Cat Lovers Unite at Annual CatCon In L.A.!

CatCon is an exciting event that takes place annually at the Pasadena Convention Center. For years, the online cat community has shared funny cat videos, memes, and posts about cats. It was honestly inevitable that the logical progression would be a convention where cat people from all walks of life can come together and celebrate all things feline. Plus, it’s a wonderful place to meet like-minded individuals and share cat stories. I adopted my cat 5 years ago. He’s been a wonderful addition to my family and, I admit, an addition I didn’t know I needed. One of the best things was deciding on a name. I wanted to sound clever and give him a celebrity name like "Catrick Swayze" but settled on Miso. 

Back to CatCon -- Where should meow even begin? So many celebrities all in one place… Beyonce “Queen Bee”, Justin Bieber, Bad Bunny, Billy Joel, Barbara Steisand, just to name a few... Cat-lebrities. that is. Yes, they are the real celebrities around us humans. These are just a few of celebrity-named felines that we saw at the adoption section by Best Friends Animal Society. Here are a few more Cat-lebrities we got a chance to meow at!

CAT CELEBRITIES

One Eared UNO (10 years old)

IG: @one_eared_uno

Uno’s human mom, Katherine Curtis, tells us that she met Uno at a dumpster. She said that no one was looking for him, so she ended up keeping him. She continues by saying that, after a few years, she started posting videos online and it turned into a really big thing. She said her goal is to show people how capable cats are and that it is possible to walk your cat, it’s possible to have deeper relationships, and she feels like they’ve really accomplished that. She’s really excited to continue sharing his story. Uno is working on his therapy cat certification so that he can help people in nursing homes.

Bowie The Siberian (3 years old)

IG: @bowie_the_siberian

Bowie, who was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential pets, has the most incredible blue eyes. It’s no wonder this one quickly rose to cat fame. We spoke with his humans, Randy Carothers and Nika Ard, who said he’s hypo allergenic, a travel cat, and harness and leash trained. A day with Bowie includes waking his humans up in the morning for breakfast by nibbling on their arms a bit to make sure he’s fed. He’s very active and hyper. They said he loves playing hide-and-seek and traveling. They first realized they had a celebrity cat when his followers quickly rose and knew, because of Bowie’s blue eyes, it would be something special. 

Merlin The Mad Ragdoll (6 years old)

IG: @merlinragdoll

We ran into Ragdoll-Himalayan mix Merlin chilling in the middle of CatCon with his human mom. The cranky look on his face is definitely a show-stopper. His mom tells us that, as a kitten, he had a super sweet face. She continued to say that his features developed into this cranky little appearance that now has over 2.5 million followers across all platforms. She said the average day with Merlin is pretty chill -- He’s sleeps at the couch all day and doesn’t really do much and nothing really excites him. Aaahh the good life. Merlin definitely has that "resting cat face" going. One can’t help but smile, laugh, and say "aawww"... 

USEFUL CAT STUFF 

Various artists filled the booths at CatCon, demonstrating their love for cats through their work. Here are some that caught our eye!

Whimsily Ever After by Shelley Rinker

Previously a toy designer who now currently makes her own cat toys.

Cat Kites by Isaac Ashegei

Inspired during the pandemic and was his way of getting off the computer. He decided to integrate his love for kites and cats together and create this beautiful flying object. It takes him a day to several weeks to design a single kite. 

Paw-Motto Cat Food Bowl by Naoko Nishino

Her cat inspired her to create cat feeding bowls. These are designed raised higher and “more gentle for their necks” and for their whiskers.

Northwest Naturals Raw Diet for Cats

Northwest natural freeze dry raw food for dogs and cats is 98% organ meat and bone mixed. They make everything in-house at Portland, Oregon, which includes freeze-drying. Lots of different protein selections including rabbit from France, duck, turkey, chicken, beef, and white fish. Because we all know how picky eaters those felines are! 

 

CAT-GPT AI Web App by Adam Bragg

CAT-GPT is an AI chatbox, but instead of responding with a non-personality, sort of vanilla answers, they respond in a personality of a sassy cat with cat gifs associated with it. 

Wait a minute, did you say "sassy"? That’s all you had to say. We love it already. (For a second, we thought Adam said “assassin cat”. Not gonna lie, we got excited for a second but he corrected us and said, “A sassy cat.” Well, there goes our dream of having an assassin cat...)

When we asked Adam how he came up with this, he told us, "When Chat GPT was obviously hitting it’s meteoric rise, I thought that it was devoid of personality and the world deserved a fun way to interact with AI, and CAT-GPT sounded so similar to Chat GPT that it sort of fell into place. The cat community is so amazing online. They're all interested in technology. Within days of loading this up, it went viral. Now we have a million users and people are really loving this personality-driven [app] and the direction with their favorite sassy cat."

Emily the Strange by Rob Reiger

As we continuouly purrr’d through the streets of CatCon, we ran into famed author of Emily the Strange, Rob Reiger, whose work brings awareness to support self-assurance, creativity, and mental health in youth worldwide. We asked him what inspired him to create Emily the Strange, and he told us, "I’ve been inspired by all kinds of things over the years, but a lot of it comes from rock 'n' roll. Definitely influenced by the attitude and mysterious qualities of the feline creature called the cat. That’s what’s brought me to CatCon. Traditionally, over the years, Emily the Strange wasn’t a fan or isn’t a fan of humans, prefers the company of cats, and I got really good at drawing cays. We do a lot of cat stuff."

EDU-CATION with Dr. Joyce Login, DVM

We also had the honor of speaking with feline expert, Dr. Joyce Login, DVM. She joined Zoetis and is an expert in veterinary communication, pain vector-borne diseases, and preventative care for animals and specializing in osteoarthritis pain for cats. 

“My experience at CatCon has just been fabulous," she told us. "The attendees are so engaged and curious in asking questions and just telling stories about their cats. It’s energizing.”

She explained Zoetis as "a leading health company globally. We specialize into making animals better preventative care. We have programs to prevent, predict, detect diseases all the way from genetic testing to diagnostics to medicines for cats and dogs… we’re very much focused on making sure our animals stay healthy."

ADOPTION

Over 200 kitties and cats were brought over to CatCon from Best Friends cat adoption & fostering services to possibly be adopted. According to their Marketing Specialist, Ariel Dungrove, they were able to get about 75 kittens adopted on Saturday, and on Sunday when we were there, it was at 50 and counting. Brb while we bawl our eyes out from happiness... 

She said the adoption process is really quick. You come in. You’ll see cats. Anyone you’re interested in, let them know and they’ll do a meet-and-greet with them. You’ll have access to their full history and medical records. They’re micro-chipped, up to date with their vaccinations, etc. It’s also about $25 to adopt and it’s a two-for-one. She adds that they pull all their animals from the L.A. county shelter and work as an overflow.

TO WRAP UP...

You have gato be kitten me right meow! What a wonderful, informative, and adorable experience CatCon turned out to be! It is no wonder some cats turn into celebrities and influencers on social media! People love cats and they will come out in droves to show it. There were non celebrity cats brought in by their cat moms and dads that people just wanted to take pictures of. Future celebrekitties in the making. Proving that, with the right cattitude, anything is pawsible. I am definitely a cat purrson. I have long considered adopting another kitty and I think my decision is made. Now, what to name it? Cat Damon? Bob Meowrly? Paul McCatney? Brad Kitt? … oh the choices are endless. 

See you at CatCon next year, you filthy furr-animals!