AJSavannahs Cattery: Escape Artists Abound or Scuttling our Saturday Sleep-In

Our four available AJSavannahs F2B kittens sleep in the big nursery, upstairs on the bedroom side of the house. It was an open space when we bought the house, a low bookcase overlooked the 12' drop to the floor below. Perfect diving platform for the F1s so we immediately designed and built a glass wall to secure the area. Leaves the room open and light and allows us to see what everyone is up to. Usually a lot, as we found out Saturday morning.

The door secures with a latch on the outside. A traditional door knob didn't work, since they figured out how to open it and we never got around to changing to a locking version. Never had any issues with the old-fashioned latch before, not even our F1s bother to open it.

We're up every day by 5:30 so we decided to sleep-in Saturday morning. Sleeping in when you live with Savannahs means 9 if you're very, very lucky and Saturday was no different because apparently, Faith, Hope, Charity and Charlie had other plans for us. Especially once 6 a.m. passed and they had not been served their breakast. Or blinds opened, litter scooped, or radio turned on. Not to mention riding around the nursery on my back as I cleaned litter.

So... at 9 a.m. Saturday morning I heard a crash of what sounded like glass breaking. EVERYTHING in the house is secure, at least in the areas where our Savannahs can reach without supervision. Wakened Jason to ask if he heard it. Duh. Had to WAKEN him. He said I'd been dreaming. I insisted not. He wouldn't investigate. So I crawled over Kbutu who had her head on my pillow and was sleeping half under the covers, and out of a warm bed. Opened our bedroom door...

... to see a streaking shadow zoom up the stairs to the nursery. Followed by another streak of spots. I head halfway up the stairs and Charlie starts coming down to me, doing the front-feet-together rabbit-style descent as if he's never navigated the stairs before in his life.

Then Charity and Faith come through the lower part of the nursery door, zip down the stairs like they're pros and zoom down the 40 foot hardwood hallway to the family room. I yell for Jason because at this point, I think the glass breaking sound I heard may have been the nursery door and I'm alarmed that somone may be cut.

We streak (well, not in the '70s sense!), Jason and I rush to the top of the stairs, take a quick inventory of the nursery (we thought the cat tree may have gone over into the glass wall), no broken glass, no blood. Next step is to survey the rest of the house and round up the escapees.

No glass in the kitchen, my monitors in my office are upright, chandeliers still firmly attached to the ceilings. But the guest bathroom is a disaster! They have had an absolute blast batting things around on the counters and in the bathtub and sink. Nothing broken, no blood, no problems. Thank God.

Now for the round up: Faith comes back on her own. As does Charlie. Charity has to be chased first, a favorite game, before she'll come back. Hope is in the dining room looking out at the birds at the front of the house. We get everyone back to the nursery.

The kittens usually move their small cat tree around the room every night as they play and kick off to leap after each other. They go one direction, the cat tree goes the other. Sometimes it goes over.

They had moved their cat tree over to the door, not enough to block the door from opening, just enough to be able to easily work the latch. Am certain it was Charlie who pushed it over close to the door and Charity who opened the latch, then Faith who cracked and held the door ajar for everyone to go through. They make a great team. I know because I have to navigate past them when they gang up on me as I try and get through the door with their canned food each morning.

But the best part was how each handled the repercussions of their raid.

Hope was unapologetic, she'll head to the dining room every time to watch the wildlife and expects us to know it. Faith tucked up under Jason's neck, to beg forgiveness as only she can do. Charity immediately stretched up and proudly showed us how she had worked the latch. And Charlie tried to pretend he hadn't left the nursery til I saw him coming tentatively down the stairs as I went up. A blatant lie, because like his three cousins, his ears were pink and hot, and his paw pads were hot and we knew he had been running with the rest of them.

So we fed everyone and did our normal "How may we serve you" Savannah routine. Then all four curled up with full tummies and tired legs and were fast asleep by 10.

So much for the AJSavannahs humans sleeping in on a Saturday.