This is
Poohbear's story...Deaf as a post, but sharper than a stack of tacks!
I think I'll start at the beginning...seems like a good idea! It was November 1991 and my husband and I decided to get my Mother a kitten for her birthday. At that time, I was going to a Vet. in Dallas who worked at a huge Animal Clinic that had a Humane Society kitten adoption cage. My mother has always preferred female kitties and I knew they had a darling little tortie there for adoption. So, off we went...to adopt ONE kitten. If I remember correctly, they had five or six kittens in their adoption cage and besides the tortie there was this darling little white manx kitten that seemed to take right to me. My Vet., Dr. Maggie George, came over to me while I was standing at the cage and she reached in, snagged the little white ball of fur and put him in my arms. She looked me straight in the eyes and said, "This little guy needs you and your other kitties. He's deaf and needs to live in a multiple cat home. He'll freak out if he doesn't have other kitties to hang with." Well, she had me at the "deaf" part! I walked over to Gordon with this little guy in my arms, looked up at Gordon and said, "He's deaf and needs to live with other kitties around him." Gordon's a bighearted guy and I could tell instantly that he was melting. He took the kitty in his arms and said, "Pay the lady for two kitties...we're out of here!" Off we went with my Mother's birthday present and our new little deaf guy.
I think back to that day and it's a miracle that Poohbear survived his first homecoming. We were in such a hurry to get my Mother's kitty to her that we simply zoomed in, dropped Poohbear in the midst of three other kitties and zoomed out. When we got home, we found out that little Pooh had diarrhea and it was here, there and everywhere on our carpet and on Pooh. Because he's a Manx and has no tail to shall I say...pinch it off, he always ends up with poop all over his bottom. I cleaned him up and off we went...back to the Vet. to get medicine for his little problem. Little did we know it was a much bigger problem. Turned out that Poohbear was allergic to canned cat food. If he just looked at it...he got diarrhea. Seemed that way, anyway. Dr. George put him on prednisone and I had to feed him lamb baby food in his own little dining room. The guest bathroom!
I'll never forget that December when I threw caution to the wind one evening as we were leaving for a Christmas Party and running late. I put down regular canned food for Bubba, Booptie and BabyCakes and said, "The heck with it! Pooh can eat with his brothers tonight. One time can't hurt." Several hours later, we returned from our party to find Poohbear curled up, sound asleep in a pool of poop! I scooped him up, the poop up...cleaned off Pooh's little bottom and began to clean up all the little poop land mines he had set out for us to step in. As I was on hand and knees cleaning carpet, I looked up and there was Poohbear sitting right next to me in another large pool of poop! It was just flowing out of him that night and by the time I got it and Poohbear all cleaned up, I was exhausted and so was he. I laid down on the couch with Poohbear curled up on a towel in front of me and I'll never forget this! He was sound asleep, passing gas...one right after another and the fur on his little bottom was literally fluttering in the breeze. I never laughed so hard in my life. Poor Baby...
Well, so much for entertaining you with diarrha and gas passing...our next hurdle to get over appeared a couple months later when I began to notice Poohbear was leaving little wet spots everywhere he went. Then, one day as I sat watching TV with Poohbear in my lap, I was jolted by a sudden blast of warm peepee against my thigh. Exciting reading, huh? To make a long story short...turns out Poohbear has urinary allergies, also. We're able to control the squirting by feeding him special urinary dry food and canned food, but poor little Poohbear does dribble when he sleeps. This has to do with the Manx condition...lacking a certain nerve (located in a normal tail) to control his urinary sphincter muscle. Poohbear sleeps so soundly because he's deaf and when he's sound asleep...deep asleep, he dribbles. I know this must sound awful, but Poohbear is so use to me shoving towels under him when he sleeps that now he pretty much looks for towels and throws to sleep on. He's a very smart little guy.
I don't know about other deaf cats, but Poohbear is quite a talker. Usually in the middle of the night. He prefers to get in the middle of the kitchen that has a wide open concept of high ceilings and high ledges that open into our main living area and he just sits there and meow-howls like crazy. We're use to it, but houseguests get a little freaked out when they stay overnight.
Poohbear is my morning alarm clock. He's never heard a sound in his life, but he's smart enough to know that sound does exist and he's an expert at making just enough noise to get me out of bed every morning. If there is an object that he can knock over, he does. Telephones, music boxes, soda bottles...you name it! When our computer was in the bedroom, he use to sit on the keyboard and begin a multitude of bleeps and blips to ring out and send me flying out of bed. So, I showed him...I put the keyboard on top of the monitor every night and he then discovered the computer mouse did wonderful things to get Mommy out of bed, too! One day, I forgot to put the keyboard on top of the monitor and came in to the room to find all sorts of programs up and running. One program was Windows Explorer and when I went to close it, it said...Are you sure you want to delete this program? Yikes! I've since remembered to keep the keyboard up and away from the Poohmeister.
Poohbear is also a "self-petting" cat. You need only to put your hand out and he will walk back and forth under it...petting himself. It's a great energy saver when you have five cats and run out of energy petting all of them!
We use our hands to communicate with Poohbear. When he walks into a room, we merely have to wave at him and he comes a running. He's very visual due to his deafness. He seems to see things the other cats either don't see or don't care to see. He's a champion shadow chaser and has caught and killed a million light reflections. They just don't stand a chance with him!
Well, that's Poohbear in a nutshell. I know I've forgotten a million wonderful things about my Pooh, but I'll try to add them as they occur to me. Thank you for sharing Pooh's story. He's a very special little kitty that brightens each and every day for us. I hope reading his story has somehow brightened your day, too.
I'M SORRY TO HAVE TO ADD HERE THAT MY LITTLE POOH PASSED AWAY JUNE 2005. THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AROUND HERE...EVER AGAIN.
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