When writer/mom/UBalt student Jennifer Johnson met Nick in the adopt-me window at Petsmart, she couldn’t look away. They conversed for an hour. This cat was like no other.
Frantically trying to get my attention from behind the glass at Petsmart, 1-year-old Adonis looked like a run-of-the-mill tabby—at first, anyway. As I looked more closely, I saw that his head and arms were comically small, while his ears and body were enormous. Although I was still on the fence about adding another cat to our family so soon after the death of two previous furballs, I flagged a Petsmart employee down and asked to spend some time with Adonis. His coat felt silkier than any cat I had ever owned; he had the most intricate black swirls on his sides and symmetrical black spots on his belly. His eyes were perfectly round and his nose was large and rectangular. After an hour or so of contemplation, I called my husband to the store and we decided to welcome this boy into our home, renaming him Nick Valentine after a noble robotic detective from my favorite video game: Fallout.
As a lifelong cat lover, I thought I knew cats. I was used to them being chill, accepting my love whenever I wanted to give it to them, contentedly eating their regular wet and dry food, and just being normal, well, cats. But everything I knew about my pet felines changed when we added Nick Valentine to our family.
Unlike our other cats, who could laze in the sun for hours at a time, Nick had a ton of energy. At any moment, he might take off in a flash of brown and black and not stop until something got in his way, at which point he’d simply claw his way up and over the obstruction. He was also, compared to any other cat I’d met, a genius. Within his first few days he could differentiate between the neighbors’ footsteps and ours, and run to greet us at the door. By watching and emulating my family, he learned to activate our water dispenser on the fridge. After observing my son’s unique way of tearing into his snacks, Nick learned to open the pantry door from the bottom instead of using the knobs at the very top. He also was vocal, too vocal almost. While my other two cats only meowed when it was dinnertime, Nick would spend all day screaming at us, vocalizing whenever something puzzled or angered him, if he got too excited, or if we just happened to glance at him in the wrong way.
“I don’t see Bengal cats often!” exclaimed the vet when I took Nick for a check-up.
Bengal? I had never heard of that breed before. Was Nick some kind of tiger?
The DNA test the vet suggested was too expensive for us, but he was sure that Nick was at least a Bengal mix. Care and feeding of a Bengal, he explained, was a little different from our other cats. “Bengals are escape artists,” he warned, which I had experienced firsthand when Nick bolted out of our front door one morning when I was on my way to take my son to school.
“A breeder could have rejected him, since he doesn’t have spots, or one of his parents escaped and bred with a wild cat, and that’s how he ended up in PetSmart.” The vet’s predictions broke my heart since none of that was Nick’s fault, and I decided right then to take his advice and instruction seriously.
That night I got to work.
As I learned, Bengal cats are bred from Asian Leopard cats, which are wild, undomesticated animals. As such, some states heavily regulate the breeding and ownership of Bengals. Depending on their markings and pedigree, they are sold for between $1,000 and $5,000. The most expensive and sought-after Bengal is that with the spotted/rosetted coat, which makes the cat look strikingly similar to a leopard. Bengals also can have a marbled pattern, which can present as simple lines, blotches, or spots.
Because Bengal cats have boundless energy, they need something to keep them occupied. This is why Nick would destroy my house when we weren’t home, pushing things off counters and tearing up boxes, books, and paper. He had early on torn down our bedroom curtains, destroyed half of a Costco-sized pack of paper towels, and broken into my guinea pig cage more times than I could count (thankfully leaving my guinea pigs alone each time).
But after we figured out that his favorite toys were long cylindrical objects like pencils and straws, we left plenty of those out for him to play with. Once we provided him with the enrichment he needed, our house became calmer. Coming into the living room first thing in the morning no longer felt risky.
Bengals require a special diet to keep their coat and overall health in good shape. When we could afford it, we began to feed Nick raw meat chunks of chicken and fish, which meant of course that the other cats got the upgrade as well. All relished the special treats, but Nick seemed to benefit the most. He has not had any major health issues in the two years we’ve owned him and the raw meat seems to satiate him.
Perhaps most importantly, I had to learn to love Nick for who he is. He was not, nor would he ever be, a “normal” cat. In my research I learned that some people adopt Bengals for the benefit of having an active cat or because of their hypoallergenic fur, but because they cannot handle how busy they are, they release them into the wild or surrender them. I was determined not to let my frustration with Nick get to the point of having to rehome him, so I changed. I learned to live with the random outbursts of energy, the howling day in and day out, and the curiosity that often ended with him making a mess for me to clean up.
Owning a cat who can fetch, enjoys going on walks with a harness, and will happily run on an exercise wheel to let out some energy is a unique experience, one that I would not trade. When Nick curls up beside me at the end of the day, holding onto my arm and purring louder than any other cat I’ve known, looking at me with eyes full of love, I am just glad that PetSmart employee didn’t think to give me any idea what I was getting into.
Jennifer Johnson, a mother, writer, and gamer, hopes to graduate from the University of Baltimore at the end of 2024 and use her skills to make a positive impact in the DMV area .
