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My dad grew up on a farm in Iowa, the oldest of nine children, so it’s possible that my interest in breeding Maine Coon cats comes from some inherited understanding of animal husbandry. I do know that my dad, coming from a farm where a cat was a working animal, could never quite understand what all the fuss was about with our cats, beginning with why we let them inside the house. He also never really understood “cat shows,” and I think he would be completely amazed to know that Jeff and I took Wonder to a cat show in Hanover, Germany.

What was amazing, even to us, was that there were 81 Maine Coon cats at the show. It seems Germans love Maine Coon cats, especially the brown tabbies like Wonder. This meant Wonder first had to compete against 19 brown tabby Maine Coon cats. Then he was judged against 35 Maine Coon tabbies in every color - blue, brown or red. Then, if he stayed in as one of the top 3 in the Tabby Division, he would compete against all the Maine Coon cats to be named First, Second or Third of Breed.

Wonder succeeded in that with six of the twelve judges at the show. Bbut then he had to be good enough to be called back as one of the Top Ten Cats, of all breeds, in the show, and there were 160 cats competing.

Actually, Maine Coon cats have competed at cat shows for many years. They are the oldest breed of cats in the U.S., believed to have evolved from cats on ships that stopped in Maine for new masts or repairs in the 1600s. The cats that survived the cold winters on the farms were those with shaggy coats, bushy tails, big ears, to hear the owls coming, and big bodies.

By the 1800s, farmers in Maine were taking their cats to the County Fairs for “My cat’s bigger than your cat” competitions. It seems that Maine was isolated enough that the cats developed a distinctive look that could be established as a breed in the two cat pedigree registries.

Then another vet x-rayed his hips to make sure he does not have hip dysplasia, another possibly-inherited disease. Even when he passed these stringent evaluations, we wouldn’t use Wonder in a breeding program if he weren’t an outstanding example of the breed, and we demonstrate that by taking him to cat shows to compete with other Maine Coon cats. And even though he wins lots of ribbons, we wouldn’t use him for breeding if he didn’t have the gentle, goofy, sweet personality that people expect in a Maine Coon cat. Back to Wonder’s trip to Europe. He flew in the cabin with us, in a soft-sided carrier under the seat in front of us, from Sacramento to Amsterdam, and we drove to Hanover, Germany. Wonder stayed in the hotel room all week while Jeff and I took day trips. We went to Hamelin, to see the Pied Piper, and to Berlin, to see what remains of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie. Much of what happened there is documented in the Berlin Wall museum, an extremely sobering experience that makes one appreciate how much people will risk to be free from an oppressive, lying government. Back on the bus, which let us get off and on whenever we liked, we rode into what was once East Berlin where, it turns out, all the museums are located. We saw the bust of Nefertiti, a reconstructed Greek temple in a room as large as a football field, and the Ishtar gate from Babylon, in another huge room. That gate, of cobalt blue bricks, must have been 50 feet high. Back in West Berlin, we went by the bombed cathedral, another sobering reminder of the past. Instead of rebuilding it, they put glass plates over the gaping holes. I wasn’t sure if they left it that way to make British and American visitors feel bad, and I was trying to remember if there are remnants of German Luftwaffe bombings in London. My personal theory, coming from California, where every month, more agricultural land becomes a new housing development, is that they left the bombed building to remind themselves that it’s OK to live in apartments and houses close together because they need to conserve the land they have to grow the food they need; they can’t just go out and take more land, because when they do that, they get in trouble. I think it was the German food though, that made me recognize my German background, on my mother’s side. I didn’t care for the sausages, but there was tomato soup and potatoes, a dozen different ways, and fresh asparagus, and rhubarb cream pastries. I was a happy girl. After a week of vacation and Wonder’s success at the cat show, (he was one of the Top Ten in the show), we spent a couple of days in Amsterdam. Wonder stayed in the room at the small hotel that accepted cats, while we enjoyed the museums and sight-seeing. Since my work here is to encourage people to commute by transit carpool or bicycle, I was impressed at what a difference $7 a gallon gasoline and a 100 percent tax on cars makes on people’s transportation choices. We saw mothers bringing their children to school by bicycle, one on the front and two in back, and then bicycling on to work. People were walking and bicycling everywhere, with here and there a car squeezing between the light rail trains and buses. Then we came home - Wonder’s trip to Europe a success. If he keeps enough points to stay in the top 20 in TICA's ranking, Jeff and I will have bred an International Winner. My dad used to say, “There’s always room at the top,” encouraging us to be the best we could be, at whatever we chose to do. I know it was important to him that we were happy in our work, but I also know he was glad that we had love and happiness in our lives. He’s been gone more than four years now, but I think he would understand about our taking Wonder to Europe. - Marilyn