At the cat show: birthday steaks, kitty kisses and big human egos.

By ALINE MENDELSOHN

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 10, 2000

At the pound: Sterilization, a few days of hope and then the needle

ST. PETERSBURG -- Art Nadelman held Calypso, swabbing her ears with a Q-Tip. Like a baby, the white and blond Cornish Rex cat squirmed uncomfortably.

"Chill out. We're almost done," Nadelman said Sunday morning, as he planted a kiss on her head.

Behind them on Calypso's maroon zip-up cage hung a red sign with white lettering: STOP! Do not touch! I won't bite, but my owner will.

He wasn't kidding. If you tried to pet Calypso, Nadelman would order you to stop until you first slathered on anti-bacterial lotion -- for the cat's sake, not yours -- and even then he would watch you closely.

Gizmo, a Persian Himalayan Sealpoint, has plenty to be smug about. The 9-month-old cat won a variety of honors at the cat show.

Nadelman is, to put it lightly, a "cat person." He spends an average of $2,000 a month on his show pets, none of which has ever been outdoors. Though he won't disclose exactly how many cats he owns, in passing he did rattle off names such as Sixthcents, Serenzipiti, Santa Fe, Spirit and Vger, like the Star Trek character.

On Saturday and Sunday, Nadelman was one of about 150 cat owners and 229 cats at the Buccaneer Cat Fanciers Annual Show, a convention that included competitions, supply and souvenir sales and a booth staffed by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Cat people are the kind of folks who might give their Persian steak for its birthday or take their champion chocolate Siamese to Tyrone Square Mall on a leash. Ralph Salisbury's black Persian, June Bug, is so jealous she bites him whenever he gets on the phone. Salisbury takes it in stride.

It isn't just the love of pretty cats that drives these people; many also own strays. Still, they tend to be sensitive about their passion for purebreds because non-cat people just don't understand why they go to such extremes. They are especially sensitive about their cats' price tags, which stretch into the thousands. May we ask how much they paid for their cats?

"No," most will say politely, but firmly.

Possibly no one understands the cat culture better than Bob Bradshaw, a 25-year veteran of cat shows. By day, Bradshaw works as a medical imagist in Indiana. Nights and weekends, he judges cat shows. He acquired his first cat, a Russian blue named Felinest Czar Tsars, when he was 19.

Bradshaw wears a silver pinky ring in the shape of a cat's head.

"There is no perfect cat," he said, and paused. Then he erupted into laughter. "Except mine, of course."

Unlike human beauty contestants, competition cats must match a vigorous written standard, which is set by cat fanciers across the nation.

"It has nothing to do with the cats," Bradshaw said. "It's about the humans, and the need for competition. It's about the ego."

Bastian Dazzle gets a kiss from owner Jon Nelson after the female Bombay crawled through his shirt and poked her head through the sleeve.

Cynthia Giallombardo sat beside her cages, petting her brown tabby Shere. The Orange City resident heads a cattery, Eintoni's American Shorthairs -- and is a professed cat fanatic.

It wasn't always this way. For as long as she could remember, Giallombardo had been afraid of cats. Something to do with a childhood experience when she was scratched and bitten by a neighborhood kitty.

So she wasn't too enchanted when a stray started lounging around her pool. She tried to shoo her away, but the cat wouldn't take the hint. At night, the animal scratched at the sliding glass door and one day found a way inside her apartment.

"Mew," the cat whimpered.

"Fine," Giallombardo grunted.

To keep as distant as possible, she named the cat "Kat." Kat the brown tabby didn't plan on going anywhere.

"She adopted me," Giallombardo sighed. "I didn't have a choice."

Soon, she helped Kat deliver babies and felt strangely bonded to her. That was 30 years ago.

Saturday, she held Shere (no relation to Kat) and smiled. Cat hair covered her black cotton dress, but Giallombardo didn't care.

Twenty years ago, John Kuehne hated cats.

He was also allergic, so they were completely out of the question. Or so he thought.

"This was B.C. -- Before Cats," his wife, Karen, said.

One day, Karen discovered a brown and white tabby shivering on a canal bank. The cat, which had been dumped on the side of the road, had fly larvae embedded in an open sore. "I don't think (John) had a choice," Karen mused. "It's called marriage. It was kind of a prenuptial agreement."

Drixoral became a part of John's diet, and after constant exposure the allergies were replaced by an addiction to cats. Today, the Kuehnes, who live in Vero Beach, own 17 cats and their own cattery, Katabuv.

After years of torn carpets, they have only hardwood floors. In October they went on their first vacation in 20 years while their daughter cared for their cats (they called every night to check on them). Several years ago, they almost lost their house because of cat expenses.

"It's kind of like gambling," John said. "I don't go fishing. I don't go golfing. I go to cat shows. The cats own me, there's no doubt about it."

Their last prize-winning cat was Surprise Party, the only colored kitten in a white litter. Party, as the Kuehnes call her, was named the seventh-best cat in the nation. In their home, Party's trophy gleams from a display case, where it is accompanied by a 16- by 20-inch professionally framed portrait.

This weekend they showed their baby, an 8-month-old calico Persian, Kelsha Awesome Blossom of Katabuv.

As John smoothed Kelsha's fur, a boy of about 12 approached her, petting her gently.

"Please don't do that," John told him. "You might not have germs yourself, but you might have touched other cats who have germs that could make her sick."

The boy stared at John, who added: "You probably didn't think of that, did you?"

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