Zeus – The Saga

Apologies for being off radar for so long, but it has been very full on recently. However, the biggest news has been that Kevin and I are now parents!

To a furchild.

Meet Zeus Sevin

When our rent was raised, I decided that it was a good time to broach the terms of our lease and ask permission to have a cat. We got a yes!

Next stage was finding a cat. This was made a bit tougher and K has never had cats, has allergies and really loves dogs. Even though I love a good ol' moggie, Kevin is new to cats and cannot read them like I can. We met some fostered cats, and sadly they were very disturbed by their very hard lives. We also visited the Cats Protection League who do a marvellous job, but sadly the potentials would turn from a purry monster, into a swiper. I even had a very friendly mix-oriental be smoochy one minute, then lunge at me twice. Understandably, these cats had huge trust issues, and while I could probably read them and work with them, Kevin has limited experience and could not. So we decided a pure bred cat where we could select according to personality trait would be better. However, I was emphatic that I did not want a kitten. I wanted an adult. That throws up dilemmas, as we were to discover.

At first we decided to go the Burmilla route. Kimba, our guest cat, is a Burmilla and although dopey, is very cute, cuddly and Kevin had gained tolerance of Kimba with his allergies. However, Burmillas are a relatively new breed and most breeders were way out of town. However, we did get in touch with a breeder in Southern Sydney who had a 2 year old girl that was originally going to be a breeder, but didn’t take to it. Upon meeting her, she was on heat, hopefully for the last time. But because of her physical condition, she really had no interest in us. However, the breeder’s two pet burmilla’s were super cute, climbing into our laps, and gazing up at us adoringly while purring. Damn it! This was the cat I actually wanted.

Another Burmilla, a 3 year old boy, came up on Gumtree. But his owner (at the time) didn’t return my emails, even to say he’d been adopted.

Then I got onto http://www.petlink.com.au and discovered breeders finding homes for ex-breeder cats, and people looking for homes from their cats due to changed circumstances. After the Burmilla on heat episode, I decided it was too much of a risk taking on an ex-breeder. So I decided to look at cats needing homes from changed circumstances.

I enquired about two moggies, and a tonkinese. One of the moggie’s had already found a home, the owner of the other had decided to take the cat with her to NZ anyway. We actually went and met the Tonkinese but the owner was not ready to let go and we suspect, was probably desperately trying to get her mother to take him while she moved to the UK for her working holiday visa.

I kept a look on the site, keeping a look out for Rex’s, Burmillas, Burmeses, and Bengals.

Then up came an advert for a 2 year old Bengal boy, desexed, needing a new forever home. What really impressed me was it was the breeder that had posted the advert.

Lisa's pix from the advert

I called her straight away and had a great chat about Zissou. Turned there had been a marriage breakdown and Zissou was sadly stuck in the middle. Lisa, the breeder, always took back her cats, no matter what. Which I thought was excellent and very responsible. I was the first to call, and everything she could tell me, “he’s used to being an indoor/outdoor cat, he’s friendly, not too bothered by rush and bustle, loves the kids etc etc…” sounded like he was the cat for us.

So we had to wait an agonising week to meet him. I rang Lisa on Thursday to confirm us coming on Saturday morning and she said she really hoped it was a good fit and if so, we could take him home with us straight away.

We arrived to meet Zissou and met Lisa and her family. What a fantastic breeder! Zissou was very sweet, completely obsessed with the birds outside, but happy for pats. He was absolutely gorgeous! Turns out Bengals have pelts rather than fur as such. In my research I found out that Bengals were good for people with allergies as their dander contains a lot less of the Fel d 1 chemical that most cats have. It is this Fel d 1 that people get allergic to, especially with longer fur that carries more dander.

Anyway, Lisa gave us a tour around the cattery and it was immaculate. Lots of room, very clean and we were very impressed. We also got to meet some cute 6 week old kittens, both stripped and snow.

So after hanging with Zissou a bit more, we all agreed it was a good match. K was VERY impressed and I thought that was a great sign. So we paid our $250 (cats at shelters go for $175, and Bengal kittens are $800, so we thought this was a great price), we all piled in the car and headed back to Sydney.

Due to Bengal’s DNA, sadly cat tranqs don’t work, so we had to put up with yowling pretty much all the home. Kevin sat in the car with the newly christened Zeus while I rushed round the very understocked Petbarn in Alexandria buying stuff (they are very dog orientated apparently). Then we got our little man back to the house quick smart.

Zeus rushed out of his carrier to check out the house. No fear here. And the first night he was super cute, sitting on the couch with us and sleeping on the bed.

However, that first week, being locked up inside two different places in two weeks, with all new people, took its toll. Although he was having supervised walks outside after work, I noticed he was using his kitty litter A LOT, and it seemed to be turning pink. A quick google search and we were off to the vet for a suspected, then confirmed Urinary Tract Infection.

Three weeks after arriving at Casa Sevin and everyone’s much happier. Zeus gets to hang wherever he wants during the day. He’s curfewed at night after his wet meal, and sleeps on the couch until 6am in the morning when he comes and joins us. There were way too many feet attacks at midnight for sleeping with us to be a full time gig.

Zeus seems to know his new name, chosen because it was similar to his old one, but easier to say and tell people. He also gets super excited when we come home from work, as demonstrated on Friday evening when we got back at bit later than usual. I called for him in the front yard, he appears across the road and came trotting across at pace, miaowing hello. Awh! Made me proud.

So that’s it for now. Just lots of insufferable pix and vids :-D