Nicknames: Spots, Baby, Jungle Cat, Miss Picky Kitty Complexion:
Activeness
sleepy
very active
Intelligence
silly
genius
Curiosity
not curious
very curious
Friendliness
timid
affectionate
Vocal
not vocal
very vocal
Quick Bio:
-purebred
Gotcha Date: December 28th 2011 Birthday: September 18th 2009 Coloration: Lavender Likes: Playing fetch (she often catches the toy in the air, then throws and chases it, see her video), playing with heat shrink tubing, begging for kitty treats, sleeping curled up in bed with us, chin scratches, new fuzzy mouse toys, playing with Viola Pet-Peeves: Being told "NO", she understands that word. Being picked up. Strangers, especially loud ones. Being left alone, she knows when we are getting ready to leave and meows in protest. Hates catnip, runs away if you offer it to her. Favorite Toy: Fuzzy mouse (for playing fetch), her tail, heat shrink tubing, empty wrappers. She also like to play "capture and nibble on the hand" (very gentle nibbling!), her kitty tunnel with kitty cubes at the ends Favorite Nap Spot: Cat tree, with us on our heated waterbed, living and family room couches, bed in daughter's room, daddy's lap, chair in den near computer, any window Favorite Food: Kitty treats, she sits up on her hind legs to beg for them, then grabs my hand in her paws and brings it down to her mouth. For normal food, she gets primarily grain free Fancy Feast, a little bit of grain free dry food. She ignores the good canned food. Skills: Total cuteness, catching toys thrown to her, acrobatic leaps, following me around the house, minding pretty well. One she needs to work on is purring! When she does it, so quiet as to be inaudible. Dwells:
indoors Arrival Story: Christmas of 2011 I opened a package from our youngest daughter, inside I found a framed copy of first the photo on this profile. When I looked up at her, maybe a bit confused, she said, "Oh, your present is not the photo, it's the cat!" It turns out that she and her middle sister had been conspiring to end mom and dad's feline free spell. They knew that we had a fondness for Egyptian Maus, having been owned by two of them over the years. Maus being pretty hard to come by, an Ocicat is of course also spotted, and seemed a likely alternative. A few days later Saphira joined our household, and to say the least, things have not been the same since! Anyone lucky enough to be owned by an Ocicat will understand this! Bio: A note about her pictures - The three studio shots (the ones with the blue background) were from the breeder's website, and were obviously taken when she was still pretty young. She has since grown into her ears! All the others were taken by daddy after her arrival here at her forever home.
She was adopted from a breeder (House of Oci) who was retiring her from breeding. He really was attached to her, and it was hard for him to part with her. A few months after she joined us, I emailed him about how well she has settled in here and how much we loved her. He ended his reply with, "If at any time you find that you need to re-home her for any reason, please please please send her back to me." Saphira has that effect on people. Thank you Jesse, and I understand how you miss her, but be content that she is happy in her new home and well loved and cared for.
Saphira is by no means our first kitty, we have been owned by at least sixteen kitties, going back thirty-eight years, even before our marriage. Purebreds, shelter rescues, and strays that stayed, all kinds. Two of those were Egyptian Maus, and were probably our favorites - beautiful spotted coats, playful and very loyal to their humans and we loved them to pieces. Our first, Nonsense, has a page here, you might check it out, the story of how she came to join our family is kind of funny. We had not had any felines in our household for the last five years or so, until our daughters decided mom and dad needed a feline friend. They were unable to find another Mau for us, surprised us last Christmas with another breed of spotted cat, our wonderful Ocicat Saphira. Of all the cats we have ever served under, she is without a doubt the best behaved, ALWAYS uses her kitty box, NEVER jumps on kitchen or bathroom counters, rarely scratches furniture, comes when called and understands NO. She rarely wakes us up at night, and in the morning waits for us to get up. She is the most undemanding cat ever when it comes to feeding, she never really bothers us to feed her, although she is a bit picky at times. Almost perfect, and a great companion, playing fetch with her is a real trip. She also has a kitty tunnel with kitty cubes at the ends. She loves to curl up in the cubes, looking totally cute. She also tears through the tunnel at high speed, usually totally disrupting it, as her tail is always held high when she is happy, and it catches on various parts of the tunnel. She is just so entertaining!
