Pets4Homes, the UK’s biggest pet sales website, tell us that the Savannah cat has jumped 9 places upwards in the popularity stakes to third place after the Maine Coon which comes first and the Oriental Shorthair which ranks second. It’s been a long journey for the Savannah cat; a breed which is known for the glamorous first filials. The F1 Savannah cats are beautiful but a handful to look after!
We should also recognise the burgeoning popularity of the Maine Coon which is the UK’s most popular. An amazing rise in popularity.
RELATED: Your Maine Coon Guide.
The Savannah cat is regarded as an exotic domestic cat companion. We have to remind ourselves that they are wild cat hybrids notwithstanding that the fifth and sixth filial Savannah cats are so much like regular domestic cats that you would probably forget that there was some wild serval cat inside them.
On the Pets4Homes website you can buy a Savannah cat kitten for around £800 but the price can rise to over £4000 for those cats which are regarded as more beautiful.
The Times newspaper reports that cat adoptions have returned to pre-Covid pandemic levels. This follows the rush to adopt dogs during and towards the end of the Covid pandemic. That trend has somewhat fizzled out and gone into reverse – abandoned dogs.
The trend away from adopting dogs to adopting cats is probably mirrored in the return to the office of employees on the orders of their bosses because employees prefer to work at home which was the default scenario during the pandemic.
Pets4Homes can provide us with some statistics which are quite interesting. They say that in 2023 185,473 cats were sold on their website up from 179,273 in 2019. They say that the Maine Coon sells for around £2,600 on their website. Comment: super high quality Maine Coon cat bred in America and bought in America can cost as much as US$5000. It depends on the quality like everything that is bought and sold.
On the Pets4Homes website the Ragdoll can cost upwards of £2,750.
Justin Bieber is famous for buying a couple of Savannah cat kittens for $35,000. Some people describe the Savannah cat is having a dog like character. They can like to be around water which is probably a reflection of the fact that they carry wild cat genes. The wild cats instinctively hunt near watercourses and this is probably inherited by the higher filial Savannah cats.
Sometimes things go wrong. You might have noticed that there have been several news stories of F1 Savannah cats escaping their homes and terrorising the neighbourhoods. And sometimes people mistake the F1 Savannah cat for the serval wild cat as I look very similar. Although there is a size difference.
A great sadness regarding the higher filial Savannah cat is that you must keep them inside the home which is unnatural for a domestic cat which has so much serval wild cat within. This is a very active cat which needs to be mentally stimulated. Sometimes they simply can’t find it inside the home. People are attracted to the beauty of this cat but they sometimes fail to remind themselves that their care and maintenance is demanding and you need the time and funding to do it properly.
In 2020, this breed caused panic in Hampstead Garden Suburb, in the north of London, when a £20,000 Savannah cat was mistaken for a dangerous big cat. The armed police turned up protect the public including police helicopters!
The Savannah cat breed now is fully integrated into the cat fancy. There was a time when there was resistance within the cat fancy to the wild cat hybrids. In 2012, International Cat Association (TICA) accepted the Savannah cat.
The public should note that in the UK and F1 Savannah cat is regarded as a dangerous wild animal and a licence is required. These cats can cost as much as £20,000 in the UK and a similar sum in America dollars although the price can go higher than that.
RELATED: Can Savannah cats be vaccinated like other domestic cats?
