ScapeGoat Sanctuary

This section provides answers to some of the more commonly asked questions.

Do Other Faculties compensate for the missing one?

After losing a sense or a limb, cats must rely on their remaining faculties. Many owners notice that the remaining senses may become more acute or remaining limbs may become stronger.  For example, a blind cat may have extremely acute hearing while a hind limb amputee may have front body strength comparable to a weightlifter.

Physical attributes are much the same. A cat that lacks one leg spreads his weight across his remaining limbs. Like anyone who weight trains in a gym, those muscles are used more and get stronger. In cats and dogs, the front limbs carry most of the weight, especially when moving. In a hind limb amputee, there is additional weight on the fore limbs and these develop even more than usual.  The muscle responds to the strain by growing and becoming stronger.

In addition to adaptive changes in the brain and muscles, cats use their intelligence to cope with disability.  A cat with mobility problems can often be watched figuring out the best route onto or off of a shelf - it might figure out a route where it can get onto the shelf in a series of steps with little jumps, rather than a single leap.  A blind cat might gauge the height of a chair seat by reaching up on hind legs to pat its forepaws on the seat before making the jump. A cat with one eye swivels its head to get several angles of view to get some depth perception before making a jump.

Where a sense is lost gradually, the brain can compensate over a long period of time. For example, we may not realize our cat is going deaf until all hearing is lost. Where a sense or limb is lost suddenly (illness or accident) the speed at which a cat adapts seems to be related to its age. It just takes older cats a little longer and the adaptation may be a little less perfect.

Do disabled pets become more affectionate than able-bodied ones? Is this gratitude towards their humans?

"Gratitude" is anthropomorphism - i.e.- reading human emotions into animals. Animals do have emotions (Do Cats Have Emotions?), but not the complex abstract emotions of humans because they perceive the world in a different way to us. A better explanation of the "gratitude effect" in disabled cats is that the cat allows itself to become more dependent on its human family. Cats frequently relate to humans as though we are parents (providing food and comfort) and they are juveniles. A disabled cat is even more likely to view the owner as provider and may exaggerate its own role as kitten. The owner makes additional efforts to accommodate a feline disability and the cat modifies its own behavior to suit this relationship - we may not even realize this is happening, but it is a continual process. Remember that cats interpret owner/cat relationships in feline terms, not in human terms.

Are cats with genetic disorders also genetically programmed to adapt in certain ways? For example are Twisty Cats genetically programmed to have stronger hind legs?

A Twisty Cat will have relied on its hind legs since kitten-hood hence these will have grown stronger. The same extra-strong hind legs would be seen if the kitten's forelegs were deformed through birth accident rather than genetic mutation. In genetic mutations, the gene(s) affected have all sorts of visible and invisible effects (there is not a one-gene-one-trait correlation) and it is possible, though unlikely, that some of the gene's effects will compensate for its other effects. However, it is more often the case that all of the genetic effects will be detrimental - throwing one part of a delicately balanced machine out of balance has a detrimental knock-on effect on other parts of that machine. Genes give cats the potential to develop in a certain way, the environment hones how the cat actually develops.

SUMMARY

A caring owner can think of other ways in which to help a disabled feline companion, but beware of being overprotective. A disabled cat still requires some semblance of independence to allow it to fulfill that inner 'catness' that we love in our feline friends. Most seem unaware of their disabilities and they do not expect life to make allowances, but a helping hand and some adjustments to their lifestyle and perhaps your own lifestyle will ensure a disabled cat has a healthy, happy and safe life.