From: smith@panther.adelphi.edu (Jim Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats
Subject: Re: Deaf cat in bathtub <clean fun>
Date: 15 Sep 92 19:21:34 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Adelphi University Swirbul Library

In article <1992Sep15.155740.26256@pellns.alleg.edu> dblackbu@carr11.alleg.edu (David Blackburn) writes:

>In article <1992Sep15.044034.16362@tms390.micro.ti.com>  
>david@tms390.micro.ti.com (David Thomas) writes:
>> (stuff deleted) 
>> I would like to know if any of you have experience with deaf cats.
>> -- (more stuff deleted)
>> David Thomas  Texas Instruments  (david@wotangate.sc.ti.com)   
>(713)-274-2347

>       I had a cat that was deaf. He was a white male DSH, and the vet  
>said that congenital deafness is common in such cats. (not a white-colored  
>breed or albino). ...(stuff deleted)

Me too.  Bigg Katt was a female DSH with one blue and one green eye.  She 
was a hell of a great cat.  She showed up in the yard one day, playing with 
my roommate's border collie.  She'd had a stressfull early life as a stray 
and had nibbled the fur from the top side of her tail.  Her first night 
inside the house she used the dog's supper bowl as a litter pan (dropped 
a big turd right in the middle of the kibble).  

She was a good mother, but she couldn't hear when she was sitting on one of 
her kits.  I'd have to come to the rescue the little ones when I'd hear 
them squealing.  She wasn't much of a hunter, but she loved to bring home 
nightcrawlers.  She'd pop in the window (it was sort of a kitty door) with 
this big old wriggly red earthworm and try to show her kits how to play with 
it.  You could always tell when she'd been hunting, she'd have mud on her 
nose and chin.  She'd play in the bathtub too.  She just loved to roll 
marbles and little rubber glow-in-the-dark balls around in it in the early 
morning.  

Those little glow-balls were a laff-riot!  (They're a long discontinued 
premium from packages of Zheerioes).  I'd "charge" the ball under a light, 
then turn out the light.  And roll it to Katt.  You could see the ball 
suddenly stop, partially disappear, and then float around the room as she 
caught it, picked it up in her mouth, and walked with it.

She only understood one hand-sign:  I'd move my thumb and forefinger 
together, like the sign for "cash", and she'd come running.  

When her food bowl was empty, she's pick up the edge and let it drop, making 
a loud clatter-clatter-clatter noise.  She'd also knock half empty water/
beer/milk glasses from Saturday night off the table to the floor on Sunday 
morning just to watch/feel them bounce and break.  

Your vet is right, keep deaf kitties inside.  Katt got hit by a snowmobile 
one winter and it broke her hip.  She recovered in about eight weeks with 
very little disability.  She'd get a little stiff and would walk with an 
extra wiggle when it was going to rain.  She lived many many good years.  
But when we moved to Baltimore in 1974 she got out, and I lost her.  (Anyone 
around Calvert St. & J.H.U. seen my 25 y.o. deaf white odd-eyed cat?)

Her last kitten, Spare Change, was also a white blue&green eyed cat, but 
with extra toes!  However, she was _not_ deaf.  She was a great cat too	!

Jim "Former Mayor of Kitty-City" Smith
smith1.franklin@panther.adelphi.edu
Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats