Herbie the blind cat
One of our blog readers suggested naming this blind cat 'Herbie' after we described him as a 'lovebug' in a blog post. Herbie came from a shelter in Helena, Montana, where the staff adored him for his constant affection and purring. When they couldn't find a home for this sweet boy, they called us.
But before he came to the ranch, Herbie had to make a 'pit stop' at our vet clinic, where they removed a painful glaucoma eye. His remaining right eye is shrunken and sits back in the socket, but doesn't cause him any discomfort.
Now Herbie cruises around the cat house, playing with the other cats and going on adventures in the outdoor enclosure. When we pick him up, he'll rev his engine up to full-throttle. This lovebug is 100% powered by a purring motor!
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And he is one talkative cat. Herbie meows and meows for attention. What he does is zoom back and forth on the cat-perch shelves along the wall, calling out to us. When I say 'zoom,' we mean it … he's in constant motion. It's hard to believe he can't see a thing when he's like this. Herbie stays up on those shelves most of the time, or he's on top of the medical cages along the back wall.
He's up there so often, in fact, and comes down so rarely, that we finally put a litter box on top of those cages. It's not that he doesn't know how to come down … he manages to dive into the cat food tub on the floor when it's open. He apparently just prefers being a high-rise kitty.
But as long as we're in the cat house, Herbie is an insistent, loud cat, continually meowing at the top of his lungs. The only time he stops is when we start petting him, and then he downshifts into a loud purr. (Well, unless he's inside the cat food tub!) He's the kind of super-affectionate cat who would only be totally content if he were attached to you physically somehow. It drives him crazy if he knows we're there – oh so close! – but not paying attention to him. He interprets that to mean he's just not loud enough, so this is what he looks like then:
March 2008
