KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

Rei Pham is a dog cat. It's been one year since this fur ball stumbled into our life, and in that time she's showed some weird-ass cat behaviour. Though, if she were a dog this behaviour would be absolutely normal. 

First, she likes to play fetch. Her favourite toy changes but the game is the same as with doggos. She brings us a toy mouse or avocado plush or her current favourite felt ball, and drops it by our feet or on us if we're in bed, then looks at us meaningfully (I won't say pleadingly because she's a cat after all) until we notice and throw the toy for her.  She'll then  chase it down and bring it back to our feet. When she was younger, she'd drop it in our general vicinity, but she has since learned to drop it in arm's reach to speed up the game.

Rei also likes the catch variation of fetch. Catch is a fun time with a cat because they can jump so high and distort themselves into such weird and wonderful shapes before twisting and landing back on their feet. I would be worried about breaking a dog if I tried to get them to leap as high or far or awkwardly.

One dog trait that came out after she finished teething and got stronger teeth is she absolutely delights in chewing things to shreds. She does scratch like a regular cat, but her favourite activity is chewing cardboard and spitting it out. We discovered this when we got her a Kmart cardboard cat scratcher. She went to town on the cardboard chewing it until it was no more. She is half way through her second one now, with one more spare in storage along with another new cardboard toy design. 

Before Toombul flooded, I'd regularly stroll through the Kmart cat section to see what variation of cardboard toys they have. We've gotten her two cat towers and combined them into a mega-tower but she didn't tend to play with it unless we played with her. She did start to chew parts of the tower but I guess it's just not as satisfying as the dense cardboard of the scratcher. 

We made the right decision in installing an outdoor cat enclosure on our balcony so Rei could get natural sunlight when we're not home to leave our doors open. When I worked from home, Rei would follow the sun from our bedroom balcony door to our front door. She's squish up against the door ledge and it made me feel guilty that when I was in the office she only got morning sun in in our bedroom. 

Now that we have a cat enclosure, I barely ever see her during the day if I work from home. She'll come down a few times to check on me and each time I'd be boring work-mode at the desk so she'd go back upstairs. Basically, if I'm not sitting on the couch, my lap is useless to her.

Boyfriend Pham got a few quotes for cat enclosures and we ended up going with the most expensive quote because of the quality of their builds, and also the people seem like genuine cat lovers. Daniel, who came and did the installation, is indeed a cat lover. Once he finished the install, he stayed a while longer just to watch me coax Rei over the invisible line keeping her inside, and enjoy her new outdoor enclosure. There were cheaper, clunkier looking options, but being a townhouse, we wanted to have as little impact on the exterior as possible so body corporate would approve, and also so our house wouldn't look ugly. 

Happy Cat Enclosure installed Rei's little outdoor sanctuary on our balcony in a day. They were meticulous in securing the netting to the wall, ceiling and floor of our balcony. It's hours of detail work and the end result looks fabulous, and feels safe and secure. Rei has climbed the net and leaped from it daily and it holds fast. She spends hours each day lazing in the sun, watching the birds in the trees, climbing the netting when she sees a bug, eyeballing dogs and humans that walk past, meowing at us if we're down in the front yard, and overall just being a happy cat. 

My only regret about bringing Rei into nature is that she sometimes brings nature to us. The other day she brought giant grasshopper inside the house. It was so big we don't even know how it got inside the cat enclosure because its giant bug head looks bigger than the net spacing. I dread what bugs she'll drag in next, but ah well, it's all about happy cats right? Not so much an unhappy human screaming in the corner while Boyfriend Pham chases cat and grasshopper around the house. 

If you're considering a nice, minimalist cat enclosure I highly recommend the folks at Happy Cat Enclosure. Happy Cat Enclosures do all sorts of spaces either adding frames where needed or fixing to existing building structures like ours. They did a great job with our balcony, and recommended the glazier who installed a cat door for us too. Rei is a much happier cat now she can go outside inside.

