Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 346

Home Run

I spent the weekend in Phoenix for a cat show! This is where I spent much of my time when my human and I were in the hotel room — the suitcase was set up right next to the desk, so that made it easy to supervise her.

Here’s a wider view so you can see. Yes, I got on the desk sometimes too — especially when my human was eating dinner. For some reason she did not want to be supervised that closely.

My human brought a couple of my dresses along, in case I didn’t feel like being in the judging rings this trip. It turned out we did not need them — I made it through two days and 12 rings and was fine!

The show each day had a different cat club putting it on. The first day, the club gifted all us show cats with cool catnip toys!

The space they assigned me to sit between rings was on an end row that faced the vendors. This was my view for both days. Awesome, wasn’t it?

I was the only Somali cat competing. There were a few Abyssinians, but only one in my group. At one point in a final, we had cages next to each other. Most of you probably know, but just in case, Abyssinians are the foundation for my breed, and basically Somalis are very similar to Abys, only fluffier. Can you tell that the Aby boy is a different color from me? He’s red, and I’m ruddy, which means I have bands of black ticking in my fur.

Other than the coat, we are alike in a lot of ways!

I saw many interesting kitties, including this girl! No, that’s not Brulee you are looking at, but she is the same breed, a silver shaded Persian. I don’t see this particular color all that often, so it was a treat to have her in my class.

Two days and 12 rings is a lot of work for a kitty! We have to be groomed and taken to each judging ring throughout the day, and the judge looks at each of us, one by one. Then, if we wind up in a final, we need to be groomed again and brought back to the ring a second time. So if a cat got finaled in all 12 rings, that means she would have to be brought up to judging rings 24 times.

And that’s what I did! Yes, I finaled in every ring! I wasn’t the only one — there were several other cats that did too. There weren’t a whole lot of cats competing in Premiership (the spayed and neutered pedigreed cats), but there were enough so that a lot of cats got left out of each final. So I’m proud of my accomplishment, and also proud of the other cats who did the same. There are some young cats who are new to my class who are real up-and-comers!

I was very good at the airport, waiting for the plane to take me home. I sat on the seat next to my human and stayed there. I didn’t even get up once.

This was a great weekend… but I was also glad to arrive home!
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

Dirty Selfie

No, I don’t mean that kind of dirty! You guys have dirty minds. I am outside in the dirt. Binga says it is fun to roll in it, but I get the feeling that if I do, I will wind up getting a bath! So I thought it would be safer to do selfies instead.

First, to give you some perspective as to where I am, the couple of steps to my left lead to the bridge you saw a while back. Directly in front of me are steps that lead down to where the kitchen is. The humans who built the retaining wall offered to pave the path I am on with concrete, but my human turned them down. She plans to put stepping stones here instead. She thinks that would be prettier. She just hasn’t gotten around to it yet.

The view behind me is much nicer, actually. You can just see a little bit of the blooming jacaranda tree in the upper left hand corner. On the other side are the windows to the office I share with my human. Sorry about the ugly thermometer in the corner.

I thought I would start off with a profile.

And here is one of me looking into the camera. Which one do you like better?

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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

Packing for Therapy Cat Work!

My human finished getting all her shots, so we are cleared to start doing therapy work! At a workshop she went to last weekend, the therapy pet humans gave her a list of things she will need to bring with me when we go on our visits. They also suggested getting a tote with rollers to make it easier to cart around. She decided on this Hello Kitty backpack with wheels since… well, I’m a kitty and I’m going to be stopping in to say hello to people!

Here are some of the things we need to take with us on our visits.

Binga is not invited along. She would not be able to pass the test.

This isn’t a real cat brush — it’s actually a baby brush. They told my human to buy something with gentle bristles in case I am visiting someone who wants to brush me, but who can’t handle a brush well. That way, if I get poked in the face it won’t hurt.

We also have to bring a spray bottle with cleaner in it (plus some paper towels and a real towel) in case an accident happens that we need to clean up right away. I think this is more for dogs… I hope it is more for dogs! I would hate to embarrass myself like that.

They didn’t specifically say to include tissues — or wipes either — but my human thinks they will be handy to bring along. Which I think is funny because at home she is kind of the opposite of a cleanliness freak.

I also needed a shorter leash. For dogs, the therapy pet humans suggested a two or three foot leash, but all my human could find were four foot, which might be okay for me since I’m a small kitty and not very tall. We need a shorter leash because apparently they don’t want me getting into things… which I have to admit, I have a habit of doing.

