"Mow" stayed at the shelter for a month or so before being adopted. That was when I met her, during my volunteering. She was the only cat in the cat building who didn't wake up when I unlocked the door--it wasn't until I turned on the light that she would notice me and make with her trademark meow. Because of her handicap, I worried that no one would want to adopt her, so I was happy when the shelter manager told me that "Mow" had found a home.

Her new owners were told that because she was deaf, it would be best not to let her outside. They gave every indication of wanting to take good care of her, so when a disheveled white cat came into the shelter at the end of the summer, sporting a healing gash across her throat, we were stunned to recognize her as "Mow".

The people who brought her in said that her family had moved away and left her and they were worried about her getting hit by a car or killed by some animal. Judging from the scar on her neck--she had already had a close call.

The shelter manager contacted the folks who had adopted Mow. It seems that they had moved away and left her because "she got outside and wouldn't come when she was called." Hello? She's deaf, remember? So Mow stayed at the shelter and waited for another home.

So for several weeks, when I went in for my volunteer day, I would see Mow sitting in the window of the big cat pen, looking outside, isolated in her own little world. Finally, I thought--we have windows at home that she can look out of--and so in August of 2001, I brought her home to join our house of many cats.

Denny named her "Frannie" for Fran Drescher. As he remarked, both are lovely to look at but have grating voices! We don't hear that loud, frantic meow much any more. Despite the challenges and adjustments she has had to face, it is good to realize that Frannie doesn't feel the need to make that desperate cry for attention these days.

Frannie is a tough cookie--there wasn't much love in her life until she came to live with us and she still seems surprised to be treated with affection. Because she learned early to stand up for herself, she tends to terrorize the other cats--hence some of those unflattering nicknames. She can't hear them tell her to "back off." She and Bunny have mutually incomprehensible handicaps, and may never reach detente, but I continue to hope that patience and love can smooth away the fears and habits of a rough upbringing and that peace may reign once again in the House of Many Cats.

Among her quirks, Frannie is a feline physicist. You wouldn't think a deaf cat would derive so much pleasure from knocking things from great heights--after all, she doesn't have the satisfaction of hearing them *smash*. But her unrelenting curiousity does not rest. Food dishes, unsecured planters, pens, papers, tools--all end up on the floor while she looks after them with a detached, almost scientific interest.

But she remains a skittish cat. I think that deafness has proven the most crippling handicap I have encountered in a housecat. Deaf cats can compensate so well that many people never realize that Frannie can't hear. But her lack puts her in a silent world where inexplicable things keep happening to her, without warning or the comfort of a kind word. There is an uncertainty in her eyes, as if she is always unsure what reaction to expect from us. I don't know what sort of interactions she had with humans before she came to live with us, but she wasn't a happy kitty, and even now she seems surprised by kindness.

My heart hurts for her, my difficult and scrappy ragamuffin.