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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Hi You All<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In my search to find more Monitor articles dealing with ageing and blindness, I ran across this cute story about a blind couple and their adopted blind cat. (Yeah, my wife and I have a cat and a dog; not blind.) <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>If you have ever questioned if a blind person can or cannot manage, yet alone enjoy a household pet, then HEY… bet we will find more articles of blind people managing the care of animals, be these critters small or large.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This comes from the 2000 May issue of The Braille Monitor:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It's A Cat's Life<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>by Peggy Elliott<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>From the Editor: Having just enjoyed a little story that talks about mice, you now have an opportunity to consider cats. The following story is reprinted<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>from Remember to Feed the Kittens, the sixteenth in the NFB's Kernel Book series of paperbacks intended to educate the public about blindness. Peggy Elliott<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>tackles the job from a slightly different perspective. The article begins with President Maurer's introduction.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Doug and Peggy Elliott are both blind and live in Grinnell, Iowa. When they invited a tiny blind kitten to join them and their two sighted older cats awhile<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>ago, they told Kernel Book readers about little Sheriff and her insistence on being left alone to explore and do for herself. Now Peggy, who also serves<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>as Second Vice President of the National Federation of the Blind, brings us up to date on the growing blind cat, Sheriff.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Although it's hard to say for sure what Sheriff's adventures tell us about blindness, there is no question what they tell us about the Elliott household:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>it's a great place to be a cat! And perhaps it only stands to reason that a blind cat would try to make the same adaptations to cat life as a blind human<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>does to human living. In any case, for cat lovers it is a delightful story. Here is what Peggy has to say:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Our little blind kitten has grown into a nine-pound teenager, tomboy, and endless source of amusement and pleasure. When we last reported about Sheriff,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>she was a newcomer to our house, recently retrieved from the vet who had cured all her outside-kitty parasites and given us soothing ointment for her infected<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>eyes. Soothing is all we could do; Sheriff cannot see.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This has never bothered Sheriff. She's constantly busy. Most cats play with an object for a while and then lose it. Sheriff picks favorite toys and keeps<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>them around for weeks. The most recent one is a mouse with a bell on its tail. She'll smack it, chase it down, capture it, and smack again. When the game<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>is over for a time, she'll leave it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The thing about her, though, is that she remembers where. Later you'll see her carrying it in her mouth to a new hockey area or hear the bell jingling<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>in another room. Now we think one of the older cats has finally stolen and hidden the mouse. But Sheriff always finds another toy.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Cellophane packages are another favorite, and Wednesday grocery day with all the fresh sacks on the floor is a highlight of the week for Sheriff. She hasn't<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>done this for a while, but she used to find a sack, put her front paws and shoulders in, lie down, and push herself and the sack forward while making a<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>prrt prrt prrt sound for all the world like a little feline motorboat. When the sack would hit the cabinets and stop, she would go to find another and<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>repeat the process.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Toys are an important part of Sheriff's day. Of course anything she plays with has to make or create sound. I think it's fair to say her very favorite<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>toys are Doug and me.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>When she was tiny, Sheriff spent hours climbing up and down the ladders on our ladderbacked kitchen chairs. When she would reach the top, she would balance<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>there, all four feet on the top rung, very pleased with herself and sometimes bold enough to bat at a passing human toy.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She's too big now to do this climbing act; she'd just knock the chair over if she tried. So she's modified the game. Now she puts her back feet on the<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>seat of an empty chair and her front paws on the top rung. She positions herself there when a human toy is going to pass and then bats out at you, swatting<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>accurately at Doug or me as we pass.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It's amazing what Sheriff can find that fits the sound-making toy bill. One of us got a small electrical appliance, a tape recorder or something, that<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>came packed in Styrofoam peanuts. We already knew about Sheriff's love of peanuts. They make nice scratching sounds as they move across a surface.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This particular box with the peanuts got set under the bed in our bedroom and forgotten. Little Sheriff is always looking at her world and the details<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>of her world with her paws. She goes places and finds stuff the two older cats never do. One day she found the box.