Wanted: a home for Popeye, Dapto's one-eyed kitten warrior

The black and white feline survived a mystery trauma that caused his eye to pop from its socket, only to almost die time and time again, as multiple vet clinics and shelters refused to take him in, deeming him fit only for euthanasia.

A Good Samaritan eventually brought the kitten from a suburb of Sydney to Dapto's Companion Animal Veterinary Hospital and it was there, on December 8, that things started looking up.

"Everyone wanted to put him down," said clinic owner Matt Young, who over the years has welcomed nine dogs, two cats, horses, miniature goats and chickens into his Marshall Mount home.

"They'd been to a couple of shelters and vets along the way and then somehow they must have found out that we were suckers and that we would take him."

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Dr Young doesn't know how the kitten was injured, only that there was no saving the damaged eye.

"He must have had some sort of trauma that caused it - the eye had just popped out. It was still attached by the nerve, but it was just dangling out, it was dead already. It must have been like that for a while," he said.

"It looked horrendous and painful. He would have been freaky to look at, I suppose.

"But behind that horrible-looking exterior you could see that he was actually quite a cute, friendly little thing."

Staff at the clinic spent several weeks nursing Popeye back to health, getting him strong enough to withstand an anaesthetic before he underwent surgery to remove his bad eye.

With his stitches soon to come out, the clinic is now looking for a loving family to take him in.

Dr Young said Popeye, aged about 10 weeks old, would cope well with one eye and was not expected to have any ongoing special needs.

"He's beautiful. He's really cuddly and just really enthusiastic to be around. He's still pretty young so he'd be amenable to any home really, he just wants someone that really loves cats and wants a cat in their life," he said.

Visit the clinic's website at https://www.companionanimalvet.com.au/ for any adoption inquiries.