My newly adopt blind cat

MsPrudence

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I recently (not quite a month ago) adopted an almost 4 year old blind siamese cat, Minerva. The rescue I got her from has had her since she was about a year old, and all I know is that she came to the rescue with a broken jaw and already at least mostly blind (it seems she's entirely blind now). Her first foster kept her in a large crate away from the other cats in the house for a little over a year, then the foster that I got Min from had been keeping her for almost two years in a small spare bedroom.
The foster hadn't taken Min to the vet in well over a year, but when I took her in 3 weeks ago they said she was healthy other than being late on some vaccinations and recommended getting her teeth cleaned. They weighed her at 6.4 pounds.
Min seems to enjoy her new home. I live in a small one bedroom apartment with my partner, but she has free range of the place and has taken to sleeping on the couch, bed, or a lap (never had the chance to be a lap cat in the past) instead of one of her two cat beds. I kept her on the same grain-free dry food the foster had her on, and while I have a couple cans of the same wet food as well, I've also been giving her shredded duck and chicken meat leftover from (unsalted) broth I made a few days ago.
Minerva didn't have any issues finding and using her litter box when we brought her home. Her foster was using generic cat litter, so I stuck with just that the first several days. As the weeks have gone on, I've been phasing in a different kind of litter (septic safe!) by mixing in some each time I cleaned her box.
Okay, so that's all the background info on Minerva. Now for why I'm posting today:
In the last week, Minerva has peed twice outside her litter box. The first time we thought it was because the bathroom door was closed while my partner was showering and she couldn't get in, but she usually meows very loudly if she encounters a closed door that isn't usually closed, and this time she didn't. The second time was today, and the bathroom door was wide open for her.
In addition to this, she's spit up twice this week as well, including today. Her foster had said that she spits up sometimes, just part of having a cat, but twice in a week? She's been eating regularly, she eats her dry food and dental treats through out the day and night and usually gets a couple bites of wet food or shredded chicken once or twice as well, but when I tried to weigh her today on my not-at-all-trustworthy bathroom scale, I was getting somewhere between 5.5 and 6 pounds, significantly lower than the 6.4 she was at the vets.
Should I be concerned for Min? I'm inclined to think the peeing outside her box is due to her not liking the new litter still, which I'm still phasing in and at this point there is very little of the old brand still mixed in. Plus her being blind, is it possible she was just a bit confused and thought she found another place to go? The first accident, she peed on a very large leaf that had been crunched up in the corner (don't ask), and the second time was on a crinkly plastic bag. She tried to bury it both times like it was litter.
As far as the vomiting and potential weight loss, is this just me being a worried new cat owner with a faulty bathroom scale that gives me a slightly different number every time I use it? Like I said, she seems to be eating just fine.
One last thing, just in case this post isn't already long enough. Min also paces in circles sometimes for a few minutes at a time. I know this can be a sign of disorientation, but is it something to worry about? Again, she's completely blind and is still learning her way around to an extent. She also has tons of toys and places to climb and gets as much attention as she could posssibly want, so I don't think it's boredom. She's also in a much larger space than she's ever had access to, having been kept in a crate or a spare bedroom for the last 3 years.

Sorry for the exceedingly long post, just a worried first time cat owner!
 

red top rescue

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I have had a blind cat before and I have one now, and I am amazed about how well they do.  It is important to put things in regular places and not move them.  If I forget and leave a laundry basket in the middle of his usual "path" he will kind of bump into it and then be confused as he tries to find his way around it.  I have other cats and a lot of clutter, but I have had him since he was a kitten and he has only gone blind recently, and it happened slowly and I didn't notice it at first.  He has always been a creature of habit and does the same thing, goes the same places, wants things in the same order.  It is the same order he did things in before he was blind and I think it gives him security.

If I were you, I would not change her litter by mixing the new in with the old.  I would leave her one litter box in the usual place with the old litter in it.  If you want to change her, try putting a second litter box somewhere else and perhaps start with a litter like Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract, which has an attractant in it.  Yes it is expensive to start out but it lasts well and deodorizes well and for one cat it's pretty perfect.  She may like it.  You may like it.  If not, it's better for her to have the security of her litter smelling just like she thinks it should smell. 

As for peeing on plastic, that's a cat thing.  They all seem to do it.  I leave one empty plastic litter box down at all times, and it gets peed in regularly by someone.  (Multiple cats here, not sure which one or ones).  I rinse it out and put it down again.  Easier to clean up than the floor.  The leaf may have smelled enough like her old litter to draw her to it.  She preferred it to the new litter.  I think you will have to let her lead in this department.  I dont know if the new litter is scented but most cats do not like scented litter, the scent is for people.  If you want her to use a litter box, you need to make sure she likes the litter.  I have not yet found a cat that DIDN'T like the Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract litter.

With the food and the vomiting, maybe it's a Siamese thing, but once or twice a week isn't a big deal.  Often it happens if yoy are feeding dry food and they eat too much of it and then drink water.  It expands in their tummy and up it comes.  Wet food is better for them anyhow, so if I were you, I would reverse the order, and have her main food be wet food and her treats be the dry food.

Finally, the pacing in circles seems to be a way they can reorient themselves when they have lost direction.  Mine will occasionally do a lap around the living room, staying close to the wall, before he figures out which way to go, either to the bedroom or to the kitchen.  He has lived in the same house for 12 years now but he has only been blind for about one year, maybe less.  It doesn't seem to bother him most of the time, and I leave the clutter where it has always been and try to keep laundry baskets and vacuum cleaners and the like put away so he doesn't get surprised by them.

Welcome to The Cat Site, and I'm so glad you adopted Min.  Siamese are such loving cats that it makes me sad thinking of her shut up in a crate for a year, and I'm so glad she can be a lap cat and a couch cat with you now. 
 
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MsPrudence

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Thanks for your response! I sort of figured a lot of it was me just worrying too much and I wanted to get other opinions before shelling on the money for a vet visit.
I'd already been looking into the litter attractant thing, and now I'll definitely get some. I think my local petsmart has containers of just the attractant that you can sprinkle in the litter itself. And the litter isn't scented, it's World's Best Cat Litter, which is septic safe but corn-based so it doesn't smell like regular kitty litter. She was fine with it when it was a 50/50 mix with her old stuff so I'll just throw in another handful or two of that to appease her until I can get litter attractant.

As far as her pacing in circles, she does it for a couple minutes at a time and in small, tight circles. My partner said it looked like she was trying to chase her tail the first time he noticed it.
 

red top rescue

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The circling may relate to an old head injury.  Since her jaw was broken when they first got her, obviously she had some head trauma.  I had one kitten who had head trauma when I took him in -- evidently he had been thrown from a car or hit by one, someone found him in a ditch and I wont go into graphic detail but one eye was very swollen and he obviously had a blow of some sort to the head.  The first night I had him, he could not see or hear or walk, but he healed over time and HE would circle, when he was first learning to walk.  He got over that, the circles got bigger and bigger until he could finally manage a sort of straight line, but it's something you could mention to the vet. 

I know World's Best Cat Litter, but if she isn't going to the smell, you might try some of the unscented clay clumping litter and mix the attractant into that.  Precious Cat plain clumping litter is good and works great with the attractant sprinkled into it.  You may not even need the attractant, she may just not like the smell of the corn based litter now that it has gone more than half and half.  I have one who will not use anything but clay clumping littter.  He doesn't care if it is scented or not, but he will go on the floor rather than use any other kind.  I don't like clay litter much but I keep it for him, better than him pooping on the floor beside the box.  Mostly I use pelletized pine in my other boxes, which is natural and deodorizes better than anything else.
 
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