Many of you know that I have an old cat... almost as old as my daughter B...(sorry B)LOL Honestly she is 21 this year, and so far in not bad health. She stopped jumping up from floor height to the table or the counter top a few years back, but other than that she is holding her own if you know what I mean.
Now Fluffy (thats her name) is a talker, I mean she likes drinking fresh water, so she will race me to the bathroom at nite or first thing in the morning to meow to me, to pick her up and turn the tap on in the sink so she can get a drink.
I splurged last year and bought her one of those fountain drinking bowl and its runs all day long.....but the bubbling sound of the water while I'm trying to sleep is just too much and I have to unplug it so I can sleep thru the nite without peeing 4 or 5 times in 7 hours....lol But she loves the sink and I love talking to her, teasing her with words... then lovingly lifting her up and placing her on the side of the sink and turning the tap on while she laps at the light flow of water. It makes her happy, so it makes me happy.
She sleeps alot, but at her age, I figure she deserves that much... and with the current recall on cat food, her and Dora (our younger cat, and yes JJ named her...lol) are getting the premo canned cat food.... well there is nothing else left of the shelf, to be honest...lol and they are happy and meowing almost 24/7 for me to go to the fridge and open it up and head to their bowls... they are getting spoiled!
So back to my point....lol I talk to my animals like they are people, I mean I have always done that,,, but maybe more so now that I am home during the day alone with JJ's in school and N at work.... and the dogs bark their answers back to me and the cats meow in response to my talking.... well until recently that is. I have come to the obvious conclusion that Fluffy is deaf !
Now, I should of recognized this a while ago,,,, silly me I thought she was mad at me....lol or ignoring me....lol like I was rambling on and she just wanted me to shut up!! lol But the fact remains that she just doesn't hear a sound going on in this noisy house, her ears don't twitch when you make the pursed lip together sound or the psst, psst , pissst sound that usually gets her running to you to see what treat I might have for her. If she is lying on my lap facing away from my face and I call her name, her ears don't move at all, and if I touch her I startle her. Its quite sad actually....
She is getting great sleep mind you, but I got to thinking about how strange her world must be now. I mean with two dogs to bark and chase her around, she no longer can hear the day to day noise that she use to.... she can't hear the dogs barking or sneaking up on her. Everything is silent. She can see my mouth moving while I talk to her, but she can't understand what I'm saying anymore... and even with this knowledge I find I still talk to her, then laugh at myself for doing so.... like does it make a difference really, she is a cat, did she ever REALLY understand what I was saying to start with? Now that she is deaf, does it make a difference whether I talk to her or not? Funny isn't it how we view things when something changes....
It really doesn't make a difference, its how we now perceive HER, not that her intelligence has some how dropped to some other level, like maybe that of a hamster or something.....lol She is still my precious Fluffy, she is still my tiny lap cat who has been a constant companion for the past 21 years, my funny cat who really prefers running water to that sitting still in a bowl.... Do we do that to people too? Once they loose a sense or get sick and unable to keep up do we treat them different or look at them differently too? I think we might, but thats kind of a sad realization isn't it? Maybe Fluffy becoming deaf is a lesson for me, for all of us really. To acknowledge that our short comings don't stop us from being who we are, and certainly shouldn't stop how other treat us in the end. She is still Fluffy, deep down... and yes, I'm going to continue to talk to her......
