When Rebecca May and her husband opened their hearts to two shelter cats in London, they expected love, companionship, and perhaps a bit of mischief.
What they didn’t expect was just how determined one of them would be to remain glued to her people.
Ziggy, a soft gray 10-year-old with the kind of gaze that melts defenses, has turned affection into a full-time mission.
The Cat Who Always Needs to Be Near
Unlike her quieter sister, Harley, Ziggy carries an intensity that makes her love feel almost overwhelming.
At first, she can appear hesitant, cautiously watching before making her move. But once her trust is won, there is no going back.
She presses in close, climbs onto laps, shoulders, or backs, and makes her presence impossible to ignore. “She’s not just affectionate,” Rebecca explains to friends. “She’s insistent. Your lap isn’t yours anymore—it’s hers.”
Anyone who has lived with a clingy pet knows the mix of joy and challenge that comes with such devotion.
For Ziggy, love is not expressed from across the room. It means constant closeness, skin against fur, heartbeat against heartbeat.
Life at Home With a Velcro Cat
When the pandemic shifted daily routines, both Rebecca and her husband began working from home more often.
For Ziggy, this felt like a dream come true.
Suddenly, the people she adored most were around every day, offering more opportunities for her to snuggle into the warmth of their bodies.
But for her human parents, balancing video calls, writing projects, and online meetings while their cat sprawled across keyboards proved more complicated.
Rebecca tried compromise after compromise.
She placed a cushioned cat bed on the desk in hopes that Ziggy might settle nearby. Sometimes Ziggy would humor her by curling into it briefly, but it never lasted.
“She needs touch, not just proximity,” Rebecca explains. “If she’s not pressed against us, she looks unsettled, almost worried.”
No arm was safe. If Rebecca reached for her coffee, Ziggy would balance on that very arm.
If her husband leaned forward in his chair, Ziggy was instantly climbing his back. Laps became battlegrounds, claimed before chairs even touched the floor.
Her sharp little eyes tracked every movement, her ears lowering as if preparing for a leap the moment someone dared to sit.
The couple found themselves in a dilemma: how could they give Ziggy the affection she craved while still having the space to meet work demands?
They loved her deeply but needed breathing room.
The Fake Lap That Saved the Day
One afternoon, Rebecca’s husband decided to test a playful idea. If Ziggy demanded a lap so badly, why not offer her one—even if it wasn’t real?
He pulled out an old pair of lounge pants, stuffed the legs with soft material until they looked convincingly human, and tucked a warm heating pad into the lap area.
A pillow stomach gave the illusion of comfort, and tennis shoes on the ends of the pant legs completed the disguise.
When the “fake human” was set in a chair, it looked strange but oddly inviting. Within minutes, Ziggy’s sharp instincts led her to inspect this new creation.
She sniffed, circled, and then climbed into the waiting lap.
To everyone’s surprise, she settled down and stayed there for hours, purring contentedly as though she had found exactly what she needed.
Rebecca recalls laughing with disbelief. “We thought it was just a silly experiment, something to amuse ourselves for five minutes,” she says. “But she treated it like the real thing. She melted right into it.”
While Ziggy found her bliss, Harley, the quieter sister, gave the decoy no attention at all.
For her, love didn’t require such constant touch. But for Ziggy, it was everything.
Rebecca shared a photo of the clever setup on Reddit, explaining, “Our cat has become SUPER clingy now that we both work from home. We had to improvise.”
The internet quickly responded with delight, with cat owners across the world praising the creativity and even promising to try it for their own cuddle-demanding pets.
The May family knows the fake lap is only a temporary fix.
They continue to treasure the real moments of closeness, even when inconvenient. After all, not every cat is so openly affectionate, and Ziggy’s clinginess is just another way she expresses her unwavering trust.
“We’ll keep the trousers around for days when we’re swamped with calls,” Rebecca admits with a smile. “But nothing replaces the warmth of having her truly with us.”