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Timothy and Christopher are Basepaws fur fathers who care for the handsome Basepaws cat Oliver. We recently had the pleasure of talking to Timothy and we got to know him and his family just a little bit better. Welcome to their Basepaws cat story!
"I consider Oliver to be a part of my family. If anything would have happened to him, I would be devastated. I care about him so much" - Basepaws father Timothy about his cat Oliver.
Oliver is a handsome 1-year-old boy who pawed his way into Timothy's and Christopher's lives when he was just 8 weeks old. "We rescued Oliver from a small local shelter. He was saved together with his sister from their previous owner who passed away. The shelter couldn't provide a lot of information about them though. They could only tell us that their owner died and his family didn't want to keep the kittens. They gave us a little bit of information about the vaccines and flea treatments he had received and that's about it" - explained Timothy. A year later, thanks to his new guardians, Oliver is now as happy and spoiled as he could ever be
Basepaws cat Oliver
"Oliver is a very loving cat, but only under his own terms" - said Timothy. He is the kind of cat who loves his hugs and cuddles, "but if you hold him a second longer than he likes, he will bite you. He doesn't hesitate to let you know if he doesn't want to do something."
Oliver is very happy, playful and intelligent. "This is really the smartest cat I have ever seen. He watches everything we do and tries to figure out a way to do it as a cat. He knows how to work doorknobs, cupboards, latches, everything. The doors on our cupboards are magnetized, so he can't pull long enough against the magnet to open them. But he still tries to pull on the handle to open them, just like he sees us do it. He also knows how all the doors, windows and latches work. He is very curious and observant, so there is nothing we can do without him knowing about it."
Oliver is not a typical cat to snooze the hours away. He is adventurous, active and hawk-eyed. "If Oliver was a dog, he would be a guard dog. He is always on the look-out and he watches over our house. He will hiss at strangers showing up at our property, and he will react to all the unusual sounds" - added Timothy. Once he warms up to people, however, Oliver is generally very friendly and kind. He takes his time to get to know strangers, but once he realizes they are OK, he gives them a nibble and they are good to stay.
Basepaws cat Oliver
When it comes to his fur parents, Oliver is equally loving of both of his fathers. He gives the same amount of attention to both Timothy and Christopher, but Timothy is the only one who gets to brush him, trim his toenails and clean his teeth. "I guess he sees me as the more strict one" –Timothy laughed.
We asked Timothy why he got the Basepaws kit in the first place: "We found out about Basepaws from a Shark Tank episode, actually. Before that I didn't even know you could do this kind of testing on animals. I thought it was so nifty that you can learn so much information about your cat from this. I did a DNA test on myself too, because I love learning about ancestral background. So, naturally, when I saw Basepaws on Shark Tank, I had to get a kit for Oliver. With all the breed and health information they talked about on the show, I thought it would be such a nice thing to have for him."
"Another very important reason why we chose to test Oliver is our old cat named Finnegan. He was part Siamese and we had him for 13 years. Sadly, he died from kidney failure. I remember thinking, well if we could have done a DNA test for him, maybe we would have known he was under a risk for kidney problems. So, when we saw Basepaws also tests for health markers, we decided we wanted to know if Oliver was prone to anything. It's excellent knowledge to know!" - added Timothy.
Basepaws cat Oliver
Oliver, luckily, tested negative for all the included health markers (yay!). As for the breed report, Oliver is most closely related to the Western cat breeds, with Siberian Forest and Norwegian Forest Cats being his highest ranking matches from the category. His highest matches in the remaining groups (Eastern, Exotic and Persian) were Birmans, Bengals and British Shorthairs. We asked Timothy what he thought of these results:
"Actually, the report definitely exceeded my expectations. I expected the report to be a lot more generic than it was. I thought I would see Oliver being mostly a Polycat, with some information about other breeds. But then when I opened the report, I was very surprised to see so many details and such thorough explanations about every single breed. I liked how his matches were laid out and how I could see in percentile how similar he is to his matches. It blew my mind. I am very excited about the evolution of the report as Oliver is growing older."
Basepaws cat Oliver
We had so much fun speaking to Timothy and learning about our Basepaws cat Oliver. Timothy (and Christopher), thank you so much for joining our journey and for sharing your story. We hope to cherish you with many pawsome updates in the future. Meow!