I have a friend who had a deaf cat for 16 years. When she went to the shelter, she adopted a six month old… who turned out to be deaf. The shelter didn’t know it,and neither did the vet who did his neutering.I told her the Universe decided she was good at it.

His cat mother knew he was deaf, as he was abandoned by her when he was 2 weeks old. But the vet center that rescued him didn’t know, and neither did his foster mom, or even me, until he’d been here for over 3 months. Because he coped that well with his disability.

I’d been told that “a deaf cat is like a blind human,” but what I wasn’t told is that when cats, like humans, lose one of their major senses, their brain literally rewires itself, filling out neural pathways to accentuate their remaining senses. Byron Bigfoot can’t hear much, but damned if his eyesight isn’t better than my other two cats. He frequently keeps his mouth open just a tiny bit, as cats have extra olfactory senses in their mouths, and breathing through the mouth enables them to smell better.

The downside: the only way to discipline a cat is verbally, and when he’s deaf–well, you get the picture. I wouldn’t give my deaf polydactyl man away for the world, but he created quite a path of destruction in his first few years. Our sign language was easier when it indicated “Hey, let’s do something you love, such as get pets in my lap, chase the laser, or have wet food!” But it took a long time for him to understand “Stop that! No, stop NOW!” Picking him up and moving him away from what he was doing worked best.

A challenged cat is work, but he’ll love you so much more back. You’re the only one who understands his disability and his needs and will work around them. He needs patience with his problem and a tolerance for his naughtiness, but if you don’t have those qualities to begin with, don’t get any pet. Even a hearing cat isn’t going to understand why you’re hitting them for some simple, unintentional mistake like puking on the carpet.

Oh, a final thing about deaf cats: You can reach down and pet a hearing cat any time, but this is because they hear you reaching down, even if you don’t think you’re making a sound. Even if a deaf cat is in a place where you’ve petted him for years, move your hand in front of his eyes first, so that he knows you’re about to do it. Byron jumps out of skin when I pet him without doing that. (Except when I get out of the shower, and he jumps on the toilet for “toilet pets.” Look, I can’t explain everything he does!)

19 years ago we adopted Callie, a full-grown cat with huge patches of bare skin and the saddest, almost hairless tail. Many months in the cage at the shelter. Something about her, her meeting my eyes, her patient exploration of my hands and my husband’s shoes. . . and my feeling that she wouldn’t be adopted by anyone else; we took her. 7 years later, by then in lovely, full-furred black and orange beauty, she developed diabetes, although she’d never been overweight. Twice daily needle sticks, we didn’t think we could do it or she would stand for it. She did, and we could. She seemed to find easier than we did. If we didn’t get to the “medicine counter” for her shots at the appointed times, she practically dragged us there. She was such a great cat that the difficulties seemed small by comparison.
She passed on two years ago, and I still miss her so very much.