YOUR SPECIAL NEEDS KITTIES

[allmomskitties]

If you have a special needs kitty, I'd love to hear about them, and how you, and they, deal with their  situation.

I have a blind kitty named Ziggy.  She surprises nearly anyone when I tell them she is blind.  If you aren't paying attention, you would never guess from her behavior that she has been totally blind since birth.  Actually, caller her "special needs" isn't really true.  She needs nothing more than the rest of my cats, except some drops in her eyes now and then to keep them clean  (She isn't big on grooming herself either.  I am always having to clip mats from her fur)

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• allmomskitties
• Feb 1, 2014

I also have a kitty with asthma, who needs to use an asthma inhaler (called an AeroCat chamber).  It's almost exactly like one used for human infants.  His name is Hot Rod, and he is actually Ziggy's brother.  They were both rescued as kittens from a feral mother, although Ziggy is a year and a half older than Hot Rod. 

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• allmomskitties
• Feb 1, 2014

So, tell me about your special needs cat!

 

[larussa]

I don't have or ever had a special needs kitty but I just wanted to say how wonderful you are by taking care of these sweet kitties.  You are a very special person.

 

[allmomskitties]

 

[AbbysMom]

I also don't have a special needs kitty, but I've enjoyed reading about yours.

 

[teatoe]

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• teatoe
• Feb 3, 2014

My special needs kitty is a 4 mo old tortie. She seems to adjusted to having limited use of her hind legs. Now she is watching birds outside. When she was 4 wks old she got run over by a wheelchair. I'm the facility's on call RN so I got texted. I rushed her to my vet clinic & when the receptiomist took the broken kitten she asked if I wanted her put down. The cold baby then loudly objected to being removed from underneath my lab coat. I looked into her huge dark blue eyes & at that moment became her pet mommy. No I said & took responsibility for a 7 oz
baby they didn't expect to survive.

 

[di and bob]

Bless you all for taking care of these sweet babies! As close as I've come is to take a cat in that somebody dumped that had mouth cancer. He was on Prednisone that really helped for another year until he broke his hip somehow and had to be put down. We tried to make him as happy as we could, and he was SO appreciative. People that didn't know him really shied away because he drooled so much, and he wanted to be by people so bad! He also was covered with a black substance that we bathed off of him and found it was 'drool" that he deposited when he tried to groom. He didn't mind his baths at all, I think he knew we were making him look better. I still can't believe that someone abandoned him at his time of need, and by the time he found us he was so scared, bleeding from being attacked by other cats, and starving. AND he was neutered and declawed, defenseless! We found out later when he was x-rayed for his hip that someone had also shot him, he had a pellet lodged into a bone inside him. I miss his funny little face, RIP Hobo!

 

[Winchester]

Thank you for everything you do for these babies. 

We don't have a special needs kitty. But we do have BooBoo. Boo will turn 18 years old on February 13th. And he has become deaf. I first noticed that he wasn't hearing that well about a year or so ago. He was watching the other cats and I think he was trying to figure out lunch and dinner times, based on their behavior. And so one afternoon, I walked up behind him and snapped my fingers. And his ear didn't flinch at all. We took him to the vet and she said that he had become deaf.

So Boo and I started leaning sign language....or our version of sign language anyway. If I put my hands together three times (like clapping, but slowly), he knows that it's time for food and he'll follow me to the kitchen. At dinner time, if he's sleeping and doesn't notice the other cats starting to mill about, I go over and gently touch his shoulder or his butt, whatever is closer, to awaken him, Then I'll put my hands together and he says, "Oh good! Let's eat!" and he'll jump down and come out to the kitchen. I even tell the other cats that I have to go get their brother before I put food down for them. If he's back in bed, I'll do the same thing, gently awaken him, then do the hand thing. He's got that down pat. The interesting thing is that when I do it, he knows it's time for dinner; if Rick does it, Boo get a quizzical look on his face. Then Rick will say, "You do it, Pam!" I'll give Boo the hand signal and it's like "Oh! OK!" He sleeps very soundly, too, now that he's an older kitty, so often he doesn't even notice the vibrations the other cats might make from time to time when they're running and jumping. And while I don't think he'd ever actually sleep through a meal, I'm not taking any chances.

If I crook my index finger, he knows that it means "C'mere, buddy" and he'll come over and hop up on me and settle down in my lap. He's such a lap kitty and he'd live on our laps if we let him.

I don't really consider Boo a special needs kitty because he's deaf. We can still communicate and he has his ways of getting his wishes known. He may not be able to hear anymore, but he can still yeow! And his health, other than allergies, is excellent, especially for a geriatric cat.

 

[allmomskitties]

My special needs kitty is a 4 mo old tortie. She seems to adjusted to having limited use of her hind legs. Now she is watching birds outside. When she was 4 wks old she got run over by a wheelchair. I'm the facility's on call RN so I got texted. I rushed her to my vet clinic & when the receptiomist took the broken kitten she asked if I wanted her put down. The cold baby then loudly objected to being removed from underneath my lab coat. I looked into her huge dark blue eyes & at that moment became her pet mommy. No I said & took responsibility for a 7 oz
baby they didn't expect to survive.

Oh, poor little girl!  Thank you for accepting this challenge.  The rewards will always outweigh the cost!  How is she doing now?  Does she have problems using the litter box? 

 

[allmomskitties]

 We took him to the vet and she said that he had become deaf.

So Boo and I started leaning sign language....

That's awesome!  I use a lot of hand signals for both my dogs and my cats.  All of them know what "come" "hush" and "stay" mean with just hand commands.  People underestimate what cats are able to learn.  They can learn anything you want to teach them!  Only bit of advice is that cats learn differently than dogs.  AND - cats will learn what they need to know all by themselves!  They are really quite clever and intelligent.

 

[cassiopea]

Your kitties are beautiful Allsmom 

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• cassiopea
• Feb 3, 2014

And like many others, we have our ways to communicate comfortably with one another. One small example, to get her attention without suprising her, I'll knock on something so she can sense the vibration. She does a good job summoning me in her unique ways (She isn't a very vocal cat, only does a coo sound and only makes a small meow when she knows her food is being served) and letting me know what she wants or needs.

 

[allmomskitties]

 
Your kitties are beautiful Allsmom 

 

Morgana is deaf! Though you wouldn't think so based on all the stories, pics on here, and overall shenanigans she gets herself into

 

And like many others, we have our ways to communicate comfortably with one another. One small example, to get her attention without suprising her, I'll knock on something so she can sense the vibration. She does a good job summoning me in her unique ways (She isn't a very vocal cat, only does a coo sound and only makes a small meow when she knows her food is being served) and letting me know what she wants or needs.

I just love white kitties!  We have three.  And yes, none of them are deaf.  I've heard that white males with blue eyes are most likely to be deaf.  We had a deaf dog once and we had to use really exaggerated hand signals with him because he was also sight-impaired.  He navigated just fine in the house and even out in the yard.  Our little blind cat Ziggy behaves exactly like the other cats.  Other than the fact that she basically has no eyes, you wouldn't realize she is blind!

 

[teatoe]

My special needs kitty is a 4 mo old tortie. She seems to adjusted to having limited use of her hind legs. Now she is watching birds outside. When she was 4 wks old she got run over by a wheelchair. I'm the facility's on call RN so I got texted. I rushed her to my vet clinic & when the receptiomist took the broken kitten she asked if I wanted her put down. The cold baby then loudly objected to being removed from underneath my lab coat. I looked into her huge dark blue eyes & at that moment became her pet mommy. No I said & took responsibility for a 7 oz
baby they didn't expect to survive.

 

[alleygirl]

My special kitty is Riley. He developed asthma as a direct result of a heartworm infection when he was two. He gets his steroid inhaler every day, with albuterol for "rescue inhaler" when he is having an asthma attack.

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• alleygirl
• Dec 15, 2011

My other special needs kitty is Xander. He needs CONSTANT ATTENTION! Does that count? :lol3::lol3:

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• alleygirl
• Jan 26, 2012

 

[teatoe]

Beautiful cats. My special baby is climbing up the couch. Looks a little like spiderman, only cuter. A vet tech said she should have a leg cut off, that she "might" walk better. My boyfriend was with me & he supports my choice NOT to remove a leg. He told them that would hurt her.