In Greek, Titus Andronicus is a noble Roman. The name means pleasing, saved, and refers to Titan of the giants. But in Santa Clarita, Titus Andronicus is a cat.

He’s not just any cat; he’s all of the above, as well. And he owns me. Titus Andronicus is a Savannah. A Savannah is a cross between an African serval and a domestic cat – in his case, a Bengal (which is a cross between a domestic cat and an Asian leopard cat). So he has the wild genes of two species of wild cat. And indeed, his personality reflects this.

He is the epitome of the proverbial “bull in the china closet.” He doesn’t mean to be destructive, but he loves to be in high places … like the top of the curtains, the top of the buffet, the top of the refrigerator … and when you yell at him to come down, he jumps off of these surfaces spattering Waterford and 2,500-year-old Palestinian oil lamps all over the place.

I’ve tried spraying him with water, which is the normal way to treat disobedient cats. But he loves it. It’s a game for him. You see, Asian leopard cats are related to the fisher cats, and they love water. He keeps begging to come into the shower with me, but hasn’t quite gotten the courage to come in yet. That’s a lot of hot water.

Many people cannot handle either Savannahs or Bengals. I figured I’d have no problem, since I trained a wild bobcat and an F1 Bengal (deemed unsuitable for a household) in my past. Titus has been with me for only a month, but he’s still got the best of me on a daily basis.

I am making headway. I’ve taught him to sit before he gets fed. I open a can of food or prepare his chicken thighs, and he bounces off the walls until I get to his feeding spot.

When I say “Sit,” he promptly sits until the dish hits the ground. Then all bets are off, and anyone in the vicinity had better back up.

He bit me 12 times the first day he was with me. Now, I only occasionally am bitten.

You see, Titus Andronicus was a breeding cat that was kept in cage for six years. At that point, he was neutered and ended up in a rescue, in a cage.

I saw this poor, sad creature and decided I was up for the challenge. Now, when he goes to bite, I say “No” in a stern voice and hold up one finger. He lowers his ears and growls like he’d like to take off my hand, but instead he backs off, then runs over to me for some cuddles because he was such a good boy.

He loves cuddles. He’s sitting on my lap, purring, as I write this. Once he is socialized, I am sure he’ll be the perfect pet. Feline domesticus, as they say. (For now, he’s more feline destructivus.)

You have to look at his lineage to understand his wild side. The first wild animal in his heritage is the serval. Servals are often called the cat of spare parts. Nothing seems to go together. They have spots and stripes, which make their coat unusual. They have a small, delicate head on a long neck; a long slender body with huge back feet; and a short tail. The ears are large with a black tip.

Servals come from Africa, and there is a high concentration of them in Tanzania. This is where I saw my first serval outside of a zoo. I was lucky enough to see one hunting. Sure enough, she came up with a mouse. Servals usually live about 10 years in the wild and average about 20 years in captivity. This gives me hope that I will have plenty of time to whip Titus Andronicus into shape.

In captivity, servals have good medical care, good food, and usually a great habitat. In the wild, they are preyed on by wild dogs, leopards and poachers. They are used by the African natives for their pelts and for food. Servals are considered a delicacy there. There is also the issue that their grassland habitats are burned annually, reducing their ability to hunt and hide. Human population and agricultural development in Africa have also reduced the serval habitat.

The second contributor to Titus Andronicus’s gene pool is the Asian leopard cat. This cat is a distant relative to the leopard. It is smaller than the serval and is about the size of a large house cat, but it has more slender and longer legs. They can get up to 16 pounds. (The cross between the Asian leopard and an American shorthair is called a Bengal. My F1 Bengal weighed 35 pounds at her highest weight.)

As the name implies, the range of these cats is throughout Asia, including Russia and sea-level rain forests, although they have been found as high as 14,800 feet. Asian leopard cats were listed as an endangered species in 1976, and they can no longer be imported.

They are an incredibly beautiful cat with golden fur and black spots or rosettes, and two black stripes from their eyes to their ears. They are solitary animals except during breeding season. They love to rest up in the trees or hide in the thorn bush. They eat rodents, beetles, lizards, frogs and birds.

Many people dream of owning a wild cat. I’ve had a good deal of experience with wild animals, from bobcats to alligators, chipmunks, great horned owls and more. My house, growing up, was a menagerie of wild animals that were habituated or damaged in other ways. I rehabilitated them and released those that were suitable for release, housed a few at zoos, and remained passionately attached to the rest of them throughout their lives.

I believe wild animals should remain wild whenever possible, and that only people versed in animal behaviors should take a wild creature into their homes. It is difficult at best to deal with these animals, feed them and keep them healthy. This is why so many hybrids end up in rescues. You just cannot always take the “wild” out of the hybrid.

I’m still in the process of baby-proofing my house. Until he settles down, I cannot even have company in my house without locking him up. China would be splattered all over the floor before dinner could commence. But I believe he deserves a life out of the cage, and I think in the end I will have him as “feline domesticus” as he can be.

He already shows me his grateful ness with purrs, cuddles and love bites. And he’s learning. Now he sits; perhaps tomorrow he’ll learn to roll over. It’s a long road to hoe for both of us.

Dianne Erskine-Hellrigel is executive director of the Community Hiking Club and president of the Santa Clara River Watershed Conservancy. If you’d like to be part of the solution, join the Community Hiking Club’s Stewardship Committee. Contact Dianne through communityhikingclub.org or at zuliebear@aol.com.