High maintenance fur wins top
prize
Sometimes hobbies take a lot of work. Just
ask Linda Ferguson, who keeps very busy with just her
professional life juggling the demands of her drycleaning plant
Safeway Cleaners in Pearl, MS.
Additionally, she has long had the habit
of supporting the industry in time-consuming extracurricular
projects. Most recently, she served as the executive director
of the Louisiana-Mississippi Drycleaners Association, actively
playing a role in its merger with the Southwest Drycleaners
Association. She’ll have a full plate in the future, as
well, since she was elected to serve as the District 6 Director
for the International Fabricare Institute next term.
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All of the hard work of visiting contest
after contest paid off recently when Brûlée won
the rare distinction of International Cat of the Year for the
alter class, which is designated for neutered or spayed
felines. “The chances of having Cat of the Year are
so slim. It happens maybe once in a lifetime,” Ferguson
said. “When I took one look at him and saw his potential,
I thought, ‘I’m glad I’m not a director this
year because this cat’s going somewhere’.”
Brûlée, who was recently pictured in the March
issue of Cat Fancy magazine, possessed the exact qualities the
judges were looking for.
“Each breed has a standard written
for it based on a point system,” Ferguson explained.
“The cat that most nearly meets that standard is the cat
that they pull as the best cat. He is the perfect example of a
Persian, and the fact that he loves everybody and everybody
loves him doesn’t hurt anything.” In all,
Brûlée tallied over 11,800 points through the
season in his competitive category with the International Cat
Association.
“He started being shown when he was
about 4 1Ž2 months old. He’s just been the best cat
across the board all year,” Ferguson said. “He did
have a real close competitor, an Oriental Short Hair from
Texas, but in the end, Brûlée had about 168 points
separating them.”
Ferguson joined the ranks as a “cat
fancier” back in 1985, when she participated in her first
cat show. She found that it was a nice way to step aside from
her hectic life in the drycleaning industry so that she can
step back into it with a replenished boost of energy.
Currently, she owns six show cats
altogether (including Kicker, Dreamy, Flower, Bailey and
Luciano), most of which are retired, and all have won
competitions. Only Brûlée, however, won the rare
distinction of Cat of the Year.
Though it is common for many people to
send their show cat back to a breeder when they’re
finished with competition, Ferguson strictly believes in
keeping hers as lifelong companions. That isn’t an easy
task since all of them have come to enjoy and expect the royal
treatment.
“The maintenance is very
high,” she noted. “Brûlée is
accustomed to getting make-up on twice a day. He gets a little
corn starch under his eyes and his eyes get washed and blotted
twice a day. He gets combed twice a day. If you don’t do
this, he gets up on the vanity and turns his little face up to
ask to have it done. That’s how good he is.”
Ferguson’s cats also give her a chance to utilize
cleaning skills of a different kind. “You just
don’t have a white (Persian) and expect him to stay
clean,” she said. “They require bathing once a
week. I put a conditioner that goes for eight minutes and he
falls asleep in the sink.” Obviously, owning show cats in
a tremendous commitment, but Ferguson has carried a deep
affection for the furry little creatures for as long as she can
remember.
After finding a kitten one day, she took
it home only to have it scratch her up pretty badly. She was
told that she would have to give the rambunctious pet to a lady
who lived down the street even though she desperately wanted to
keep it.
“My earliest memory was waiting at
the end of the driveway with the little bugger scratching me up
so this woman could come by and pick it up,” she
recalled. “It was scratching me just as hard as it could
go.” At the time, Ferguson had no idea there was such a
thing as cat fanciers. However, once she discovered the
concept, she fell “head over heels” for it.
“A very diverse group of people show
cats and that’s fascinating to me, as well as all of the
travel because you meet such interesting people. They all have
that same thing in common,” she said. “Nobody in
the cat fancy cares who you are or what you do. All they care
about is what kind of cat you have, how long you have been
showing, and that’s it.” For more information on
the International Cat Association or any of its cat show
competitions, visit www.tica.org.
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