Billy is sooooo smart!! pt 2

Okay....I am trying to fill in Billy's first two weeks in just two posts...after that, I will update more frequently. I could write about Billy every single day. :) He is just amazing. I believe I left off with him being able to scale the gate so we ended up taking it down. One thing about blind kitties....well atleast ours, is that they sure have a good memory when it comes to getting around! Billy's first few days, he stayed in the living room. One or two times, when we were with him we would take the gate down and he would start to walk into the middle room. We were trying to experiment with ways for Billy to be able to tell the difference between the two rooms. A recommended way for a blind cat to tell the difference between two rooms is to spray perfume/room spray or light a certain candle in the rooms so that the cat can differentiate the smell. Once he got to the kitchen, he was fine because he would tell it was tiled...it was the two carpeted rooms that gave him trouble.
We had different candles in each room, and it seemed to help. Once he got into the middle room, he would make a straight beeline into the kitchen. He LOVES the kitchen. I don't know if its because its usually a little cooler due to the tiled floor, or because more light gets in from the windows, or all the magical toys we buy seem to congregate in the kitchen...but he loves it. It could also be that he was so sick of being stuck in one room that ANY room seemed amazing. He finds new things to do in the kitchen still. There are cabinets to try to climb on, chairs he wants on, a baby stroller that he has learned to climb all the way to the top, and wonderful open windows where he sleeps in the sun and catches nice breezes. With how much time he spends in the window, you would think he could see out it. :)
One of Billys favorite activities, is sleeping with Joey. Only 2 weeks apart in age, Joey is about twice the size of Billy....although with how much Billy eats, he will catch up soon I am sure. Billy loves to follow Joey around until they eventually end up playing together. At first, I was like a scared first time mama with the playing! They were very rough...Joey would just jump right onto Billy and tackle him...and they would roll around for ages like that. Sometimes Billy would let out little cries, and I thought for sure that Joey was hurting him. Billy can hold his own though, and would climb into the couch and leap down onto Joey. Lately, they have taken to napping together....in the stroller, in the funniest of positions.

Billy has done so well adjusting...he now can walk around the entire downstairs floor of our house and doesn't run into anything unless we move stuff on him. He has not had any accidents in the house, he has learned where all the litter boxes are, and regularly uses them...even the covered litter box which we had read that most blind cats will not use! He loves to perch on things...anything and everything he can! He fearlessly climbs the couch to sleep on the back, or the chair, stroller, windowsill. He does get confused sometimes...the first time he climbed up to lay in the window, when he was ready to get down a couple hours later, he forgot how he got up there (he climbed the stroller, than walked from one sill to the second and fell asleep in the second)...he turned around a couple times trying to get a feel for where he was, and started to quietly cry in his scared "mew". I talked to him quietly trying to get him to learn on his own..he felt around the sill, and the edge with his paws like he was trying to judge distance and figure out if he could make the jump. After a couple minutes, I just felt bad for him because he was too scared to jump, and I got him down. He is so smart, and he amazes us daily with the things he can do, so I don't think I am hurting him with helping him every once in awhile!
Somethings I have learned with having a blind kitten:
1. He will learn who his "mom & dad" are by their smell, sound and feel. He knows his mama talks to him softly, usually wears a tank top & he can feel skin instead of cloth, and holds him up close to hear hear and nuzzles him. He knows his dad because he always has some kind of tee or polo on, has a deeper voice, and naps with him. He has only met a couple other people since we have had him, and his first instinct is to go up to the person and smell them before deciding if he will let them pet him or not.
2. While it is not recommended to pick up a blind kitty a lot at first, it doesn't harm them. Everything we read said to let him navigate on his own...and we did a healthy amount of this but sometimes, we had to pick him up. He is no less intelligent by this, and he has adjusted really well to being held. When we pick him up, we talk softly to him (we each have our own "billy" voices for him) and we tell him where we are taking him. Once he is put down, he stays near us for a minute until he figures out where he is, which he figures out pretty quickly. If he has to use the bathroom and doesn't recognize where one is from where he is at, he will cry until we either "lead" him to it, or pick him up and take him to it. In the past week, he has only "gotten lost" once.
3. He can play really well with other cats. The first day we were VERY worried about how he would interact. He hissed and cowered away from the other cats. We introduced him slowly to them, and now he does pretty well. A couple of our meaner cats hiss at him when he passes but he just ignores them. He keeps up really well with Joey when it comes to playing...except when Joey leaves the room. Joey has a mouse toy that he loves....I swear he thinks its real. He will grab that thing in his mouth and run from room to room growling at it and "catching" it. When he finally drops it, it will be soaked with catspit and he will leave it for a day than resume playing. Poor Billy will hear/smell him come by, and want to play so bad but as Joey runs wildly from room to room, Billy will run in the room he is in, but will NEVER run to the next room. When he gets to the border of a room he slowly steps over it to make sure he knows which room it is. It is so careful and calculated.
4. He doesn't know he can't see....so even if I feel bad, he is fine. I still have trouble with this one...I could cry sometimes because of it. I can't imagine not having my sight but this little tiny thing, only 13 weeks old, is so happy! If he wants love, he seeks out either Korey or I, and cries at our feet or tries to climb our legs/the couch to get to us. I was reading the other day, and he decided he wanted my lap instead, and climbed onto my book and settled down purring for me to pet him. He still plays even if it is a little more careful than others...He was born blind, so he has never known what it is to see. He can use his whiskers, his nose, his ears and be just fine. But sometimes when the other cats are playing and I see him perk up like he wants to join them and "look" around for them, it breaks m y heart. When he runs into something, I could cry. I know it is all a part of learning and he is doing so well and is the smartest kitten I have ever seen...but it tugs at my emotions. And for a kitten he is so loving. He came into our home at 11 weeks of age, and you would think we had him since the day he was born. He seems to know we are his family even if its only been two weeks. He had no trouble adjusting to us. In the morning, he seeks us out as soon as he hears us as if he is saying "okay you had your alone time, now its my turn for love".