How Can You Take Care of a Cat That’s Born Blind?

How to Take Care of a Blind Cat

This is my story of living with a blind cat, and my tips on how to take care of a blind cat. To begin, you should know that a blind cat is a disabled cat. There’s a difference between cats that are born blind and cats that have become blind by disease or accident. The latter might experience more difficulties in adapting to their blindness. For a cat that’s born blind, the world has never been bright and sunny.

Our cat Kyra was born blind. Her world has always been dark and formless. She learned to trust her nose, whiskers and ears. She had a sixth sense of unsafe situations, especially around dogs who visited our house.
We have lived for 19 years with my little blind cat Kyra. I hope my experience on how to take care of a blind cat can help others.

How Kyra Came to Live with Us

Kyra was born on a farm. Her mom got killed in the mowing machine, and she came to live with my daughter’s girlfriend.

• Kyra was only ten days old.
• When her eyes opened, they discovered she was blind.
• She kept bumping into everything.

The vet told them she wouldn’t live beyond her first year. The owners had a driving instruction school. It was too dangerous for this cat to stay there because she might get crushed in the busy human traffic. They gave her to my daughter, and when my daughter came home for weekends, Kyra came too. We noticed that Kyra loved to roam outside in our fenced garden. One day Kyra fell from the fifth-level balcony of my daughter’s apartment. So my daughter decided Kyra should live with us for the rest of her life.

Kyra proved the vet wrong. She didn’t die that first year. She managed to live a full 19 years.

Internet Research

Before I wrote this article, I searched the internet for “How to take care of a blind cat” and “blind cat behavior”. A lot of advice contradicted my own experience. So this is how this article runs: I use quotes and then tell my experience. As Kyra lived for 19 years, we must have done something right.

They Say About Blind Cats #1

“Keep your cat indoors at all times. A blind cat cannot detect danger and run from it, especially if attacked or chased. If you do let your cat outside, never leave her side. A harness and leash can allow your pet to go out and enjoy the outdoors safely. A harness provides better guidance and control while walking. You need to be her eyes and watch out for things she might bump into.”

My Experience: Blind Cat Inside or Outside?

If your cat has gone blind after having been able to see, it might be wise to keep her inside for a while. Kyra was born blind. She did not know the world as we saw it. She found the cat door by herself, which took only a few times to help her to get back in again. Kyra relied on her ears and nose. Sure, she bumped into things, but this mostly happened when stressed.

Minimizing Stress for a Blind Cat

We never had her on a harness, and we had a fence around our garden because we had hunting dogs at the time. Kyra often managed to get out of the garden one way or other and then would lose control over her movements. Only then did visitors discover that she was blind. When thinking about how to take care of a blind cat, it’s best to keep stressful situations out of their way as much as possible.

Can You Leave a Blind Cat Alone?

Overall, it’s wise to take precautions to avoid leaving a blind cat in situations where stress or danger might arise. In our case, visitors with dogs had to keep them on the leash. If we didn’t trust the dog, we put Kyra in a room upstairs for the time being. On the whole, we just forgot that she was blind. She got her food on the kitchen counter, so the dogs couldn’t steal it.

They Say About Blind Cats #2

Among other things, blind pets strongly rely on their memory to help them navigate through your home. The most important thing you can do for your cat is to keep things in the same place as much as possible. It is important that you be consistent.

— Petplace.com

My Experience

We paid attention to not moving furniture at first, but not so much later on. Kyra bumped into things quite often, but never too hard. She has never shown any sign of stress. When she bumped her head, she changed directions.

Who is the Boss in Our House

In our house, Kyra was the boss of the Tortoise cat Red and the Border Collie dogs Tipper and Dixie.

The only cat she respected was our big Tomcat Bram, who died when he was 8. Bless his darling soul.

Kyra and the Tortoise were enemies from the start. Whenever the tortoise was getting too close, Kyra would jump her. Flakes of hair would fly all over the place.
The tortoise was so stupid to let herself get caught all the time, while all she had to do was jump on the chair or a table to avoid getting attacked by Kyra.

They Say About Blind Cats #3

A cat’s sense of hearing is amazing. Cats can hear high frequency sounds we cannot. They can also distinguish the tone or pitch of sounds better than we can. And their ability to locate the source of a sound is highly advanced. From a yard away, a cat can distinguish between sound sources only three inches apart. They can also hear sounds at great distances – four or five times farther away than humans.

— Petplace.com

My Experience

Knowing how to take care of a blind cat means understanding their unique behaviors and being prepared for unexpected situations. Kyra has always been on guard when she smelled something she was uncertain about, like strange dogs. She got attacked twice by a dog. She really panicked and started jumping a meter high all over the place. That behavior confused the dog, but it gave us time to rescue her.

She even managed to catch mice and flies.

Kyra always found her way around in our big garden. In Summer, she practically lived outside, but sometimes she came in soaking wet. I wasn’t very thrilled when she jumped into my bed at night that way.

