Advice re cat with eyesight problem

[bamboocat]

We've been rather concerned by our cat's rather odd behaviour over the last week or two. She is getting on a bit in years, and does have a history of seizures (historic brain injury) and we've wondered about her eyesight for a while. She's also been finding it harder to locate Dreamies on the floor and just looks around in a puzzled sort of way.

Today she has started walking into things and seems disconcerted and a bit fearful. She keeps calling out for us but she's currently hiding in the shed.

Needless to say we are taking her to the vet in the morning, but I was wondering whether anybody else has a cat with very poor or no vision and how they cope with it.

Apparently she has gone blind, the vet thinks she will learn to cope with it in time. Bless her.

My friends cat is blind but still potters about in the garden. They make sure the food a and water bowls are not moved and litter tray is easy to get to. They have minimum furniture and wrap soft material around the table and chair legs. Poor kitty.

Blindness in elderly cats is often associated with high blood pressure/detached retinas, I do hope they checked her blood pressure as it's easily controlled with medication. The most important thing you can do is to make sure you don't move furniture around. Also she'll be hesitant to jump up to higher spaces where she'll feel safe, you can help by giving her ramps to use, I used to tack old carpet to planks of wood to use, also useful for old cats in general as most will have osteoarthritis at some point. They do adapt though, obviously she'll need to stay in although some will still enjoy the garden if it's secure.

Thanks for the advice, we have a small enclosed garden so she will be safe in there, and the vet told DH about the furniture issue. We have a variety of work patterns, so she won't be left on her own for more than a couple of hours a day, and never outside unless we are at home.

No detached retinas or anything else, there's nothing actually wrong with her eyes as such - according to the vet it is the messaging system between the eyes and the brain. She isn't NT anyway, and this seems to be an add-on.

We've noticed that today she's started walking around beside the walls and furniture and using her whiskers to find her way

Talk before you move, then as you move - she'll be able to judge where you are by your voice, rather than be startled.

Don't move stuff around.

Play with her by sound - little taps on the floor with a wand, toys with jingly bells. Smelly treats hidden where she can hunt them down by smell.

Make sure she can still climb to safe places - mine still insisted upon jumping on the top of the wardrobe and launching herself back down onto the bed at 4am

Call her and repeatedly tap where you want her to come to.

Assume that you will have a kamikaze loon whose only change is that now she can't see the fear in your eyes.

(DTwatCat #1 has CH, so definitely isn't NT. His eyesight is pretty crap, too - but so is mine.)

She's using the walls because she has a map in her head of where they are, so she's actually developed a brilliant coping strategy - even though it's hard for you to witness it.
Definitely yes to all the advice others have given here, but also to add if you do introduce anything new, call her to where you are so she has her bearings and gently guide her to the new stuff so she knows where it is.

She's more of an illusionist loon actually, and can make herself completely disappear in a practically empty room.

We lost her for 3 weeks once - she was in the house somewhere and came out of hiding to eat and use the tray, but only when we were out or asleep. To this day we have no idea where she had secreted herself.

Her hearing isn't all that brilliant either, nor is her sense of smell. She couldn't find her dinner earlier, despite it being about an inch from her nose. I think her brain is scrambling the input from her senses as she often looks puzzled. She was really quite fearful for a couple of days earlier this week but she's calmed down now a lot thankfully.

Thank you for the advice, it's really helpful.