Trust, confidence, and unlearning the negative narrative
The information available about caring for blind cats back in 2019 was, for the most part, negative — so much so that I started calling it the negative narrative. There wasn’t much to look forward to as a blind cat, lol.
I’ve thought about that a lot since. What was actually known about blind cats? And how much of it was based on assumption — people who could see, applying logic to animals who couldn’t?
Cats and people can’t communicate, so logic filled the gaps. Blind cats — and blind animals in general — were classed as special needs.
Cats that couldn’t live independently.
Cats that couldn’t socialise with seeing cats.
Cats that couldn’t go outside or into a garden — too dangerous.
Cats that couldn’t be picked up and carried.
In my opinion, special needs is an unfair and unkind label when applied this broadly. It’s often given by people who have never lived with blind cats, or taken the time to see what they’re capable of when given the chance. It’s a generalisation.
Any animal that can turn a disability into an ability, and live a full life — as normal as possible — is special, not special needs.
This might surprise you, but my blind cats have taught me that they don’t want sympathy when something goes wrong. They want to carry on being cats.
Harry taught me that early on.
As a kitten, he was running and playing in the garden when he collided with a plant pot. He looked stunned, so I picked him up, spoke softly, and checked him over. His response? He swung around, caught me on the face with his paws, and demanded to be put back down.
If I had to guess, he was embarrassed.
He shook himself off and went straight back to what mattered — playing. The pot, on the other hand, was remembered. It was unlikely to happen again.
Blind cats have a method — and it’s brilliant — which I’ll cover in a later chapter. No sympathy required. Just time, confidence, and the space to show what they can do.
The biggest hurdle a blind cat faces is often us — people — and our lack of confidence in them. They are flesh-and-bone cats, not tissue paper wrapped around porcelain.
Caring for blind cats is about us, and how much time we’re prepared to give them to live their best lives.
Every situation is different. This is our journey, and the first real test was bonding. In truth, it had already begun during quarantine.
Learning How to Bond with Blind Cats
Online help was limited, but a few early posts stuck with me.
One, in particular, made me sad. A woman wrote that she’d lived with two blind cats but had never picked them up for a cuddle-carry. She believed that putting them down somewhere else would confuse them, cause panic, and lead to injury.
At the time, I didn’t have the experience to challenge that belief — I just felt sad for the cats.
Today, I live with nine blind cats and one one-eyed cat. Most of them — not all — love a carry. Some will even let me know when they’re ready to be picked up, as many of you will have seen in our videos.
I can pick them up from anywhere — in the house or out in the garden — and put them down somewhere else, even at the far end of the garden, without confusion or panic. They always know where they are.
Again, this comes down to their method, which I’ll explain properly in the next chapter.
Caring for blind cats is mostly common sense. It isn’t rocket science.
Two early posts helped enormously. One offered advice I still use with all my cats today. The other gave me hope.
It came from someone in the US who had a blind cat that fought raccoons and chased a squirrel up a tree. At that moment, the clouds parted and the sun came out. A blind cat living its life as a cat.
If there was one, there could be more.
There were — but it would take years to find them.
How We Began to Bond
The final post I found was about bonding — and this is where we began.
Talk to your blind cat as soon as possible. Let them get used to your voice. Speak or make a noise before entering a room so you don’t startle them. Give them a name early. If they were ever lost or confused, your voice — their name — could guide them back to you.
Then came my favourite part.
Bring yourself down to their level. Literally.
Talk to your blind cat in a silly, exaggerated voice. This was a challenge for me — my voice is deep — but I gave it my highest-pitched effort.
Two tiny heads tilted upwards.
Bingo, a way in.
Next was getting down on the floor with them. Let them find you. Let them sniff you. Sniffing plays a huge role in the life of a blind cat. Let them learn your scent. That’s how trust begins.
Blind cats are naturally curious. Once trust is there, exploring you becomes a game — and games are fun. Fun helps blind kittens and cats relax.
I still use this today when filming in the garden or on the mountain. I lie down to film. The seeing cats reach me first, then the blind cats — and it becomes a game for everyone.
Bonding, like so much else with blind cats, comes down to time spent. When you bond with a blind cat, it’s a bond broken only in death.
I treat every blind cat as an individual. Some arrive here and bonding is instant. Others are shy, nervous, or difficult.
Harry took three months.
William took a year and a half — and then he became one of my shadows. Even now, he’s never far from me, and very much a cuddle-carry fan.
The lives of those two blind kittens were never going to be simple.