Yeah, it is much more difficult for an older cat to adjust to losing it’s sight. We’ve been down that path before, with a 17 yr old we had. She could find her way up onto things, such as a bed or chair, to take a nap, but would meow for assistance getting down, because she was unsure how far of a jump down it was.
Our two blind cats now, have been blind since shortly after birth, as kittens. Victims of Feline Herpes. My daughter is the vet tech and could explain it better, but their eyes can literally burst from it, if it’s not caught & treated quickly, after birth. They contract it from the mother, during birth.
Ours both went through surgery, to have their eyes removed, as young kittens. They were both feral strays that were found wandering by people, and brought into the hospital where my daughter works. Unfortunately, blind kittens aren’t high on people’s list, when it comes to adoption. They are usually euthanized for that reason. In the case of ours, they were otherwise healthy. Both times, my daughter made a deal with the doctor. She would adopt them, if the doctor did the surgery on the house. Vets are animal lovers too, so both times the doctors agreed, and did the surgeries free of charge.
Being blind virtually from the start, they don’t know any difference. Once they get the lay of the land, it’s full speed ahead. They don’t think twice about launching them selves off of a window sill, entertainment center, cat tree perch, top of a chair, etc. It’s business as usual for them. We do try and keep furniture re-arranging to a minimum, though…lol.
Damn! My cat pics are so old, they are not in digital format. I miss keeping cats , but as a veggie, I don’t feel right about feeding a carnivore .
Way back when I still lived with my ex , we used to keep three cats, not by intention exactly , just that whenever one died, another waif would turn up on our doorstep within a week , and insist that we adopt him/her. It’s as if they would put a sign out, saying “Vacancy in three cat household”, Though curiously, we had a cat die of old age jjust before out son was born…and no replacement turned up ! We couldn’t figure out if they counted the baby as the replacement cat, or (more likely, perhaps) they put up a sign saying “Beware the baby” instead
My favourite was a Tom that I named Thomas Stearnes Eliot (or Eliot for short) after the author of Old Possums book of Practical Cats. He was black-and-white with a round black spot on his white chin, just below his mouth, which gave him a look of permanent astonishment. And he was highly intelligent. After observing that we answered the door a whole lot more promptly to people who knocked on it than to a cat who meowed to come back indoors for the nth time today, FFS, he learned to knock the door, by repeatedly lifting the letterbox flap and dropping it. We couldn’t tell the difference!
When he first arrived on our doorstep he was only a kitten. It was clear that he had been very well looked after, so we expected him to be reclaimed, but we never managed to trace the owner (perhaps they had died). After being admitted inside, Eliot quitely moped around, being no trouble whatsoever, and very much appeared to be grieving . But then, immediately after I utterered the words “Well , I guess he can stay” his ears pricked up and he lauched himself into a whirlwind circuit of the room . concluding by climbing the wall hanging, staight up, just like a treecreeper . His moping days were over and he was all sorts of trouble thereafter
Never let it be said that cats don’t understand human language!
Our Cat Ziggy is like a small child. Everywhere I go Zig goes. When I go to bed she has to go to bed. When I take a shower she waits for me on the toilet seat meowing. When I get dressed, she runs in to the closet to see what I have picked out for the day. This is how Ziggy feels about personal privacy
