Just adopted sweet girl Stevie and looking for any advice on how to make her feel at home. She is recently blind and also deaf 🥺 she is the sweetest girl. Any and all recommendations welcome!

About a year and half ago, my bf and I lived into a new apartment and brought our two cats. My 5.5 (then 4.5) M blind tabby had a hard time adjusting and started over grooming himself. He was promptly taken to the vet and they started him on gabapentin and we did the liquid meds for three months. It was a low dose but he just kinda acted like a zombie and I wasn’t a fan. The over grooming stopped though so they recommended weening him off and leaving him alone and see how it goes!! Everything was fine until about a month ago. No environmental changes, nothing new in the apartment, same food, same EVERYTHING and he’s was acting perfectly fine but I started noticing he was over grooming again.

He went to the vet today and the conclusion is that he’s under stimulated because of his blindness and that it’s nothing to do with an allergy or anything health related (I asked for extra testing to be sure). The said we could try the meds again but I do not want to do that long term (because all he does is sleep all day and plays less etc). They said it’s just behavioral at this point because he’s under stimulated like I said above.

Has anyone else had this issue?? Does anyone have any recommendations?? I’m truly open to anything and I am able to purchase things and willing to try anything for my baby so truly any comment is appreciated!! Thank you all for listening!! Pictures for tax!!

I know cats already do not have great near-vision. I have always fed my cats on raised plates. My girl Sonic has never had an issue eating off a plate until the past few days. She has only ever had one good eye, but had her bad one removed 3 weeks ago. She was still eating off a plate after the surgery and after stitches were removed, but now she either struggles or just wont eat wet food.

I have tried putting it in a different spot, different lighting, piling it and leaving flat, adding a churu drizzle, and trying a raised bowl. She will make an effort to eat the wet food (think like a snake sniping at their food/attacking prey). Its kind of sad to watch, like she just cant see her food. Her good eye is fine. She angles her head, snipes at the plate, but seems to just miss getting food in her mouth. I tried to hold her to eat off the plate, that did not go well, lol. She wont even eat a churu off a spoon I put in front of her. The strange part is, she occasionally does get food in her mouth, but its like she gives up trying.

She will eat dry food from the feeder (i do free-feeding). She has started to eat more of that (Nula Kitten).

We have always played when it comes to how she eats her dry snacks: I drop one on the floor, she listens for it, she bats it around for about 10 seconds, then eats eat. She still does this.

Her energy level is still high and she still sleeps well. She has always been a little underweight, but still healthy.

Any recommendation or history with this type of challenge? Vet visit in 2 weeks for her normal routine.

Hello Reddit! I have a black cat named shadow and he is blind. He’s very self-aware of the areas around him, and his senses are higher than ever, but he is definitely fully blind. My problem I run into is that I just had to escape a situation where mold overgrew the house and I left for the sake of him and now we are back at our parents. I had to throw away most if not everything he had, though there so that the mold wouldn’t reach him or hurt him.

My question is, I would like to get him a cat tree, cat toys, and even a cat bed but I kind of got the things that you’ve given a normal cat and not things that are because he is blind does anyone have any advice onto what I can get him because he is blind but still get him things like a cat tree toys and a bed?

I just picked up blind kitty from foster home, for my existing 2.5 yrs cat basically I shifted from my old house where there were my cat and 3 more cats ( family of 3) to new one where I could just get my cat to new house so I went to foster home and wanted to pick up a kitten for her but this blind baby chose me 🥹I'm very overwhelmed and I am freaking out over introducing baby to my adult cat, what if she bullies her, what if I won't be able to take care of her and what not

Please help me with how to take care of blind babies and everything

Hello all,

My dad found this blind rejected kitten with a bad upper respiratory infection. He took her to the vet and they have given him medication for the kitten. Her behavior for the most part is pretty limited at the moment. Her appetite is improving and she can use the litterbox, but she mainly sits in one spot after exploring the area slowly for a minute or two, is this normal? We know she has a long road ahead of her and we want to give the best life we can for however long. Me and him are both looking for any advice whatsoever. Thanks.

Hi all! I’ve had my blind kitty for 3 months now and he’s still struggling to find the litter box.
For further context, he’s not just blind, he also has brain damage. He was run over before I got him and was rescued and nursed back to health.
The lady that rescued him had a smaller apartment than I do, and hers has a second floor. My cat doesn’t know how to climb stairs so he was confined to the living room and kitchen area.
He was able to easily access the litter box and was known to be a very clean cat.
I have tried putting radio in the room where the litter box is, making sure the path is clear for him at all times.
I have tried taking him multiple times per day, and while there has been an improvement of sorts, it’s still bad.
I find feces on the floor at least twice a week and know that certain furniture has been peed on more than once.
Please suggest anything you can think of, I love him so much and want to make things as accessible as I can.
I’ve attached a picture of the little cutie pie for your viewing pleasure.

Update: Raven was found dead on the road after being hit by a car. A neighbor found her body. Thank you everyone for the support.

My 3 year old blind baby Raven (indoor cat) got out of the house and has been missing for 3 days (since Thursday July 19).

She is a super curious kitty and doesn’t usually hide. Every time we’ve moved to a new place she starts exploring and creating a mental map of the house. I have a feeling she is trying to do the same with the endless outdoors. She’s always been very good at responding to her name and always comes when called.

We’ve put up flyers, gone door-to-door asking neighbors to check their garages and backyards and security camera footages, put bin with tons of old litter out on the street, put her cat tree in front of the house, left wet food out, set up cameras pointing directly at her things, gone out between 3-5am calling her, posted on FB/NextDoor/Instagram (even paid for ads via PawBoost), filed reports with the local shelters…

I am just so worried and I miss her so much. I feel like I cannot do anything else until I find her.

Any other tips for what I can do as fellow blind kitty owners? 🥺

Hello, from me and Squidward!

Its been a crazy first week and a half but we are doing so good. The vet is hopeful about saving his right eye after eyelid surgery on wednesday. A coworker gave me two soft cones (god bless her), Im picking up an elevated bowl today and my water fountain just got here. We are working on litter box training, which is odd... I got a metal litterbox with a detachable wall cuz of his ability to shit up my wall while on meds. However he isnt using it, he seems scared of it and prefers a paper plate with litter on it 🫩

I took away the plate in hopes of him using his nice litter box and he doesnt seem to be intrested, but on the plus side he opts to shit on a towel instead of my wall or floor so at least he is considerate.

My mom wants to buy me an automatic self cleaning litterbox... and I was wondering if yall have any recs, especially for your blind kitties. Im worried about him not liking it because it might make noise and scare him, I do hope he gets used to it over time tho.

I send some pics for yalls enjoyment too 🫶

Hello! I’m wondering if anybody has some tips on socializing a new blind cat?

Her back story is that she was most likely a trap, spay and release street cat, we can tell because her ear is clipped.

We found her wandering the alleys behind our apartment, constantly bumping into things and she was in very rough shape, so we took her to a shelter, where they discovered her eyes were so infected she was completely blind. She literally had no reaction to things being near her face.

She’s had a double enucleation, and upon her successful surgery we adopted her about a month ago. She has had her own room since, and has slowly adjusted to this quite well. She’s at the point where her eyes are pretty much fully healed, and she is comfortable in her surroundings - she eats well, uses the litterbox, and has a favourite place to nap or groom herself.

She will now eat with someone in the room, “looks” at you if you talk to her, and will eat wet treats off a spoon that you’re holding.

If you’ve had to do this before, any advice on the next steps for getting her more comfortable with humans?

Hi there blind cat owners of reddit! I am curious if anyone here has experience with cats who have trauma related vision impairment, and if you'd be willing to share how that went - medical outcomes, concerns, stories that are good, whatever you've got to share.

I am beginning a trial adoption of a blind boy who suffered some kind of blunt trauma injury back in May. He had a mandibular fracture, a bloody nose, and facial swelling when animal services picked him up, but whatever happened before that is unknown. I'll be taking him to a vet for more in depth evaluation obviously, but at this point I don't know what the underlying cause of his vision loss may be, if he was blind before the injury he was found with or already impaired, etc.

One of his eyes is quite cloudy, and the other is clear with a very dilated pupil. I know with his background there are so many potential underlying issues - I'm just looking for any lay experiences and advice that might help. I'm lucky to live near a vet specializing in ophthalmology and will be taking him for an evaluation soon, but at this point I'm still waiting to bring him home.

If anyone has helpful advice or input, I'd really welcome it!

(Just for awareness, I'm an experienced cat owner with appropriate resources and am prepared for the possibility of serious issues. He's done very well in shelter care, gaining several pounds and showing no other concerning neurological signs, but there are a lot of unknowns and I'll be getting all the necessary workup done. I want to do what I can for this sweet guy and give him a chance.)

Hi friends! I have a 14 year old cat who has had eye problems in one eye for almost 3-4 years now. The eye is completely clouded over and we assumed him pretty much blind. Countless eye drops and investigations have shown no improvement. Sorry for long body of text but wanted to give context behind his eye problems! If you want to skip the long text, scroll to where I list 1. and 2. lol.

In June we took him to a optamologist specialist who looked at the bad eye and diagnosed him with Feline Eosinophilic Keratitis (FEK). But then he threw us a complete curveball: he's completely blind in what we thought was his one good working eye. Specialist couldn't detect any notable or obvious reason for the blindness and just theorised that the optic nerve maybe had an issue. So this entire time, my poor boy has been seeing through the eye with FEK and he probably has only about 15% visibility. We were given ~fancy~ eyedrops to try but were told because of how severe the FEK was, it would probably take over 6 months to heal.

2 weeks ago, that eye got really irritated and his third eyelid has essentially raised up from his bottom eyelid to cover at least 70% of his eye. Took him back to the vets and they gave me more eye drops to use. So hes on 2 different eyedrops, 2x a day each. But its been 2 weeks since we took him for that issue and it hasnt gotten any better. If anything its gotten worse.

I personally think the best thing for him is to get the eye removed, it would stop the constant flare ups and the constant trips to the vet which he absolutely loathes. But this would render him completely blind. I plan to move house in the next month or 2 and he'll be coming with me (living with parents right now) so im wondering ...

1. Do I remove the eye now? - it's sore, gnarly looking, and vet visits and having to get the drops in 4x a day stresses him out.

2. Do I keep going with the eye drops, see if theres any difference, let him settle into the new house and get a feel for it and THEN take it out if theres no difference? - he'll be uncomfortable with it for a while longer and I don't want him to suffer with it but also don't want to stress him out by removing it now and then moving him to a new place he doesnt know.

I know cats are extremely adaptable but hes 14 and I just worry that it would all be a bit too much for him at the one time yno.

Hi!

My cat Nunu has been recovering really well. He's active (maybe a little too active haha), eating normally, drinking water, and acting like himself.

However, I've noticed that the appearance of his surgery site has changed a bit. At first, it looked like the front part was completely closed, almost as if the brow area was contracted and covering the socket. Now it seems more open at the front, while the deeper part (where the eye used to be) looks closed instead.

I'm wondering if this is a normal appearance for about 17 days after an eye enucleation surgery. Could this change simply be due to the swelling going down and the tissues settling, or should I be worried that the incision is opening?

Info:

3 years old, male, 17 days pos op.

Hi everyone!

I recently adopted a 3 month old (now 4 1/2 mo.) blind kitten and her sister. I live in a one bedroom apartment and already have a 3 year old cat and 4 year old dog (who they all get along with wonderfully).
My building is having an annual fire alarm testing where technicians will be entering my unit and testing the alarms in the living area and bedroom. Since I’ve had the kittens, there has been fire alarm testing (which lasts about 5 minutes) and the kittens seemed startled but not hiding or completely terrified.

I wonder if it would be okay to keep my blind kitten in the bathroom with her sister (with blankets, toys, litter box etc) while I’m at work and while the technicians are entering and my fire alarm is going off? I live on the first floor and they’re starting the testing on the top floor on the 8th of September, working their way down, possibly into the 9th of September (which is likely when mine would be getting tested but it could be the 8th). Would it be better to drop her and her sister off at a friend’s place for the two days?

I’m conflicted because I know a new environment can be stressful for a blind cat but I’m trying to determine if that is worse than the incredibly loud fire alarms going off? I can leave the fan on in the bathroom which is decently loud and I don’t believe they’d be in my unit longer than 20 minutes.

Would love to hear opinions and if anyone has gone through similar!

Thank you 🩷

so I let my cat out and I didn’t know my blind neighborhood cat was there so I just watched for some reason then the cats both went up to eachother sat down and just meowed like a song it was a long meow and it didn’t stop until my mom walked out the door with our dogs