I found out the hard way that most all white cats with blue eyes are deaf. We had a beautiful white cat named Gadget when #1 son was small. She was a lovely little dear. She was very sweet but never seemed to come when she was called. She roamed around, oblivious, most of the time. I didn’t think much about it since most cats I’d ever known had put me on ignore on many occasions.
Our neighbors at the time had three large dogs. They even said one of the dogs was half wolf. Poor little Gadget got stuck in their garage one night when they shut the door and the dogs mauled her. She was discovered while still alive but her lung had been punctured. She rasped for a bit as I cried and then she died. The vet told me that as many as 85 percent of pure white cats with two blue eyes are born deaf. If they have some color or only one blue eye, the chances of the cat being deaf are much less.
I was stunned and had I known she was deaf and not just stubborn, she’d have never been allowed outside. It was a hard lesson for my son and for me. Very sad.
The reason I’m offering this as a Friday fact is that, first of all, I’m trying to be diverse with these little tidbits. But secondly, I think a beautiful deaf cat could be used in lots of ways. Paranormal: a deaf cat that’s a shape shifter who can hear in human form; Contemporary: a pet that gets lost and the fireman (cliche- so use the meter reader if necessary) that finds it is a hot, sexy man; Regency: the heroine is feared/unaccepted by the ton because she has a white cat that can’t hear and she carries it to keep it safe; and lots of ideas for fantasy come to mind as well.
See if you can put a pretty pussy cat in your WIP. Could be fun.
Jillian Chantal 
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