We went with Ch Emerisle Raffles Ofcairnie (Tiffanie male) - first show we've taken him to, we bought him in as a mature boy back in February. The last one we entered, we didn't take him as he had a chunk taken out of him by someone or other (well OK, it doesn't take much to narrow down who it must have been I suppose, the kittens are due in 9 days time) and the hair was only just beginning to grow back. Well it's still noticeably shorter but we figured we'd take the risk, having checked that "area of shorter hair" is not among the reasons listed to reject a cat under section D! Actually I don't really know why I worried before, there was a British there today with a totally bald strip round its neck, presumably some sort of flea collar allergy, and it got the Imperial! Anyway, returning to the hall at lunchtime we saw "A" on the results slip. Of course we thought the worst, here we go, section D clearance!

On returning to the pen we found Raffles still there with no note on the pen. Eventually it turned out that the judge (who perhaps had better remain nameless!) thought he was a girl (the girl in the pen next door was absent) and that he had been placed in the wrong pen!

Raffles is an entire boy. How any judge could mistake him for a girl is beyond me, unless it was because he smelled nice - I bathed him yesterday. Wish I hadn't bothered, he came 3/3 in the grand and got his CC witheld on the grounds of his coat. It didn't look very good. Judge said she found a knot in his trousers as well which we hadn't spotted, and then said his coat was tarnished round the back legs (he's silver) and that was why she thought he was a girl because the girl next door was a tortie so she thought he was a tortie. O well.

We also took our Tiffanie kitten. Last show she got 1st withheld. Today she did rather better, got 1st and BOB, so at least it wasn't a complete waste of time going.

Liz