Deaf + Somewhat Disabled Cat Tips?

[epimeliade]

Hey,

I've been searching the internet for tips and advice owning a deaf cat for about a month now and I stumbled here, so I was hoping you guys could help me out. 

About two months ago I adopted Artemis, who is about 3 years old according to the vet. He's male, was fixed when I adopted him from the shelter, and he only has two toes on his back right paw. I got him this way, and paid for the last of his medical bills, as his foot was still healing when I got him. He had just come to the shelter and wasn't very friendly and wasn't currently adoptable when I found him. I waited and they released him early to me. He's all healed up now, his foot is looking great. He's generally pretty snuggly too - he likes to sleep under the covers with us at night a lot (I guess he likes knowing where we are?). He also prefers to sit by me on the couch if I'm doing something. He occasionally purrs super loud and wants to nap on us, which is adorable. 

My concern is that I might have ruined/hit a bump in our relationship early on. When I first brought him home, he was attached to my lap and purring constantly. Seeing me seemed to reassure him, even though he was freaked out by my studio apartment at first. He has since adjusted to my apartment, however, he's not quite as physically affectionate. We had to put a soft collar on him to prevent him from chewing his foot when it was still healing, and he wasn't ever quite as trusting of us after that. Movements towards his head sometimes freak him out more than before. He hated the collar and tried to get it off as much as he could, and rip it to shreds. Unfortunately his foot had to heal so we had to keep putting it on him every day when we went to work or left the house, since he would bite the scab if we didn't watch him. 

We're trying to be extra aware of how much of a surprise everything might be for him, because he can't hear things coming. It wasn't easy at first though, and he got startled by one of us appearing out of somewhere he didn't expect a few times. Today, for example, he was taking a nap under the covers of our bed (I still don't know why he likes it so much. The darkness might be comforting and safe?)

Normally I'm at work at the time of day he woke up, but I had the day off. As he slid out of the bed and looked over at me, I moved my foot, and he got so scared that I was there he jumped a couple feet in the air and ran away with a kind of pathetic meow. 

I feel really bad whenever it happens. Sometimes he lets me comfort him but sometimes he seems like he wants nothing to do with me. After I scared him he just sat three feet away and looked at me with these "how could you" eyes and then turned his head away from me and started thumping his tail. Cat shaming. He got over it but I hate it when my cat is mad at me, haha. 

He exhibits strange behavior like this sometimes. It all seems to revolve around something confusing or startling him, but I don't know what to do about him getting scared by ... nothing, a lot of the time. He's also obsessed with the one window we open in our little apartment, and because it overlooks a street in a city, he's always seeing people, cars, and dogs going by outside. He doesn't trust the window at all, despite being on the 10th floor and nowhere near the outside. Even if I have the blinds down all the time he still stares at the window sometimes. I can't tell if he enjoys surveying it or if it's stressing him out, and yet again, I don't know why or what to do about it. 

My best guess has been that something outside or in his house at one point attacked him and he had no idea where it came from, it scared the **** out of him, and now he's forever a little bit paranoid. He'll run under my blankets if something outside is super upsetting to him, like a dog in broad daylight (rarer now that it's winter in Seattle, it's always grey.)

I don't really mind any of his behavior, and he's a good cat, I just want to keep working with him to gradually make him more comfortable, because I'm mostly just concerned as to whether he's happy or not.

His foot stops him from being quite as agile as he wants to be, as well, and I'm worried it kind of hurt his self confidence. He used to really go after a string feather toy I have for him, until he slipped trying to catch it and fell off my bed =( 

Any tips for restoring his confidence, any disabled-cat friendly games or toys, or advice for deaf cat communication? I've had lots of cats, just none with special needs before. 

 

[Columbine]

Thank you so much for taking this sweet boy in. He's lucky to have found you.

I have no experience with special needs cats either. You might find these articles helpful though[article="29797"][/article][article="32735"][/article]

@Cassiopea and @Winchester have deaf cats, I think. They may be able to offer more help.

 

[cinqchats]

I read an article once about how to get a deaf dog's attention. It said that you should get them used to being touched from behind (so you could get their attention) by touching them and then immediately offering a treat. Could you work out some kind of training like that for your boy? 

Don't worry about his foot, we had a cat in the shelter who was missing almost all the toes on one front foot. She was shy but she could do just about anything the other cats did. Just took a different way about it.

 

[epimeliade]

His hind foot affects his ability to land, so I do think it's a little bit of a stress factor for him (I've seen him slip a few times on accident), but he doesn't seem to care that the toes are gone. He's just confused that he's slipping when he doesn't expect it. However, I have noticed he's just learning what he can and can't do, so I think it will be ok. He never seemed to be saying to me "my toes are gone!". Just "I can't do what I used to!"

He doesn't really mind being touched, especially by me, if I let him know I'm around first. He also responds with a slightly startled chirp but not a scared one if he's wokenwhile sleeping by me. If my boyfriend does it though, he sometimes becomes upset. My boyfriend has no cat experience while I have years, though. 

Ironically since posting this my cat has really perked up, and after talking with my boyfriend, we realized he was adjusting to a new feeding schedule. We used to always leave high quality dry food out for him, but we recently switched to mostly wet food and only keeping dry food out for him when we aren't home if he gets really hungry. Seeing an empty food bowl was upsetting him a lot early on though, haha. He would sit by his feeding area and just kind of pout, but we didn't realize that was affecting how he was interacting with us the rest of the time. 

I've developed a few hand signals that he's responding to after a lot of repetition, mostly just so he knows I'm trying to call him over. He usually gets a treat if he responds to a specific signal. He can't jump very high, so we haven't had to tell him to get off of anything yet. It's actually really nice - every other cat I've owned looooves my counter tops, but he just can't get up there, so he doesn't even try. He does have a lot of lower level "high" places though, and he can climb on the couch to get up even higher.

If anyone has a deaf cat though, I'm still interested in any tips!