Elsa Arya Update*

In the past few months I’ve talked a lot about Little Miss, and even a fair amount about my boyfriend but there is one other member of our family who hasn’t had enough airtime, the smallest and furriest member of the family, Elsa Arya.

You may need a little recap, but Elsa is our cat and as of November we’ll have had her for two years. Her official birthday is the end of this month though, however we chose to celebrate the November date rather than the day she was born. Although I’m a huge advocate of adopting from shelters (my mum’s cat is a shelter cat), I knew as soon as we saw Elsa that I wanted to give her a home. It was nice to have her from a kitten although these past few years haven’t been the easiest! Having a kitten is the closest to having a child as you can get, without having a child. But like with Little Miss, I wouldn’t change a second of it and because she’s such a huge part of our family I thought you’d all like a photo spam of her best moments and a little update.

Although Elsa is now a fully grown cat she is still small for her size due to her breed (she’s a blue point ragdoll). However in the winter she seems to gain a few extra inches due to her massive winter coat, I’m not even joking it was like she had a mane (and I had way too much fun sending snapchats of her captioned “SIMBA” with a drawn on mane around her head) and it was terrible for getting knotted. She needed brushed every night and we dealt with no end of furballs. It definitely was a frustrating time as I hadn’t expected it, her first winter she was still a kitten and this didn’t happen so I was caught by surprise despite having done my research. It’s all fallen out now and she has a sleek but still fluffy summer coat that is much easier to maintain (for both of us). I also give her treats that are for healthy coat and ones that help with hair balls.

When my boyfriend isn’t at ours she sleeps day and night on the bottom of my bed. When he’s here she sleeps downstairs in her little house. She barely used it when she was a kitchen but now it’s her favourite place to sleep, she often goes in it during the day to nap. She does sleep a lot, the saying “it’s a cats life” completely applies to Elsa. However she is a very affectionate and cuddly cat. I always wanted a lap cat and I’m happy to say that is Elsa. She’s also very much my cat. She does what I say, she comes when she’s called, she likes me to brush her and feed her. This does frustrate Little Miss on occasion.

She’s an indoor cat and she’s fine with that. On occasion she comes and looks out the door but as of yet, she’s never felt the need to place even a paw outside. She spent a month with my sister while I was in the US and again, she was happy staying in the confinements of my sister’s house (my sister even has two cats next door to her and Elsa had no interest in checking them out). This pleases me as when people ask if it’s cruel to keep her indoors I can honestly answer that it isn’t, she’s perfectly happy.

When I’m in the house alone after Little Miss goes to bed at 7pm, Elsa is the perfect companion. She even helped with my insomnia as I don’t seem to lose my sanity so much when I’m pacing at 4am.

Whiskas have put together some incredibly cute videos as part of “Kitten Kollege” for people considering getting a kitten. I think they’re a great visual informant. I particularly love the one about understanding kitten sounds, even I picked up a tip or two!