Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 367

A Very Productive Cat Show!

I had a one-day cat show, but it worked out to be a very long weekend! That’s because I live in southern California, and the show was in Livermore, near the Bay Area. For normal humans, that is nearly a five-hour drive.

For humans like mine, it is more of a six hour drive! She kept stopping to eat, to rest for a few minutes, to get gas. She can’t drive more than a couple of hours without stopping for some reason or another.

As you know I love hotel rooms! And my next favorite thing is getting to explore the hotel lobby and hallways on my leash.

I even got to run up and down the stairwell a few times! You can see it reflected in the window. It was fun until I realized that other guests used it. They were loud, and you can tell I didn’t like them much. What I did like was getting to visit the human who runs Mousebreath Magazine, and who is also the Cat Scouts denmaster! That was lots of fun! She had a very famous kitty who most of you knew named Skeezix, and she brought me a few outfits that belonged to him. I will do a modeling session with some of them very soon.

The next day was the cat show. The show hall was very nice, and the program booklet included a tiger striped pipe cleaner! Among the vendors, there was a company that made raw treats and they were giving out free samples. My human got me the salmon with cricket powder sample… yes, you read that right! Cricket powder. It was amazing!

The day started off really well — I got a final in my very first ring! Plus, I got visitors from the upper part of California: Christy Paws’ human from the east, and Savannah’s and Sage’s humans, and Spitty’s human from the Bay Area! I was so happy to share my cat show experience with them.

Even better, they not only got to see me getting judged in a ring, I got a final… and I was Best Cat! That was very exciting. I don’t get Best Cat in many rings (hardly any, in fact!), and it was even better that I had a cheering section!

At the end of the day, I finaled in every ring and got two Bests! So it was an amazing show for me. Even though it was a long drive, it was totally worth it.

All that judging and socializing, though — it was exhausting! I was glad to get back home to my regular bed.
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Guest Selfie

When my human was in the Cat Environment at the Purina Better With Pets summit, she got the idea that maybe one of the cats there would like to participate in Sunday Selfies. I don’t see this Meezer kitty excitedly raising his paw, but he got roped into doing it anyhow.

He seemed to catch on fairly quickly. At least he was able to find the button to tap.

That was okay for a first try, but a redo was in order.

That’s actually a pretty good pose, and pretty indicative of what he thought about the whole selfie thing!

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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Saturday Catinee: The Escape of the Internet Cats

This silly little video from Mashable is actually a pitch for adopting shelter cats. Pretty smart — they suck you in with cuteness so that you want one of your own!

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

It’s Outtake Time!

Yep, I have some fun outtakes for you this week, so let’s get started!

With that Wonderkitty costume on, for a moment there I thought I could fly!

My human had this crazy idea that she was going to get a good synchronized photo of me and Binga. She was wrong.

Whenever my human sets up a backdrop for me, she adds a stuffie stand-in so she can adjust her camera settings. Apparently Binga thought she could do a better job.

I thought if I dived into the backpack, my human would be so impressed with me that she’d take me along to New York. No dice.

And if you think my human only gets outtakes of us here… she also winds up with a pretty sizable group of bad random cat shots, like the one of this kitten in the Better With Pets cat environment.

I hope you liked today’s outtakes!
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

The Purina #BetterWithPets Summit (that my human went to that I didn’t)

Well! First my human leaves me home to go to attend the Nestlé Purina Better With Pets summit, then she learns a bunch of things about improving the emotional wellness of both pets and their humans… and now it’s up to me to tell you all about it! Maybe next time I should demand to go. I hear that popular internet cat celebrity Pudge was there… why not me? I just need several hundred thousand more social media followers — should be a snap, right?

The day started with some cappuccino and cat grass… although I hear the humans weren’t bright enough to chew on the cat grass. Don’t they know it helps digestion?

In the morning, there were a variety of speakers and panel discussions with pet experts. The first panel focused a lot on cats and millennials, and how the relationship between cats and humans in general is evolving. The good news is that young adults these days are more responsible and spend more money on their cats than the flighty, irresponsible kids of my human’s generation (or maybe that was just her friends). People also get more exposure to cats via cat videos — lots of humans who don’t own cats and who aren’t even particularly cat people (as misguided as that seems) can still laugh at our antics on their computer! One of the speakers, who you can see above, was Christina Ha, co-founder of New York City’s cat cafe, Meow Parlour, and she didn’t even grow up with or have cats until she was an adult. Of course, she is totally a convert now!

