Q: You always hear that white cats are likely to be deaf, but I have an all white cat who has no hearing problems whatsoever. How can that be?
Denise Haffenreffer
Tiverton, Rhode Island
Dear Ms. Haffenreffer,
A: There is definitely a genetic link between whiteness and deafness, but part of it also depends on a white cat’s eye color. An all white cat with eyes that are not blue has only about a 20 percent chance of being born deaf — one in five. If a white cat has one blue eye, the chance rises to 40 percent — two in five. (The deafness seems to be in the ear on the side of the face that has the blue eye, but not the other ear.) If a cat is all white with two blue eyes, the chance of deafness rises to somewhere between 65 and 85 percent.
An 85 percent chance means that five out of six of those cats will be deaf. But one won’t. So no matter what color your white cat’s eyes, there is a chance that she will not have been born deaf.
