Last year, the director of Wild At Heart Rescue, Missy Dubuisson, received a call concerning a kitten who had shown up on a local’s doorstep and was thought to have a strange eye infection.
Dubuisson quickly contacted Stephanie Roberts. Stephanie is a wildlife rehabilitator with Wild At Heart. Dubuisson asked Roberts if she wanted to care for the 3 month old kitten.
“I said ‘Sure,’” Roberts said. “And then Missy said, ‘I can’t find his eyes though. Please just find his eyes.’”
Roberts claims that Stevie was very unhealthy when he first came to her. He was very frail, and did have an eye infection so bad, that it left his eye sockets oozing. But, it was difficult to confirm without a vet examination if Stevie was blind or not. Especially, when he wasn’t running into things…he had no problem.
But, it turned out that Stevie was not only blind, but he was also missing his eyeballs entirely. It was quite a surprise.
Apparently, Stevie has a condition where he was born without eyes, although he has eye pockets
“Nobody did anything to him,” Roberts said. “He actually has a genetic condition. He either wandered off from somewhere or was dumped … It looks like he’s just squinting at you basically, like all the time. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t realize that he can’t see at all.”
Stevie is now 1 year old, and Roberts says that out of her four cats, he’s definitely the smartest.
Stevie slept one time in Roberts bed, and since then, he has been a permanent fixture in her home.
When he’s not out and about in his special stroller, Stevie plays fetch with Roberts’ daughter by listening for the ball.
But, don’t let Stevie fool you. He also has a naughty side to him. One time, he broke into the cages of Roberts’ pet bird and hamsters, sending the animals on the loose. So, don’t underestimate him just because of his disability.
“He knows the space very well,” Roberts said. “He has no idea he can’t see. He can do anything any other cat can do.”
This just proves that an animal’s disability is just replaced by even greater intelligence. Share with friends
