Maine Coon, European Burmese, Scottish Fold, Ragdoll, Turkish Van, Norwegian Forest and on the first day of the show, I had the honor to do a 30 minutes breed presentation to the exhibitors and the public; educating them how a pedigree (for example a Persian) suppose to look like, key features of the breed such as head and body profile and how certain breed differs from the other (Persian vs Exotic, Maine Coon vs Norwegian Forest etc)

Since the show was held in a public mall and big crowd is being expected, I had made my intention very clear to the show management that the benching and judging area for the cats must be condoned by proper barriers and signages of Do’s and Don’ts must be visible around the condoned area to educate the public of what they can do and what they can’t. Exhibitors were earlier been briefed by me on how to safeguard their cat(s), keeping them calm and to advise the public about the Do’s and Don’ts. The Spring management had even placed 2 guards for that purpose with also the assistance by the Sarawak Cat Club members.

Before I started my judging, I explained to the exhibitors and the public on what are the criterias that a cat judge is looking for during a competition. Since the cats in this competition in particular are non-pedigree cats; criterias such as cleanliness, temperament, body balance and interaction between cat and judge are very important. I adopted the open-judging style whereby I give a brief comment on every single cat I handled; highlighting the strong points of the cat as well as points that can be improved.

Since I am a CFA Ambassador, it is part of my responsibility to educate cat owners about the importance of neutering and spaying if the cat is not use for breeding or a genetic default such as kink had been detected. On the second day, I had another 30 minutes presentation entitled ‘10 Commandments of Responsible Cat Ownership and Breeder‘. As a judge of the show and ambassador to a well-known cat association, I strongly felt that it is also my responsibility to educate my exhibitors and public about the protection of a cat’s welfare in particular and animals in general. At the end of my presentation, I had stressed to cat owners and breeders that:-

1. Never treat cats as comodities
2. Respect animals the way you wanted to be respected
3. Responsibilities of finding good homes for their cats

Some of the winners

A token of appreciation presented by the President of Sarawak Cat Club

The show management committee and vendors

At the end of the 2 days show, I was very satisfied of what I had accomplished especially when I received very positive feedbacks from some exhibitors that they had enjoyed the show, my concept of open-judging and presentations. This also the feedbacks that I had received from the show management themselves. Furthermore, I always believed that a cat show is not about whose cat wins but a strong ground for cat owners to learn something to take care their cats; the right way.