Highlights from the The 2018 Championship Cat Show

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Recently, the Kentuckiana Cat Club held its Championship Cat Show for 2018. Said event happened at the Kentucky Exposition Center from September 1 to September 2, which were a Saturday and a Sunday respectively. In total, the long-running event saw members of more than 30 separate breeds of cats competing for the chance to be crowned the best of those who were present. Some cats were common household pets. In contrast, others were members of much rarer breeds, which was very much a source of fascination. Whatever the case, the cats brought their best, which was beneficial for the other cats in the region as well because the proceeds from the Championship Cat Show went to charitable causes promoting the well-being of local animals.

Cats Can Be Trained?

Some people might be surprised to hear about the Championship Cat Show. After all, there is a popular belief that cats can’t be trained, meaning that the concept of an event for trained cats can sound more than a little bit surprising for a fair number of people out there. However, it is important to remember that this belief is not correct, though to some extent, it is understandable.

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For starters, cats are believed to have been domesticated for use as solitary hunters of rats and other vermin that posed a serious threat to human food supplies. As a result, cats were not selected for their ability to listen to human instruction to the same extent as dogs, which saw extensive use as guards, herders, and other roles that required them to interact a great deal with humans as well as other animals. Some people believe that this is the reason that cats are more challenging to train than dogs, which is a sentiment that isn’t helped by a couple of factors. Furthermore, it should be noted that even though cats can be trained, they don’t respond to the same things as dogs in the same ways, meaning that cat training calls for different ways of doing things.

This can be seen in how a lot of cat owners motivate their cats by making more frequent use of food when compared to their dog-owning counterparts. With that said, it is important to not get too carried away by the differences between cats and dogs because there are still some strong similarities in how they can be trained. For proof, look no further than the fact that both cats and dogs can be trained using clicker training, which is a catch-all term for a wide range of methods that seek to create a motivator for pets by conditioning them to associate it with positive things. In fact, clicker training is sometimes used to both teach desirable behaviors and un-teach undesirable behaviors in cats, meaning that it seems like the sort of thing that would prove very useful when preparing them for cat shows.

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On a semi-related note, there might be more reasons that people are so prepared to overlook their cat’s misbehaviors instead of putting in the time and effort needed to train them. For instance, even when cats misbehave, the consequences are not quite as irritating as when dogs misbehave. One excellent example is how a misbehaving dog might bark loudly, jump on people, and exhibit inappropriate aggression, whereas a misbehaving cat might be limited to more subtle but still annoying behaviors such as waking up cat owners at bad times during the night. Combined with the popular belief that cats are either un-trainable or so difficult to train that they are not worth the effort, it is no wonder that a significant percentage of cat owners don’t bother much with training but instead just do their best to accept things the way that they are.

Overall, the Kentuckiana Cat Club’s Championship Cat Show was a useful reminder that cats can be trained. This is important because a well-trained cat makes for a better companion, which in turn, means a happier outcome for both the cat and the cat owner. Moreover, the sheer range of cat breeds that made appearances at the Championship Cat Show made it very clear that all cats out there are capable of being trained, meaning that interested individuals shouldn’t be daunted by the idea no matter what kind of cat they might have.