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Shanti was born on December 19, 2007. She is the half-sister of our Somali-boy Ayan, they have the same mother. We soon fell in love with this little lady because of her super sweet appearance. On the 5^th of April, Shanti moved into our home. I will never forget how she stepped out of her carrier basket confidently and explored the house with her tail in the air. In the beginning Ayan was a little grumpy towards her, but she just kept on doing her own thing. Behind that sweet face and cute and innocent look, there’s a very active and playful lady. She has a lot of energy and is incredibly fast! And, being a true Somali /Abyssinian, she is very curious and wants to be a part of everything we do.

A big hobby of Shanti is catching flies. You best beware when there’s a big fly buzzing around, she is determined to catch it and doesn’t take notice of anything or anyone! After she caught it, she’ll eat the fly with taste. She also likes jumping other cats. Ayan is usually her victim in this game. Besides a play mate, she also saw Ayan as a good sleeping buddy. She would crawl up against Ayan to fall fast asleep. Unfortunately for Shanti, Ayan prefers sleeping alone.

She also loves playing with a bouncy ball. When you call her, she’ll come over with her tail in the air anyway, but if you show her the bouncy ball, she’ll be even more enthusiastic. I’d throw it up the stairs and she would chase after it, take the ball in her mouth, walk around looking proud and bring it back to me again. I’d toss it up the stairs again and this way we would have our regular play sessions, which, according to Shanti, could go on and on.

Another thing she loved is lying on the bed with us. She’d cuddle up against us and purr softly. It seemed like she didn’t know which position to lie in, all the while purring and looking at us like she was in love. These were our precious cuddling moments.

On May 9, 2009, Shanti gave birth to 3 beautiful kittens. You can find more information on this litter on the Lord Of The Rings page.

When giving birth, she knew exactly what to do. Shanti was a very loving and caring mother. But she was also a mother who knew how to take care of herself and knew how to combine motherhood with getting a bit of fresh air and keeping an eye on everything outside from her throne in the garden. Unfortunately, there was quite a bad confrontation between Chyara and Shanti when the kittens were 9 weeks old. We still don’t know exactly what happened, but it was quite intense. Certain types of (startled) behaviour by Chyara continued to be a trigger for Shanti to attack or defend herself and she kept seeing Chyara as a threat to her kittens. These events had such an impact on us and the cats that we chose to have Shanti neutered. We were afraid that Shanti would see Chyara as a threat again if she ever had another litter. We were not willing to take that risk, even though we would have loved to see Shanti have more kittens. If you want to know more about what happened, you can read this news item. From the Lord of the Rings litter we kept a girl, Éowyn. Éowyn can follow in her mother’s footsteps as queen of this cattery and continue the blood line.

On February 13, 2010, Shanti moved to Leny and her dog Klaasje. Things weren’t going to well in the group for quite some time. Shanti’s personality clashed with Ayan’s (they never were the best of friends) en she had times when she would pace the living room and growl and vent her frustrations on Éowyn. This could be quite intense. Eventually we decided that it would be best for her and the cat group if we found her a new home. Of course this was not at all an easy decision for us. She had to get used to living with Leny, but after a short while she was the happy and cheerful Shanti that we knew from before. She’s doing very well and she gets along well with her canine friend Klaasje. Klaasje gets a series of head-butts from Shanti each morning. It’s very sweet. We do miss her a lot, but we know that she has a good home with Leny and that she’s happy and content. That makes up for a lot. We’ll keep in contact with Leny and will go over to visit Shanti every now and then.