Meet Roxy

The other day I introduced you to Shinju (now meet her other sister, Kiro), Selena’s most severe CH kitty. Today you’ll get to know Roxy, the first cerebellar hypoplasia cat Selena adopted. Roxy’s severity of CH lies in between her two CH kitty sisters (you’ll meet the other one soon!).

Here’s a little about this special cat:

Walking: Roxy can walk several 5-6 careful steps at a time before falling over. Roxy takes these very slow deliberate steps, calculating her next step carefully. It’s pretty amazing watching her walk, it’s almost an art form!

Using the litter box: With Roxy, I started out training her for about a year with varying success. Her mobility was very limited as a kitten, and even when she could drag herself into the litter box she often ended up peeing outside of it. In the end it was just too difficult for the both of us trying to get her to do this on her own; we were both frustrated, and we were having accidents almost every other time with daily baths. So after about a year of trying, I gave in and decided that I would just take her to the litter box on schedule.

It took Roxy some time to get used to the new routine, but now it takes less than a minute of me holding her still in her litter box for her to do her thing (she sometimes like to ponder a bit), and we’re both much happier for it. This of course means I cannot miss her schedule; there’s only about a 2-hour window both in the morning and evening (used to be much more precise but she got more flexible as she got older).

Eating and drinking: Not much problem there, other than needing to be “set up” in front of their bowl.

Climbing: Roxy isn’t mobile enough to climb.

Head tremors: More prominent as a kitten, not so noticeable now.

Click here to read about other readers’ CH cats or tell us about your CH cat!