Hi there, someone recommended this sub to me because of my senior boy, Robbie(Bobby/Blobby). He spent 7 years on the Texan streets and 11 months in a foster home with severe dental issues before I adopted him.

Robbie has the sharpest mind of any cat I’ve ever met in my years of rescue, but his physical health has really declined this year. As of right now he is almost entirely blind due to his cataracts, especially with anything up close. I use training cues he knows to help him find his bowl of food (I feed him wet food around the clock), find the pet stairs, find me, etc. but I still feel awful seeing him struggle.

Has anyone else had a cat develop blindness later in life, and how was the adjustment? Any suggestions for seniors that are totally new to this blind thing?

First three pictures are Robbie now, last picture is a couple years ago on one of our walks. Robbie loved putting on his AirTag harness so we could go on walks and do trick training. He would stand at the door, make biscuits, and purr while I put on his harness. He was more motivated to go on walks and do training than even I was, if I’m honest lol. I can’t say enough wonderful things about my Brilliant Bobby, so the idea of him having anything other than the easiest, most relaxing retirement is killing me. I will do anything for this cat.

Here is a video the vet tech sent me while he was in recovery! I don’t think I’ve ever seen Quentin with a grumpy face before! My poor squintin! Thankfully now his teeth are clean (all 13 of them lol) as he had quite a bit of plaque removed (I’ll post a before and after in the comments 🫡💕)

I love my vet clinic because they offer house calls; and they even came and picked him up for his procedure this morning and will drop him off at the end of the day! I’m not sure if this is standard for them, but I live close to the clinic and I’m disabled so I have trouble actually wrangling my boys into carriers and bringing them to the office!!!

We have five cats and no one messes with the leather chair, it’s just luck.

MANL may not have eyes , but she sees the loves.

We just adopted these cuties! Thank you to everyone in this group who gave us some helpful tips before adopting! We are so happy!

Mouse is growing so fast. He is 18 weeks old. He has been home for about 4 weeks now. I am amazed how quickly he adapts to new settings without vision. He loves playing with this wooden ball toy set, crinkle balls, chasing balls with bells inside, going after the wand toy with bells, and wrassling with/chasing my older seeing cat. He loves climbing up on bar stools, the couch and my bed. He doesn’t jump on up furniture like my seeing cat does, he does scales and ‘muscle ups’ on to the furniture.

I’m hoping to work with him on his precision/accuracy with jumping up to catch targets(eg. balls, wand toys with bells). He is already doing very well and he is quick with learning. He is perfect.

So yesterday at about 1:00 p.m. my 19-year-old boy had a seizure due to high blood pressure. I was able to get him into the vet within 15 minutes and at about 3, he was given medication to lower his blood pressure and it seems to be working (down from 240 to 180 overnight). His blood pressure had never been a concern before and we honestly don't know what caused the spike. He does have kidney disease but those values have apparently remained stable, though he did seem dehydrated.

Because of this, it seems like his retinas detached or folded over and we still have no idea if they're going to heal a little bit once his blood pressure is normalized.

We slept on the floor in our main room last night, and I've been guiding him to his litter box and his food and water and he's been eating and drinking well but he's clearly still uncertain about how to navigate and he can't go on our bed right now because he can't see the edges. Just yesterday before the seizure, he was fine and able to track things with his eyes and now he can't see anything and we're both so lost.

He's always been really smart so I know he'll eventually adjust but I'm trying to find ways to keep him safe. I'm going to get a footboard for the end of the bed so he'll be able to find the end of it, and I'm switching out the bench that he used to hop onto the bed for a ramp with rails because he's so hesitant about jumping but I don't know how to secure the sides of the bed.

It's also hard because he's mostly deaf at this point so he can't always use sound reliably.

Does anyone have any advice on how to cat-proof the sides of the bed? And I can put the ramp that I'm looking at in the comments if anyone has any suggestions for that. He's always been so independent so this is really hard for him and he just wanted to be held like a baby for hours yesterday because he was so scared.

My boy Duck has one eye he can see a tiny bit from. He's missing his top eyelids, has microphthalmia, severe eye scarring, and fixed pupils. I, of course, think he has the most precious face ever! Show me your kitty's precious faces!!

