MVC Annual Review
It - that is the MVC, or Most Valuable cat Competition - all started as a competition between cats and honorary cats (the Moosey dog), something to do over the giddy summer holiday weeks, when the gardening weather became too hot to handle.
Most Valuable Cat Competition :- The original competition was a low key affair, inspired by similar cricket competitions to find the best player of the summer season.
Daily scores were given, and in January when the head gardener got bored the points were totalled, and the winner announced. Prizes included fresh chicken livers, and gourmet cat-prawns, and a special handmade certificate.
But nothing in the Moosey house stays 'in-house' for long! The Moosey Most Valuable Cat Competition concept was rebranded in August 2005 as the Most Valuable Pet Competition (for reasons which will become obvious), and launched on an unsuspecting public (which included the Moosey head gardener).
The Last In-House MVC:- The final competition was plagued by indifference, indecision, and lack of appropriate prizes. A can of plain jelly-meat was not considered worth fighting for!
The new, globalised, up-market contest did promise some great features. Coloured frequency bar graphs would replace scribbled tally marks in the dog-eared gardening journal. Other people could now register their interest by voting - the head gardener's natural bias towards the cutest cats could be neutralised.
I explained what I thought the new rules would be to the Moosey cats of the time. The old, tired contest needed revamping - a fresh look, bigger prizes, that sort of thing. We all waited expectantly for the big launch. Cat-status is an honour not given lightly, and the Moosey dog of the time (dear old Taj-Dog) understood the huge honour of being an honorary-cat for the duration of the competition.
Controversial Contestants!
Little did the cats and gardener know! Shock! Horror! The new list of contestants included sheep, various posthumous cats, a rude bludging cat who had been AWOL for years, and - the final straw - chooks!
The MVC is Launched:- The The New MVP Competition came as a complete surprise to gardener and cats. Being a teacher of Mathematics the cute coloured graph was appealing...
Enter the Moosey Poultry - a gang of three itinerant chooks, freeloaders, just passing through, of no fixed abode. Two scuffling scaredy-hens who could hide their eggs with ease. A street-wise rooster who could run and fly like the wind, flap up into the tallest tree closest to the Moosey bedroom, and crow twice an hour, every hour, through the darkest night.
The head gardener was horrified! But the more she protested, the more the poultry (a group entry) soared in the rankings.
Sifter:- There has only been one confirmed sighting of the AWOL cat Sifter since he wandered off to try his luck as a semi-feral drifter.
More problems! The big fat tabby cat Sifter, who had sifted off to warmer beds and bigger food bowls in the year 2003, wasn't technically deceased, and thus could not be awarded his posthumous points. There were mutterings in the cat ranks - cats are fairly democratic, as long as the dog doesn't get too pushy.
Things went from bad to worse with the arrival of the new puppy! Oh, so cute! Mister Fluffy! Those soulful brown eyes! Everyone started voted for Rusty the red border collie. Mature, living, cat contestants, far too serious and intelligent to compete with a piece of canine fluff, didn't stand a chance.
Rusty:- Meet Rusty, the puppy-dog that no-one can resist! A constant gardening companion, and kind to the cats - what more could a gardener want!
Then some serious flaws in the 'points per word per page' scoring system were belatedly uncovered by the head gardener. Little did she realise that innocently mentioning 'roast chicken' (the evening meal) in her garrulous, minutely detailed gardening journal meant automatic competition points for the chooks. Roast chicken being a favourite Moosey meal, the poultry points climbed even higher. Aargh!
So how do things stand now in the Most Valuable Pet Competition, eight months on? The only cat who has any chance of 'making it with the big boys' is Tiger. And who exactly are those 'big boys', the gold and silver honorary-cat medal winners? Humph! Two dogs - Rusty the collie and Taj-Dog, creator of the Moosey Garden Dog-paths, deceased.
Footnote
Restore cat-pride! Help cats reclaim their cat-status! Vote for Tiger the cat today! Click that cat-box!