And of course you remember the instant camera and film I got the day of my evaluation, right? I’ll also have cards specific to the therapy organization and brochures, but those will be given to me, along with my official therapy vest, the day of my first visit… which will be next Friday!

That’s a lot of stuff, isn’t it? But I think there is one thing my human hasn’t packed in here yet.

The treats! The therapy humans said I could have treats on my visit, so I can do tricks and the people I visit can reward me personally. I think that will be my favorite part!
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

Friday Catinee: Cat Toy Tryout

Recently I won the PetSafe Flitter automatic cat toy from my friends Truffle and Brulee! I couldn’t wait to try it out.

It arrived on Wednesday… and my human even had batteries for it!

Of course I had to supervise as it was put together.

And give it a taste test!

It only took a few minutes for my human to put it together and turn it on! So my human set up the iPhone camera, pressed the button, then went over and turned on the toy… and it turned out that she actually turned off the video instead of on! So you missed all the good parts where I was having fun with the Flitter as I played with it for the first time. By the time she realized her mistake and turned on the video for real, I was already starting to get tired of it:

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!

If you are wondering what Binga thought, there is a video of her with it too. That snorting noise you hear in the background is my human trying to stifle her laughter.

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!

Boodie looked at it for a few moments, but she wasn’t interested in the least, so no video of her. My human turned it on a couple more times — it turns off automatically after about 10 minutes — but there were no takers. I wanted to play with my sparkle ball.

If you think you might enjoy it more than we did, you can get the PetSafe Flitter on Amazon. Unless we take more of an interest in ours, it is going to be donated to Kitten Rescue for their kitten room, where it will probably be way more appreciated.

Disclosure: the Amazon link to the PetSafe Flitter is an affiliate link, so I will get a small commission if you click on the link and buy it.
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

Outtake Time

It’s been a couple of weeks since I dedicated a post to random outtakes, so here you go! In this one, I am waving away the paparazzi. That’s one of the downsides of being a famous internet kitty.

Here I am at the pet store, complaining about my credit card being declined. I’m just kidding — that would never happen to me! It was my human’s card. I guess I can forget about that deluxe cat tree.

Binga. That’s all you need to know.

Great timing on the photographer’s part, don’t you think?

I have to take the blame for this one — it was a selfie gone wrong.

And here is proof that Binga still needs to work on proper leash walking.

Hope you liked today’s selfies!
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

Getting Ready to Go Live

None of you probably remember, but a while back, I posted on Facebook that I was considering doing live videos on my Facebook page. And then nothing happened — mainly because my human lacked one crucial piece of equipment: an iPhone tripod that would clip onto her phone while it was still in its case. My human, you see, is very clumsy, and she had to put a heavy-duty case on her iPhone that’s very hard to get off. So guess what? She finally got a Joby tripod with a smart phone holder that works for her. Plus, she somehow managed to finagle lunch out of her boyfriend while they were off on that errand.

With her hands free, my human will be able to have me do tricks, hold up title cards (since I don’t speak Human), and anything else that might be required of her during a live video of me. We decided to practice a bit, which is a good thing because I started off by sitting way too close to the iPhone.

It turns out I actually knew to move back and stay on command! Isn’t that cool?

Uh-oh, here comes someone who won’t move back and does not know the meaning of stay… as in stay away!

I can see this may become a problem for a live Facebook video.

I’m not sure when I’ll do a live video on Facebook, but I can guarantee it’ll be soon! I may have to bribe Binga to take a behind the camera job, though!

Disclosure: The link to the tripod is an Amazon link. We liked this handy magnetic tripod and are Amazon affiliates, so we thought you might like to check it out.
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

My Blog Is Safe to Visit Again and Other Stuff

If you tried to visit my blog yesterday morning, especially if you use a regular computer (as opposed to an iPhone or a tablet), you may have had problems! It turned out that sometime before my human and I woke up, somebody snuck into an old, out-of-date part of my blog and added some malware! So you might have gotten a warning about entering my blog, or gotten some weird pop ups. The moment my human found out about it, she tried to find the problem, and when she couldn’t locate it, she hired someone to troubleshoot and fix it for her. The person she hired also added some more security to the blog so it won’t happen again. That was a relief! So if you have a WordPress blog, make sure your plugins and themes are all current… and if you don’t have a WordPress blog and have no idea what I’m talking about, just ignore this last part!

If you missed yesterday’s post, you should go see it! It’s pretty cool, ’cause I went on a field trip.

