They tend to hide it pretty well too, we didn’t know ours was deaf till I scared the bejesus out of him when I tried to pick him up from behind. We remember that his ears stopped swiveling a good year earlier, but I never made the connection. He’d been stone deaf that long and we never noticed.

I’ve been trying to teach him hand signals for the past year, but only one works, the pointing finger and a sweeping motion of the arm (means ‘come here’ or ‘you’re allowed out this door to outside while I’m standing here watching you’).

Be very careful with them outside, they can’t hear traffic or dogs, and deaf cats seem to think nothing can hurt them if they can’t hear it. Then they’ll suddenly realize something isn’t right and panic (we ended our harness/leash walks because of that).

Indoors they work out ok. They need to make a visual connection with you more often, though, I’ve noticed. I have to go over and physically touch his shoulders or ribs to stop him from meowing too loud, as he can’t hear himself and he’s 1/2 Siamese so his volume level goes way up fast.
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