So majestic! Where did Oulu live? I've read that serval cats like to roam about 4 miles a day.

I owned Oulu's parents and after he was born, he lived with me 24/7 for 21 years except for one 3-week vacation to the San Juan Islands when I left him with a friend and he refused to eat and nearly died. From there on out, all vacations and moves had to be planned around him. He was born in 1996 and died in 2017 after living in Oregon, Arizona, and then back to Oregon. He vacationed and camped with me in 5 western states. Still missing my buddy.

A buddy for 21 years certainly would be missed. It's wonderful that you built your own schedule around him. He must have had a wonderful life.

Servaline said:I owned Oulu's parents and after he was born, he lived with me 24/7 for 21 years except for one 3-week vacation to the San Juan Islands when I left him with a friend and he refused to eat and nearly died. From there on out, all vacations and moves had to be planned around him. He was born in 1996 and died in 2017 after living in Oregon, Arizona, and then back to Oregon. He vacationed and camped with me in 5 western states. Still missing my buddy.

Oulu doesn't look like your normal house cat. Is he a mix? Or just something special? He certainly is beautiful, and obviously, filled with love for you (I'm having a hard time saying "was.")

@Servaline, Sorry for the loss of your family member, Oulu.

Tisha

Joanna, that is a Serval, something very special indeed!

Servaline, gorgeous photo of Oulu! so very sorry for your loss
(my honey put a photo of our beloved dog who died in August in the miscellaneous category, egads what a wonderful heartbreaker that was when I stumbled across it in the voting, )

Do you still have other servals? maybe someday you can fill us in on some of the 'how to' parts of managing them.
I'm imagining camping...harnessed and anchored or free to hunt or something in between? Now I'm imagining serval vs porcupine (with my last adventure fresh in my mind)...curious to learn from your vast experience.

dirtdorphins said:Joanna, that is a Serval, something very special indeed!

Servaline, gorgeous photo of Oulu! so very sorry for your loss
(my honey put a photo of our beloved dog who died in August in the miscellaneous category, egads what a wonderful heartbreaker that was when I stumbled across it in the voting, )

Do you still have other servals? maybe someday you can fill us in on some of the 'how to' parts of managing them.
I'm imagining camping...harnessed and anchored or free to hunt or something in between? Now I'm imagining serval vs porcupine (with my last adventure fresh in my mind)...curious to learn from your vast experience.

Oh, I thought it was something special. I would also love to hear more about being a serval parent. That is a gorgeous photo, and I too am so sorry for your loss. I'm sure you know how lucky you all were to have each other for as long as you did.

Oulu was a serval. They have serval x domestic hybrids called Savannah cats. Thank you all for commenting on this photo. I'm just learning how to navigate this site. I did medical transcription for 35 years, and worked from home, which made it easier to spend time with him. As much as I loved him, I wouldn't keep another large cat. I've kept other large cats over the years and they are way too labor intensive.

Oulu had to be tethered or on a leash while outside. He did get loose a couple of times, but thankfully came home, one time being gone for several days in the East Monument outside of Tucson. I thought for sure he would be coyote bait.

Thank you for the extra photos. His size is impressive and his face is a pleasing combination of intelligent and sweet.

especially the one with bird feather on his lips...not so sure the bird would agree on the sweetness

I had an acquaintance who had a bobcat... she was quite an aggressive hunter.
I remember one evening I was visiting in their home and the bobcat was sneaking around in the ventilation ducts stalking their toddlers
The children all managed to grow up relatively unscathed (by the cat--other things not so much), but the poor cat was a neurotic mess. Eventually 're-homed' to more suitable environs, and then euthanized anyway--or so I heard.

Tisha said:@Servaline, Sorry for the loss of your family member, Oulu.

Tisha

I'm just learning to navigate this site and just saw your post and I want to thank you for saying that. He survived a couple of husbands, so maybe that speaks for itself. They didn't specifically ask me to get rid of him, but they collided (colliding rivers) and I couldn't just get rid of him, sorry, and he wasn't going to be remanded to a cage. My original partner met with Oulu some 15 years after we separated, and Oulu KNEW who he was and ran to greet him. To both of them it was a unanimously awesome reunion. Animals remember.

Dirtdorphins, that's why I don't endorse keeping any cats other than domestic. I had a USDA/USDI facility and kept many cats, a lot of confiscations that did or did not return the cats to the owners. Back then I thought differently. To keep cats out of their environment is wrong and I went through the period where I thought that keeping them was protecting them. It's not. I will miss Oulu, but I know that all cats are meant to do what they were created to do, roam a territory and not be put into captivity. Oulu used to come to my office when I was working and rub his chin on my leg and beg me with his eyes to take him out. Imagine this: come down to me, rub chin on my leg, give gutteral plea and look at me with THOSE eyes, pleading me to take him out! This made me HIS prisoner. If I couldn't, it made him MY prisoner. For 21 years, we were prisoners of each other. Keeping a cat that was intended to roam in an otherwise prison situation is not humane. I would have loved to take him out and jog with him in my neighborhoods, but then he would have been a target of dogs whose owners believe their dogs should be free. Kind of a catch .22.

I really want to apologize because I just came back to the website and saw all of these posts and a lot of you posted a long time ago and I didn't respond, and I'm very sorry. There is no "respond" link on these posts. I'm loving this site and the posts and all of the posts to my post of Oulu's pic. He was special, and so are you all!

@Servaline. At the top of every thread there is a "watch" button. Click that and you'll be alerted to new posts on the thread. It takes a while to confidently navigate the site as it is a large one, but feel free to ask any questions, anywhere. We all love to help.

Dirtdorphins, the pic with the feather won another contest, don't remember when, but around 2010. I remembered it because it didn't have anything to do with attacking anything, probably a feather toy or something. But, he did catch a few chickens in his life and if he did, for the most part I let him, as the chickens were loose and he wasn't. Survival of the fittest?

@Servaline, when I was new to this site I found this page very helpful. It says ATP but that was the original name of the site (All Things Plants???) I think most of the information there still applies.

https://garden.org/ideas/view/...

When you post a message or a message in a thread, I think you're automatically registered as watching that thread. The notifications will appear on your home page. If they don't, you may need to add something to your home page. I think that's all described in page linked to above.

But like Plantmanager said, ask and you shall be helped! It's a really great group of people here.