Posts tagged "BlindCat"

Our friend Oskar the blind kitten is back again, and now he's getting into the holiday spirit. Cat owners know that setting up and decorating the holiday tree may be made into an infinitely more harrowing ordeal than usual if there's a curious cat around. It turns out that whether or not that cat can see makes little different.

Do you remember our old friend Jack Tripper, the cat who was born without eyes? We learned from Jack (and his owner, Jamie) that a cat can adapt quite well to its environment when born blind. "He loves toys that he can hear," Jamie told us when we asked her what kinds of toys a blind cat plays with.

Rattle mice and plastic balls with bells in them are all well and good, but variety is the spice of life. Sometimes you have to make your own fun with your blind pet. 5-month-old Oskar, who also was born without eyes, can be seen in this video playing with his favorite improvised toy: a hair dryer! Says Oskar's owner, "His blindness does not hold him back at all. He can do pretty much everything that our 'normal' cat Klaus can do."

That old cliché, love is blind, couldn't be closer to the truth when it comes to a cat named Homer.

Twelve years ago, Homer was a sick and abandoned kitten rescued by a Miami couple. A vet determined the infection plaguing the two-week-old kitten's eyes was so severe, his best chance of survival depended on removing his eyes entirely. The couple wanted to put him to sleep rather than subject him to such a trying surgery, but the vet convinced them to let her do the procedure and find the cat a new owner.

Enter Gwen Cooper, who now recounts 12 years worth of adventures with Homer in the sure-to-be-bestseller Homer's Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat.

Before embarking on her latest odyssey -- a book tour -- Cooper talked with Paw Nation about Homer's amazing life story.