My Experience Raising an F1 Savannah
Our first Savannah was an F7 male who is very interactive, affectionate, loves to be lugged around, perfect litter box habits and extremely vocal. He seems very much like an ordinary domestic cat with lots of pazzazz! We had questioned many, many Savannah breeders about raising an F1 before we got our girl and the answers to our questions were as many and varied as the sands of the sea. SO...we decided that we would simply learn as we go along and do the very best we could which turned out to be a great choice.
Our F1 girl, Elsa, came to us very young and from the moment my girl-friend and I picked her up from the airport and drove the 3 hours home I knew I was in for a wonderful experience with this girl. Not a shy bone in her body, but she definitely knows what she wants and goes for it. Kittenhood was a piece of cake and she delighted us in every way. Her default setting is sweet, sweet, sweet! She and I bonded deeply and now I can't imagine life without my beautiful Elsa girl.
As she began to mature (5-7 months) I noticed that she was finding interesting places to urinate. Large baskets of rag balls for rug making, kindling piles near the wood stove, dog beds, shoes and slippers... so I finally realized that these places for her either confused her or she was experimenting with them. They were all removed and life went on. We have many litter tubs so I knew that wasn't the problem.
She is a great cat indoors and has always been one that LOVED the outdoor enclosure very much and to this day spends more time outside than inside. That also makes sense to me. She is not impolite about eating or aggressive when I am preparing her food - she always waits patiently to be fed and eats with gusto. Elsa is not a cat that knocks things over and break things. She will, however, get into things that she thinks are interesting if they are available. We make toys out of chop sticks, ping pong balls, waded up paper for starting fires, any cardboard boxes that come along and anything else that we can add to her life each day to make it more interesting. Elsa can make a toy out of almost anything!
Then when she was about 8 months old she started eating fabric in the house - snuggle blankets on the couches, cat beds, quilted puppy potty pads (we raised dogs) and anything else that she found tasty. This was a behavior I had read about and knew Servals have this inclination so it didn't come as a surprise but the amount she ate in an hours time was remarkable! Finally I knew that the time had come for me to move her and Mace to their nice quarters we had made for them at about a year old. They now occupy the large room I use for dog grooming. I still use this area for grooming our dogs and one day after a dog bath I forgot to put the bath towel in the washing machine and hung it on the towel rack. I planned to come back and put it away but simply forgot. The next day when I went out to the cattery, I found the towel on the floor and Elsa had eaten a HUGE hole the size of a basket ball and another hole the size of a grapefruit! I was scared to death that she would have an intestinal blockage which is the result of eating such things. But she managed to pass all that towel material over a period of days. This is why we must house our girl in an area that is safe to her and although we miss her in our home, I feel this is a far better way to give her the things she needs and remove the things that can harm her.
Elsa loves going for walks with me and we explore caves, rock outcroppings and whenever we're out on an adventure, Elsa makes it very clear how much she loves me for the opportunity. I'll sit down while she explores and she comes and gives head butts and purrs and rubs and rolls to show her extreme pleasure in our activity for the afternoon. My heart soars at her pleasure.
Elsa has never sprayed and is now 14 months old. We expect this behavior when she's in heat but so far she's not started to bless us with the hosing. Our male is a year and a half and he has not ever sprayed either; maybe because there is no competition for either of them.
Discipline has been easy. We occasionally must discipline Elsa and we mimic the feline mother with a thump on the nose or a slap (soft cuff) to show our displeasure. She understands perfectly and is very respectful of the correction. She has never gotten angry or carried a grudge and the correction usually never has to be repeated; she is extremely intelligent and very respectful to her human family.
All in all, our experience with raising the early generation cats has been wonderful and extremely gratifying. My advice....be flexible and respectful of the heritage these cats bear.