Not a diabetes question, so hope this is okay.
Got a new kitten 6 weeks ago. Maggie is now just about 8 months old. When we got her, she had been recently spayed, wormed (hookworms), and flea-stuff treated, before being shipped 600+ miles north to a local shelter. We took her to our vet right away. He declared her healthy, worm and ear-mite free, but she had a lot of dark gunk in her ears, which he cleaned out. She's half Maine Coon, so she has furry ears, and you cannot easily look inside, between the fur and her being a squirmy kitten, but it doesn't look like much of anything is building up in there; but again, you can't get a good look down deep.
I am noticing that she doesn't respond to calling, clapping, dogs barking, snapping, much of anything. But then, sometimes, she does, or the timing just seems so. But, she's a kitten, and therefore a bit of a squirly screwball. Could she just be so intent on whatever has caught her interest, or in preparing to pounce on it, that she is too focused to hear? I don't even see an ear twitch, most of the time.
Just now she was threatening to get through my houseplant defenses at the other end of the room, so I started calling to her, then shouting, clapping, whistling, it wasn't until I banged on a small table at my end that I saw her ears twitch my way for a couple moments. Then she was then sitting on the floor among her toys, grooming for a few seconds, and I started tapping the bars of her crate (we have big excitable dogs, so when no one is with her, she goes into a giant crate-pen for safety), not a twitch. Then she went into the crate to eat some of her food, when I tapped on it this time, she immediately looked up, but since she was on a shelf, she would have felt it.
Is there some sure way to confirm that either she hears or she doesn't? I'm finding it hard with her being a kitten, not knowing that she follows me into the bathroom because she hears me calling her, or because she's noticed I'm missing and figures that's where I am (she loves to play in the sink when I have the water on) and the same for leaving the room, and does she ignore me calling and whistling because she's young and distracted, or because she can't hear me?
If she's deaf or partly deaf, then I would change my approach at calling and teaching her. No use stressing word commands if she can't hear them, now is there.
Got a new kitten 6 weeks ago. Maggie is now just about 8 months old. When we got her, she had been recently spayed, wormed (hookworms), and flea-stuff treated, before being shipped 600+ miles north to a local shelter. We took her to our vet right away. He declared her healthy, worm and ear-mite free, but she had a lot of dark gunk in her ears, which he cleaned out. She's half Maine Coon, so she has furry ears, and you cannot easily look inside, between the fur and her being a squirmy kitten, but it doesn't look like much of anything is building up in there; but again, you can't get a good look down deep.
I am noticing that she doesn't respond to calling, clapping, dogs barking, snapping, much of anything. But then, sometimes, she does, or the timing just seems so. But, she's a kitten, and therefore a bit of a squirly screwball. Could she just be so intent on whatever has caught her interest, or in preparing to pounce on it, that she is too focused to hear? I don't even see an ear twitch, most of the time.
Just now she was threatening to get through my houseplant defenses at the other end of the room, so I started calling to her, then shouting, clapping, whistling, it wasn't until I banged on a small table at my end that I saw her ears twitch my way for a couple moments. Then she was then sitting on the floor among her toys, grooming for a few seconds, and I started tapping the bars of her crate (we have big excitable dogs, so when no one is with her, she goes into a giant crate-pen for safety), not a twitch. Then she went into the crate to eat some of her food, when I tapped on it this time, she immediately looked up, but since she was on a shelf, she would have felt it.
Is there some sure way to confirm that either she hears or she doesn't? I'm finding it hard with her being a kitten, not knowing that she follows me into the bathroom because she hears me calling her, or because she's noticed I'm missing and figures that's where I am (she loves to play in the sink when I have the water on) and the same for leaving the room, and does she ignore me calling and whistling because she's young and distracted, or because she can't hear me?
If she's deaf or partly deaf, then I would change my approach at calling and teaching her. No use stressing word commands if she can't hear them, now is there.
