Meet Moody: a little cat with a big story

Don’t feel too special if you catch 12-week-old kitten Moody winking at you—he does that to everyone.

Moody is one of a recent bumper crop of one-eyed kittens at WAIF. (His fellow one-eyed kittens Cheddar and Magic 8 Ball were adopted earlier this summer.) Moody joined our shelter population in late July after a Whidbey resident found him on the road in Oak Harbor and took him to the Pet Emergency Center in Mount Vernon.

Moody, only about a month old at the time, had clearly suffered some trauma to his left eye. The organ was red, inflamed, and visibly damaged, and the skin around the eye on the left side of his face was scratched up. 

We don’t know what happened to Moody—whether he had a close call with a car or got into a fight with another animal—but when he arrived at WAIF, we knew that he had found his way into safe and caring hands.

Unfortunately, there was no saving his eye. Our shelter vets determined that the eye was completely ruptured and injured beyond repair. But once they removed the eye and sent him to foster care to heal, he made a rapid recovery.

His foster, board member Barb Templin, lovingly nicknamed him Pluto, after the one-eyed feline in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat,” though she noted, “our Pluto is much more charming than Poe’s fictional character, and his story has a very happy ending waiting to be written.”

Barb shared an update on the little kitten:

Pluto is a social, friendly, curious, and incredibly smart little guy who loves being around people. Having one eye certainly doesn’t slow him down. He plays, explores, climbs, and keeps up with everything going on around him without hesitation.

He also likes dogs, making him a great little companion for a home with a friendly canine.

And Pluto has discovered the secret to getting what he wants: treats! Shake the treat bag and this clever boy will come running. He even comes when called, which is pretty impressive for a 12-week-old kitten!

We think Pluto may have exceptionally good hearing, too. He is very tuned in to sounds around him, and his hearing seems to help him navigate his world beautifully.

Most importantly, Pluto doesn’t act like a kitten who is missing anything. He doesn’t know he’s supposed to be different. He is playful, confident, affectionate, and ready to be someone’s very special companion.

And if you’re lucky enough to adopt him, you’ll get to write the next chapter of this little black cat’s story.

Come meet Pluto. He might just be the plot twist you didn’t know you needed.