What’s With All Those Letters?
Cat shows, part 2 — or a discourse on points and titles.
Of course, part of the reason we go to shows is to display our cats and talk to visitors, but the big reason we go to shows is to win and earn titles for the cats. I’ll start by explaining a cat’s registered name, just in case some of you are unfamiliar with the format. Take, for example, Wegiekatt Star Shadow of LostWoods. The first word of his name is his breeder’s cattery - Wegiekatt. This can be more than one word (or it used to be allowable) but most breeders keep their cattery name a reasonable length as we are limited in the number of characters that we have for a cat’s name. The next part of the registered name is the actual cat name, in this case Star Shadow. Sometimes that’s the name we call the cat, but quite often it’s not. Star Shadow has never been called that — he’s Peanut, or a number of other names. The last part of the registered name — of LostWoods – is the owner’s cattery, if the cat is owned by someone with a cattery and if there’s room (enough characters left) to add it. Note that now and then you’ll see a name like Talia’s mama’s name: Meisterhaus Sarianna-of-Shalimar. When you see the hyphens between words like that, the “of” doesn’t designate a cattery, but part of the actual name of the cat.
Okay, so now you know — if you didn’t already — why our cats have such long names. So what do those letters at the beginning and sometimes at the end of a cat’s name mean? Those are titles and awards that the cat has earned. I’ll start by explaining CFA titles and how they are earned.
A kitten in CFA can only earn two titles — Regional Winner (RW) and National Winner (NW). Well, there are some alternate titles they earn in the International Divison, but I’m going to be lazy and leave them out. The premise is the same. Adult cats can also earn RW and NW titles. RW is earned by being one of the top 25 cats in the class (Kitten, Championship, and Premiership) in their region for the show year. The show year runs from May 1st to April 30th. The NW title is earned by being in the top 25 cats in the championship for the year nationally or the best 20 in kitten or premiership class for the year. One other title earned annually is the Breed Winner (BW) title. It is given to the highest scoring cat of each breed in Championship for the year.
Cats accumulate “show points” toward earning the BW, NW, and RW titles. This is where the count for each class at the show is important. Show points are earned by beating other cats — either within the cat’s breed or within the entire class, regardless of the title (or lack of title) the other cats have. Show points accumulate over the entire show year, but start over at zero when the new show year starts. Also, a kitten is allowed to keep points only from his or her 40 best rings for the year, while championship and premiership cats keep points from their 100 best rings. That does level the playing field a little bit for people who can’t/don’t want to show their cats every weekend. One other note… a kitten can earn a RW or NW as a kitten and then “age out” (turn 8 months old) and compete in one of the adult classes and earn another RW or NW title in the same year — if he or she is an outstanding cat. The points earned as a kitten don’t count toward the adult title, but neither do the 40 rings he’s already accumulated. He starts all over when he becomes an adult.
Potentially, a cat could be BW, NW, RW Mycattery Fluffy of Anothercattery. Of course, if that’s the case, Fluffy is also likely to have one other title tacked on to the front of her name — Grand Champion (GC).
When a cat turns 8 months old, he/she enters a show as an Open — a cat without a title. The first step is to earn his Winners Ribbons. Winners Ribbons are earned by being the best Open male or female in the color class in a ring. Once a cat has earned six Winners Ribbons, he is a Champion. For NFCs who don’t face a lot of competition within breed at most shows, a cat can easily be a Champion after one show since shows have six to eight rings. Judges can withhold Winners Ribbons from a cat they believe is not an acceptable example of the breed, but they rarely do unless the cat has a disqualifying fault.
If the cat is spayed or neutered, he will be competing in Premiership instead of Championship. Instead of earning the CH title, he will earn the title Premier (PR). So as you read this, if you’re thinking about Premiership cats, just substitute Premier in place of Champion — the process will be the same. The few differences between classes I’ll mention as they come up.
So now you have CH Mycattery Fluffy of Anothercattery. Fluffy goes to her next show and now she wants to not only earn the show points mentioned above, but she really wants to earn some ”grand points”. Grand points are earned by beating other Champions (or Premiers) either of the same breed or other breeds. Grand points accumulate until the cat grands or is no longer shown — they don’t expire at the end of the show year. During breed judging the judge will hang a purple ribbon for Best Champion in each breed — providing there’s at least one Champion in the breed at the show. Sadly, Fluffy doesn’t earn any points for that ribbon unless there are at least two Champions in her breed. She has to beat someone to get points. So Fluffy will need to be in the final to earn some grand points.
When I talked about shows a few days ago, I talked about the top 10 cats in a ring. Try to forget about those cats for now. In Championship and Premiership there’s another part of the final I didn’t mention — the part where grand points are earned. It has nothing to do with the top 10, although a cat in this part of the final can be part of the top 10 — but he/she isn’t always.
