#deaf cats

[sliverpelt-cats]

what i don't get is the choice the Erins made to label Snowkit as essentially useless, purely for being deaf.

my cousin's cat is pretty much exactly like Snowkit and Cloudtail, a part from being a girl, in the sense that she's pure white with blue eyes.

its, in a sense, like being around a deaf person. there's visual cues you can use with a deaf cat that lets them know you're giving them dinner or looking for cuddles with them.

a specific instance of this is when my cousin and his fiancée look to get her attention and she's not physically looking at them, they tap the (hardwood) floor with their feet. i guess it would be harder to make the dirt shake in the wilderness. but they also tap on her tail, back or head if they're close enough to her.

and no one can tell me visual cues can't be used with a warrior. im pretty sure speckletail used them with her kit (please correct me if im wrong), and there's a headcanon that shadowclan use visual cues to communicate while hunting as to not disturb the prey.

all the visual cues ThunderClan would've had to use could be done by tail or head movements.

i dont have any deaf friends, nor am i deaf, but my friends and i use head gestures to communicate when we just dont feel like speaking in the moment.

like a head tipped back would mean "come here" and gestures to the right or left would be "look there" or "they're there" with eye movement too.

it's be harder for a warrior to patrol and hunt, sure, but they wouldn't be rendered useless.

on the topic of my cousin's deaf cat again; the last time we visited them, the cat brought a caught, dead bird inside after she'd been let out to pee.

[drferox]

I recently took in a beautiful all white stray kitty with two different colored eyes. But over the last few days, I've begun to suspect that he's deaf. He doesn't respond to sounds at all, not even loud sounds that spook my other two cats, and he doesn't respond to my voice at all. I saw a previous post from you about teaching dogs sign language commands and I wondered if that might work for cats too? Just simple things like "come here" or "no".

We sort of use sign queues with Wonka. I say ‘sort of’ because he seems to interpret them differently to how they were intended.

We have a hand signal for ‘come here’ but he seems to think it means ‘please come here I have treats I promise’ and definitely is seen more like a request than a command.

We make one fist open and close to mean ‘come here’ but a lot of the time I have to pretend there’s a treat in the other hand.

He will also follow pointing, but not particularly accurately and it may take him a while.

Of course he has to be awake and looking in the right direction to see the hand signal at all, but he learns what he wants to learn. This isn’t helped by his dexterity being less than the typical cat as all his movements are exaggerated, so a gentle tap turns into a smack with claws. Trash Bag at least can learn to tap gently, but Wonka can’t.

[queerlittleidiot]

@herecomesvent

[tiredbirb]

Watching the cats baby fight with each other, rolling around like tiny stupid wrestlers. Deaf cat keeps making terrible sounds, hissing and growling and making her trill-buzz mew which is super confusing the other cat because it sounds like she’s really upset even though she’s the one sitting ontop of him. So he keeps stopping, thinking something’s wrong and she’ll just take the opportunity to jump on his face making more awful stupid sounds because hey, she doesn’t know.

[pumpkin-queef]

Deaf cats

So upon learning from my mother that I will have the opportunity to adopt a kit as her graduation gift to me, naturally I have been browsing shelter cat profiles like it’s nobody’s job, and I now have two cats under my radar, one of which (the one that I favor) is deaf.  I told my mom about her and my mom thinks everything about the cat sounds nice, but my mom worries about how well the cat would do in an environment that has other pets (my mom has a cat and a small dog). I agreed with her that i’m unsure of how a deaf cat would do with that. Would it be too startling to be in an environment with other animals running around? I’m not sure so I wanna know if any of you guys have experience with deaf cats and if you find that they would do best in an environment on their own or not. I know personality plays a huge part in that, but I also want to make sure i’m taking her deafness into consideration. 

[microcerpt]

New Post has been published on microcerpt

New Post has been published on http://microcerpt.com/blog/2015/02/thisbe-meets-thomas/

Thisbe Meets Thomas

The doorbell rang. Ana came in from the kitchen. Todo ran back to the kitchen.

“That must be Gail. She said she was running late.” Ana opened the door. I turned toward the door to see who was entering when suddenly I caught sight of the most handsome cat in the arms of Ana’s new friend. I knew he was a boy immediately. Oh my, who is this? Excited to meet this new cat, I moved toward the door. Fester followed close behind. “Come here you little flirt. I see you running away, my little cookie. Come on, I’ll be your friend.” He stopped short upon seeing the new cat at the door. “Harrumph! Who is this rascal?” Ana made the introductions, “Thisbe, this is my friend, Gail and her cat, Thomas.” Gail placed Thomas down in front of me. He sat back on his haunches and gazed curiously at me.

I was embarrassed and for a moment speechless. Thomas has beautiful green eyes. He’s sooooo cute! I sighed. I was in love. I was very young but I was still in love. Finding my voice I purred softly, “Hello, Thomas, my name is Thisbe. Welcome to my home.”

I sat demurely in front of him expecting a reply but he seemed to ignore my greeting. That’s odd. I was polite but maybe he didn’t hear me. I don’t care! I could look at him all night. He’s so cute with that black coat and white dot on his forehead. I love his dreamy eyes. Thomas said nothing. He just stared at me with a blank look on his face. Fester, ever self-absorbed, quickly lost interest in the new visitor and began grooming himself.

The two women looked down at us. Gail explained, “Poor Thomas, he’s a wonderful cat, very sweet and loving but deaf as a stone, can’t hear a thing. He was born like that and it takes him a while to get to know other cats. He’s very gentle but I don’t know how much of a playmate he will be for Thisbe.” “Well, Gail, let’s leave them together and see what happens. Fester is the other cat and he’s harmless.Todo is a sweet dog but he likes to hang out in the kitchen. Betty and Nick are out there. Thanksgiving dinner is ready to be eaten. We were waiting for you. Let these kids get acquainted.” Gail and Ana left Thomas sitting in front of me and went to the kitchen. Fester continued to groom himself. Thomas watched as Gail left the room. He then glanced back at me. I think he felt lost. Poor Thomas! He can’t hear anything. How will I talk to him? I approached Thomas with the typical cat greeting of rubbing noses but Thomas backed away. He wasn’t sure what I was going to do. As he backed up he stepped on Fester’s tail. Fester jumped up and arched his back in a show of anger. “Hey! You clumsy oaf! What’s the matter with you? Did you not see my tail? Why I ought to…” He was poised to strike Thomas. I jumped in between the two and scolded the feisty old tom. “Fester. Be nice. He’s a new friend AND he’s deaf. That means he can’t hear a thing and he’s not sure of what we are going to do so please behave yourself!”

Fester, fully humiliated, turned in a huff and pranced away toward the living room with his large, fluffy tail twitching back and forth. I looked at Thomas, rolled my eyes and smiled. Thomas smiled back and instantly the ice was broken between us. I led Thomas to the sofa. We jumped up and got comfortable. I smiled at Thomas and he smiled back. He then rubbed his head on my shoulder. It sent a shiver down my spine. Fester walked past us.

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