Truffles the cat is on a mission to help kids rock their glasses with confidence

Truffles the cat lying down on a chair wearing pink glasses
(Image credit: Trufflesthekitty/Facebook)

Say hello to Truffles the cat, a spunky and feisty furball with a serious catitude who’s on a mission to teach kids around the world that there’s nothing cooler than rocking your glasses with confidence.

Born as a stray in July 2016, Danielle Crull found little Truffles in a forest in Pennsylvania and decided to bring her into A Child’s Eye, the practice she runs that specializes in dispensing eyeware for infants and children.

When Truffles was just six months of age, Crull wanted to test out whether she could get the black and white cat to wear glasses for her as a trick and it quickly snowballed.

On their website, Truffles the Kitty, Crull and her team describe how the confident cat enjoys wearing her lens-less frames so much that she’ll wave Danielle down to get her to put them on her and will often fall asleep still wearing them.

It wasn’t long before the trick turned the outgoing kitty into an office regular that now sees her working alongside her mom as an optician. Over the past four years, she’s changed the lives of hundreds of children by helping boost their self-esteem and giving them the confidence to wear their glasses and eye patches.

"She is literally magical with little kids," Crull says. "It takes me at least half an hour to try and get to know them so they realize I'm not something to be afraid of, and Truffles will come strutting out from the back as if she knows exactly when I need her help."

When the children come in for their eye exams or to be fitted with glasses, Truffles is quick to make glasses look cool, hoping up next to the kids and tilting her head so that Crull can slip one of her 20 pairs on.

 “The mood changes instantly,” Crull explains. “Tears turn into smiles and suddenly those glasses don’t look so scary anymore.”

One of Crull’s favorite parts of the job is watching the transformation that comes over the kids as they go from walking in the door scared to meeting Truffles. "The story that happens over and over is a little one is crying and she comes out and I put glasses on Truffles, and they immediately stop crying and laugh and put their own glasses on," Crull said. "It happens countless times, and it's just as sweet every single time."

Kathryn Williams
Freelance writer

Kathryn is a freelance writer who has been a member of the PetsRadar family since it launched in 2020. Highly experienced in her field, she's driven by a desire to provide pet parents with accurate, timely, and informative content that enables them to provide their fur friends with everything they need to thrive. Kathryn works closely with vets and trainers to ensure all articles offer the most up-to-date information across a range of pet-related fields, from insights into health and behavior issues to tips on products and training. When she’s not busy crafting the perfect sentence for her features, buying guides and news pieces, she can be found hanging out with her family (which includes one super sassy cat), drinking copious amounts of Jasmine tea and reading all the books.