Bear the blind cat

Had we ever thought about having a blind cat? No never.

But when our niece found a 4 week kitten with obvious sight problems and brought him to our house how could we refuse to do right by him.

So our choice was either a sanctuary that could find him a home or keep him ourselves. A difficult choice as our house is not the type to make life easy we thought for a blind cat – we have an open staircase, a pool and a pond. People said he must be a house cat – difficult when you have 20 other cats who are used to open doors.

The first thing we did was to take him to a consultant who confirmed that he actually did not have any eyes due to the infection that had been present. Her advice to us was to treat him as any other cat – he would adapt. He did not need to have eye surgery as long as infection didn’t become an issue again.

So we decided to keep him and as he adapted so would we adapt to make his life the best it could be.

Realistically very little has had to change for us. We have had to put in a stair gate and block off the sides of the stairs. Bear is very adventurous and wants to follow the other cats upstairs. At the moment this is still a challenge for us as he continues to defeat our blockades!

Fortunately Bear has proved himself to be a good swimmer and manages relatively easily to get himself out of the pool, although it has to be said that his skills in navigating the garden are improving as he gets older. So no major issues there although we do keep an eye on him when he’s out and about. So far he hasn’t paid a lot of attention to the pond. On the odd occasion that our other cats have fallen into the pond they always manage to get out – so no reason why Bear shouldn’t.

Bear has also helped us to keep the house tidy – he’s less likely to bump into things if things remain in the same place. He loves all the cat toys and climbing frames and has an amazing ability to know when there is a fly to be caught or another cat to be jumped on and wrestled!

Challenges ahead – those stairs!! Bear going further than our garden – dread the day!! (microchip in place!)(thank goodness we live surrounded by fields and not too many cars)

Would we part with him? Never – he’s one of our family!