They Say About Blind Cats #4

You may feel the urge to pick the cat up and carry her from one place to the next. Carrying her will help her to move safely from A to B, but it does the cat no favours. Studies have shown that cats are literally egocentric – they literally orientate the world in relation to themselves. When you pick up a blind cat and move it to a new location, her navigation system becomes disrupted, resulting in a confused and stressed cat. Put her down in a familiar place.

— knowyourcat.com

My Experience

Kyra has never fallen off a chair or table. She’s very cautious when she’s on strange grounds. So, how to take care of a blind cat safely in such situations? What we did was the following: We placed her on the table and then held her, and guided her down to the floor. We did the same with chairs and the kitchen counter. We only had to do that once or twice, and then she knew the distance to make the jump herself.

How She Learned to Adapt to Changes

She accidentally found the cat door herself and could go out and back in. When we connected the house to the barn, she had to go through two cat doors, which took some time for her to learn. I used to guide her from a familiar place in the garden to where the new cat door was and then pushed her through. She had to press more to open the new cat door, which she refused to do. But after a few weeks, using the cat doors from the inside and outside was no problem anymore.

It sometimes took her a bit longer to get used to changes. She loved to climb into boxes and bags. It always amazed me how fast she found them. I found her in the most peculiar places, and then I wondered: How on earth did you know you could climb on that?

They Told Us She Wouldn’t Live Very Long – She Proved Them Wrong

Kyra was not an average cat in many ways. The vet was sure that she wouldn’t last a year. Not only was she born blind, she was tiny and a bit malformed here and there. She was the size of a cat of 6 to 8 months old, her tail had a kink, her nails were malformed, and when she got spayed, her uterus was also deformed.

All this didn’t keep this lovely cat from growing up and enjoying life.

Still Having a Ball at the Age of 18

At the age of 18 years, she was still doing very well, though I saw some signs of old age appearing. I was feeding her cooked chicken and soft cat food because she couldn’t chew the dried pet food anymore. She very much loved to eat.

Wherever she was when you happened to eat a sandwich or another snack, she was there in front of you in no time. Our garbage bin stands in front of the kitchen counter. Kyra used that as a step up to the counter. Once, I had the garbage bin open when cleaning onions, and she jumped right in the garbage bin. Kyra was a special cat with a mind of her own.

Kyra’s Behavior Started to Change

Around September 2012, we noticed a slight difference in our blind cat’s behavior: when we called her, she was not coming straight to us but started to make little rounds on the spot she was in. It looked like she was losing some orientation ability. It seemed she no longer knew from which direction the sound came from. We thought she was developing some hearing problems. One new thing she was doing: she would sit somewhere and then start to meow a lot and be very loud.

She had done that when she caught a mouse to tell us to come and see what the cat brought in. She never meowed otherwise, so this was strange. Like she felt all alone or something. So whenever we heard her hollering, we talked to her. Then she knew that one of us was around. She was still quite playful, especially when she got hold of my long braids.

Old Cats Can Get Alzheimer’s Disease?

I had never heard of Feline Dementia. However, observing her strange behavior, it seemed she was losing her marbles as the saying goes. I started to wonder if cats could suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, so I called my vet and asked him. He confirmed that Feline dementia was an option in this case.

Signs of Feline Dementia

Odd changes in behavior of your old cat might point to feline dementia, according to PetMD.

Examples:

• Our cat could sit for hours in the middle of the room, staring into the unknown.
• When Kyra started meowing very loudly, we called her, and then she started walking in circles.
• It seemed that she couldn’t trace where the noise was coming from.
• We found her in the most peculiar places, just sitting and doing nothing.

At one point, she couldn’t find her standard litterbox anymore. She had several spots where she peed on the floor. We turned a few stackable plastic letter trays into litterboxes. We put them in all those places. She used them most of the time. They’re open boxes, but if you don’t fill them with too much grit and clean them daily, they won’t smell. It’s a bit of work, but who cares?

The End of Our Blind Cat’s Life Was Near

Kyra’s fur got all tangled and matted again because she was often out in the wet grass, and she licked herself a lot. She would not let me cut the matted pieces, so I had to take her to the vet. They gave her a light anesthetic and shaved all the bad matting away. Kyra looked like a mini lion. To keep her from catching a deadly cold, we had put her on the bench of one of our dogs. We installed a lamp to keep her warm, and she was actually happy there.

She had developed a habit of finding the weirdest places to nap. Kyra was sometimes lost for hours, and we had to wait until she appeared again. Calling her name would not help because she had gone slightly deaf and could not hear us.

Kyra had no urge anymore to go outside. She also had lost the ability to find the cat door. To play it safe, we decided to keep her indoors from that point on. She slept most of the time anyway but still loved to eat. We often took her out to cuddle her.

November 21, 2014

We saw a change in Kyra’s behavior last week. She did not want to stay on her bench anymore, but when she was out, she was sitting on the kitchen floor doing nothing. Once, we found her in one of my kitchen cupboards. Then she found a small half-empty grocery box, crawled in, and slept there. If we did not bring her to her food/water and litter box, she would not move at all. The last two days, Kyra was not eating or drinking much either.

