Welcome to the Savannah Cat Chat Forum! Our forum has been in existence since 2012 and is the only one of its kind. We were here, serving the savannah cat community before Facebook and Instagram! Register for a free account today to become a member! Please use an email program other than Hotmail, since Hotmail accounts are blacklisted by many servers and ISP's. Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site in some of the forums by adding your own topics and posts. But in order to take advantage of the full features, such as a private inbox as well as connect with other members ad access some of the larger topics, a donation of $2.99/mo or $25/yr is requested. This will allow us to continue running this forum!
);F1s are extremely energetic and very smart. When they get bored, they make their own brand of fun and it can get messy.
I have 4 SVS -- 2 F2s, an F6 and an F1. The F1 is the only who does not scratch furniture. He has turned on the faucets and flooded the laundry room and kitchen. The boy loves to play in water. He is large -- 22 inches at the shoulder and 39 inches long. And he is strong. So when he launches himself of the leather couch after a toy, he leaves marks and sometimes holes and snags fabric furniture.
One of my F2s is more destructive than the F1. The F2 is the reason all my breakables are stuck down with QuakeHold as well as the art on the walls. The F2s and F6 decided my dining room chairs were preferred scratching posts rather than the ones I bought for them so the chairs are covered in thick towels.
That said, I've had to do the following to the house since getting the F1:
* change all interior knobs to knobs that lock from both sides -- to keep him out of rooms he shouldn't be in and to keep in a room when I need a break from his antics;
* change plastic hoses on washer to steel because he bit through the plastic ones, causing flood #2;
* change all the wood floors to vinyl plank because of his love of water (and also because my husband is better suited to living in a barn than in a human's house
* replaced window treatments -- he did shred the custom stuff we got before we decided to get an F1;
* installed child-proof locks on all cabinets/drawers/toilets;
* installed keyed locks on 2 custom furniture pieces where we keep books and important papers.
There's more that I can't think of at the moment. I did a rough tally about a month ago and, including the floors which were not necessary to change, we've spent around $30,000 changing things in the house to accommodate the F1. That doesn't mean you'd have to do the same. My boy is one of those cats who must be kept busy when he's awake or all hell can break loose.
The important things to remember about getting an F1 are:
The cat needs you and you must be able to spend sufficient time playing with it no matter how tired/sick you are. If you work outside the home that means play before you leave, when you come home, and before bed for at least an hour each time. If you work at home, plan on not getting much done.
F1s tend to bond to one person so the cat may love you and tolerate others in the family or vice versa. The cat may not like when you have visitors and may need to be locked up during those times.
If you plan on taking vacations, you should raise the cat with whoever will be the cat sitter. I had the sitter come twice a day to play with him and feed him after he'd been home for 2 weeks. He's known her since he was a baby and he still gets pissy with her when we're gone for longer than a week. He's knocked her down twice. The reality is, you may not find anyone who wants to watch the cat and vacations could become challenging to take.
I have to put Atticus in the cat enclosure when the housekeepers come because one is terrified of him. He is not mean but he hissed at her once and that was all it took. Same with friends -- he tolerates them for a bit and then he wants them gone.
And most important -- they are eerily similar to 3 yr old children with the same inquisitive nature and need to be involved in EVERYTHING you do. Spend a day at a pre-school in a room full of kids who are high on sugar, need a nap and refuse to take one and you'll get a sense of living with an F1 is like. Then multiply that by a gazillion.
Wow! Thank you so much for the time you e put in answering my question. That really did make it pretty clear as to what to expect.
What do you mean about play time? Feather wands are the favorite here as well as playing fetch, hide 'n seek.
Do you bring him outside to play fetch?
Would he stay with you if he was outside seeing your the one (I assume) that he's most bonded to? We play fetch outside in the cat enclosure as well as in the house. You can leash train or take them out in a stroller but they can never be allowed to roam free. An F1 would be gone in a second -- either stolen, killed, or so focused on chasing a bug that the cat would be miles away from home in a few minutes. When I realized how big Atticus was going to get, I didn't bother leash training him. If he would get scared and I would have to pick him up to rescue him from, say, a dog off leash, i'd probably get badly scratched and bitten. Not worth the worry. All 4 of mine go for walks now in pet strollers.
What about de-clawing? Is that ever an option? I under stand how mean that is and I don't think I would ever do it but is it a possibility? Not for me. I think it's immoral. In addition to being mutilation of the foot, declawing can cause negative personality changes and in later life, make it difficult for an elderly cat to get around.
How does he make known that he's sick of visitors? First he starts by getting close to them and staring. There's a look he gets in his eyes that seems predatory to me. His muscles tense and it seems as though he's waiting for an excuse to teach that human a lesson. If I don't remove him, he'll slap the person -- usually with his claws in but if he doesn't like the person, he'll also scratch them.
I have twin 7 year olds and a Mastiff and a French bulldog. How do you think that would go? If your twins have been taught to be respectful to animals, there should be no problem. And kittens raised with cat savvy dogs should do fine. If your dogs have a high prey drive or have no experience with cats, you would have to find a way to keep the cat safe. My F1 doesn't like one of my F2s so I had to enclose the sunroom in our house as safe space for the F2. He spends 1/2 a day in that room and then I let him out and Atticus spends the other half day in there. You might evaluate whether you have room to keep the cat and dogs separate if they don't get along.
So, things like candle holders and statues and barware on top of a bar in my home would have to go? Either put in storage or buy some QuakeHold museum putty and gel and stick them down. The putty is for wood and ceramics, the gel for glass. And that would be true for any generation of SV. They love to test gravity by watching things fall to the floor
I'd love to see a picture of your F1. I'm infatuated with them. You can find 215 pages of pictures and stories here http://www.savannahcatchat.com/threads/the-atticus-diaries.4428/
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
)
