“Meow, meow,” you hear from your neighbor’s backyard. “What could that be?” you smile because you’re aware you’re about to uncover the cutest source of strange sounds you’ve ever seen before. You’re over the moon because you’re always happy to hang out with a member of the feline community.
“Oh, wait,” your eyes get wider as you approach the bundle of cuddles.
You notice she’s different from the cats you’ve seen before. She’s fluffy. She’s pretty. She’s a sight for sore eyes, but there’s something different about the way she’s looking at you that’s making you question everything you’ve ever known about cats.
“She’s an odd-eyed cat,” you finally figure out. She’s a captivating little creature and you’re wondering whether she’s a stray or your neighbor’s newest pet. She’s too rare to be an abandoned animal roaming the streets alone, right?
Cats with different-colored eyes typically have a condition known as heterochromia. Heterochromia causes one of the cat’s eyes to be blue and the other green, brown, or yellow. Heterochromia affects dogs and humans, too. How does heterochromia affect a cat’s eyes, though?
Kittens are pretty much always born with blue eyes – or eyes that appear blue because they’re lacking pigment. When kittens grow older, a pigment called melanin gets distributed throughout both eyes, causing them to change color.
With kittens that suffer from heterochromia, though, melanin reaches one eye only and leaves the other one blue.
Because of that, cats with heterochromia always have one blue eye and one eye of a different color. But nobody knows why heterochromia affects certain cats. We believe that’s due to a genetic mutation that occurs during the pregnancy, but we’re not 100% sure.
Worry not, cats with heterochromia have a happy and healthy life because they aren’t affected by the condition whatsoever. Humans are obsessed with them, too, and aren’t afraid of adopting odd-eyed cats. They’re most likely drawn to them even more because of heterochromia, to be honest.
When Betty and her husband noticed a scruffy cat roaming the streets, they didn’t think twice before they started bringing her food and water.
She was timid, tired, and hungry. She was surprised when the two started feeding her, and she didn’t want to pass on the opportunity to charm them. She started hanging out with them, following them, and coming to their apartment.
Betty and her husband were sure that she belonged to someone because she was the cutest, sweetest cat they’d ever seen. They wanted to rescue her, but they didn’t want to take someone’s cat. They devised a plan to rescue her, but they waited to see whether someone was going to take her away beforehand.
When nobody came to claim her, the two started working on earning her trust and bonding with her. Betty would feed her a few times a day, hang out with her, and try to cuddle her.
She wasn’t scared of Betty, but she wasn’t thrilled when she tried to touch her. She was quiet, but she allowed Betty to hang out with her. Betty began talking to her every time she’d go to feed her, as well as trying to pet her. She was shy, but she allowed Betty to approach her.
She craved human attention and affection, and Betty was sure she’d never had an owner before.
Betty named her Fluffy and decided she was ready to do whatever she needed to do to earn Fluffy’s trust. Fluffy’s demeanor started to change and she started showing excitement every time she’d see Betty approaching her.
She started warming up to Betty and her husband – and one day, she followed them back to their home. She entered and the rest was history.
Betty gave her a bath, groomed her, and took care of everything – she sported black spots on her nose and orange residue from God-knows-what on her paws, and she was missing patches of fur. Betty did her best to clean her and get her ready for bed.
She started purring the moment Betty covered her with a blanket and gave her a treat before bed. She snuggled next to Betty and went to sleep.
Betty and her husband took her to the vet the following day.
The two knew Fluffy was going to need some sort of treatment, but they were surprised to hear how unwell she was – she had worms, a stomach infection, and ear mites. That’s when the two figured out she had heterochromia, too.
They didn’t think much of her different-colored eyes, but they were happy to hear that she wasn’t suffering from eye problems due to her rare eye color. They thought she was the prettiest cat they’d ever seen. For the following few weeks, the two nursed Fluffy back to health and watched her blossom.
“Fluffy’s like a puppy,” they argued. She was the friendliest cat they’d ever met. She was energetic, too, and she spent most of her time running around, hopping on the highest shelves, and hanging out with Lucy. Lucy was Betty’s cat that was over the moon to have a friend to play with.
Lucy and Fluffy became BFFs right away – they enjoyed snuggling, waiting for Betty to come home from work, and causing trouble. Betty knew she made the right decision when she rescued Fluffy off the streets.
We’re sending both Betty and Fluffy lots of love, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the happy family continues to make the world a better place – one odd-eyed cat at a time.
