Dogs from petite papillons to muscular Rottweilers showed off their four-footed agility Saturday at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, tackling obstacles from hurdles to tunnels. And next door, so did some decidedly rare breeds for the Westminster world:
Cats.
For the first time, felines sidled up to the nation’s premier dog show, as part of an informational companion event showcasing various breeds of both species. It included a cat agility demonstration contest.
It didn’t exactly mean there were cats in the 140-year-old dog show, but it did prompt some “What?!” and waggish alarm about a breakdown in the animal social order. Some Twitter users have portrayed the development as a sign of impending cat-astrophe. A satirical Chicago Tribune column declared that “we can’t just let cats start racing across the borders of traditional dog events.”
Others tipped their hats to the cats that were padding and prowling around their own course.
“Good for them,” said Tina Ackerman of Goffstown, N.H., who handled her bichon frise, Bubba Watson. “There’s no way we could ever have trained any of our cats to do agility.”
As every cat owner who has watched their pet walk along a railing knows, feats of agility come naturally to many felines. But training? A cat?
It’s easier than many people think, Vickie Shields, who oversaw Saturday’s agility demonstrations, said. A former trainer of dogs for field trials, she helped organize cat agility as a sport in 2003.
“People think cats are solitary – they aren’t,” Shields, of Albuquerque, N.M., said. “You can do stuff with them, too – it’s not just dogs.”