Savannah cats are domestic cats, but they have differences that are charming or surprising as you get to know them. For one thing, they have funny little chirps and squeaks instead of more traditional meows, and for another, because they are half African Serval, they tend to be more diurnal than most housecats. At the bottom of this page you can read about an incident that has led some toxicologist to speculate that it is possible that the serval in Savannah cats may make them more resistant to at least one serious poison. Tut is incredibly smart, extremly loyal and interactive with his people, and he has some rather dog-like characteristics, like playing fetch and walking on a leash.

But to go back to the beginning of the story, the day we brought Tut home, he was eleven weeks old. Fortunately for our picture book, Qarin Van Brink and her digital camera recorded our baby when he was still a bit less than five pounds and cute as could be. Alec and I were pretty excited--which I think shows up a bit in Pictures Two and Four. All the pictures are clickable, and many show much more when blownup than they do as thumbnails.

As we get to know Tut, we love him more and more. He has none of the aloofness of most cats; he is very demonstrative in his affections, and will give us all of his attention for as long as we can take it. He follows us about to whatever room we go, and he talks to us constantly using his funny squeaky voice. Just about the time we had had Tut for a month (and he had just been weighed in at 5 pounds, 9 ounces), Alec's Dad showed up and took some more pictures of him.

When Tut wass five months old, he looked about the size of a full-grown cat, but somehow he still looked like a kitten. Our friend Adrienne showed up and took some more pictures of him. He seemed to enjoy the attention, and he certainly got a chance to show Adrienne how he felt about her shoes. I included a lot of these, but I just couldn't throw any out... (don't forget to click them--often much more of him shows if you click the picture).

When Tut hit six and a half months old (about ten pounds), we had quite the ordeal. Things look good now, but we thought we were going to lose him.

Tut ate a lily, and he didn't get treatment for about 30 hours afterward because I didn't know the dangers of lily toxicity. For many days we thought he would die (because most cats do). I had many converesations with Dr. Arnett from the National Animal Poison Control Center, and he told me about best, worst, and expected cases and where Tut's current state fit into the picture after his initial exposure. He also had several discussions with Tut's vets about treatment details. Each time it seemed that Tut was failing, Dr. Arnett would tell me about how even in the best case Tut would pass through this stage, and we would give him a bit more time to see if he was one of the lucky ones, and thank goodness, each time he improved enough to keep going. (we almost gave up 4 times).

I can't thank the vetrinary toxicologists at the National Animal Poison Control Center (Dr. Arnett, and Doctors Richardson, Holder, and Means), the wonderful vets (Dr. Thomas, Dr. Nicki, Dr. Debner, Dr. Marasco, and Dr. Douglas) or the compassionate and capable techs (Thank you, Jen, Suzy, Harry, Lori, Patty, and several others that my poor memory is letting me lose the names of) at the Santa Cruz Vetrinary Hospital enough. Tut seems healthy now, but his creatinin levels never returned to completely normal. We are still keeping a close eye on him.

One of the vet techs, Harry Kyle, very kindly offered to take some pictures of Tut in the hospital, and here they are (click for bigger versions--pictures Four and Five blow up to show the whole room they let me use to watch over him in):

He also took a picture of a drawing that Elizabeth Jonasson did of him while he was sleeping there (she came in to spell me so I could go take a shower).

I feel very, very lucky to have Tut still with me. Next time I feel a need to have plants or flowers in the house, I will chose them from a list of non-toxic plants.

I haven't made my newest pictures of Tut into nice thumbnails yet, but here he and Alec are at the end of January, 2002. Tut-n-Alec, Tut-n-Alec, Tut-n-Alec, Tut, Tut.

Silly cat. Tut's bloodwork is almost normal now. That's the good news. The bad news is that I know this because I took him in because he was under the weather, and the reason turns out to be because he ate a mass of sewing thread, some of which got wound around his tongue, and the rest went into his intestines, and he eventually had to have surgery to get it out. The night before we figured this out, I responded to his not eating or drinking by trying to hydrate him with subcutaneous fluids. Here am I with the IV bag, here he is with the big lump of saline on his back, and here I am trying to comfort him.

He's a lot more attractive than those pictures show. By the way, as of that set of photos, he was 13 pounds.

Here is a picture of him from September of 2003.