Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 13

My Cat Show Caturday (With Special Guest)

My cat show fun started even before we set up. It was scheduled to start really early on Caturday, so my human got us a hotel room to give her some extra sleep time in the morning. And you know how much I love hotels.

Here I am the morning of the show. As you might notice on the partition, my human added a few disco ball lights.

One of the first outfits I wore was my Dolly Parton two-piece.

And I met lots of nice people! And saw a few who had seen me before too.

Everybody loves when I ring my bell. So I did it lots.

It was a good show, and a little bit on the short side, since there was an award banquet that evening. My human and I didn’t attend because that’s just for people whose cats compete in the shows. Since I only meet and greet people, I wasn’t part of it.

Oh, and this is who my human met while we were at the show — Hilton! He’s the hotel cat, and the staff takes care of him. Because he always wins fans, they have to leave a note out not to feed him because he gets enough food.

The sign didn’t say anything about photos, so my human took a few of him, and he was happy to pose.

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Silly Photos on Sunday

It’s time for my weekly round of outtakes! And I have some pretty silly ones for you today.

The photo session for my post about cats IDing humans through scent produced some great shots. It also produced this unintentional tongue-out outtake.

It also produced this shot, where you can tell I decided that the session was over.

My human must have been taking too long with the set up at the cat show because I do not look pleased!

I never said supervising humans was easy!

And that’s it for this week’s outtakes! If you have a favorite, let me know in the comments.

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My Fun Cat Show Set Up Day

I got to help set up my benching area at the cat show in Ontario! I don’t get to do this very often so it was really a treat.

There is a lot of stuff that goes into my benching area, so I had a bunch of supervising to do!

The enclosure is the most important part! It’s my home base for the whole show.

I got really happy when we finished getting it set up. Since the bed is used in my carrier, it won’t come out until the actual show.

This is the other important part of my set up: the partition! It keeps me separate from other cats at the show so I can focus on meeting my public.

And of course my banner is important too! I got it when I was first accepted into CFA’s Ambassador Cat program.

And we’re finished! I can’t wait for the show to start.

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New Study Claims Cats Can ID You by Scent Alone!

Nearly everyone knows how sensitive a cat’s sense of smell is. But a recent study takes that a step further. Japanese researchers have fond that we kitties apparently can ID our humans by their scent alone!

This makes sense, really. Even humans can do that. Ask mine — she has had boyfriends she could totally ID purely by their scent! (And I mean that in a good way.) So, given the superior sense of smell we cats have, it would logically be a way for us to know our humans are nearby.

What the study discovered

What is interesting, however, is the reaction of the 30 cats in the study. Maybe you’re thinking that when presented with the same of their human’s scent they lingered longer than with the scent of the person they didn’t know. But the exact opposite was true! The cats spent less time with the human scent they were already familiar with. They were far more thorough in checking out the strange scent.

But don’t get your feeling hurt over that. Cats use scent as information, not to recall sentimental memories (like my human does!). So of course they spent less time with the familiar scent — they already know all about that. The new scent, however, had lots of info for them to discover.

Don’t bother trying this at home!

Yes, my human tried to recreate this experiment! She used a swab rubbed behind her ear, and for the unfamiliar scent, she just rubbed a swab on a dusty baseboard. (The neighbors probably think she’s weird enough without asking one of them for a swab sample of their scent.) And of course it was a big fail because all I wanted to do was rub up against both swabs.

While the Japanese researchers couldn’t definitively say if a cat could really ID their human by their scent and nothing else, it seems logical (although perhaps not scientific) to assume that’s true.

Cats use different nostrils for different purposes

Here’s one additional tidbit this study revealed. Cats use their left nostril to check out familiar scents, and their right nostril to sniff the unfamiliar ones. I don’t know if you can verify this on your own, since cats tend to wrinkle both sides of their nose while they’re sniffing. But it might be fun to observe and see if you can tell.

You can find the study at the PLOS One website. If you want the more reader-friendly wrap up, you can find an article about it in the Smithsonian or Neuroscience News.

So did any of this surprise you? Has your cat ever had a reaction to a new scent? Let us know in the comments!

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My Disco Cat Show Wardrobe Sneak Preview

I’ve got a cat show this Saturday! And the theme is “disco mania,” so I’d better find some outfits to match!

I think the closest outfit I have is my Dolly Parton two-piece. It looks pretty fun and flashy.

Is this dress dance ready? The shiny-sparkly flamingos on the back look cool.

I don’t think this outfit is particularly disco, but we’re having some nice spring weather, and it works for that.

