Rolling Dog Farm Blog

This afternoon I was walking past the cats’ outdoor enclosure when I heard this very loud "meow-meow- meow!"  It was the kind of insistent meow that’s designed to get your attention.  I looked over and saw blind Cinder happily perched inside the cat condo.  It’s like she wanted me to notice her in there.  I hurried back to the house to get the camera.

Cinder, who lost her sight from progressive retinal atrophy, is the most fearless blind animal we have — and we have 50 blind animals at the ranch, so that’s saying something!  For example, she climbs up on the wall shelves in the cat house without any hesitation, and then leaps down to the floor 5 feet below with a carefree "bombs away!" attitude.  You can tell by the way her feet hit the floor she doesn’t really know where the surface is before she goes airborne, but land on all four feet she does.  She will go anywhere and explore anything.

Because Cinder doesn’t look blind — see how bright her eyes are! — visitors don’t realize anything’s wrong with her.  They’ll come into the cat house, see this beautiful black cat 5 feet up on a wall shelf meowing at them, and they’ll reach over to pet her … only to have Cinder suddenly startle when their hand touches her head because she didn’t see it coming.

When the weather started warming up in recent days, we began leaving the cat house window open that provides access to the outdoor enclosure.  Of course, being blind Cinder didn’t know what the window opened onto, but she realized some of the other cats were going through it … and in her typical fashion, Cinder decided to discover for herself.  Now she spends a good part of every day outdoors, exploring the enclosure or just hanging out in the condo. 

(Click on photo for larger image.)