No Sitting on Fence Here: Bumper’s the Top Cat Paws Down

For Bumper, a Siamese mix, life held inauspicious beginnings. As a kitten, she was abandoned on the streets of Los Angeles and suffered from malnutrition; later, she was chewed up by a dog.

But just look at her now!

Facing competition from across the country, Bumper won the Super Cat contest at the International Cat Show at the Anaheim Convention Center on Saturday.

Not that her victory bothered most of the show’s other 600-plus participants. After all, the Super Cat contest was only for adopted cats, the kind you get from an animal shelter to give them a home, or when your neighbor gives away kittens.

The big cat showdown will be today, when final judging takes place for some of the best show-bred cats in the world. The large crowd Saturday made the Convention Center show “pleasantly hectic,” according to Peter Markstein, president of the International Cat Assn., the sponsor.

For cat lovers, the show had something for just about everyone.

There were Birmans from France and Australia. There was a rare wild Abyssinian. There were Persians, Siamese, Maine Coons, Scottish Folds, Russian Blues, Norwegian Forest Cats and even a hairless Sphinx.

On sale were cat pillows, cat T-shirts and buttons, cat ornaments, cat dishes, cat games (Paws n Claws--be the first one to win a blue ribbon) and cat grandpa and grandma dolls in suspenders and long dresses. For the more avid fans, there were cat condos--cages 8 feet tall with plenty of platforms--and a barrage of cat magazines.

There also were people selling kittens. The prices ranged from $250 for your run-of-the-mill Scottish Fold to the “thousands and thousands” that Dr. Peter Garcia, a Los Angeles psychiatrist, paid for a French Birman.

Garcia met Dominique Hassissane of Toulouse, France, at a show last year and just had to have one of her Birman’s next kittens. Garcia also recently bought an Australian Birman. Now he plans to not only breed them but to mix the two breeds.

“You just keep refining the breeding to get the most perfect features,” he explained.

Will that finally produce the perfect cat?

Garcia laughed. “If that ever happens, I’ll retire,” he said.

And then there were the cat demonstrations. Lucille Regan of Marcellus, Mich., drew a large crowd for her grooming lessons. If you do not know who Lucille Regan is, she’s “the Julia Childs of cat grooming,” according to Ellie Silverman, publicist for the International Cat Show.

Regan has raised animals since 1945 but began specializing in cats about 14 years ago.

“I got older, and cats are easier to care for,” she explained. “You don’t have to walk them in the rain.”

At Saturday’s show, most of the cats were entered in 10 contests held in rings set up throughout the auditorium. Ribbons collected in those rings moved their recipients toward prizes that are to be awarded today.

Center stage for Barbara Ray of Birmingham, Ala., was Ring 11, where all-breeding judge Bobbie Tullo of Lake Elsinore was carefully examining a dozen animals in the Longhair Kitten contest.

The winner in Ring 11 was Lacey, Ray’s 4-month-old Persian, the color of coffee with two thimbles of cream. The coloring is perfect, Tullo explained to the crowd--no tiger marks like many Persians.

“Oh my,” Ray said. “I can’t believe it. This is really exciting.”

Lacey, though tender in age, is getting used to the winner’s circle. Last week she was chosen best longhaired kitten for the Southeast Region in Gatlinburg, Tenn.

Lacey was bred by Jim Costello of Mountain View, Calif. She was sired by Anona Diamond in the Rough--known as Ruffy--who won Best Cat and Best Kitten in the International show in 1986.

So big things were expected of Lacey.

“You come to these shows for business reasons, to make contacts for your clients,” said Ray, a professional breeder. “But you mostly come for the fun.”

Marie Phetteplace of Norfolk, Va., who is 39, would agree with that.

“Am I having fun? A single woman come to California?You better believe it honey!” she said, squeezing an inquiring reporter.

Phetteplace has a wonderful bonus this year--Chocolate Eclair, her Silver Persian.

“I’ve been coming to these cat shows since 1973, and can you believe it--this is the first time I’ve had a cat that ever won a thing,” she said.

Chocolate Eclair had already picked up a first place in one ring in the Best Household Cat category. And Chocolate Eclair made it to a sudden-death playoff with Bumper in the Super Cat contest.

But Bumper was the sentimental favorite.

Bumper is the mascot for the North Central Animal Shelter at 90031 Lacey St., near Avenue 26, in Los Angeles.

“We fell in love with her beautiful eyes,” said 75-year-old Lucille Adinolfi, who showed off Bumper in the contest.

Bumper’s blue eyes, the color of the deep Pacific, won her the Most Beautiful Eyes preliminary first.

Viki Tutt, an animal health technician at North Central, stroked Bumper lovingly after her victory. Tutt and another technician, Yvette Gimple, had nursed the cat back to good health after she was attacked by a dog that got loose at the shelter.

More than 30 cats entered the Super Cat contest. It’s an important category, said publicist Silverman, because “we want people to know our cats are not all just Hotsy Totsies.”

The top awards for the Hotsy Totsies will close the show today, from 4 to 6 p.m.