Saturday, March 15, 2008

Caring For A Special Needs Cat

Many of you have probably seen the video of Charlie, the "amazing cat with Cerebellar Hypoplasia." For those of you who have not, we have added Charlie's video clip from You Tube. The disease that Charlie has, Cerebellar Hypoplasia, is most often caused by a mother cat having distemper during pregancy. While Charlie may not suffer from distemper himself, his Cerebellar Hypoplasia, was more than likely a result of his mother carrying the virus during his birth. Watching this video of Charlie hopefully confirms why every cat should be vaccinated agaisnt this nasty virus. Cerebellar Hypoplasia, is not pretty. It causes neurological damage that can vary slightly like Charlie's to the extreme, leaving some kitties with a complete inability walk, or even move their legs. We are mentioning Charlie today, and Cerebellar Hypoplasia because it was one of the diseases that the vets originally suspected Moki had. While we have since ruled out Cerebellar Hypoplasia as the cause of Moki's neurological condition, we wanted to focus a little on Charlie, and the publicity this video gave to special needs cats and kittens. Many people after seeing Charlie's video wanted to adopt CH (Cerebellar Hypoplasia) kittens. Few however where fully prepared for taking care of these animals. Charlie drew alot of attention to CH and for that we are thankful, but unfortunately, Charlie only told one side of the story, the side which feature a cat who had no "special needs..."


This got us thinking...where we also guilty of presenting just one side of the story? Day in and day out, Moki requires special care. My boyfriend and I are so accustomed to providing this care, that it often escapes us, and has just become part of our daily activities/life. Since many people have never owned a special needs kitty like Moki, we are sure that many of you probably have lots of questions about what all goes into caring for Moki. In fact we have even received some emails to that effect...

It is with this in mind, that we want to open up Moki's blog, and get your feedback. What would you like to know about caring for a special needs kitty like Moki? What types of videos would you like to see about the care we provide him? Leave us your feedback and suggestions in the comments section, and we will shoot the videos next week. We will then feature a new blog posting everyday of the week, answering all your questions and showing you first hand, everything that goes into caring for a cat like Moki...