Anyhow, onto other stuff. The Cat Writers Association Certificates of Excellence that my human and I won arrived over the weekend. The only problem is that mine has a big mistake on it!

Can you see? It’s got the wrong name!

I had my human Photoshop it with the right name. I guess that’s the best we can do for now.

My human earned these Certificates of Excellence for these stories because she wrote them, but I just want to add that on two of them, I helped lots because she wouldn’t know about cats and hotel rooms or about walking a cat on a leash if it wasn’t for me! The other one was an awesome rescue story, and I didn’t have anything to do with it.

I’m looking forward to the Cat Writers banquet at BlogPaws, to see if we won anything else!
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

My Field Trip to Arm The Animals

So you are probably wondering what I am doing sitting on a stack of T-shirts promoting animal rescue. A few weeks ago, my human got an email from a clothing company called Arm The Animals, that specializes in cool edgy designs and donates a portion of their profits to animal rescue groups. “We are completely independent and non-political. We just simply make cool clothing and do our best to raise awareness and funds for rescues. We were wondering if we might be of interest to you for an article about clothing with a cause,” said the email. My human looked at their website and found out they were located only about 15 minutes from our house, so she asked if she and I could come down in person, and they said yes!

With this little trip, my human felt she was accomplishing two things: we both love the idea behind Arm The Animals and wanted to write about them, and this also gave me a chance to go somewhere noisy and unfamiliar as practice for my therapy work, when I’ll start off by visiting a noisy and unfamiliar hospital. And yes, the offices were busy and kind of noisy, plus there was a boxer dog there who doesn’t know anything about cats. But I did good! I was a little worried, but I kept eating treats and still did tricks, which meant I wasn’t too far out of my comfort zone. And everyone was nice and really happy to meet me.

Arm The Animals was founded in 2010, after the tragic death of the founder’s sister, who was a passionate animal advocate. The company is a means of continuing her legacy by bringing attention to issues surrounding animals, and helping out smaller rescue groups. The cat rescues they’ve helped include Blind Cat Rescue, and The Cattery in Corpus Christi, along with pet rescues such as Strangest Angels Animal Rescue in Los Angles, and dog rescues such as Fresno Bully Rescue.

I got to model one of their bandanas.

This cotton sling bag honors Cecil the Lion, who you may recall was murdered during an illegal hunt.

Here is a cool patriotic T-shirt of a kitten throwing a hand grenade! I told you their designs were edgy.

And here is one of their Cats logo T-shirts. The Arm The Animals humans generously gave my human these shirts and the bag and did not mind that I laid on some of their things — of course, because they are animal lovers!

They also gave us a poster and some stickers, but my human had to wait and have me pose with them at home, since she didn’t want to take them out of the cellophane at the Arm The Animals office. The designs you saw here are only a sampling of what they have. There are awesome designs for cat and dog lovers, and anyone who supports animal rescue and wants to make that statement in a bold and exciting way.

Arm The Animals is an awesome business model — while they’re a for-profit company, a big part of what they do involves caring about a cause and giving back. They don’t focus on just a one-off charity, but make helping and raising awareness part of their purpose. My human does the same thing with her publishing company, so she and I were really excited to find a company of like mind. If you are going to CatCon, you will see them there, and if you live in the Los Angeles area, you may see them at rescue events. If you aren’t in L.A., you can see all their cool fashions, and shop for them online. You can also visit them on Facebook and Instagram.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. I am writing about Arm The Animals because I like what they do, and expected nothing in return. The items we were given were a pleasant surprise!
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

Selfie, Interrupted

I was messing around on the old cat tree in the corner of the bedroom, and my human wondered if I might like to pause for some selfies. I thought that was okay.

I got ready to set it up, like I always do.

The first time I tried, the iPhone slipped.

The second time I tried, there as an unwelcome visitor.

Her timing, as usual, was not exactly the best.

Finally she left, and it wasn’t soon enough!

Binga’s interruption totally threw me off, so you will have to be satisfied with this slightly out of focus selfie.

Did I mention she came back a couple of minutes later?

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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

Fashion Fail

Not everything my human puts on me gets my paw of approval! I will say that she put this bonnet on me the day she got it and I was okay with it. But when I did the fashion shoot you saw yesterday, I decided it wasn’t my style.

Even the fact that it had ear holes didn’t make it okay by me. So I did the only logical thing.

I took it off. All by myself. And did not ask for help.

There isn’t much I didlike when it comes to cat clothes and accessories… but when there is, I make it crystal clear.
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!