While some cats might be the queens of independence and prefer their privacy over human companionship, others you just can't get rid of! Not that you would want to anyway! But sometimes it can be a real struggle, for example, when you wake in the morning and there's a cute little furball sleeping on top of you and is way too cute to be woken up. Or when you're binging on Netflix with your cat on your lap for the past five hours only because you couldn't bring yourself to move it. This was exactly the case with Ziggy - it seemed the attention her owners, Rebecca May and her husband Alex, gave her was never enough, therefore Alex came up with a genius idea to create a fake lap for her to sleep on when they can't sit with her themselves.
Londoners Rebecca May and her husband Alex adopted a senior cat named Ziggy 3 years ago when she was seven-years-old
When London couple Rebecca and Alex first brought Ziggy home from a local shelter, she appeared to be really shy and took a long time to get used to both them and her new surroundings. But as soon as she was comfortable with them, they couldn't get away from her anymore since she turned into a real lap cat!
Even though Ziggy is really affectionate and cuddly, she's also really shy and took a long time to settle into their home
It seems that now that's she's already been with Rebecca and Alex for 3 years, she trusts them completely and furthermore, is really demanding! "She's almost on you before you've even sat down - she'll see that you're near the sofa and her eyes go black, her ears go flat like you're a target. Once you're down, she's there."
To her owners' surprise, she turned into a real lap cat once she was finally comfortable with them!
"Even if you're not sitting, she'll find some way to be on you, whether it's your back or your shoulder! When we're both sat at our desks, she will sit behind you and yell until she has your attention. She becomes very vocal, but her meow is like a kitten's. It's so hard to ignore her, and she'll yell and huff at the door if you shut her out, she gets very stressed."
"It took her a long time to warm to us and I think that's part of why she's so intense," says Rebecca
To fulfill her wishes to always sit on someone's lap, Alex built a fake lap for her. "I think my husband Alex built the lap mostly as a joke to make me laugh!" Rebecca said. The only thing left after making the fake lap was to wait for the purrfect moment to try it out.
She's desperate to be on your lap and will stay there for hours, just purring away
"We both work from home and had a day of phone calls and she gets quite vocal if we're on the phone, but we can't shut her out, so it was an ideal day for him to try it - but I don't think he expected it to work. He took an old pair of trousers and stuffed them with a duvet cover, a towel, and a heating mat and she was on it straight away. The shoes weren't strictly necessary..."
"Even if you're not sitting, she'll find some way to be on you, whether it's your back or your shoulder!"
Even though Ziggy was not a fan of the heating pad before, she certainly loved it when it was a part of her fake lap. "I don't think she's fooled by it, but I think it must feel familiar to her. She stayed there for hours. That's the longest she's been away from us!"
"When we're both sat at our desks, she will sit behind you and yell until she has your attention"
"We've only tried it a few times as we're usually happy to entertain her, but there's the odd occasion where we can't and these come in handy. But they're a bit too creepy to keep up all the time, so it's currently on an as-and-when basis!"
Since it was hard for them to please their needy kitty all the time, Alex came up with a brilliant idea for creating a substitute lap for Ziggy
He took an old pair of trousers and stuffed them with a duvet cover, a towel, and a heating mat
Even though it was mostly built as a joke to make Rebecca laugh, Ziggy loved it so much, Alex keeps assembling the fake lap from time to time for her to sleep on when they're not around
People loved the idea and shared little stories about their own lap cats