The second panel (moderated by “America’s Veterinarian,” Dr. Marty Becker) looked at stress and its effects on humans and pets. It was pointed out that when we cats are stressed out, we may not express it in ways that are obvious to humans. There are also positive stressors  — challenging cats and keeping them engaged is a good thing! The architect on the panel, Heather Lewis, talked about designing shelter environments in a way that was good for cats, like the illustration above of the Catlandia project at the Denver Dumb Friends League.

The third panel talked a lot about children and pets, but it was mostly about dogs, both family dogs and therapy dogs. My human kept wanting to put in few words about how she preferred cats growing up, and that a therapy organization is going to test me out next year… but she didn’t.

After lunch, there was a really impressive experiential exhibit! There were areas focusing on different aspects of pet life: Healthy Environments, Cognition, Nutrition, and more! Some of it was more dog focused, and some of it was more cat focused.

There were tall panels with interesting facts about dogs and cats.

One section had a bunch of prototypes for the Friskies Pull ‘n Play™, plus another treat puzzle idea they were working on.

My human’s second favorite part of the experiential exhibits was the Interior Design for Cats display. It was very creative.

There was a line of these globes containing cat figurines in different situations ‐ eating, playing on a cat tree, with a litter box, and playing in a box.

Saving Gotham From Tortie Photo Bombs

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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Going to New York! Oh, Wait…

I’m so excited! My human is packing for a trip to New York for Purina’s Better With Pets Summit! I don’t know why she’s using such a small bag, though. My litter box will barely fit in there.

What?! I’m not going! But I hear New York is amazing and I would love it. This is just not fair.

You know, I bet I could sneak in here and nobody would know any better.

See? I totally fit. I’m great at packing… myself!

Don’t tell anyone I’m in here, okay?

Darn, I got caught! So I guess I have to stay home… but let’s see if she can get this jacket away from me. She may have to rethink her wardrobe.
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Neighborhoods Helping Kitties

I hope you don’t mind the tiny raspberry, but I know you’ve been wondering where I was the other night! It is actually somewhere I have been before!

It was the Los Angeles County Store in Silverlake! I was there before for a trunk party being held by Feline Yogi. Last week the store hosted a National Cat Day Happy Hour for a small local rescue called LUXE Paws. LUXE Paws focuses on rescuing kittens and spaying and neutering stray cats in Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Echo Park. This is a very small part of the L.A. area, and it’s one my human called home for many years. We still live very nearby these neighborhoods.

The Los Angeles County Store only sells items (cards, crafts, books, jewelry and trinkets) created by L.A. people.

The store owner likes to help out LUXE Paws. And of course she would because these kittens, like everything else in the store, are made in L.A.!

I wanted to go shopping but my human kept telling me I couldn’t handle the goods. How can I know if I like it if I can’t touch it?

I was very disappointed my human did not buy this stylish scrather and lounger for me!

She did at least grab a couple bags of these Taste of the Wild samples. They had cute little toys attached and were donated by Urban Pet. Mostly she needed the sample because she didn’t bring any treats for me. I get paid for my public appearances… my human says she uses treats to “keep me out of trouble,” but ignore her.

In addition to Urban Pet, several other small local businesses sponsored the event.

There was a raffle, and a lot of really cool prizes were given away! One of my Instagram followers was there, and she won a really cool basket of stuff!

The human from Feline Yogi was there too, with a yoga mat she donated for the raffle.

This was a very fun event, and what I liked best about it was seeing neighborhood businesses come together to help kitties! The bigger rescues are able to call on wealthy donors, celebrities and big businesses to keep their organizations running, but there are lots of small rescues, like LUXE Paws, that need help too. It takes creative thinking, and neighborhood participation for these groups to achieve their goals.

What’s your neighborhood doing to help the small rescues?
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Secret Location Selfies

Usually I do a blog post during the week and share selfies I shot there later. This week it is the other way around! On Thursday, I went to an event for National Cat Day, but I’m not blogging about it until Monday because I wanted to share my Wonderkitty Halloween costume with you first! So I am not going to tell you where I was just yet… but I will show you the selfies!

As usual, I have to get the iPhone and timer set up first.

This one is all right, but I think I can do better.

Sorry, I got distracted for a moment there.

Well, the focus isn’t the best, but it’s still better! That’s all you get today — I’ll tell you all about the event tomorrow.

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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Saturday Catinee: A Frightening Photo Shoot

Cole and Marmalade seem like such pros at videos and photo shoots that it’s easy to forget all the hard work that goes into the production… and all the fails. Here, for your Halloween viewing pleasure, is one such difficult photo shoot!

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

I also want to mention that I love the superhero theme here… but then, I would!
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!