One Ear, One Eye, and Twice the Chaos — Meet the Cutest Foster Fail Ever!
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Louise hadn't planned on having cats.
This is worth stating clearly at the outset, because everything that follows is a direct consequence of that plan unravelling completely — and because Louise, if she's being honest, wouldn't change a single thing about it.
It started on an ordinary workday in Dubai. Louise arrived at the veterinary clinic where she worked to find her colleagues gathered and talking, the way people gather and talk when something has arrived that demands attention.
A kind stranger had spotted a tiny kitten sitting alone on a street, separated from her mother and siblings, with a severe wound on her head. It had taken two full days just to catch her.
By the time she reached the clinic, the injury had worsened considerably. The entire outer ear was gone. The surrounding skin was burned, stretching toward the centre of her head. A rough beginning, to put it very gently, for a kitten five weeks old.
Louise walked over to see what the fuss was about and found a tiny black and white ball of fur in the corner of a kennel, holding onto a unicorn soft toy as though it were the last solid thing in the universe.
That was that.
The kitten was sedated for wound cleaning, and the daily bandage changes began. What surprised everyone was how she handled it — with complete, quiet grace. No complaints, no drama, not a sound.
Even with most of her small head wrapped in bandaging that left her face looking comically squashed, she remained calm and cooperative throughout. Louise called her a trooper from day one, and the description never stopped being accurate.
After ten days of intensive care at the clinic, Louise made a decision. She was taking the kitten home. Just to foster, just during the healing process, just temporarily. A perfectly reasonable and sensible arrangement.
Teresita arrived at the apartment, spent approximately thirty minutes conducting her own assessment of the situation, and then began running through the rooms at full speed. Not what an injured foster kitten was supposed to be doing.
Teresita, it quickly became clear, had very little interest in what she was supposed to be doing. She settled in as though she had always lived there, began following Louise from room to room with great dedication, and was fast and curious and dramatic and entirely impossible to resist.
The foster arrangement lasted about as long as these things usually do when the kitten in question has already decided the matter. Louise, who had not planned on having a cat, adopted her.
Some decisions announce themselves before you've consciously made them. This was one of those.
The recovery still had chapters left to write. The wound healed enough to move forward, and reconstructive surgery followed — twice. In the first procedure, skin from Teresita's right shoulder was carefully repositioned over her head to cover the damaged area.
The second corrected tension pulling at the corner of her right eye, adjusting its shape so she could see comfortably. She came through both surgeries with the equanimity she had brought to every procedure before them.
The same evening as her final operation, she was back on the sofa requesting cuddles, apparently finished with the medical portion of her life and ready to move on.
She is missing one ear. Her hearing is perfect, her energy boundless, and her enthusiasm for bird-watching, fetch, hide and seek, and the systematic exploration of every corner of the apartment in search of treats remains completely undiminished.
She wakes Louise up every morning — Louise, who is not by nature an early riser — and Louise finds this, against all reasonable expectation, entirely delightful.
Whatever Teresita does tends to land that way.
Then came Potito.
He arrived through one of Louise's clients — a man of generous heart and modest means who had devoted himself to caring for street cats and had found a tiny kitten whose right eye was so severely infected it could not be saved.
The client had been ready to take him back, to keep caring for him as best he could. But Louise looked at this small, one-eyed kitten and felt something settle into place.
She told her client that Potito wouldn't be returning to the streets. The expression on the man's face when he understood, she says, is something she won't forget.
The introduction of a second cat into Teresita's domain required care and patience and a realistic expectation that things might not go smoothly. Louise was prepared for territorial tension, for hissing, for a period of frosty diplomatic standoff.
She had her strategies ready. But she didn't need them.
For the first time in her life, Teresita encountered something that matched her completely — a fellow rescue kitten who had also lost a piece of himself and had also come out the other side entirely undimmed.
They took to each other with the ease of creatures who recognise something familiar. They groom each other, sleep curled together, chase each other through the apartment with great commitment and considerable noise.
One has one ear. One has one eye. Between them, as Louise likes to note, they have a complete set.
The apartment is warmer now, and louder, and considerably more chaotic than it was before two small imperfect cats moved into it and made it entirely their own. Louise comes home to them every day, to the particular comfort of being waited for by creatures who are genuinely glad you're back.
She hadn't planned on any of this but it turned out to be the best thing that never went according to plan!
Take a look at the video below:
A big thank you to Louise for sharing their story with us.
You can see more of this delightful family on Instagram
Related story: After Years Avoiding Rescue, Blind Street Cat Ham Finds Inseparable Buddy and a Forever Home
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