I am a professed cat person.  Actually, I love them.  I have been thinking about getting a cat for some time, but I wasn’t sure I could pick the right one.  My last one didn’t play well with others.  So I just decided to be patient until the right one came along.  Then it happened….

One morning as I was driving into work, a black and white kitten was hopping around playing in the tall grass.  I thought, “Watch out kitty, someone’s going to run you over!”  I drove up to work and felt this tugging sensation to go back and make sure the kitty was okay.  I thought to myself, it’s probably a stray cat and will run away when I get near it, but I had decided…if the kitten comes to me, it will be a sign. 

I went back to the spot and it was now on the other side of the road.  I called, “Here Kitty”.  She did not hesitate and ran straight to me.  She is a black and white tuxedo cat, and she is missing her left eye.  The markings on her face sort of disguise the missing eye because the left side of her face is black and the right side is white. 

When I brought her back to work with me, it wasn’t long before we figured out that she couldn’t see at all.  She bumped into everything!!  She was a friendly little thing.  Didn’t seem to mind anyone picking her up; she also purred a lot. 

I took her to the vet that day and everyone kept cooing about how cute she was, especially when she reached up to touch my face with her paw.  I had her checked for any major diseases and we determined she was probably 12 – 13 weeks old.  She had been sneezing quite a bit, so I got her some medicine for an upper respiratory infection. The vet could not tell me much about her vision, they thought she could see a little out of the right eye, but her sense of hearing was SO good that she had them fooled. 

At this point, their guess was as good as mine. I took the kitty home and set her up with a litter box and some food.  I kept placing her in the litter box; worried that she may not know to use it….she hadn’t been to the bathroom all day.  I kept a close eye on her as she bumped her way around my apartment.  After

about the tenth time of putting her into the litter box, she went #1….Hooray!!!  The second time she went, she found it herself.  Thank goodness she is house trained. 

I will never know what her life was like before me, but I do believe she was treated well.  By the next morning, the bond had been formed and I now believed that I was chosen to care for her. 

Picking out a name was not easy.  For the first few weeks, I called her Kitty and Bumper….she answered to neither.  I decided to wait until the right name came along.  Over Christmas, I took her with me to Tampa, she’s great to travel with, by the way.  At my cousin’s house, we caught on that she loves to play with candy wrappers and tissue paper.  The crinkle noise peaks her curiosity.  My cousin went to the pet store and bought her some golf ball rattles with some feathers sticking out….so the ball won’t roll away too far. 

She looks cute carrying it around in her mouth by the feathers.  I felt bad taking her to a new house with new furniture to bump into, but she didn’t seem to mind. 

She met a few dogs over Christmas, and they didn’t even faze her.  She is not scared of anything, especially a dog.  Quite frankly I don’t think she could ever see, so she has no idea how big they are! 

All during Christmas I searched for a book, pamphlet, or anything that could help me raise a blind cat.  I even went to a few animal clinics, but to no avail.  It was like they had never heard of such a thing!  So here I am…..learning as I go. 

Here are some of the things I have learned so far………

She doesn’t know the difference between night and day….or maybe all cats wake

You’re up at 2:30 am to play.  She doesn’t try to jump down out of my arms……she doesn’t know how far down the ground is.

I do not have the problem of her jumping up on the counter, if she can’t climb there, she won’t get there.

Anything that makes noise is a potential toy.

She pounces on me only when I am trying to read a book or do my Sudoku puzzle….. this makes me wonder if she can see.  I think my mechanical pencil makes noise when I erase.

As she walks along the wall, she trips over the door stop and it goes “boing”, there is one in every room for her to play with.

She walks in a zig-zag in the hallway, never in a straight line. I can pick her up and carry her into a different room and she somehow figures out where she is…..eventually.

She is a lot of fun to hang out with, and I have learned a lot from her.  She is not afraid of anything and she is completely trusting.  Her love is so pure and to me, she is all that is good.  I feel lucky to have her in my life and I don’t consider her handicapped.  I decided to name her Ralphy, which she even answers to…on occasion.

Kathy Grant is a consultant with Tomboy Tools® and is a golf  Pro at Deer Creek Country Club.