Every pet has a story but not all stories are created equally. For Yoda, his life began with rejection courtesy of his peculiar appearance. Yoda was born with four ears! One night, seemingly as normal as any others, Yoda was being passed around a local bar in Illinois.
A regular patron had brought a litter of kittens in search of forever homes and Yoga was the last one remaining. The adorable, little kitten was apparently not getting picked to go home with anyone because of his extra ears.
That is until fate intervened and made sure that Valerie and Ted Rock were in the right place at the right time.
When Valerie and her husband saw Yoda they knew immediately that they needed him, and they quickly asked to adopt him. In an interview with Daily Mail, Valerie, who is 65-years old said:
We were at a pub on the south side of Chicago with a group of friends when we noticed a small cage sitting on the bar and people passing around a kitten.
Yoda had been apart of a large litter and it just so happened that Valerie and Ted had recently lost their cat of 20 years. Up until the moment Yoda chose them, Valerie and Ted both thought they were done with cats but then..
When he was passed around he reached for Ted, crawled up into the crook of his neck and fell asleep – Ted was a goner. It was a done deal when the kitten made himself at home on Ted’s shoulder.
Valerie and her husband decided to name the then 8-week old kitten Yoda, because of his likeness to the Star Wars character. Valerie said:
We decided to name him Yoda. I understand the Star Wars character was based on George Lucas’ cat.
Once Yoda was officially their newest family member, they decided that it was time to have their furry feline checked out by their veterinarian. And it turned out, Yoda really was unique! Their vet had never even heard of a 4-eared cat before.
The vet had never seen anything like it before. He immediately went to the internet and found the four-eared cat in Germany. We have spoken with other vets in our acquaintance, and they likewise had never encountered anything like this. We began to realize that we had something very special.
The best part is that Yoda’s unique situation doesn’t hurt or hinder him what-so-ever! His extra little pair of ears are separate to the base of his skull, with one placed slightly behind the other and according to Valerie, his hearing is normal.
Yoda gets a lot of attention though and that left Valerie a little concerned:
As a result, he has been an indoor cat and has a chip installed in case he gets lost. Yoda is so different that we were concerned that he might be catnapped.
She also said:
But he is a perfectly normal affectionate, curious cat and is a joy to have around.
Surprisingly, people have thought that Valerie did something intentionally to Yoda to change the appearance of his ears!
We have actually had people ask if we had his ears cut to look this way.
But after all, Yoda is a pretty normal cat despite his unique and amazing feature:
…he is a perfectly normal affectionate, curious cat and is a joy to have around. He is not afraid of anything and is very sociable unlike some of the other cats I have owned. But he does have an interesting obsession with bread – I can’t leave bread on the counter for a moment.
Another curious thing about Yoda though is his vocalizations and purring:
…when he purrs, it is not audible. The only way I know that he is purring is to put my finger on his throat to feel the vibration. He also is not very vocal. He meows, but only softly, and not very often which is a good thing.
