My Story & Our Lil' Cat Family!
Hello! My name is Saba, I am a 30-something cat behaviorist living in Sydney with my 2 beautiful Manx cats Rya and Koen. After three years of researching, volunteering, and studying cat behaviour. I launched "A Cat Behaviourist" with a vision to help guide cat owners on how to raise a cat to eliminate negative behavioural issues and simple tricks and techniques to save a lot of money while raising cats.
Growing up I was always scared of all animals. I dont even remember touching a cat or a dog in my early life. In 2018, I migrated to Sydney from India and met my partner Luiz who is a big animal lover. When Luiz told me that he wanted to adopt a cat, I was very nervous. We adopted Rya(pictured) when she was 8 weeks old. I did not even touch her for the next few weeks because of my phobia of animals. Then one day she came and snuggled up to me and it changed my life forever.
Being a new cat owners, we did not know much about how to raise a cat.
We made so many mistakes while raising Rya which caused lots of behavioural issues like her scraching the door at the middle of the night, meowing constatly at 4 am etc. She was an indoor cat in a tiny apartment so lack of exercise lead to aggression issues. I spent so much money on buying useless things after googling my issues which did not help at all. Finally, I started studying about cat psychology and applied all the techniques on Rya which worked wonders. This led me to realise how much false information is out there in internet about cats and cat issues.
Rya is now a 2.5 years old very confident, happy and comfortable cat. She is a tiny tailess manx cat but her personality is so big. When I learnt to raise her right and changed few thing around the house, she transformed from a scary, aggressive and confused cat to super cuddly, lovable and confident cat who understand quite a few tricks including how to give "Hi Five" . And yes, you can live in a small apartment or room share with a cat happily. Just need to learn a few basics :)
After a year we adopted another tailless manx cat Koen who is the sweetest cat ever. Rya was a bit unhappy with his arrival at the beginning(being a princess of the house) however she accepted him dearly soon. Rya and koen are now fully trained cats who gets up with us, sleep with us and cuddle with us according to our schedule. If trained properly, cats can become one of the easiest pet to live with and this is exactly why I started "A cat psychologist"
Along with Rya and koen, we also have a new friend Vagus, who we think is a neighbour's cat near our new house. Vagus was extremely scared of humans and used to run away as soon as he see or hear us. But I eventually wore my psychologist hat and after using few tools and techniques Vagus is our friend now. Its amazing how very small actions and tricks can turn even a feral cat into a love bug. He loves scartches, flaunts his tail(ofcorse) and hang out with us all the time.
Meet Luiz
Luiz is my partner in crime who is a big-time animal lover and the reason why I adopted both Rya and Koen in the first place. He also wants to add a rescue dog to our family someday. I am very thankful to him as without him I would never be able to experience the love and comfort Rya and Koen has given me.He loves taking them out for walks, road trips, and feeding them meat from his plate (that’s where all my discipline training on cats stops working! eye-roll)