Top Cat and Tails: A Classy Winner

Before an SRO crowd of ailurophiles in the Crystal Ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel this past week, Woodpile, a somewhat flaccid 22-month-old feline, was judged the best house cat in America at a cat food company’s national Morris award ceremonies.

Woodpile, a brown classic Tabby adopted by Cheryl Nakao from an Atlantic City pound, was the calmest cat in the room, taking his cue, of course, from Morris, the Joe Cool of catdom. Woodpile, named so by Nakao because “he looked like he had just crawled out from under one when we got him,” simply lay down on the table near his trophy and stared out at the noisy crowd. He was even more laid back than Morris, who fidgeted in his director’s chair.

Owner Nakao said Woodpile’s temperament seems to come naturally; she didn’t train him to be so relaxed. “He doesn’t like to be held much, but he will just lie down. He’s been like that ever since we started showing last year.”

Asked what the award means to Woodpile, his elated owner gushed, “A lot of cat food for him for a whole year.”

Blind Leopard Finds the Right Spot

In the diminishing kingdom of the beasts, there are rare animals, endangered animals and unique animals. Leopards, for example, have become rare. Snow leopards are endangered. Tashacur is unique. Tasha, as she’s known to friends and acquaintances, is the only snow leopard with her own seeing-eye human.

Tasha was born blind in the San Francisco Zoo three years ago, and offered to Marine World/Africa USA in Vallejo. For reasons known only to Tasha, she didn’t want anybody around her--anybody, that is, except trainer Karen Durey. “I have no idea why,” says the trainer, 25, who accompanied the leopard to Los Angeles this week for a TV appearance, “but I feel very fortunate. She never acts like a pet--she’ll give me trouble too--but I can carry her around (Tasha weighs 75 pounds), ride her in a golf cart, and leopards usually don’t allow that.

“We ‘play,’ but not too much. You can teach a tiger cub to be gentle; if it gets out of hand you say ‘no’ and give it a bop on the nose. Give a snow leopard a bop and it thinks you’re playing and really goes at it. She can’t see me and you’d think I had an advantage, but she follows my sound and nails me every time.”

Snow leopards--estimates range from 300 to 1,000-- roam the high Himalayas. Even at the top of nowhere, though, humans encroach on their territory, their herds driving away the wild sheep and goats that are the leopards’ prey. “It’s getting very hard for them,” says Durey, “a terrible shame.” As for Tasha, “She’s a special lady; I love her a lot.”

Strike Up the Band for a Dublin Gala

Oh Paddy dear, an’ did ye hear the news that’s goin’ roun’/ The La Canada marchin’ band is comin’ into town. . . . “

Well, the Irish aren’t that excited, but the La Canada High School kids sure are. Only a couple of thousand dollars shy of their $30,000 goal, the 65-person musical group is virtually certain of taking off March 14 for the auld sod, where they’ll march in parades in Galway and Limerick, then participate in the big one: the St. Patrick’s Day celebration marking the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of Dublin.

“We’re really excited,” says LCHS band director Sue Hamre. “Our jazz band is even going to play at the Lord Mayor’s Ball, the big social event. . . . The kids have earned money through sales of candy bars and merchants’ coupon books, and a local custom called ‘Goblin Insurance’ on Halloween.” Protection money? “That’s exactly right,” confesses Hamre, “and listen, we’re still short; contributions still cheerfully accepted.”

Meanwhile, the band members, asked to write essays on why they wanted to make the trip, came up with a kaleidoscope of reasons, among them: “When I come back and when I get married I could tell my children”; “Europe, as everyone knows, is full of culture and a vast history”; “The new foods, clothing and language”; “I want to embassy (sic) our country”; “I worked my butt off to raise money”; “It’s a fantastic way to get away from pressures of home and school”; finally, “Maybe I can start an international relationship.”

Wildlife on Wheels Goes to School

Author Gerald Durrell, of course, had “A Zoo in My Pocket.” David Churchman and Millicent Wood haven’t yet achieved similar miniaturization, but they come close enough with their Wildlife on Wheels, a nonprofit traveling menagerie of sorts.

WOW travels to local schools, mainly elementary, with a variety of programs, all enhanced by their collection of animals. Among 50-odd beasts are millipedes and scorpions; raccoons, skunks and macaws; a boa and a serval (spotted African wildcat). “We load them into a truck and drive them around to the school,” says Churchman, professor of graduate behavioral science at Cal State Dominguez Hills (whose fascination with animals began when a movie animal-trainer friend asked him to walk her tiger).

Single-classroom programs include hands-on demonstrations, while auditorium shows range from taxonomy and ecology to animals in religion, art and literature. The WOW partners are a trove of trivia: “Renaissance paintings showed women holding dogs, which symbolized faithfulness,” says Churchman. “We think of the owl as symbolizing wisdom,” he adds, “but to the American Indian the owl meant ‘death,’ and to the Babylonians it meant ‘love’. . .”

Both Churchman and Wood feel their rolling exhibit (213) 299-2500) fills a void in elementary science programs, which increasingly concentrate on technology and computers. “You’d be surprised,” says Churchman, “how many kids how no idea that a hamburger was once part of a living creature.”