Happy Cat Enclosures Brisbane

info@happycatenclosures.com.au

Do it! Your cat will love you for it, even though you'll see it less.

Tigger Pham was my first time cat parenting. Back then, if you didn't know something you went on not knowing because you couldn't Google it up. I never knew she was a tortoise shell tabby, I just called her splotchy browns if I had to describe her. We also didn't have an online microchip register with dropdown options to describe your cat's colouring.

When we transferred ownership over, I went in to rename her from Ray to Rei and spent an hour googling the history of cat breeds to define what she was and her colouring. I've concluded with my Google degree in Cat breeds that Rei is a pale ginger classic tabby with her marble swirls.

Along with her name change, I needed to get a new name tag and number. Even though - or rather, because we're raising her as an indoor cat, she won't be street smart so we want a collar with our contact details to help get her home safe. You know how I found her collar, right? I googled it up.

Rei is a teeny tiny kitten so I wanted a collar that is sleek and minimalist. At first I wanted a plastic name tag to make it lightweight but then I stumbled across Saangoh's embossed leather design on Etsy. After hours of online shopping, I kept coming back to these custom leather collars because they removed the need for a name tag and had the safety release in case Rei got her collar caught on something and choked.

Saangoh's leather collars come in a huge range of colours for the band and the bells. For Rei's pale ginger colour, I chose the natural leather with a silver bell because I wanted something subtle and classy for my little lady. It looks gorgeous on her! So very glad I came across Saangoh's cat collars, they're such a simple, practical yet elegant design.

I've been a cat lady without any cats for 5 years since I lost both my lifelong friend Tigger Pham and foster kitty Frederick, the Great a day apart. I lived with Nolan Pham for a while then went into the rental market for a few years. Now that Boyfriend Pham and I are settling into our first home, I've been thinking more and more about how it'd be a nice home for a Pham Pet. It's been one month to the day since we got Rei Pham. 

Rei came to us in a series of fortunately, unfortunate events. After she became lost and squatted on Somebody's porch, Somebody left her there for a few days to see if she'd find her way home. She did not so Somebody took Rei into work. At work, Boyfriend Pham's family took her home when nobody else, not even the local RSPCA, could take her in. 

That weekend they had plans to visit family in Brisbane and Rei was too young to be left at home alone so they took her along for the weekend. They tried to rehome her at their sister's but the sister's partner said no deal! So on their way home, they still had Rei with them when they pit stopped to visit us. As they walked through the door, they asked if I was allergic to cats. I replied, 'No, actually, we were talking about getting a cat the other day.' His face lit up. His friend was visiting this week and deathly allergic to cats so how about we keep Rei for a week to catsit and trial her? See if we were her furever Phamly. We are.

She was timid for about a minute on her first night with us as she explored the house. Day 2 was playful fun. Day 3 she gained confidence to try more things. Day 4 she was strutting around like she owned the place. We knew then she was happy here, and let Boyfriend Pham's family know she wanted to keep us as her humans.

Rei has been multiple variations of her final name in her short few months of life. First, she was Reirei from The Lion King to match Boyfriend Pham's other pets Nala and Simba. But when they went to microchip her, they felt Reirei was tricky so she officially became Ray...for a week before I renamed her Rei after Rei Ayanami, the First Child in the Evangelion anime series. So, hello World, meet Rei! The First Child of Boyfriend Pham and me. She's settled in just fiiinnneee.

I went from no cats for nearly 3 years to suddenly two beautifully adorable and different kitties. Nolan Pham, I live with and he’s an absolute bundle of joy. Sprite is Big Brother Pham’s cat and lives with Dad Pham because the granddaughters love - but are allergic to - cats. She's also called Splat just because.

Sprite’s origin story is not as tragic as Nolan’s was, but it’s still a little sad. As a kitty she belonged to an elderly lady who passed away. The lady’s family inherited Sprite but they weren’t cat people so she ran away. Sprite ventured into Big Brother Pham’s yard one day where she met my Sister-In-Law and never left. At the time they just called her Cat.

