I can enjoy a cat's company, but my husband really dislikes cats -- that was, until a few months ago.

I was leaving the local climbing gym early one night, and as I walked to my car, I saw a little orange and white cat wandering in the parking lot. I "meowed" to him, and he did not respond. I walked a little closer and could see that he had a huge gapping wound on his side. I walked closer and scooped him up, and he did not protest, squirm, or fight. He was filthy, tired, and clearly very injured.

I carried him back into the climbing gym to my husband, where I received a look of "OH NO, not another stray animal." (We already have two stray dogs we adopted.) I knew we had to get the cat off the street and told my husband that I would take him over to our neighbors, who work for the local SPCA shelter.

That night, I drove past the neighbors, but they were not home. Instead, I brought him home and sat down on the floor to allow our dogs to start sniffing the strange new creature I had in my lap. The cat did not do anything. He just sat there, purred, and let the dogs sniff him.

He was content despite what looked like a huge bite wound on his side. Once I realized the dogs were not going to do the cat any harm, I let him down to watch him move around the living room.

The manner in which he walked struck me as strange. He would take very slow and calculated paces until he hit a solid object like a wall, or piece of furniture. Then he would follow the solid object with his whiskers until he hit another object or the object fell away. In this manner, he "traced" the living room, then our kitchen.

I realized that the cat was blind. I held him, looked into his eyes, and they reacted to light and dark by dilating the pupils, but he would not follow a moving object or flinch at sudden movements.

The following day, I tried to convince fellow co-workers who liked cats to adopt him, but all said they had too many, and tried to convince me that I needed to adopt the cat. I tried to get a rescue shelter to take him, but they refused. Finally, I called every veterinarian in our community trying to find the cat's owner.

Deep down inside, I knew I could not give him up. Even my husband took a liking to him. We named him Katu (Basque for cat). Subsequently, we discovered that Katu is not only blind, but deaf as well.

Katu is quite at home with us. He will charge, attack, and pounce his imaginary prey until he is ready to eat. He loves to find where my husband is sitting, curl up on his chest, and purr contentedly.

He uses the doggie door to go in and out to the backyard where he finds his favorite spot, under one of our Japanese maples, to hang out with my husband and the dogs. And when Katu gets a little disoriented, he'll cry loudly until one of the dogs comes and gives him a lick and leads him to the edge where he can find his way back to the house again. He has memorized the house, pushes open doors if he wants in and has firmly made his place in our home.

We often joke that Katu is a dog stuck in a cat's body since he loves to give "kisses" and begins a steady drool when he is happily being cuddled and rubbed.

Two non-cat people have found their one and only Katu.

Copyright © Micheline Fairbank
June 6, 2001