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.

Each one of our cats changed their preferences of food as they grew up. We give them what they will eat and thrive on. Some ate ravenously raw until they reached a year old and never would touch it again. So, we go with the flow and don’t worry when they change their tastes.

LITTER: We use large storage tubs without lids for litter boxes as well as the nicely built Privy Systems for the smaller cats. Dry Horse Den bedding (Pine pellets) is the type of litter we use exclusively. It has virtually no smell and works extremely well for our cats. We’ve tried many litters over the years and this is the one we prefer. We purchase it in bulk from a manufacturing plant near us but it can also be purchased at any feed store.

CLAW CARE/CLIMBERS: We supply many things throughout the house and catteries for the cats to sharpen claws on and climb. Rope posts are the favorite of every cat here and we find them much less clean up. The carpet climbers shed. This has saved the furniture and gives the animals elements they need for enrichment and encourages good house manners. We recommend trimming claws with a animal nail cutter rather than declawing an animal. We didn’t cut the finger and toe nails off our 7 children and we would not do that to our animals either.

HOUSING: When you first bring a young kitten home we recommend you isolate the animal in a small room for the first few weeks with all the supplies they need: climber, toys, food, water and litter box and, of course, a cozy nest. Visit the baby often and bring interactive toys, treats and anything to help the kitten bond to you. It will soon realize that it can trust you and will look forward to your visits. This isolation also helps keep the baby near it’s litter box to continue it’s education and good litter habits. Gradually expand it’s space until you feel it’s ready to see the big world of your home. If ANY accidents happen outside the litter box, you small the kitten’s world once again. You will need one extra litter box more than the number of cats in your household. If you have two cats including this kitten you will need three litter boxes. If you have a multilevel home, you will for sure need litter boxes on each floor.

Just as you would child proof your home in anticipation of a new baby, your home will need to be thoughtfully checked for safety for a young kitten. Rubber-bands, paper clips, small objects that could be swallowed should all be safely put away. Breakables should be put away or museum puttied down. I’ve used museum putty and gel for years and even my husband’s antique oil lamp collection is still intact.

VACCINES: We use the Modified Live (ML) vaccines for our cats for their kitten shots but only boost the first year. We feel the animals we’ve been more conservative with for vaccines have been much healthier and have not developed allergies.

LEASH AND HARNESS TRAINING: The best way we’ve found to introduce a kitten to a harness is to gather a couple new toys and put the harness on and immediately offer the new toys. After a couple attempts to scoot backwards and scratching, the kitten forgets all about the annoying thing around them and becomes much more interested in the toy. I usually leave the harness on all day the first day or two, taking it off at night so it gets used to the process of putting it on and taking it off. We’ve never had a problem with a cat fighting the harness more than a few minutes.

OUTDOOR AND WATER PLAY: All our cats have access to shallow pools of water outside to play in as well as safe outdoor enclosures with tops. There are tunnels, tree stumps, high cat walks, grass hay to eat and play in and toys. We have comfortable lawn chairs in their enclosures so it’s relaxing to spend time with them there. We’ve also added nice plantings of various plants and we’ve found for the early generation Savannahs that some of them love to pee outside like a dog so we have put wire cages around the plants so the urine doesn’t kill the plants. One of the outdoor enclosures we finished up late fall one year and although the cats liked the area and went out often, they didn’t spend a lot of time there until the next spring when I planted tall grasses and lush green plants and flowers. After that they almost lived outside! The green plants MADE the cattery for them.