New addition!

[Thai]

Yesterday this guy's owners signed him over to me. They'd had him and his sibling since they showed up at their country home as kittens. His brother was able to hear but he's completely deaf. In September his brother passed away. Because the people aren't "cat people" he wasn't getting attention much except for when their 9 and 11 year old children played with him. There was probably more to that but I didn't push (other than to verify that he's not having behavior problems or illness) because it seemed like the whole family was done with him. Anyways, here he is, two years old and so so handsome!

[Zilla]

Awe what's his name??? Snowball?? He's so pretty!


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App

[my5kitties]

Wow! It's usually blue-eyed white kitties that are deaf. He's a stunner that's for sure. Does he have a name...besides handsome boy? lol

[Thai]

he has several names already but we're probably going with Frost until we know him better. His other names are more of jokes.. when his owners approached us at first they called him a "Death" cat because he can't hear so he's death. So his other names were all morbid jokes that mom and I will throw in now and then.. "Vicious, fury, rage, torment, destroyer, etc." But Frost is nicer for now.

[Thai]

If I remember correctly, the studies on deaf white cats yielded results similar to:

Both eyes blue- up to 80% of these are deaf
One eye blue- up to 40% of these are deaf, usually in the same side as the blue eye (most go undetected due to hearing in the other ear)

Cat breeds with congenital deafness

Purebred cats are less likely to have deafness than mixed breed cats and congenital deafness is caused by the deterioration of the three bones inside the ear by the age of 3 weeks. Due to cats being neonatal at birth, most congenitally deaf cats have never heard anything before or had heard for such a short time in a young age that they don't remember having heard in the first place.

The reason behind the blue eyes-white cats-deafness is the white pigment genes. Two white cats breeding together causes the recessive genes to become more prevalent. Similar to breeding problems that cause "lethal white" animals but not as deadly to the offspring.

[coyt]

How about the name Ghost? it's kind of morbid without being too scary in my opinion If I had a white cat I know that's what I'd name him

and he is handsome! how nice of you to take him in!

[jadis]

He's very pretty! I have had several white cats over the years, Snowball, Sugar, Spice, and Casper. I was a kid when we had Snowball, my parents used to say she was "retarded", but looking back I'm pretty sure she was deaf and not retarded.

[Leazie]

I'm glad that you took him as it sounds like his first home wasn't a happy one for him.