Our Story

This is the story and inspiration behind Purr Craze, written by the founder, Pierre.

I have to admit that my first experience with cats was not really the best.

However, let´s start at the beginning. First of all, my name is Pierre. I am living with two cats and my girlfriend …(funny that I mention our cats first, right?)

I always loved animals, and in my childhood, I had so many different pets, you could think I grew up on a farm, but in reality, we lived in a relatively small flat. We had a rabbit, turtles, dogs, hamsters, and eventually, we had a cat. (Today, I also keep reptiles, but that is another story)

As a child, the biggest joy for me was having a pet. The excitement I felt whenever we got a new pet is indescribable. So, as you can imagine, when we got our first cat, I nearly freaked out.

It was a normal house cat and she was around 12 weeks old when we got her.

Her name was Bellami.

At first, everything was great. She was cute, liked to play a lot and we all loved her. However, after a while she became pretty … I´d say mean.

We all had no idea why Bellami behaved like that. She scratched everybody. She even jumped onto my neck and bit and scratched me even though we always treated her with love and respect.

The Real Problem We Had

As a kid, I had no clue why she behaved like that. I was just sad and even a little bit scared of her.

My parents, however, had a definite answer for Bellami´s behavior. Bellami was an outdoor cat. She liked to climb from our balcony to the roof of our house, and from there, she jumped to other buildings.

Those jumps were not like 2-meter jumps. We have seen her jumping around 5 meters deep.

One day she had a big scratch on her face. My parents immediately thought that she fell from a building and hurt herself. They also thought that was the reason for her wild and mean behavior.

Funny, right?

My parents clearly were looking for excuses why they couldn´t handle this cat. They blamed other things and other people for their lack of knowledge.

What Happened Next Broke My Heart

As you can imagine, since my parents couldn´t accept that it was our responsibility to understand Bellami and to train with her, they wanted to get rid of the cat.

And they did.

They gave Bellami back to the breeder and blamed the breeder for selling us a totally crazy cat. Of course, this was nonsense, Bellami wasn´t crazy and the breeder had nothing to do with all of that.

This Went On And On…

As I already said, we had a lot of pets. My parents just got them (not only for us children but also for themselves), but they never did proper research on the pets they got.

Back in the 90´s it wasn´t as easy as it is today to get information on your pets. Still, they didn´t buy any books and did what was told there. So they bought one pet after another and kept on giving them away after they faced problems with them.

What That Did To Me

What does this kind of behavior do to a child?

Well, after being sad over and over again after my parents gave the pets away I loved, I began to change. I started to keep my distance.

I never got too attached to a pet anymore without realizing it. Later I thought I was just a person that isn´t very interested in pets even though I always loved animals.

I realized that when I was 26 years old.

My First Cat

When I was 26 years old, I moved into my own apartment together with my girlfriend, Barbara. Barbara brought her cat named Gigetta and Gigetta is exactly like Belami was, except that Gigetta is an indoor cat and Bellami was an outdoor cat.

Gigetta is a true house cat. Grumpy, oftentimes mean, she doesn´t want to be touched.

If you try to pick her up, she freaks out and if you get on her nerves, she gives you a nice slap, and to make sure that you don´t forget what you did, she gives you another slap when you try to get away from her.

Even though Gigetta can be really mean at times, Barbara always showed me that you can and should accept your pet exactly the way it is.

Barbara was never upset when Gigetta was mean to her and scratched her. She just left Gigetta alone and after a while, Gigetta came to “apologize”, which simply means: I am sorry human, pet me!

At first, I kept my distance as I had learned in my childhood. I didn´t touch Gigetta or spent time with her in any way.

Gigetta seemed to notice that and somehow she liked me for that. She never scratches me or bites me. She is always really kind to me and is happy whenever she sees me. She always wants me to pet her.

Through the excellent behavior of my girlfriend and the friendly behavior of Gigetta I slowly changed and I am now able to experience to joy of having a pet again.

Our Second Cat

After I discovered that you could be happy with your pet no matter how weird it might be at times, I wanted to get another cat.

We didn´t want Gigetta to be alone all day when we were working and we also loved the thought of having a huge Maine Coon.

First, Barbara didn´t want to get another cat, because Gigetta was so grumpy and she feared that the other cat might get hurt. However, I convinced her with some pretty solid arguments:

Me: “Hey, let´s get a Maine Coon!”
Barbara: “No, Gigetta wouldn´t like that.”
Me: “Yes, she would, and this way, she wouldn´t be alone all day! Let´s get a Maine Coon!”
Barbara: “Okay :> ”

As you see, I am a pretty solid negotiator.

Maze Moved In!

So we got a little Maine Coon kitten and named her Maze. Like Mazikeen from the series “Lucifer”. Here is why:

Maze is completely different from Gigetta. Maze is friendly, loves to cuddle all day, she wants to be picked up.

She waits in front of our bedroom door in the morning and as soon as I open it, she charges through the door, cuddles my feet and then she jumps to Barbara and kneads her for 15 minutes straight.

That´s Maze.

Why I Created This Website

So why did I create this website? Am I the biggest expert in the world when it comes to cats? Absolutely not.

However, I experienced a lot of things that weren´t fun and I think that people should not experience that. Especially kids should not experience that their parents give their pets away because they are overwhelmed.

I think that kids also shouldn´t learn that it is okay to give up on a living being when it doesn´t behave like you´d like it to behave.

Further, this website is definitely not only about parents and their kids. This website is for everyone who has problems with their cat. who is frustrated and is looking for help.

I want every cat owner to know that it is absolutely okay to be frustrated at times, but I also want them to know that there are ways to end their frustration. Ways that doesn´t include being angry or giving your cat away.

In my opinion, the key to most things that frustrates you is knowledge. As some important, wise person said “Knowledge is power”.

So this is what you are going to get from this website. Help, knowledge and new energy to face the problems you currently have with your current cat or with your future cat 🙂

Thanks for reading this. I really appreciate it.

All the best,

Pierre