We had been following Darling Minuet kittens on social media for a while and by summer 2023, we were ready to start looking at adopting. When Dani saw an all-black Minuet-British Shorthair kitten available, it was love at first sight. The process of adopting through Kimberly at Cattery of Dreams in Southern California was terrific!

We adopted Gimlet when he was 12-weeks old and started harness training almost immediately. After trying many styles of cat harness, we discovered a Minuet kitten is too small for most brands and styles… so we turned our attention to ferret harnesses! We love the Rypet Small Animal Harness from Amazon. He started in a Small when he was 3-months and about 2 pounds, and is now in a Medium at 6-months and 4 pounds. We started by having him wear the harness for a few minutes at a time and incorporated it into play and treat training. Then we gradually increased his time until he was comfortable and able to move around freely. Now he’s used to it, and he knows that wearing it means we are going out on adventure. Most days we can show him his harness and he will come to us to have it put on! He’s still a little skittish walking on a leash outdoors, but he’s great wearing his harness for restaurant visits where we can hold his leash while he explores the table.

He’s a very smart boi, so he made it easy on us! Every cat’s temperament will be different, but we follow Albert and Mia at Outdoor Bengal who provided a great framework for clicker training. Like harness training, we started as soon as Gim came home with us. We started with his name and the point command “touch.” Once he had those, we moved onto “sit” and “carrier.” We’re still working on other commands, but keeping treats reserved for clicker commands has help reinforce his good behavior.

He doesn’t speak English, so we can’t say for certain, but we do look for body language and feline social cues to make sure he’s happy! Gimlet seems to enjoy exploring, sniffing new scents and meeting new people while we’re out. We try to make sure we’re watching for any signs that he might be stressed or scared and we haven’t seen him display any of those behaviors when we’re out. We also try to make sure we continue to normalize leaving home so it becomes part of his routine. He’s a laid-back little guy who seems to enjoy the same things we do!

We sure did! But not just us. The cattery we adopted her from and her vet did, as well! With smaller breeds like Minuet, sometimes the biological gender can be tricky to pinpoint until the kitten is a little older. We all believed “Duke,” her given name before adoption, was male. It wasn’t until her six month check-up when we were discussing neutering a cryptorchid cat that we realized he was actually a she! This news changed nothing but her pronouns — we love her like crazy. If you’re browsing her Instagram before September 2023, you may notice we chose to leave he/him pronouns intact, and began using she/her pronouns after. Oh, and we will continue to call her our sweet prince. Obviously.

Gimlet. She’s the best prince ever.