Cat kept returning every day, and at first, they thought she belonged to the new neighbours but eventually figured out she was no one’s cat and living in Big Brother Pham’s garage. Slowly, they began to feed her and soon she felt like part of The PhamLe.

Cat injured herself one day, and Sister-In-Law arranged a vet appointment where she learned Cat’s given name is ridiculously girly and didn’t suit this solemn, gentle, docile cat so she remained Cat. She was adopted out by the RSPCA 4 years ago, and had no record of vet appointments since then. Sister-In-Law wanted to adopt Cat but didn’t want to get her children’s hopes up in case her old family came for her, so Cat remained a visitor that they loved, fed and cared for.


Sure enough, a month later a family with young kids rocked up to the house to claim Cat. We thought it was goodbye forever until the next day when Cat came right back to The PhamLe and stayed for another couple of months. Just as Sister-In-Law was starting to think maybe Cat’s unwanted family weren’t coming back, they rocked up for the second time and took her. And again, Cat ditched them and came right back to The PhamLe. This time though, we knew her old family were moving away to regional QLD soon, and held our breath for days hoping they wouldn’t come and take her for the move. They did not. And so, Cat was given her Phamly name: Sprite. The young nieces think she’s named for fairies but, really, eldest niece really likes the fizzy drink. But Sprite is hard for kids to say so now she's also called Splat.

When Big Brother Pham moved next door to Dad Pham, we weren’t sure if she was attached to their old house or to The PhamLe so still there was hesitation about making her officially one of us. The first day she was, understandably, stressed going from an outdoor roaming cat to being confined in Dad’s house while we moved Bro’s life into his house. But next day, Sprite was already exploring the house, and a couple of days later she was adventuring around her new yard. Dad’s house has a cat door because of Tigger Pham back in the day, so she can come and go as she pleases. And she strangely chooses to stay indoors for most of the day, unless the girls or Sister-In-Law are outside and she goes to say hi.

She’s got a good, comfortable little life now - indoors, outdoors, constant companionship because Dad Pham is almost always home and if not, her PhamLe is just next door and they visit her throughout the day. When I sleepover, she kindly lets me sleep in my old room while she curls up at my feet. Adorable.

I love cats!

Finally, I am a cat lady again by way of aunty and roommate to an adorable kitten. Still too irresponsible to be a cat mum. Nolan Pham. This little nugget of joy came into our lives in November last year. His origin story isn't a great one.

A piece of human garbage went and put him in a plastic bag, and threw him in a bin. It makes me livid to think of how many animals die abandoned in horrible ways like being thrown in the bin, rivers, left on the side of a road - it's not much more effort and way less cruel to surrender them to an animal shelter.


Little Sissy Pham drove to Toowoomba to meet another kitten named Ava, who was adorable in pictures but didn't like Little Sis when they met. So Little Sis had a play with the other kittens the foster mum was caring for. Ava was there with a few others from her litter, and none of them clicked with Little Sis. Instead, it was the lone wolf of the pack - Nolan, who chose her as his human. He was separated from his litter.

Poor Nolan was found alone sadly, but in a way he was lucky to be alone because his independent streak is what Little Sis wanted. A kitty who can handle being home alone during work days. Nolan is definitely an independent cat, but also affectionate and likes to be around his humans when they’re home - or wander off to play his own games if we’re being too boring. He pretty much owns every room and surface in the apartment and courtyard now, so while he may not have had the brightest of beginnings, he's in for a great life being adored by his Phamly.

I’ve missed having a kitty in The Phamly. And now we have two! I’ll tell you about Sprite, Big Brother Pham’s cat, another time. Her origin story is a little sad too.

Last night I farewelled my beloved friend of 18 years. Tigger Poojumy Schnoogum Pham was buried at 10.30am this morning. Dad Pham burned incense for her and said a prayer for her sweet, little soul.