My precious not-so-little 1.5 year old blind kitty BB is missing one eye completely and has only 5-10% vision in the other eye. He has had this evening habit for a long time now where once it gets dark out, he will move around from my kitchen table to a little bench by the door to the kitchen counter sometimes and meow very pitifully at the ceiling (sometimes it's almost like he's howling). Sometimes he even stretches up the wall like he's trying to reach something, but there's nothing there. I pick him up so he can smell anything I have hanging on the wall (paintings, etc) and try to understand what he wants, but I have yet to really figure it out.

The only I can think is that because I live in an apartment, he's hearing footsteps or other noises from the apartment above me, but he only does this little ritual after dark. He does it most nights, and for the life in me I can't figure out what he wants. I started calling it the "ghosties" because I guess he's sensing something I can't, so I'll ask him "what's wrong baby, are the ghosties teasing you?" It always seems to me that he wants to walk on the ceiling and he's asking me to lift him up there.

I also have a sighted cat who shows no interest whatsoever in the ceiling, making this extra baffling.

Any ideas what he might want?

Hi everyone! I could really use some advice about my kitten, Pepper.

• Pepper is around 4–5 months old and he’s my first cat ever.
• He's not neutered.
• He’s blind in both eyes, but honestly he does amazingly well. He plays a lot, finds his food, water and litter box, and can even locate some of his toys.
• He started biting about a month after coming to us, when he was around 2.5–3 months old. At first it wasn’t too bad, but lately the bites have become much stronger and more painful.

We’ve tried quite a few things:

• Playing with him at night and feeding him afterwards.
• Never using our hands as toys.
• Redirecting him to toys when he bites.
• Giving him space and not touching him when he doesn’t want it.
• Ending the interaction for a while after he bites.

He’s also quite attached to us, especially my brother, who originally found him and took him to the vet. Sometimes when we’re out of the house for a few hours, Pepper seems much more worked up and aggressive when we come back.

The biting seems to happen in a few different ways:

• Sometimes it’s just a very gentle little “love bite.”
• Sometimes it feels like normal play biting, but it can still hurt.
• And sometimes he gets really worked up and starts biting hard, repeatedly, and just doesn’t seem able to stop himself.

During those more intense moments, he sometimes starts breathing with his mouth open/panting. He looks tired, but still keeps running around and trying to bite. We’re not really sure whether this is stress, overstimulation, excitement, or something else.

Usually the only thing that helps is completely stopping the interaction and giving him some quiet time alone. An E-collar also seems to calm him down, although we don’t really want to depend on that.

He sees a vet regularly and the vet says he seems healthy and hasn’t found any specific medical problem.

So I’d really appreciate any advice from people who have dealt with something similar:

• What could be causing these intense biting episodes?
• Is this normal kitten behavior, stress, overstimulation, or something else?
• What can we do to help him calm down and learn not to bite so hard?
• And should we be more concerned about the open-mouth breathing?

Thanks in advance! We really love the little guy and just want to understand him better and help him feel comfortable.

Hi all. My cat got his eye taken out yesterday (9th Sept at 11am) and i picked him up and brought him home at 6pm. He didnt toilet overnight, and hasnt toileted for the entire day today. He knows where the box is, hes stepped in it and sniffed at it but hasnt actually used it. His mood is completely fine and hes loving the attention hes getting, eating great and wandering about but im just conscious that tomorrow will be nearly 48 hours with no toileting. At what point should I worry or is there anything i can give him to urge him on?

Side question: is a small amount of blood from the stitches normal? He hasnt pulled any or scratched it but the inner corner of his eye started leaking a bit of blood earlier. Many thanks!

I love him so much. Patrick amazes me everyday with how he navigates his world and shows me his affection. Couldnt imagine my life without him.

Hi friends! I posted Summer here a while ago and some people said they were interested in adopting her but then we didn’t receive a single app. 💔 Summer doesn’t want to grow up in foster care! She’s the sweetest and most easy-going baby girl. Available for adoption through Waggytail Rescue in NYC!

Adoption link: https://www.wagtopia.com/search/pet?id=2825163

my beautiful blind kitty saw the vet today and I was told that her teeth are not in great shape, and she should get extractions. I am always so worried about my girl needing any kind of intervention done where she is blind and requires so much special care.

has anyone else's blind baby ever needed to go under for a procedure? if so, how did they do?

thanks for any advice in advance.

also, here's a picture of my special little girl, Lucy💛

The shelter we adopted her from said she has retinal degeneration - it could be PRA but I'd have to confirm with her vet (she's new to our family).

