A deaf cat is not living in a lesser world, just a differently wired one, and the households that suit her well are the ones that stop relying on sound without noticing it. Voices calling her for dinner, footsteps warning her that someone is coming, the rattle of a food tub: all of that has to be rebuilt in things she can see or feel. The good news is that cats are already highly visual, tactile animals, so the replacements are natural ones once the household commits to them. Consistency does the rest, because a cue only becomes language when everyone uses it the same way every time.
Approach Where She Can See You
The change that carries the real weight is how people arrive in her space: come to her from the front, inside the view she has of the room, so she is never reached unawares from behind. A hand appearing beside a sleeping or resting deaf cat, with no sound to announce it, startles her even when the hand belongs to someone she loves. Walk into her line of sight before reaching for her, and let her see your face and hands as you come closer. With children and visitors the rule needs saying out loud, because the instinct to scoop up a pretty cat from behind is strong. A deaf cat who is repeatedly startled at rest becomes a cat who sleeps lightly and hides more; a cat who can always see people coming relaxes into her home.
Floor Taps She Can Feel
Vibration is the knock she can feel. A light stamp or a tap on the floor near her, never beside her head, sends a small tremor through boards and furniture that she picks up through her paws and body, and it gives her a moment to look up before anyone touches her. Use the same tap pattern as the household's announcement: tap before entering her resting area, tap before lifting her, tap to call her attention before a hand signal. On solid floors the signal travels less well than on boards, so pair the tap with stepping into view. Over weeks she learns that vibration means a person, not a threat, and many deaf cats begin watching for it and responding with a look up that works like an answer.
Hand Signals and Light Flicks Everyone Uses the Same Way
Give her a small visual language and protect it from improvisation: consistent hand signals and light flicks as the household's visual language, with one agreed signal for meals, one for play, one for settling, and a light flick that means look at me. Teach each signal the way you would teach a word, by pairing it with the event itself, the meal signal shown as the bowl is set down, every single time. Write the cue set on a chart where everyone can check it, because a signal used two ways by two people is no signal at all. Reward her for responding with food, play or contact as appropriate, and keep signals large and unhurried; she reads movement with her eyes, so clarity beats speed.
Fixed Furniture, Fixed Routes
Keep furniture, her tray, her feeding place and her routes through the house fixed, because she navigates a memorised map of a home she cannot hear changing around her. A chair moved into a doorway, a box left in a hallway or a tray shifted to a new room breaks that map, and the effort of relearning it shows as hesitation or accidents near the moved item. When a change is genuinely needed, make one at a time and let her explore it while you are present. Her world stays indoors, or in enclosed outdoor space within a secure boundary, since traffic, dogs and shouted warnings all reach her too late or not at all outside it. Visitors and relatives alike can learn the signals before they meet her when her chart is visible through Family Sharing on KinsLe to everyone in the home.