SEEING EYE CAT

by Anne Jordan (Australia)

      We hear a lot about seeing-eye dogs and their wonderful work in guiding blind people.   I would like to tell you about my seeing-eye cat who helped to guide his dog friend who went completely blind.

      Mancat was one of a litter of six newborn kittens tossed into the garbage by persons unknown at my husband's work place. Naturally, my husband bought them home and I bottle-fed them. Mancat's five pretty sisters all found wonderful new homes and were of course spayed.

      Mancat was a very ordinary looking black and white kitten.  No one wanted him so he stayed.

      Mancat grew into a very large and very beautiful cat.  He was raised with my dogs and formed a special attachment for Mary, my old black Pug. Due to an old injury, Mary was blind in one eye and the sight was failing in the other.  She was fourteen when she went completely blind.

      We only realized her sight was gone when we noticed Mancat's behaviour.  He started walking beside Mary wherever she went.  If I moved a piece of furniture he carefully guided her around it.  When she walked outside and down the steps to do what dogs have to do in the garden, he went with her.  He stood beside her at meal times to make sure the other dogs didn't take an unfair advantage and raid her dinner bowl.  He even guided her into bed at night.

      As she grew older, we made little steps so Mary could still climb on our bed, the place where she always slept.  Every night this wonderful cat helped the old dog negotiate the steps.  Then he curled up beside her to sleep.

      Mancat was Mary's eyes for the next two years, until she passed peacefully away at the age of sixteen.  He mourned for her in the few months he survived after her death.

      I was taking the dogs and cats for their evening walk in the back paddock when they startled a Tiger snake.  A highly venomous and aggressive Australian snake, Mancat was the one bitten.  He didn't make it to the vet.  We buried him beside Mary, his friend.

      I know this is a sad story but I think it is also a beautiful one.  I will never forget the love and loyalty of my seeing-eye cat.

          -- Anne Jordan    <deerhounder @ bigpond.com>

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Anne says, "This is my third Petwarmers story.  My first was Boodi the White Toy Poodle in 2000.  Husband Adrian and I have now moved to Tropical Far North Queensland, Australia.  Most of our animal friends were very old and have passed on in the last few years, but we still have a middle aged Scottish Deerhound, an elderly Pug (Mary's great grand daughter) and three elderly rescued cats."

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