In November of 2012 we adopted another Oci, from the same breeder where our daughters found Saphira. Viola is a beautiful Chocolate Spotted Ocicat, about eighteen months old when we got her. Just beautiful, described by Jesse (her breeder) as, "the sweetest cat I ever met." That she is! Even though they used to sleep together before Saphira joined us, initially Saphira was pretty hostile toward Viola, hissing and growling whenever she got within about ten feet of her new sisfur. We introduced them to each other pretty gradually, and now they both sleep in the same bed with us (supposed to be 16 degrees here tonight, they love sharing our heated waterbed!) One (usually Saphira) curls up by my wife and the other (usually Viola) with me. They chase each other all over the house at warp speed, often failing to notice when humans are in the way. They are now both much loved members of our family! Lives Remaining: 9 of 9 Forums Motto: Yes, I really want to play fetch AGAIN! The Groups I'm In: Cats that Act Like Dogs, Catservatives, Curious Kitties, Ocicats, Pawsome Pages, THUNDERCATS* The Last Forum I Posted In: My Butt Stinks Pawsome honors: DOTD 8/5/2012, DDP 9/30/2012, COTD 12/8/2012
Well, our four pawed alarm clocks found a new way to wake us up this morning, and they were at the other end of the house at the time! Our house has a security system, which we normally do not have activated when we are home, although meowmy sometimes does have the door/window sensors on when she is home alone. Even when the system is disarmed, we still get a triple beep on the control pad in our bedroom whenever any of the door or windows opens or when one of the glass break detectors, one each in the living and family rooms, activates. About six this morning the triple beep went off, waking both of the humans. I found both of the house felines in the living room, with doors and windows secure. Nothing was broken, but in the past the glass break detectors have triggered on something as small as a key dropped on the tile in the entry. Exactly HOW Saphira and Viola managed to wake us up will probably always remain a mystery, because so far neither of them is talking.
Saphira's dad again, I think we have discussed how much Saphira does NOT like any part of getting her nails done one little bit. She hates being forced into her carrier (and I have the scars to prove it!), complains loudly during the drive to Petsmart (a whole three miles, max), and the last time we took her the tech who usually trims her claws was not available, and she did not behave well. She got loose in the grooming room, and after they corralled her again she was so agitated they decided not to even try to do the trim. Yesterday we decided to try again, and I decided to replace the thin little pillowcase in the bottom of her carrier with something more comfortable, so I replaced it with a much thicker bathroom rug. BAD MOVE! As soon as she saw me opening her carrier, she knew what was up (Ocis are VERY smart, and figure things out fast), and immediately hid and would have nothing to do with me. Our bedroom is pretty large and has a lot of nice hiding places, so I decided to just wait her out. Our time was limited, since her preferred vet tech was leaving early. She won the contest, so we decided to wait until today to try again. Later that evening Meowmy was getting ready to feed our spotted pride of felines and asked where Saphira was. I immediately checked out all her favorite hangouts, no luck. I headed into the bedroom to see if she had shown up there and where did I find her? INSIDE the hated carrier, guess she was checking out the new upholstery. Thinking to self, "why can't she do that when I WANT her to?"
Flash forward to this morning; meowmy and daddy are watching the morning news on TV when I notice Saphira again heading into the carrier. Not being a total dummy, I immediately closed and secured the door, and she is trapped, no trauma for either of us, the trip to Petsmart was much more relaxed for her, and she settled right down as soon as we got her home. She is curled up beside me as I write this, and she approves of this entry.
See my sisfur Viola's diary for her story of seeing her first snowfall last Tuesday and Wednesday. I had seen one little tiny snowfall last year, right after I move here to my furever home. It was not all that great, and happened before I was here on Catster, so I never wrote about it. This one was better! A little bit fell Tuesday night, and meowmy called us to come see it, but in the dark it was kind of hard to see. I guess that is why Viola tried to sneak out the front door when daddy opened it to take a look outside, she was lucky daddy stopped her. Wednesday morning it was snowing again when we got up, which really looked cool. Daddy said we had an inch or two on the ground, everything looked so nice and white. We both spent a lot of time in the front windows looking out, our favorite place to take in the world. We would love to get to go out and play in it, but daddy said it would really be cold on our tender paws, and besides, we are indoor kitties.
Why Does My Cat Always Use the Litter Box Right After I've Cleaned It?
3
(1)
