The first video describes the problems that the owners were facing. You can see that they were keen to carry on showing their purebred pedigree cat. The wife was particularly keen and the driving force. Incidentally, as mentioned, the cat is a Pixie-bob. This is quite a rare pedigree cat with a short tail. This cat breed has a slightly wild look – a bit like a bobcat – but there are no wild genes in this purebred cat.
You can see the outcome of Jackson Galaxy’s intervention in the video below. You will see that he tried to desensitise Snickers to the trappings of being a show cat and also to accept having her claws trimmed. Her claws had to be trimmed as part of the cat show rules. Stickers so disliked this that in the end her owners used what Jackson Galaxy called an “instrument of torture” to restrain her, which in retrospect made things a lot worse because Snickers associated having her claws being trimmed with a very unpleasant experience (which is clearly was). Jackson Galaxy’s objective was to make both the experience of being a show cat and having her claws trimmed relatively enjoyable by desensitising her, which was carried out by associating a pleasant experience with these unpleasant situations. Despite all this, unsurprisingly, Snickers was retired.
I think the story is quite instructive about cat behaviour and cat caretaking, generally. What can the average cat owner take from this story? The first obvious point is not to force a cat to do anything if he or she has made it clear that she does not wish to do it because you will always lose that battle and in any case it is wrong.
The next thing is to make sure that a cat’s environment is pleasant and as mentioned above the cat show halls could never be described as being a pleasant environments for a domestic cat. It has always amazed me how placid some show cats are which in turn has made me wonder why. Clearly some cats accept all the noise and the hubbub but I do believe that a number of show cats are sedated in some way to make the whole experience acceptable which includes by the way some long-distance travelling very often.
Lastly, I liked the way the attitude of Snickers to nail trimming was altered. It is in the video. I’d watch it and learn.
Your response was not grumpy in the least. I don’t know about you, except from what you’ve related here, and that seemed to come from experience. I’ve wandered through a few of these cat shows in my youth, too. It was clear that no one was tossed a kudo cat treat except the owner of the pedigree on that particular cat. I find this immoral and unconscionable. These cats, like any cat, unless going to the vet [which is arguably bad enough], should not be held in “animal control/humane society” cages. They should not be held under public scrutiny at all. It is inhumane. grrr….
What is very apparent when you go to these cat shows is that they take place in barn-like places with lots of noise and activity together with plenty of visitors meandering around the place peering through cages and poking their fingers through cages (although the competitors forbid that sometimes to prevent disease being spread). That is another downside to cat shows; the potential spread of contagious diseases and the spread of disease from cat to people and even vice versa.
I don’t think the behaviour of the cat was in anyway scripted! So the pictures you see of the “misbehaving” cat a the cat show are obviously quite natural but there is certainly an element of entertainment about the video because that is the market that Jackson Galaxy operates in. The basic principle remains true that some show cats get to a point in their careers when they have had enough and start misbehaving but the underlying bigger point I believe is also true that no domestic cat (or v.few) wants to go to a cat show. It is just that some of them put up with it when they are younger but then become tired of it.