Yanna and Jake, the Fussy Cat story.

We always had cats when I was growing up, sometimes four at a time so they were always a part of my life. After leaving home and renting, such is the way these days, I was keen to get a cat as soon as I bought my own home.

So along came Yanna. A small 8 month old Bengal. After she’d settled in, it was obvious that she loved company and was upset each time I left for work in the morning, prowling around crying looking for me for hours on end. The obvious solution was to get another cat, but two Bengal’s seemed like it might be a lot of hard work to this new cat owner!

I settled on Jake, a standard moggie, quite boisterous and playful. He was clearly the Top Cat of his huge litter, he was 1 of 8! They settled in together after just a little bit of fur flying to establish who was the new Top Cat (both of them it turns out!) and that was that.

 

The next step was to get them comfortable with going outside. Plenty of people have indoor cats, but knowing the cats from my childhood told me that they simply love the thrill of the chase, so outside it was going to be.

 

It was clear from early on that Yanna had been in a rather sheltered environment with little to do. She was unable to climb, jumping was very difficult for her and she could simply not judge distances at all. She’d fall off the arm of the sofa, couldn’t make the jump between two sofas, a 30cm gap, and stared at the stairs with confusion!

 

So PT practice became a daily ritual with an hour of lessons of climbing, jumping and running. We learned how to climb the step ladder at first (a 3 week course), then came the cat climbing tree (ongoing lessons continue!). This was a massive affair of some 2 meters height. Going up wasn’t an issue, but coming down was impossible at first! Much noise, crying and then clear fear with poor Yanna shaking, stuck to the side of the post. I had to help her down and demonstrate with my hands showing her that she’d have to come down backwards.

 

Eventually after a few months all of the obstacles had been conquered and off outside we went. They both stuck close to me as we explored the garden for just a few minutes initially before rushing back inside. Enough for the first day. As things progressed, they and I got more and more confident and went further and deeper into the garden.

After a few weeks of this, Yanna decided to climb her first tree. A huge fur tree, some 30m tall. She sprinted up the trunk as far as she could get. A good 15m of the ground. I was terrified that she’d fall! Much noise was made with her excitement! It was then a 10 minute affair of trying to talk her down with encouragement as she too became a little terrified at the situation she’d found herself in. But we made it.

 

Jake, meanwhile, was sprinting up trees like there’s no tomorrow. He was much more skilled and although being some 8 months younger than Yanna had really grown up, becoming a big strong cat. He was just able to use his shear strength to get out of sticky situations. It was clear that he’d get on just fine on his own outside. Yanna was always going to be a small cat, so she had to use her newly taught stills instead. A somewhat daunting prospect for me!

 

As time went on, the ladders came out a few times to rescue a terrified Yanna from various trees, garage roofs and the like. I still have a scar on my arm from catching her as she fell off one particular tree.

 

Two years on into ownership and all is well. As I’m writing this, Yanna is off out on her daily explore all around the neighbourhood and Jake is patrolling closer to home as he likes to keep an eye on the neighbouring cats. Yanna wears a GPS tracker so that I can keep my eye on her as she still gets herself into a pickle from time to time. She’ll wander for 2 to 3km a day during the week, up to 6km at the weekend when she’s out for longer. Quite some distance for her little legs!

 

Fussy Cat has come from my experiences of these two characters growing up. I’ve bought many things over the years, some are rubbish and some great. Our first product is the Ceramic Water Fountain, something that really has changed Yanna’s life.

 

For the first 18 months, I’d never seen Yanna drink a drop of water, a trait in many cats but especially Bengals like her. Various bowls, plastic water fountains and others were bought. All ignored, destroyed or seen as games to Yanna! I’d learned that if she watches me put something together, then she sees it as her sole goal to deconstruct whatever it is that I’d just made! I’d often come home to a flooded hallway with the plastic water fountain in all of its constituent parts spread about the place and 2L of water swilling all over the floor! Not a drop was drunk!

 

The Ceramic Fountain is the fix for that. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t remove any single part, nor turn it over or even move it. There is also no cable to chew on, tug at or play with. The one thing she does do though is drink from it! She’s able to splash away at the water in the saucer to her hearts content, completely emptying it of water. She then waits until it is then duly refilled with fresh water for her to lap away at.

 

That has resulted in a daily visit or two more to the litter tray, lighter colour and less potent wee and, something I hadn’t considered at all, a cat that is less fussy about her food. Prior to this, she’d clearly had to get all of her water intake from her food, so would only eat moist wet cat food. Her wee was infrequent, of little volume and particularly potent! Now that she’s able to get her water intake from the Ceramic Fountain, it does seem that she knows that she can eat without a worry about her thirst.