Joshua Hiebert was tidying up his yard in Tampa, Florida, in June when he noticed a hunched figure on his driveway.

“I observed this small lump of an orange cat resting up against our garage door as I was heading back to the home,” Hiebert told The Dodo. “He was on the concrete in the sun, and it was around 90 degrees outdoors.”

The kitty wandered inside as Hiebert unlocked the garage door and huddled in a corner. Hiebert described him as “extremely feeble.” “We saw he wasn’t really connecting with us since he couldn’t even hold his head up.” In other words, if we relocated, he didn’t appear to mind. But we put it down to his being really dehydrated.”

When Hiebert and Tortolero placed a dish of water in front of the kitten, they noted that he put his paw in and tapped the water before drinking, as if evaluating its level. That’s then they discovered the small orange kitty was deafeningly deafeningly deafeningly deafen

The couple rushed to the pet store for supplies and hand-fed the kitten, who seemed grateful for the meal and a comfortable place to sleep. The next day, the kitten, whom they named Whiskers, was full of energy.

They brought Whiskers to the vet for a checkup, where he was given eye drops, eye lubricants and antibiotics.

Whisker’s eyes improved with therapy, but he’s still virtually completely blind, seeing only changes in light and movement. His fathers are still hopeful that with time and care, his vision will recover, and they are doing everything they can to assist him.

Whiskers, now 6 months old, is an active and independent kitten who enjoys playing with his two canine siblings.

“He’s the sweetest,” Hiebert said. “He’ll never put his claws into you when he’s playing. He’s very gentle.”

“He gets excited every time he’s done eating,” he added. “He gets the zoomies and runs around the house.”