by David Smith

Created on: August 04, 2010

With the cats inherent ability to mask problems that they have, telling whether or not your cat is deaf can be a tricky thing.  Cats will rarely respond to you when called, preferring to have your attention on their terms rather than your terms.  Therefore, you have to do some testing to determine whether your cat can actually hear and is just ignoring you or if the cat is just deaf.

The first thing to consider when trying to determine whether or not your cat can hear is that their vocal patterns often rely on their ability to hear.  If your cat is very loud when they voice their opinions, then they might have a problem hearing.  You can also get your cat to play and drop some audio stimuli during the play session to determine if you cat will react to the stimuli.  If the cat does not respond to the stimuli, chances are that the cat cannot hear the stimuli.  A great stimuli to use on a cat, especially one that you have had and fed for some time, is the food container.  If you rattle a bag of food or use an electronic can opener to open their cans of food, then you will have a cat with normal hearing capabilities running from wherever it happens to be.  If the cat doesn't come running, it might have a problem hearing the stimuli.

Cats that can hear normally often respond to the timbre of the human voice, much as a child would.  If the voice sounds calming and soothing, the cat will visibly calm when they hear the tones.  If the cat hears a voice that sounds frantic and scared, the cat will respond accordingly.  If your cat responds to your voice, but doesn't respond until you reach the fevered frantic or scared tone, then your cat can probably hear, just not very well. 

Determining whether a cat is actually deaf or just hard of hearing is best done by a practicing, licensed veterinarian.  However, by using the above information, you can arm the veterinarian with the knowledge of how the cat acts under normal stimuli.  This will better give them the ability to properly diagnose your cat with a hearing problem or a hearing loss. 

In the absence of getting your cat tested by a veterinarian, some of the best diagnoses are done by other cat owners.  If the cat gives you any indication that it might have a hearing problem, and you happen to be a first time cat owner, call one of your friends who has had cats int he family for years to come over and see if they can help you diagnose the hearing capabilities of your cat.

Whatever you do, please treat the cat as normally as possible.  What you need to remember, however, is that the cat will have limitations.

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