Nick Heaney and Kayla Tabish’s cat, Maverick, has garnered nationwide attention for his amazing surfing abilities, but also backlash from internet spectators.
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Maverick is best known for his appearance in the Netflix docuseries Cat People and Hidden Lives.
When speaking to happy cat owners, they revealed that while Maverick’s talent has gotten a lot of love on social media, trolls have called them abusive for giving their cat an active lifestyle.
“They think that it’s cruel to remove a cat from the house because of their preconceived notion in their mind, which, you know, ten years ago, I didn’t think they could go anywhere either, so I was them ten years ago, so we deal with them with kindness,” Tabish explained.
Tabish said that they receive up to 10 comments a day from naysayers who believe Maverick should be left at home, but she explained that they never force their cat to do anything.
“It’s really important to us that he would go on willingly. I see on social media a lot of people just like put their cat in a lake and it swims to the shore, which I always feel like, OK, you’re doing that for the views, and not for the cat’s well-being,” she said.
“So it was really important that we took really, really super small steps to make it so that he always would want to go on the board.”
Heaney is a professional wakeboarder, who has been trained in surfing for years.
When speaking with The U.S. Sun, he revealed that his girlfriend suggested one day that he put Maverick on the surfboard, and they made a game out of it using treats.
“He would jump from the pool to the board and back and he sort of liked doing the jumps. It’s like a challenge to him. And then I put more boards in the pool. And then he would jump from one to the other,” he explained.
“And it would be like he wanted to go to school every day to get these treats on the boards. And he wanted to play, you know, jumping from one board to the other.”
The couple realized they had a very active cat and wanted to safely take them for walks.
However, they realized they didn’t have the right harness to walk them with.
“At the time they didn’t make them for cats, they just had small dog ones that they said they were for cats. But there, it was like a big strong chest plate, like it looked like a puppy’s harness,” Heaney said.
The couple decided to make their own harness line called Surfercat to help create safe escape-proof leashes for those who want to walk their cat.
Heaney revealed after trying many different designs, he was able to create the right leash that allowed Maverick to learn to walk in an hour.
They had a 15-year-old tabby cat that was able to learn to walk using their leash.
To help others do the same, they have posted tutorials online helping other pet owners walk their cat.
“[Maverick] taught thousands of cats to walk on his harness. So it’s nice to see how it changed lives,” Heaney said.
“And our whole motto is to smash the deception that cats don’t have to stay home. ”
Despite any hate they might have gotten, the couple realized there was a demand for cat owners who wanted to do the same.
“A lot of our training is about de-sensitizing them, so you can take them to coffee shops, and cafes, and You know, Mavie used to be afraid of basically the shadow in the beginning,” Tabish said.
Maverick goes with his owners everywhere, including coffee shops, kayaking, and even to Michelen-style restaurants.
“He’s a perfect gentleman at restaurants,” Tabish said.
The three of them have been filming a new show, where Maverick, Heanny, and Tabish travel across the world, and share new experiences and cuisine with their pet.
In one of the episodes, they went to Italy, and Maverick was treated like the guest of honor.
“They sat Mavie right at the table and served him at the table, which coming from America is totally not allowed, but they don’t have rules like that in Italy. They’re super, super pet-friendly. We were like kind of nervous at first. We were like, are you sure?” Tabish said.
Regardless of how haters feel, Maverick is not stopping anytime soon.
With a thriving social media following, and a talent seen around the world, it’s just the beginning for Tabish, Heaney, and Maverick.
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