As many as 100 cats owners from across the Maritimes will flaunt their pedigrees in hopes of winning top prize in Moncton this weekend.
The “Fundy Fanciers Cat Club” cat show takes place this weekend and, for the first time ever in Atlantic Canada, cats will compete in feline agility.
“It’s the same as dog agility, except dogs tend to run agility on their own they know where they are supposed to go. With cats…we are more than likely going to run them through with toy,” said show organizer Kim Langille.
She says with a little coaxing using a toy, cats are timed as they run pint-sized obstacle courses.
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“You get four and a half minutes to run through the course — that would be a run. So if your cat does it in a minute, you get bonus credits for every second you don’t use in the four and a half minutes.”
She says if you miss an obstacle, you also miss out on valuable points.
She says the sport is meant for more frisky felines, like her Turkish Angora named Bobby.
“He sees a toy and he looks at the toys and he sees nothing else. So if I make a toy go through a hoop he goes through a hoop.”
That’s the way it is supposed to happen, but Langille says that since cats will be cats, they don’t always do what their humans want.
How the cats don’t perform can be as entertaining as their tricks. After all she says “they are cats” and do what they want, when they want.
The agility competitions take place at the cat show on Saturday and Sunday in Moncton.