Why Mack wears (and likes) glasses

In Mack’s headshot photo and my updated headshot, Mack is wearing spectacles. They aren’t just gag ones from the dollar store, but infant-sized frames with color-blind lenses. They cost over $200. You’re likely thinking, “Kat is KrAzY.” Well, I won’t dispute that, but not in respect to Mack’s glasses.

A couple years ago I saw a Facebook post by an influencer named Jenn, who posts something positive every day. She put up a post about Truffles the kitty. Truffles has a job at a pediatric optometry office helping train little kids in the proper way to take off glasses and to show kiddos it’s pretty cool to wear them. Truffles was trained by her owner, one of the technicians at the facility, to wear glasses and patched lenses to get kids interested in wearing these to deal with their own vision issues. Truffles had several pairs of the infant-sized glasses with plain lenses when it was decided to add a pair with color-blind lenses to her collection.

Cats are naturally color blind. Their vision is limited to shades of blue, green, gray and yellow. This is similar to the color blindness in humans called Tritan color vision deficiency, much rarer in humans than the common red-green color blindnesses.

Truffles likes her color-blind glasses and prefers them over her plain lenses when offered a choice. She wears them longer than her other glasses and moves away when her owner offers to remove them. She looks around at her surroundings and touches colorful toys she previously had no interest in. Following the post, Truffles’ organization (Truffles the Kitty Organization) began getting requests for color-blind glasses for cats. If you purchase a pair, a second pair is given free to a human child needing color-blind glasses. This matching charitable gift convinced me to dole out the money to get Mack a pair of his own. 

I wanted to see if color-blind lenses would enhance Mack’s vision and get him to engage with his environment with more interest. They do. Mack, like Truffles, looks around and wears them for 10 minutes or so before he paws them off. He likes them. Mufasa won’t tolerate them at all. I can’t get him to even look through the lenses long enough to generate interest in the difference in his vision. So, it’s a thing. Mack is a fan on Truffles’ Facebook page. Truffles has posted on Mack’s Facebook page (Mack-Therapy Cat).

Obviously, this is an extravagant purchase for a pet. I get that. But … it’s Mack. My mews. Yeah, I’m KrAzY. I own it. But they’re worth it to me when Mack looks up at me with those glasses on. So curious and studious looking. It makes me smile.