You can get a sneak preview of my wardrobe in the video below — make sure you stick around ’til the end for a couple behind-the-scenes outtakes! And if you’re near Ontario, California, the address and hours of the show are included.

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This Visit With the Peach Kitty Had Wings!

When the peach kitty came to visit the other day, my human had the crazy idea to have me wear my butterfly wings. I don’t know why, since they never fit right (as you can see in the original short where I modeled them). Maybe she just wanted to see how he would react.

At first he wasn’t sure what to think!

But I think he’s used to me wearing all sorts of weird things by now.

They didn’t seem to get in the way of him paying attention to me!

And of course we both got lots of treats! You can see our visit in the video below.

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Therapy Cat Quality Time With the Kids

I got to visit the children’s hospital for my therapy cat visit this week. Each visit is a little different, and this time I wound up spending more quality time with each patient, even though it was a busy day.

We started off in the lobby, as always, and the first patient I saw was a boy in a wheelchair with his mom. He was happy to see me, and he petted me a lot. The mom was called to reception for some paperwork. Even though there was a guy in a hat watching over the boy, he was on the phone, so my human let me stay with the boy until she was done.

After entertaining some other kids in the lobby with my bell ringing, we visited the exam rooms. They were pretty full! Most of the time when we went in a room, a doctor was with the patient and their parents, but they always invited me in to see the kids.

One of the first kids I saw was a very young girl who had a buckle fracture in her foot. How did I know this? The doctor was explaining it to her mom. Of course, I didn’t pay that much attention. My job was to keep the little girl happy while the doctor chatted about her healing process.

It was the same thing with an 11-year old boy with his arm in a sling. When my human asked if they wanted to see a kitty, he replied with a very enthusiastic yes! So I spent a lot of time entertaining him while their doctor explained the healing process of his fractured collar bone.

Not all my patients were the actual patients. In one exam room, the hospital’s patient was an older boy in a wheelchair. He was having something done to his leg. But mainly my job was to keep his two younger sisters occupied. That was fun. And I did visit with the boy at the end, and he petted me with his long, slender fingers.

My last patient was a teen girl. She was lying down under a blanket when I came in, but sat up immediately to spend time with me. She said she always wanted a cat, but wound up with a little dog instead. I had a lot of fun with her.

One of the best parts of my visit involved one woman — either the sister or aunt of a patient — who asked a lot of questions about my work. And it turned out she had a couple of ragdolls that she thought might be good therapy pets. So my human gave her a card from our organization so she could find out more information. I’m always hoping that one of my visits will inspire someone with a cat to volunteer as a therapy pet partner. We need more kitties!

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Cat Beret Mix and Match

You guys always love my berets, so I decided to play mix and match with a couple of them. I thought these two would look good with these dresses. Let’s see!

You can tell why I picked out this harness dress if you look closely at the print. It’s Paris-themed, with the Eiffel Tower, French phrases, and (I assume) French cats.

It’s a cute combo…but it didn’t occur to me until just now that maybe I look a little tourist-y? I don’t think French citizens wear Paris themed prints, do they?

My red beret came with a red scarf, so I added it to this red striped dress. It’s always important to make sure the red hues match.

Here’s the completed look! This is a lot of red, though! Maybe I should add something that offers some contrast.

So what do you think? Did you like one combo better than the other? Any additional accessory suggestions? Let me know in the comments!

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My May Videos: Dress Up Fun, Awesome Peach Kitty Moments and More!

It’s time once again for my monthly video compilation! And even though I didn’t have a cat show or any shopping trips, I was still super busy with all sorts of fun things.

It was designer pet fashion month! I got to model outfits from Dolly Parton, Paris Hilton, and even went back to an older Jessica Simpson dress to match a hat I modeled for Straw Hat Day.

Plus I also had some fun training sessions! I learned a new complex trick and I got to show off the hardest trick I know too.

And I had a couple of really nice visits with the peach kitty, and you’ll especially love the last one, if you haven’t seen it yet.

So what are you waiting for? Check out my compilation below! As always, the videos are divided into chapters so you can skip back and forth all you want.

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Funny Photos on Caturday

It’s time for this week’s outtakes, and not surprisingly, there are quite a few this week! In fact, I had more from the graduation cap session than I’ve used here.

Told you I had a problem keeping this cap on!

Remember those nice photos of me and the peach kitty? They actually started with this photo bomb.

One of my favorite parts of my therapy cat visits is after we’re done and I get treats for posing for photos! You can sense my excitement, and the silliness.

There were several tongue out shots this time, so here’s another one, with a bonus sleeve in upper right hand corner, courtesy of my human.

And here we are, at the end of the outtakes already! That was quick! And fun. Let me know in the comments if you have any favorites.

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