So Fluffy was the best CH NFC. The first part of the final is called and Fluffy’s number is among the chosen few. You take her to the ring and see two other long hair cats and three short hair cats — six cats total — obviously an AB ring as both LH and SH cats are represented. If it were a specialty ring, there would only be three cats – either LH or SH. (In Premiership it will be two LH and two SH, four total.) These six cats are the best CHs of their breeds, although there are other breeds whose best CHs are not up there. (and there could be exceptions — as in two of the same breed up there, but let’s not go into something that rarely happens!) The judge then awards 3rd best LH CH, 2nd best LH CH, Best LH CH, followed by 3rd best SH CH, 2nd best SH CH, and Best SH CH. (He could do it in any order he wants, but has to give out those awards.) Then he decides between the cats who is the 3rd best AB CH, 2nd best AB CH, and Best AB CH. Obviously, if the cat is 3rd best LH CH, she can’t be Best AB CH, but if she Best LH CH, she could also be the Best AB CH. When Fluffy gets one of these awards, she earns points for beating the Champions of other breeds at the show, not just her own breed. If there are 20 AB Champions and Fluffy is the Best AB CH, she earns 19 points. The points earned are the count minus one for Best, 90% of the count minus one for 2nd Best, and 80% of the count minus one for 3rd Best. A Champion must earn 200 points to become a Grand Champion (GC). A Premier must earn 75 points to become a Grand Premier (GP). Additionally, a cat must have at least one final either as Best/2nd best/3rd best CH or a top 10 final to become a Grand Champion. She must also earn points from at least three different judges.
It is possible for a good cat to become a “One Show Grand”, but it’s rare enough to be a big deal to us crazy cat people. To be a one show grand — no special title awarded, just some bragging rights 
— the cat must do very well at the show, plus there have to be enough cats competing to provide the required points. If the champion count at a six ring show is 20, there’s no way for a cat to earn 200 points at the show, even if he is the Best AB CH in every ring.
BTW, it’s traditional for the cat’s owner to celebrate a new Grand Champion or Grand Premier by having a “Grand Party” at a later show. Cake, snacks, even champagne are served. Granding is a big deal. That and we like to party! If you happen to visit a show and see a line of exhibitors waiting for cake near someone’s benching area, say congratulations to the people serving the cake.
One last title to talk about in CFA before I quit for the day. The title is one that is not earned directly by the cat competing in shows. Rather, it’s an award that even cats like Shira — who can’t compete because the dog bit her tail, leaving a disqualifying fault in the form of a tail kink — can earn by producing great examples of the breed. That title is Distinguished Merit (DM) and it is added on the end of a cat’s name. The title is awarded to a female cat who has produced at least five kittens who have granded or to a male cat with 15 offspring who have granded.
Since this post has gotten rather long — and I’ve spent quite a bit of time on it today – I’ll write about TICA titles and awards another day. Stay tuned!
September 17th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
This is the most informative article about titles I have ever read. Or the first article from which I could actually make sense of the various titles. Thank you.
September 18th, 2007 at 11:37 am
I know it isn’t your job to give updates on all the other sites but you mentioned about recent litters or babies at a couple other catteries as well as one in perticular at SassafrasKat. You mentioned the babies were terribly small and I was wondering how the babies were doing. No site is as good about updates as you are nor does anyone else have such an active blog as yours so figured I would ask you :).
You mentioned about your cats hunting at night and bringing you little spoons and things…. I think that is absolutely adorable. My Licorice brings me a million things at night. He has toys bigger than him that make their way from downstairs in our living room to our bed at night. I generally wake up with at least 10-15 things in my bed every morning. My husband works nights and I think he looks for him as they are all on my husbands side of the bed. He plays with me but always has to show dad his spoils of his nighttime hunting.
He has these feather teasers that he just loves. I bought one at Target - he has eaten all of its feathers and removed the bell but still drags the dumb thing everywhere. I have since purchased him 2 more which end up everywhere - like in sinks and the tub and his waterbowl. He has a big one from PetsMart that a friend brought him that is like 4 feet long and he manages to drag that thing around too.
The other day we had a lizard get into our home (I suspect my 10 year old brought it in and secretly let it go) and he was interested in playing with it so we placed him and the lizard in the bathroom and about 20 minutes later we opened the door to find the cat sitting on the toilet staring into nothing - the lizard was gone…. Turns out it crawled under the vanity cabinet. Licorice waited for 2 hours for it to come out and caught it! What an interesting site to watch him. He makes the cutest chirping noises - normally he is a noisefree cat.
The kiddo is complaining its time to head to school so I gotta run but I will check in again tomorrow morning if time permits to see how the LostWoods cats and kitties are doing.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Quick question.Does Ms.Danica go by Maxine by any chance?