Have a one-eyed pet? Know anyone with a one-eyed pet? Send me your pics and I’ll pay homage to them ALL on this post as a way to encourage humanity to accept that one-eyed pets are BEAUTIFUL! [If they’ve got no eyes (as happens on rare occasions) consider them doubly welcome!]

Include a link in your comment or email them to me directly (drkhuly@dolittler.com) and I’ll showcase their pic on this evolving post (be sure to include their name and vital stats):

This little One-Eyed Jack lost his eye to infection when he was picked up a couple of weeks ago. The other eye looks pretty crappy too (btw, “crappy” is a medical term you all should know since vets use it indiscriminately) and might go the way of its brother. He happens to need a home—so if you know anyone with a special home to offer, we’d like to know. Send me an email or call Miami Veterinary Specialists (see the link under “Careerists”). You could say they’ve been taking pretty good care of him…but that would be an understatement.

First entry: This is a picture of my cat, Squashy, the Polydactyl Pirate. What he is lacking in eyeballs he makes up for in an excessive amount of toes.  He was born blind in the eye that was removed. It was deformed and constantly irritated and oozing.  He is a very happy 5 year old pirate boy with no limitations in what he can do. -Julie

Squashy:

Teddy is not my first, nor will he be my last one-eyed cat. My first was Sweetpea, a gorgeous Tortie. Next, I fostered baby Harley- who was a baby tossed to die in a recycling collection bin. Now, we have Teddy- Teddy is a reformed feral.

He came in to Friends of Feral Felines with a badly infected eye from a catfight. They removed it and he was so unfriendly that he spent two years in their trailer for the 'unadoptable' cats. One day, I saw his ad on Petfinder.com and I emailed FoFF and asked about him. Went out to meet him and the rest is history. This cat went from feral to velcro cat- he is the most friendly cat most people have ever met. He comes out to greet total strangers, loves parties, and usually spends his day on the couch snoozing or chasing the girls, trying to get them to pay attention to him.

I love the special critters- if I lived closer, I'd take that baby in a heartbeat! I also have a soft spot for deaf Danes- and three legged critters- LOL. -Tricia

Teddy:

This is Georg's Tom. See Tom-related history under Georg's comments below.

Tom:

This is Maddy. Check out her home page--she's up for adoption!!

Eddie is 16, has diabetes and developed glaucoma and cataracts. Because of the glaucoma and infection in the right eye, it was removed. You can't see it in this picture, but his right eye is blind from the cataract. He's my big baby, as you can imagine! -Rita

Eddie:

Now Moody: Here is Moody (short for Mad-Eye Moody) sitting on his cat tree. He is the near-show cat and even after two surgeries his eye was never able to be used. If he believed he were a cat, he would be the head cat.  However, he climbs my cupboards and feeds the collies whatever he finds- he is a human and apparently a dog owner, too.

Under him is Poe, the kitten who fell from the sky.  Poe was dropped by a crow at my feet when I was out walking the collies.  She was approx. 3 days old.  We bottle-fed her, my younger collie groomed her and slept with her to keep her warm (for hours at a time!) and we named her Poe in honour of the crow who delivered her to us.  She is a tyrant, and the only one of my cats who can bother Moody without getting a faceful of attitude courtesy of a Siamese.

:)

Moody (and his buddy, Poe):

Now for Boo: this is Boo...turning five soon, rescued at ~5mos, product of backyard merle-merle aussies, deaf/blind inone eye and visually impaired out of her one good micro eye, this is one of two really good photos I've ever gotten of her. flashes/red lights bother her eyes. so much for 25% chance of lethal whites unfortunately her other 2 sisters deaf/blind and deaf/double micro eyes were not adopted -Melinda

Boo:

And now for Buster and Martha: Buster Bud is here with me still, has thyroid problems now...  one eye with a cateract , 4 teeth that do not match up and is cute as a bug.

And Martha got adopted by a nice older lady and is doing fine despite a mammary tumor having just been removed last week. -Mary

Here are Buster and Martha (sorry it took so long to get them up!):

Merlina: I have a dog, Merlina, who is currently blind. She has NO eyes. She lost the first one in 2001 and just lost the other one in August 2006. Needless to say that I had to take a lot of poop because of the way she looked to people. She got nicknames like Cyclops, and no one really cared to pet her or have her around. That was very frustrating to me since I literally never have seen ANY flaws in her and love her to death.

Blind or one eyed dogs do tend to be a bit more aggressive sometimes, but that is because they cannot see what is happening and get startled easily, and people seldomly adjust to that. Once you do, a blind dog is P E R F E C T. There is nothing they can’t do, as long as they trust you to guide them for a while until they know where they are or learn how to explore with the rest of their senses.

In one month it will be a year since Merlina went blind, and if you see her from behind, sniffing about in the yard and playing with her other dog friends, you could never tell there is anything “missing”. Guests in the house are immediately detected and found and they have to go through a thorough inspection and approval before entering her domain. -Guadalupe

Here are some pics of my baby and this is her web page

http://riveradogs.googlepages.com/merlina

This is Monday and he's a thrown-from-a-car kitten. He landed on his eye

and that kept him from having brain damage(I'm not always sure about that),

but it didn't help the eye. So when he was neutered out came the eye! He's

much happier with no bug eye getting poked by grass and trees. He picks on

all the cats except the smallest who terrifies him.

Thanks a lot- heather

Monday:

The picture is my Chinese Crested, Pepper, after her conjunctival graft in 2003. She has absolute dry eye in her right eye and had developed a deep ulcer. She did keep the eye that time, but the dry eye is taking its toll. Although she is technically not a one-eyed pet yet, I thought the picture was cute in a "poor, poor, pitiful me" sort of way.

Thanks, Susan

Pepper:

CindeLu made her journey to the Rainbow Bridge three years, ago, but I spent four wonderful years with her.  She was a stray, about 7 years old, when she wandered down the road by our farm and decided to make us her family.  Cinde had her eye removed due to severe herpes-related ulcers, and became a housecat.  Cinde was a special girl with a unique beauty. -Pamela

CindeLu:

This is Mallory and Lola (I don't know which is which):

Lucy was owned by people who didn`t take careof her herpes infection.  It became so bad that Lucy`s eyes were both decayed very badly, and she had lost all of her sight.  To add insult to injury, they moved away and left Lucy behind to fend for herself in the house.  Luckily the landlady called a no-kill rescue, and Lucy was taken in until we met her and were able to give her a loving forever home.  When we got her we consulted with 3 vets before deciding to have both sightless eyes removed and her eyelids sewn shut, as well as have her rotted teeth removed at a later date.   Lucy is a joyto us.  She is a sweet and loving girl who is definitely differently-abled.    Sue

                        Hello, my name is Lucy,

                        I`m as happy as can be;

                     I`m just the same as other cats,

                       Except that I can`t see.

                     I love to run and jump and play,

                            I have my favorite toy;

                        My brothers like to play with me,

                       My life is full of joy.

                        My mommy, how she loves me,

                        She tells me every day;

                         How her life has become fuller,

                           Since I came to stay.

                       She wishes I could see her,

                        I`ve known this from the start;

                        I hope that she can understand,

                        I see her with my heart.

Lucy: