Problems with showing a 5mo Bengal

Question
Mr. Auspitz,
I bought on Dec. 14th a 4 month old female Bengal kitten for my 17 year old son.  I had gone to a cat show last year, found a breeder that I liked and waited 11 months for the show kitten and paid well for her.  Well... we took her to her 1st show this weekend.  The sweet, loving, very confident kitten turned into a snarling and swatting wild beast every time we put her in the show cage to be judged.  Some judges just dismissed her and didn't judge her after they tried to get her out of the cage and she hissed and swatted at them.  Some distracted her and were able to get her out, but she was still hissing at the show table.  Some had my son grab her and take her out and hold her to be judged.  She is an only cat in our family, we have no others.  My son is shy, so I thought this would be a great way for him to break out of his shyness by showing a cat as this was all his idea.  She was able to get 2-3rds and 1-5th in color only when she was acting somewhat good.  What can we possible do to help her get over this?  I want to give it a good try before giving up.

Answer
Karen,

The problem is, I will bet is that your Bengal is spoiled.  There needs to be more chaos at home so the chaos of the cat show will not upset him.  He may also be intimidated by all those cats, especially, if he is an only cat.

There are no guarantees that he may get over it, but I would keep a radio (tuned to a raucous channel) on at home all the time. You can try things like Rescue Remedy (but you need to put some on the skin of the inside of his ear (orally will not work).

Usually, it takes 3 shows to really see if the cat will warm up to shows or hate them forever.

Not all cats turn out to tolerate the shows.

Good luck and best regards... Norm.