Cat vision question

Dear Dr. Herndon,

My cat Poppy doesn’t jump up on cabinets or over the wall around the back yard. In fact, she’s just not a jumper at all. She will stair step her way up to higher places such as the 5’ carpeted cat tower in the living room so its not heights that bother her. Do you think she could be nearsighted?

Cynthia

Dear Cynthia:

If her eyes are narrow set like a typical oriental breed or if she has vision problems in one eye, she may not have good depth perception. Is Poppy siamese?

Cats can have vision problems just like ours, so it is possible she's nearsighted. Unfortunately, we don't have any easy way to measure that. (I guess you could try to have her read a Cat Fancy from five paces, but that may not be very helpful either.)

Another possibility is that she has problems in her hips that make it too painful or impossible to jump up. In this case, she'd climb well, but it would hurt to jump. You'd have to take an x-ray to find out.

At least she's smart enough to know her limitations and not try to jump up where she can't see well enough to land.

AMH