+
Most Shared

Here's why you need to take a tour of this blind cat sanctuary.

Blind or not, these furry felines have captured our hearts.

Welcome to the Blind Cat Rescue and Sanctuary, where all cats — whether they're blind, have FeLV, or are FIV-positive — have a home for life.

Pepper the cat and his friend JT. Photo from Blind Cat Rescue/Facebook, used with permission.


This wonderful place was created by North Carolina native Alana Miller together with her daughter back in 2005. The idea was born out of a single blind cat rescue Miller made while volunteering for another shelter.

"A man was going to leave this sick six-week-old kitten in the PetSmart parking lot if the shelter would not accept him. I found myself saying 'I will take him,'" Alana writes on the organization's website. From that moment on, she found herself constantly encountering similar situations because finding forever homes for sick or blind cats is, well, hard.

Once they had taken in four cats, BCRS became an official cat rescue. Now, they have 90 cats.

In 2005, they built a separate space on Miller's property just for blind cats who would've been euthanized by local shelters otherwise. In 2011, they built a separate compound for feline leukemia positive (FeLV+) cats and feline immunodeficiency virus positive (FIV+) cats. Despite common misconceptions, FIV+ cats can live long healthy lives and FeLV+ cats can remain healthy for years before getting sick.

Caroline, one of the cats who's FeLV+. Photo from Blind Cat Rescue/Facebook, used with permission.

"We are a lifetime care sanctuary, we are their lifetime home," Miller told Upworthy.

Anyone who wants to is more than welcome to come visit the cats, and they have open house days scheduled regularly.

The sanctuary is surrounded by a six-foot-tall white fence that allows the blind cats to walk around freely (they can't see the fence, so they don't try to climb it). Beyond that, blind cats are just like any other cats — they jump, they play, they get into crazy, out of reach places, and they pose hilariously.

"You talkin to me?" Photo from Blind Cat Rescue/Facebook, used with permission.

In fact, blind cats are actually more like super cats than their seeing counterparts. According to Miller, if you rearrange your furniture, blind cats will readjust to the new configuration almost immediately. Meanwhile, if I rearrange my own furniture in my apartment, there's a 99% chance I'll trip on it within the next hour. So blind cats: 1, Ally: 0.

BCRS has been drastically improving the lives of sick and blind cats for more than a decade, so why are we talking about them now?

Because they recently started making incredible videos using Facebook Live, which are being shared wildly across the internet.

Photo from Blind Cat Rescue/Facebook, used with permission.

Their shelter tour (which they just posted) already has over 11,000 views and 2,400 Likes. They also have a ustream channel where you can check out what's going on in the sanctuary 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So you know where I'll be if you need me.

However, if you're not into watching the entire 20-minute video, you can meet a few of the cats below:

Here's Atticus:

This gorgeous boy was found as a stray. He is FeLV+ but appears pretty happy and healthy (and competitive). GIF from Blind Cat Rescue & Sanctuary Inc./YouTube.

Introducing Mickey:

Just because Mickey's blind, doesn't mean he can't catch feather toys like a ninja. GIF from Blind Cat Rescue & Sanctuary Inc./YouTube.

And here's Marge:

Marge just cannot be bothered with this thing. GIF from Blind Cat Rescue & Sanctuary Inc./YouTube.

Of course there are many more adorable, hilarious, charming cats at the Blind Cat Rescue and Sanctuary, but you'll have to check out their site and/or watch their many videos on Facebook and YouTube to see them.

Subscribe to their pages, consider donating to their cause, and if nothing else, take their comprehensive tour here:

Sponsored

ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

True

If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

18-year-old took her college savings and bought the restaurant where she was a dishwasher

Samantha Frye, the newest owner of Rosalie's restaurant, is proving there's more than one way to invest in your future.

Canva

There are many way to invest in your future

Eighteen year old Samantha Frye has traded college life for entrepreneurship, and she has no regrets.

Frye began working at Rosalie's Restaurant in Strasburg, Ohio at 16 as a dishwasher, working up the ranks as a kitchen prep, server, then line cook. All while working a second job, sometimes third job.

After graduating high school, Frye started college at Ohio State with plans of studying business or environmental engineering. But when she came back to work a shift at Rosalie’s for winter break, an opportunity arose—the owners had planned to sell the restaurant.
Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
Keep ReadingShow less

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

Keep ReadingShow less

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

Keep ReadingShow less