A purr-fect event
Leesport Farmers Market hosted the annual Berks County Cat Show
BERKS COUNTY
Jeri Zottoli breathed a small sigh of relief as she watched Pink Floyd, her Maine Coon, casually stretching as he stood on a stable a few feet away.
“He’s being really good,” she said. “He was being a jerk two weeks ago.”
The fluffy cat’s friendly demeanor was a good sign. The last thing Zottoli wanted was for him to fuss and fight while judge John Adelhoch poked and prodded him.
That wouldn’t be proper cat show behavior.
And Zottoli knows more than a thing or two about that. She’s been showing cats since way back in 1977.
Zottoli was the show manager for the Berks County Cat Show, an annual Cat Fanciers Association licensed show held Dec. 30 at the Leesport Farmers Market. The event brought about 150 cats representing about 35 breeds — along with their owners — from up and down the eastern coast and beyond to Berks to vie for top prizes in four categories: kitten, champions (non-neutered cats), premiers (neutered cats) and household pets.
The show is one of hundreds of Cat Fanciers Association contests held each year.
Like many of those who ventured to Leesport Saturday, Zottoli, of Harrisburg, has been to a lot of them.
“If you want to, if you want to travel, you can go to a show pretty much every weekend,” she said.
And many weekends, she does.
Zottoli said she got involved with showing cats nearly four decades ago when she acquired a pair of Siamese cats. A friend told her they had a pretty nice pedigree and that she should enter them in a local contest.
She did, entering them in the household pet category. She was instantly hooked.
“I don’t do anything partway, so I dove right in,” Zottoli said.
Zottoli has since entered dozens of cats in hundreds of shows. And she has grown her knowledge of the cat show world, enough so that she’s served as a judge at various events for the past 35 years.
During that time, she mentored another cat lover looking to become a judge — Adelhoch.
Adelhoch, of Warwick, New York, has now been a judge for a decade, after showing his own cats for 37 years. He said the job can be a tough one, especially because the cat show community is so tightknit and he’s friends with so many of those competing.
“The truth of the matter is, if you go in the ring, keep your head down and judge the cats, you’ll be O.K.,” he said, adding that he tries to keep a distance from any sort of politicking by the owners. “You can’t let that get into the mix. Especially if you’re going to dinner with them that night.”
Aside from occasionally causing a bit of discomfort for judges, those who attended Saturday’s show said they absolutely love the family feel of cat shows.
Sara Thornton, of Pottsville, said she sees attending shows as a way to spend some “mommy and me” time with her Raggamuffins, which she breeds, while also visiting with friends.
“It’s a day of socializing with other cat lovers,” she said.
A retired veterinarian, Thornton showed horses as a child and for 25 years showed dogs. About 12 years ago she moved her focus to cats.
She said along with enjoying the friendship and camaraderie, she also likes to get a chance to have an outside opinion about her cats. Since she breeds them, it’s important for her to know how they stack up against the standards of their breed.
“It’s good to get a trained judge’s opinion of the cats,” she said.
Like Thornton, David Raynor is also a breeder, currently specializing in Devon Rexes. He brought one of them, Annie, all the way up from Virginia for Saturday’s show.
“It was about a three hour drive,” he said. “That wasn’t too bad. Last month we drove to one in Atlanta, which is about an eighthour drive.”
Raynor got his start in the cat show world as a spectator, first visiting a show about 30 years ago.
“I said, ‘I have a nice pet at home, I should enter it,’” he said.
He did, and the rest is history. He fell in love with showing and breeding cats, with it quickly become an enormous part of his life.
“I love all the cats and all the friends, there’s a lot of camaraderie,” he said. “It’s turned into my social life. If I’m not at a cat show I’m just at home doing chores.”