I happen to know a lady in America, Deborah-Ann Milette, who has been the caretaker of servals and caracals as pets. So the answer to the question in the title is a guarded “yes”. It depends upon the person. Not many people would want to keep a caracal as a pet. The same goes for servals. They are wild cats. They are medium-sized. They are demanding. They don’t really fit into the domestic environment. People give up on their domesticated servals because they are a handful.
I remember meeting a serval in an enclosure at A1 Savannahs, a cat breeder in the center of Oklahoma. She was a declawed, relinquished ‘pet’. Awful. I met the former owner too. Shame on you.
I don’t know anybody else other than Deborah-Ann who has treated a caracal as a pet. Therefore it is rare for a good reason. I certainly wouldn’t try it myself. You’d probably get sick and tired of having urine sprayed all over your house. And sometimes these people have their domesticated medium-size wild cats declawed which is unforgivable and an admission that it is not really sensible to domesticate such an animal.
All that said, the history of this particular wild cat species does indicate that they are not unsuited to being tamed or even domesticated. Potentates in India kept caracals for hunting of hares and small game. The authors of the famous book Wild Cats of the World, Mel and Fiona Sunquist, say that:
“Tame caracals were also pitted against one another in pigeon-catching contests….”
Clearly, in days gone by, caracals were tamed and used as companion cats with whom rich people in the East could go hunting somewhat like they used to do with cheetahs. Therefore caracals can be tamed and live with humans but don’t expect them to behave like chilled out moggies. They’ll be a mile away from that. A tame caracal would probably drive you mad. You’d be finding ways to get rid of him or her.
To conclude, caracals can be pets of a sort but you would have to be a certain sort of person to enjoy a human-to-pet relationship if your pet was a caracal. Most people who think they would like to live with a medium-sized wild cat as a pet realise their mistake quite soon into the relationship.
[weaver_breadcrumbs class=’alt-class’ style=’inline-style’]
[weaver_show_posts cats=”” tags=”caracal” author=”” author_id=”” single_post=”” post_type=” orderby=”date” sort=”ASC” number=”2″ show=”full” hide_title=”” hide_top_info=”” hide_bottom_info=”” show_featured_image=”” hide_featured_image=”” show_avatar=”” show_bio=”” excerpt_length=”” style=”” class=”” header=”” header_style=”” header_class=”” more_msg=”” left=0 right=0 clear=0]
Fuck you you