We suspect that Thirteen is starting to lose her vision. Because she's recently (like in the past couple of weeks) developed the habit of not eating some or all of her pills. It's not because she doesn't want them: if we get the pills and put them in front of her, she always eats them.We wrap them in cheese, and it seems that she simply can't see a lump of cheese sitting in an off-white food dish.
So we've been making a habit of checking her dish after every meal, retrieving the pills she missed, and putting them right under her nose so she'll eat them. If she misses the itchy pill she's miserable for the next twelve hours. The selegeline (the crazy pill) isn't as immediate, but is still important. Last week we screwed up and she missed two days of selegeline. Monday we ran out, and we figured no big deal, one day and it will still be in her system. So we picked up the prescription Monday evening. Tuesday she missed all three selegeline pills. And Tuesday is the crazy rush day where we have to learn really early to take them to the vet outside Pittsboro. And I forgot to check her dish, so she went two whole days without the crazy pills.
I could really tell. She was starting to act nuts on the way home from the vet that evening. She'd whine a bit, and then suddenly bark out of nowhere. Oh man, it was driving me crazy. The car isn't that big and her bark was just piercing. I couldn't even tell her to stop because she can't hear me, especially over the ambient noise of the car. And she was sitting right behind me so that I couldn't reach her to try and calm her down when we stopped at a red light. What a nightmare drive!
So anyway, we think she's starting to lose her sight. Or at least lose the ability to distinguish a light object on a light background. This weekend we had the brilliant idea to get her a dark colored food dish. It sort of worked, except that she took a couple of her pills out of the dish and then dropped them on the off-white floor. Sigh. Maybe we need to get a dark floor mat too.
I'm not that freaked out about the possible loss of eyesight. I mean, it's not great. Especially with her already mostly deaf. But I got a comment a while back from someone who had a deaf and blind dog, and she said it was fine. The dog could remember where things were, well enough to get around, and she said he still seemed happy. I'm hoping that's how it goes with Thirteen.
Did you try with dark bowls, yet? (As long as they're not the same color as her other food, anyway).
I'm on dog duty this week for a lovely aging dog whom I used to kind of live with back in 2001 when her owner and I were dating. Said pup used to hear small street noises in the middle of the night and would WOOF! She's going deaf now. Everyone's sleeping better.
When I was in high school I had a cat who went blind. She wasn't that old really--maybe around 9--and it happened gradually (the vet said it was a hereditary condition). We noticed that she'd occasionally run into something on the floor, like a shoe, and be very surprised. She adapted, though, and even when we rearranged furniture or moved to a new place, after a couple days of careful exploring she was just fine and could even jump to high places.
Except one time--she used to sleep on the fuzzy toilet seat cover, and once she jumped up but the lid was up, so she jumped completely into the toilet, quickly followed, of course, by jumping completely out and hiding until she was dry, when she walked by us with an "I meant to do that" air that cats are brilliant at.
Phil: We tried the dark-colored bowl, with only partial success. Now she's picking up the cheese and dropping them on the floor, where she can't see them.
Minty: It sounds like your cat did really well! That is a hilarious story about her falling into the toilet. The kind of thing that you feel like you shouldn't laugh at, except that it's so funny.