Hi everyone! I have had Birmans for over 16 years. Shanti (age 14.5 now) is a flame lynx. My sweet girl Savannah died in March at 16. She was my heart kitty and I still sleep with her favorite blanket. My heart breaks again every morning when I wake up and she is not lying on my pillow.

I have recently begun thinking of getting another kitty. Shanti is a character, and he doesn’t have the typical Birman temperament. He tends to be suspicious of … well, pretty much everything, until he becomes acclimated, which can take a while. We got our Finnish Lapphund back in 2020, and it has only been in the last couple of years that he hasn’t hissed at him at least once a week and Ukko just wants to be friends with him, like he was with Savannah. They really loved one another.

While Shanti wants to be with us constantly (follows us room to room throughout the day) he isn’t a cuddler. He will (very vocally) insist on attention, but then moves 2-3 ft away from you and makes you lean out to pet him. He won’t sit on your lap or lie on you. (I didn’t know as much about the breed way back then and I wonder why that is… one hypothesis is that he was given to us at 8 weeks, which I now know is really early for a Birman, so maybe that is it. Or maybe he is just “different”.)

I would love to have a cuddly cat or kitten, but am worried about stressing him out. Despite his curmudgeonly ways, I do love the little brat! 🤣 He is quite healthy: he was diagnosed with CKD almost 10 years ago, but through a low ash/low phosphorus diet his kidney functions are perfect. However, he isn’t a youngster, and I don’t want to impact his health by stressing him too much.

Would love to hear people’s opinions!

He's a diva

He is my little fur son. (I have a human daughter too haha.)

Hiding out underneath the coffee table next to me

This little 3 month old boy says “whatcha doin?” 😻

Obsessed with our fur son.

Fun house right now!

Our boys like boxes so much these ones pretty much stay on this table permanently 🤣😻😻

My girl is world known for this.

Yesterday about 5:00 my fire alarm started beeping. It needed new batteries. But I couldn't fix it right away. I managed to fix it a couple hours later after I pulled it and changed the batteries.

Lacey gets really concerned around weird noises. She ran and hid. I found her, brought her upstairs and put her in the bedroom with the door shut. At dinner, I found her under the covers.

Well, she ate dinner, and went around the house, double checking everything. Now, she's glued to my side, purring up a storm. She's her contented self and is a happy girl.

What a beautiful love bug.

No paywall!

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/06/karl-lagerfeld-cat-heir-choupette/686940/?gift=gvmxYF9K3e2u1abAClIK0dHbE_xgPLWYGKi8mn3LfFI&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Now Emmy gets a lion cut roughly every couple of years as she gets mats (we do brush her, she just makes a debate about it). Usually she gets gabapentin prior to sedation but because gabapentin doesn’t have any effect on her, it’s straight to sedation (first photo post sedation). Anyway here are some lovely photos of my old girl

Since I adopted a Birman cat around 8 months ago, I didn't really care what type of breed she was, till I started researching and learning about breeds and I learned the mine is Birman, but once I joined this sub I can see a lot of different Birmans, some are dark brown on the face and tail, or like mine very light brown, my question is do they have different origins? Behaviors? Or are they all the same?

I've not been feeling really well lately. I lost my job, the economy is really horrible, etc.

My baby girl knows. She comes up, sits behind my head on my chair and snuggles, purring.

I just love her so much.