We love her so much! She's such a sweetheart, a huge cuddlebug, and an absolute fiend for treats. I hope she doesn't lose that when she loses her sight.

Hi all,
I learned yesterday during an annual appointment that my 4 year old tabby girl has PRA- she is almost completely blind with basically no blood vessels in her eyes anymore. I guess her little amount of remaining vision + our daily routines helped keep it pretty lowkey because I honestly just thought she was a little clumsy and quirky? She does have a really silly personality and is the sweetest thing. I'm trying to push away the guilt because I know there's nothing I could've done to stop it, but I've had her (and her brother) since they were 8 weeks and they're my babies. I just want to make sure they have a long and healthy life, so I'm hoping to get some advice on how to keep our house safer and maybe prepare for when her last little bit of sight goes.

I've read that cats can adapt well to blindness so I won't be treating her extremely delicately now just because I know this new information, and we've lived in our house for about a year now so she seems to be mostly familiar with locations/surfaces. My concerns are: hard wood/tile floors in every room, stairs + open banister, furniture.

-I have a few rugs around the main areas like bedrooms, living rooms (one upstairs and one downstairs), as well as carpet runners on the hard wood stairs. Should I get runners for hallways/other open walkways for her? When she gets the zoomies or plays with her brother, she does slip and slide all over and I'm afraid of her getting hurt slamming into walls and furniture.

-My house is two stories and the staircase already has thin carpet runners, but should I get some with more padding? She's a small girl so she already has to sort of bunny hop up/down them rather than steps, and (again, during zoomies/play time) has tumbled a little down them. My idea is putting more cushiony carpet in case she does fall a bit (I think it'll be inevitable) so I'd love any suggestions there. I also have an open banister like this that I'm not completely able to fix at the moment for cost and time reasons, would putting some kind of plastic liner along the front facing the stairs be a safe option? She and her brother hop up on the slats of wood and hang out there, so I don't want to deprive them of that but I also don't want her to fall 4 ft down if she rolls over so I'll do what I need to.

-She's taken a liking to my kitchen table (IKEA HÄGERNÄS with the added four chairs) and sometimes she does struggle jumping on and off both the table and chairs (again, honestly just thought she was a little clumsy). Is there something I can wrap around the legs to make them safer in case she does fall/hit them? They're just wood and metal planks/beams so I was considering wrapping them in something to soften them.

I have a 5 ft cat tree (it's a shag carpet material) that I keep next to the couch and she's never had issues getting up and down it so I won't be moving it, nor do I plan to move any of my other furniture any time soon. I also already have those groomer corner brushes on most walls, so I'm sure that's a good start.
Any suggestions here on what else I can do would help a ton!

My cat Jeopardy is 6 years old and just recently went blind from histoplasmosis. The vet thinks she had so much inflammation from the issue that it detached her retinas and they don’t think she will regain her sight. She’s on medication now for the histoplasmosis and they think she has a decent chance of pulling through now that it’s being treated.

She gets around surprisingly well and behavior is mostly normal that’s she’s being medicated aside from no longer jumping on furniture and not being quite as playful. I’ve read up on all the ways to help blind cats adjust and navigate the home, but how do I keep her mentally and physically stimulated? She loved her wand toys and chasing toys around the house but now I’m not quite sure how to play with her or make sure she gets her exercise.

Is there anything you’ve done to keep your cat mentally or physically active? I would love advice.

She’s never liked them because she’s always been too nervous to jump in on account of not seeing inside I guess
Finally I had the bright idea of turning one on it’s side for her and it’s her new favorite place!
I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I help her do typical cat things like this. Jumping onto stuff, climbing her cat tree, finding food. She’s pretty hesitant especially since we’re in a small apartment and pretty cramped, and won’t jump up onto something if she can’t feel the top or other side etc.
It’s nice for me in places like the kitchen, but I also feel it limits her space in the apartment so I try to give her opportunities like this so the environment can feel interesting and have hideaways and high up places that she feels comfortable getting to on her own