Despite the fact that she was not in pain, we decided to put her into her eternal sleep. I could not bear the thought of finding her dead somewhere one morning. I was sure that would happen within a couple of days.

I brought her to our vet. He said she was very dehydrated. He gave her an injection to sleep, and she went into a coma on my arm. Then Kyra got the final injection. She was out within a second, and I was glad we had made that decision, because obviously she was ready to go.

Kyra’s Final Resting Place

I took her home, and we buried her in the garden, where she often slept in summer. Reaching the age of 19 years is quite an achievement for a little blind cat. More so because the vet thought she wouldn’t last a year. She has lived a full and beautiful cat’s life.

This last photo shows Kyra how I remember her most. On top of a pollard willow.

In Summary: 5 Tips on How to Take Care of a Blind Cat

1. Let Your Cat Explore on Their Own: Help them at first, but give them the freedom to learn and navigate their space using their nose and ears.
2. Keep Things Calm and Stress-Free: Protect them from loud noises, unfamiliar dogs, or anything that might make them anxious.
3. Make Outdoor Areas Safe: If your blind cat goes outside, make sure the space is securely fenced to keep them from getting lost or hurt.
4. Try Not to Move Things Around Too Much: Keeping furniture in the same spot helps the cat feel confident as they move around.
5. Introduce New Things Slowly: When there’s a change, like a new door or area, show them a few times until they feel comfortable.

Products for Blind Cats?

Food puzzles are a fantastic way to keep blind cats entertained and their minds sharp. By using their super sharp sense of smell, your cat can hunt for yummy rewards hidden inside.

Learn more about how to take care of a blind cat from Cats Protection: a UK charity that helps blind cats lead a full and happy life. You can watch their video below:

Comments

Marko Volodya on August 23, 2019:

Thanks for sharing Kyra’s story. She hit the jackpot when she found a home with you.

Titia Geertman (author) from Waterlandkerkje – The Netherlands on April 14, 2019:

#Charcoal: You could be right about the malformities being a genetic condition. The uterus of Kyra was totally misformed too the vet said when she got fixed.

Charcoal on April 13, 2019:

Beautiful baby! We have a blind cat that was born blind as well. I find it interesting that you mentioned your cat was malformed. Our cat Charcoal also has a kink in his tail, he has an extra rib, and when neutered his testicles had not descended and the vet said they were very oddly formed inside him. I wonder if there is some kind of genetic condition that causes these malformities and blindness is just another side effect.

Beryl du plessis on January 14, 2019:

A wonderful inspiring life… And such a nice way to say ‘put to eternal sleep’ instead of clinical euthanasia.

Titia Geertman (author) from Waterlandkerkje – The Netherlands on November 15, 2018:

#rasbdrama: Thanks for your comment. It’s a tough decision whether to adopt or not adopt this special needs kitten. I’m sure she will survive, but she certainly will encounter stressful moments. It takes time for a blind or almost blind cat to adjust to its environment and moving twice in a rather short time and then possibly jumping the ocean to the USA will be stressful for this kitten.

It took my cat Kyra quite some time to get to know her way around and she sometimes freaked out and completely lost her orientation for a while when she was put in a surroundings unknown to her. I think however with a lot of love and caring she will do ok. My suggestion is if you decide to adopt her, to buy a bench and make it a night home for her with a soft pillow and a litterbox and a water bowl and let her sleep in there at night. Eventually, she will learn that that’s her ‘safe’ place and won’t be too stressed when moving.

Wishing you good luck.

rasbdrama on November 15, 2018:

This is beautiful! I am thinking about adopting a sweet-looking almost blind kitty who has melted my heart. However, I am hesitating because I know I am moving within a year, we may move again not long after, and eventually, we will probably move from the Netherlands to the US. I’m concerned that all of that change would be stressful for a “special needs” kitty. Flying is hard enough on average cats, I would imagine it could be traumatic for a blind cat. She’s so young and has survived a lot, I just want to make sure she gets the best home and family she can whether it is with me or another loving home. What would you suggest?

Titia Geertman (author) from Waterlandkerkje – The Netherlands on October 31, 2018:

#Glyn: I sure still think about her a lot. She was a very special cat.

Glyn on October 31, 2018:

Beautiful thanks for sharing, bet you still think about her.

that was beautiful on October 03, 2018:

I cried

Titia Geertman (author) from Waterlandkerkje – The Netherlands on July 11, 2018:

#Hannah, thanks for your lovely comment. I still miss my little blind cat, although she really could get under your skin sometimes too. Don’t worry about the dark world he’s living in, he doesn’t know better. Kyra could catch the flies from the sky. Their hearing and smell are so much more developed. I hope your cat will live a long and happy life.

Hannah on July 11, 2018:

I cried reading this. What a beautiful story. I too have a blind cat, he was probably born blind, we’re not quite sure. Only noticed that he kept bumping into things when he was 6 months old. He is 2 years old now and is living with 9 other cats. He navigates through the house well, not a problem at all. I feel sorry that his world is dark and am trying my best to find new ideas on how to help him live his life to the fullest. Bless you for taking care of Kyra for 19 years!