hollowedskin:

so you all know busbus is mostly blind, or something. We’re not entirely sure but he seems to have very little response to visual stimulus unless it’s something like a lit up screen in a dark room or a laser pointer. We’ve noticed he hunts with his ears for moths because once they stop flying he can’t find them.
which means he catches it, kills it, then gets sad.

Anyway when we first brought him home our cats were like, cat body language at him and he would be completely nonresponsive. They got really upset and diva bit him a lot and had huge tantrums about it. He sat too close to her, he was on her stuff, he wouldn’t move out of her way. She hated it. And for him he was just suddenly getting bitten and hit so he was very confused.

within days both dorian and diva began vocalising constantly, little brrrts and mmmms, very softly speaking all the time. Sometimes they would up the volume, but only when bus wasn’t right there. Within a week they had developed a vocal substitute for every one of their body languages, and no more problems.

Dorian has a specific type of sound that he makes when he wants bus to come to him for grooming. Bus has a specific sound he makes when he is lost and both other cats have their own version of the response. Like marco polo except you say your own name.

They have words now for ‘hey look a thing to play with’ so bus can come over and join in on the gecko hunt, or ‘i am playing with a toy and i want company’.

they started making lots of noise sometimes when they run, by hitting the ground hard and also digging their claws into the carpet so bus can hear them and chase them. If Diva is just running somewhere and not playing, she doesn’t make any noise when she does. She also uses this to sneak up on bus which i think is decidedly not fair.

Bus also knows human words too. He knows ‘cheese’ and ‘bread’ and if you mention ham he appears with his nose bright pink licking his lips waiting for his share because he fucking LOVES ham.

anywya, cat language is so versatile and im always just so impressed at how my cats who were already 4 and 6 changed their whole communications system when it turned out that bus couldn’t understadn them. <3