Stevie joined us in July, 2011.  He's a loving ginger tom who's had a rough time.

His most obvious disability is his recent blindness but, on the whole, this causes relatively few problems. His usual means of locomotion is walk forwards 'til nose collides with obstacle then turn left. Repeat. It seems to work for him. When he thinks there may be obstacles to step over he has adopted a special high stepping walk which looks like one of those fancy dressage ponies.

His breathing which was very throaty is now very much better. The vet thought it may have been a stress related problem so it's gratifying that it's improved.

Stevie has very long back legs that are very weak and seem to be too loose at his hip joint. His legs sometimes appear to be at strange angles to his body but this doesn't seem to cause him any pain. He does fall over in the slightest breeze though.

Despite his obvious problems Stevie loves to climb.He seems to be programmed to go up everything. And then launch himself off!  We've become adept at making the house Stevie-proof and playing Blind Man's Buff in the kitchen whilst trying to prepare dinner despite Stevie's best efforts to 'find' our legs and climb up them to our shoulders.

When Stevie joined us Claire brought a variety of foods to 'tempt' him as he seemed a fussy eater. Hah. That didn't last long, he will eat anything. We have to be ultra-vigilant, he has an extra-ordinary sense of smell and will break and enter cupboards/waste bins containing anything edible (or vaguely edible - Stevie is no longer that fussy eater!). Oh dear, I will never, ever leave the bucket containing 50 fat balls for the birds in his nostril distance again!  

Yes, we've had our ups and downs with our high maintenance ginger boy but we will always do our best for him whatever that may be and he rewards us with a purr and a special cuddle which makes us feel honoured he's come into our lives.