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The first we knew about Sheriff's discovery was when she arrived on the bed with a peanut and began hitting it around, chasing it, pouncing, hitting, all<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>while two humans were trying to get a little sleep.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>One of us took the peanut away and put it under a pillow as a temporary fix. Sheriff followed the sound of the peanut and looked with her paws on and then<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>around and then under the pillow. The peanut was too far under for her to find.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A little dejected (we thought) Sheriff hopped off the bed and, after a little time had passed, began batting another Styrofoam peanut around the floor.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I can't even begin to tell you how annoying the sound of a Styrofoam peanut and a joyful cat can be in the middle of the night. This went on for days.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I don't know how many times she kept us awake playing on the floor and how many times we got bounced by her frisking on the bed and how many Styrofoam<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>peanuts we confiscated before we found the forgotten box.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>And the little creep was clever enough to get the next one only after a pause so that we weren't sure what the distance was from her supply to the torture<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>chamber that the bedroom had become while she had access to the endless supply. It's gone now, and we're careful to throw all peanuts away the minute they<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>come in the house. She loves them as toys, but we like our sleep more.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It is constantly interesting to watch Sheriff exploring her environment. We got a new couch and love seat a few weeks ago, and Sheriff was immediately<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>there, feeling, jumping, using her paws to see the outlines.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She's the first cat of our three that found that the backs are wide and padded enough to accommodate a sprawled, sleeping cat comfortably. She's appropriated<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>the love seat as hers, and I've never seen either older cat up there.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>When she was still a kitten, Sheriff showed us that she has a clear map of the world around her in her mind. We had a recliner set at right angles to a<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>couch, with a coffee table in front of the couch. Sheriff would get on Doug's knee in the recliner, reach out with her paw to find the edge of the coffee<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>table, hop to the table, and then hop to the couch.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>After a while, we decided the coffee table was too much in that setting and removed it. For weeks thereafter Sheriff would get on Doug's knee, reach for<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>the edge of the coffee table, reach farther, lean way out, wave around with her paw. She was convinced for a long time that she just wasn't reaching far<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>enough since she knew there was a surface there. She's stopped doing it now, but she did it so many times we had to conclude that she really remembered<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>the table.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Sheriff is not afraid to try new routes. In an area she is not sure about, she checks with a paw before stepping. But then she remembers the pattern for<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>later. Our front stairs turn twice, and our back stairs turn once. At the top and bottom of both, one must pick angles to arrive at different locations.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Sheriff has taken to racing people up and down the stairs and winning. In the morning she waits at the top of the front stairs, usually used by the first<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>person up. When one of us starts down, she leaps into motion, races ahead, and invariably beats us to the kitchen. She's running all the way.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We tied a string on a knob of my dresser as a cat toy. Neither older cat has to my knowledge so much as looked at the string. For about nine months the<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>string formed part of Sheriff's morning ritual. She would flop down on the floor under the string and commence to swat, bite, kick, and roll in reaction<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>to and activation of the string.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The game would last for ten to fifteen minutes a day, and she kept this up for about nine months. She's tired of that game now and doesn't do it anymore.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>But it's clear that she intentionally went to the string each morning, knowing where it was and how to play the game.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Once Sheriff got caught in a little dead-end hallway off the main upstairs hall. (one of the older cats) was standing at the mouth of the dead-end,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>growling at her. I stepped over GirlKitty and started downstairs.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Then it occurred to me that there was a reason why GirlKitty, the only Sheriff hater I know, was growling. She was penning Sheriff in the dead-end. I stopped<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>about three steps down and reached through the widely-spaced rails into the dead-end. Sheriff was sitting right on the edge. I petted her and went on down<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>a few more stairs. Then I heard Sheriff flop onto the stairs. She had figured out that, if I was there, she could be there too.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She didn't quite know the distances, but she did know that she had been trapped and that I had showed her, she thought, a way out. She hasn't taken that<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>route since, but she was braver at trying than I probably would have been with the same information she had.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Speaking of how Sheriff thinks reminds me of the shrimp. We were having boiled shrimp one night, and we decided to put an empty bowl over the tails in<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>the tail bowl as a protection against marauding cats. All three know they are not supposed to be on the table and steal food, but, well, you know cats.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>If you leave an unusually juicy morsel unguarded, you have to take your chances. So we devised the tail bowl protector to save ourselves the trouble. First<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>we heard the bowl being investigated and moved a bit, followed by a disappointed Bobby (the other older cat) leaving the table with his trademark "prrrt"<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>as he jumps. Then the sounds were repeated followed by the more clumsy and non-verbal exit of GirlKitty. Then no sound for awhile.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Doug reached over to put a tail in the bowl and discovered little Sheriff industriously working on uncracking the puzzle. She had examined the container<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>with the good smells very carefully with her front paws and had gotten one paw in between the lips of the two bowls. When Doug happened to reach over,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Sheriff had the two bowls separated and was working her nose into the widening gap.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She had unlocked the puzzle neither older, sighted cat had had the patience or persistence to deconstruct and was about to graze upon the ambrosia easily<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>withheld from both older cats. Though I don't specifically remember, I can guess that either Doug or I rewarded her persistence after we removed her from<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>the table.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Then there are the dropped things in the kitchen. When a human is in the kitchen, Sheriff is usually there too, just in case. She wouldn't want to withhold<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>an opportunity from a human to give her treats. To be fair, she usually hangs around one of us wherever we are. But back to the kitchen.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Anything you drop, from an ice cube to a spoon to a few kernels of frozen corn escaped from the bag, anything--if Sheriff is in the kitchen, she will probably<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>find it more quickly than we do. The minute something hits the floor, she leaps into action, using her ears and her knowledge of the kitchen to run right<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>to the dropped thing and kill it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She seems to understand that these things are not usually subject to the game of cat hockey. It's just a mere matter of finding. And she likes to race<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>to the dropped object, being the first to find it. She's even come tearing in from the dining room, around the refrigerator and into the end of the kitchen<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>to find something.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Now that we know the game, it's a matter of pride to find the dropped thing before the cat does. But I would say that the score is about fifty-fifty, even<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>though the human doing the dropping is usually closer when the drop occurs. Sheriff's good.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The most fun thing of all about Sheriff, though, is her intense conviction that she can communicate. Some of the communication, of course, deals with food.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We recycle cans after washing them in the dishwasher and store them in the back hallway for the weekly city pick-up. When Sheriff was quite little, she<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>dug an empty, dishwashed tuna can out of the recycling bin and carried it over to Doug's feet, dropping it there as a statement of desire.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Sheriff has never repeated that ploy since it didn't work. But when someone opens the refrigerator, you may find Sheriff there, standing on her back legs<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>and touching the tuna can sitting on the second shelf at the left. She is always ready to let us know just where it is.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Sheriff also knows that her bell gives her away. Most of the time you can hear the bell merrily ringing as Sheriff trots along or rolls over during a nap.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Sometimes you'd swear she's intentionally ringing the bell louder when she's happy and running around. But there are other times when the bell goes silent.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Then you find a little cat nose or paw where it's not supposed to be.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>As I say, Sheriff is certain she can communicate her wishes. She likes to snuggle down in bed against one of us for the night. She has a favorite place<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>next to Doug, and she's sometimes ready for sleep before we are. Every now and then we'll be talking, and a sleepy paw will appear very gently on Doug's<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>mouth. The message is clear.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Respectfully yours,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Robert Leslie Newman<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>NFBN Senior Division, President<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Second Vice President, NFB Seniors Division<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>