“Now, this young lady has a beautiful face — round, perfectly shaped. Her legs are a good… “Now, this young lady has a beautiful face — round, perfectly shaped. Her legs are a good length and evenly spaced. She has a wonderful shoulder span and an excellent, strong body. Truly a very beautiful girl.”

This past weekend, I attended a beauty pageant of sorts.

The competition didn’t feature a talent or swimsuit contest, but it did include more than 400 entrants. On Saturday and Sunday, Heinz Field hosted the Western Pennsylvania Cat Fanciers cat show and welcomed a different type of feline from the normal Panther Football variety. Being a cat lover myself, this was not something I could easily pass up.

As I stepped out of the elevator on the second level of Heinz Field I was greeted by the smell of fur, shampoo and catnip — an interesting and not altogether uninviting combination. I passed vendors selling row upon row of feline-related merchandise. “These shows have become so commercial,” I thought to myself. “In my day, I remember…”

Actually, this was my first cat show, and I was way too busy watching a feather on a string as it whirred on its mechanized rotor to do much thinking. A woman with a fluffy, almost pure-white longhair joined me at the stand, and her pet batted at the feather.

Besides this simple yet mesmerizing toy, the show offered everything from luxury pet beds to designer collars. Brushes, combs, shampoos and even clothing were for sale. Not to leave out the humans, there were also T-shirts, sweaters, pins and tables of cat-related bric-a-bracs to put around the home. If it was for or about a cat, it was to be found somewhere amongst the stands.

But the real draw of the show was, of course, the cats. From all over they came — from Persia and Ohio, from Siam and West Virginia, Ocicats from right here in Pittsburgh. Each cat had its own station and, as I walked among them, dodging the cats’ handlers as they bustled about to get their felines perfect for the judges, I saw every breed, color and shape. Most, being old pros at this type of attention, simply followed the passing onlookers with their eyes and gave an occasional flip of the tail — all except for the Manx.

Many of the breeders also had signs announcing kittens for adoption. These advertisements were posted just above the tiny faces of the furry creatures, which looked up with plaintive eyes and emitted small meows. I had to move quickly from these stands for fear that I might adopt one, all while knowing that University housing doesn’t smile kindly upon pets.

Off to one side, the real show was going on, as judges examined the different cats according to their section — longhair adults, shorthair kittens, longhair kittens and shorthair adults.

When all of the judging was complete, the winners were brought forth and held aloft as the crowd applauded. From what I saw, the Norwegian forest cats and Maine coons — two breeds most akin in appearance to small, furry tanks — made off with quite a few accolades and ribbons, while many handlers received good upper-body workouts lifting them repeatedly.

The CFA cat show was definitely a place where a lover of cats could lose a portion of the afternoon amidst the flurry of fur and ribbons. Though the judging did become a little boring, considering I didn’t have a cat in the show myself, and most of the felines slept when they were not on the judging block, it was still something different to do from my normal weekend activities.