Born Without Eyes and Later Abandoned, a Humble Kitten Appropriately Named Angel Has Hope for a Brighter Tomorrow

Angel

"Kittens are angels with whiskers."
-- Anonymous

Neither nature nor humans are always kind to cats. Like some men and women, they are occasionally the victims of outrageous coups du sort. Such is the fate of four-week-old Angel.

She most likely knew her mother for only a few days before she was cruelly taken from her for some unknown reason. She then fell into the clutches of a heartless individual who dumped her at the Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County.

These events are not unusual in themselves. Millions of cats are born homeless every year and, worst still, many of them lose their mothers soon thereafter to exterminators, ailurophobes, motorists, and other predators. Mercifully, most feral cats are born whole and about twenty per cent of them are able to survive on their own.

A kitten born in the wild with a severe handicap, however, has little chance of surviving, especially if she is born without eyes as was the case with Angel.

In spite of her cruel fate, the brave little kitten is making the best of an extremely difficult situation. "You almost don't know she can't see until you look at her eyes," shelter worker Cecily Joque told KOMO-TV of Seattle on February 16, 2007. (See "Cat Born with No Eyes, but You'd Never Know by Watching Her.")

Other than being unable to see, she behaves pretty much like any other kitten. She is energetic, likes toys, and wants to be with people. "She's not missing anything if you think about it," Joque added. "She's got a very good sense of where she is."

This is because she, like blind men and women, uses her other senses in order to get around and to avoid tumbling off the edges of tables and other high places. "She can smell and she can hear. So if you're standing by her cage, she'll grab your pants leg. Or if you're cleaning a cage above her or right next to her, she'll reach out and grab your hair. Or anything else she can get her little paws on," Joque related.

Although Angel's horrendously bad luck took a turn for the better when she arrived at the Tacoma shelter, she is far from being out of the woods. She is slated to undergo surgery in order to remove her tear ducts and to sew shut her eyelids. The procedures, which are being provided gratis by Dr. Tim Gintz of Pacific Avenue Vet, are designed to prevent infections.

She will require about a month to recuperate and then she will be put up for adoption. Additional information is available at www.thehumanesociety.org and a video of her can be found on KOMO-TV's website.

If the surgery is successful and she is placed in a loving home there is not any reason that she cannot have a long and happy life. Winky Sam found himself in a similar situation but things eventually turned around for him. (See Cat Defender post of August 25, 2005 entitled "Winky Sam, a Cat with Only One Eye and Steadily Going Blind, Finally Finds a Home in Port St. Lucie.")

Other cats have learned to live with a wide range of disabilities. A kitten named Zoe had her ears deliberately cut off last autumn in Texas but she nonetheless survived and a deaf Angora cat named Stone somehow made it through last summer's fighting in Lebanon. (See Cat Defender posts of October 27, 2006 and January 11, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Tiny Kitten Named Zoe Has Her Ears Cut Off by Fiends but Texas Police Do Not Seem to Care" and "Deaf Angora Cat Named Stone Survives the War in Lebanon to Find a New Home in Illinois.")

Other cats, such as Tripod and Opie, have lost limbs to automobiles and gone on to lead productive lives. (See Cat Defender posts of February 9, 2006 and November 2, 2006 entitled, respectively, "Newspaper Cat Named Tripod Is Killed Off by Journalists He Befriended in Vermont" and "Three-Legged, Bobtailed Cat Named Opie Melts the Hearts of Hardened Criminals at Rural Tennessee Prison.") Even Hopalong Cassidy was able to overcome losing a limb in a deadly leghold trap. (See Cat Defender post of August 18, 2005 entitled "Brave Orange Tabby Cat Dubbed Hopalong Cassidy Loses Limb to Leghold Trap in British Columbia.")

Whereas many shelters and veterinarians continue to view a disability as just one more reason to kill a cat or a dog, the fact that some of them are beginning to recognize that these animals have a right to both treatment and life is an extremely positive development. Both the Tacoma shelter and Dr. Gintz are therefore to be commended for the compassion that they have shown Angel.

Her valiant struggle to live in spite of the monumental odds against her is not only an inspiration to all cat lovers but a poignant reminder of just how fortunate all animals, man included, are to be born intact and healthy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed these sentiments rather well when he wrote:

"For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter at night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything, Thy goodness sends."

Photo: KOMO-TV.