We just discovered this the other day and thought it was strange. Is it? She is a Siamese mix. She will not stay in or enter a room without lights on. She dislikes going outside after dark unless it is well lit. We can herd her down a hall and into a specific room by merely turning on and off lights. If we do not leave a light on in the house, she will cry all night.
I know most cats see pretty well in the dark. I was wondering if maybe she does not.
Is she developing cataracts? She may find it difficult to see in the dark as a result and thus try to avoid dark places.
I’m sure there is a site to tell me, but by any chance do you know what to look for when you are looking for cataracts in cats?
You have to look in the phone book under “Veterinarians”.
Seriously, you should have her checked by a vet. Cataracts aren’t the only possible eye issue and a vet could examine her eyes and give you a more definitive answer. Some eye problems can also be symptoms of a more serious problem.
How old is the cat?
We are not too certain. She was a stray that crawled up on our porch to die last summer, she was in agony and I took her to the vet, expecting to have to cover the expense of having her put to sleep. The vet said he could save her and he did and she has been a member of the family ever since (much to my wife’s other two cats’ displeasure). I think she is probably three or four - maybe a year younger or older. But she had some hard living before landing with us.
They’d be pretty advanced by the time you can actually see them, but I believe they’d look much the same as in humans with advanced cataracts - a milky or cloudy hue to the lens.
My large German Shepherd is afraid of the dark. When it’s time for her last outing of the night, she won’t go alone, only if I or the other two dogs are with her. If they don’t want to go out, she’ll have a quick pee while I stand and watch her, then right back inside.
She sleeps in my room at night. I have to have a night lite in the room for her otherwise she will pace and pant all night.
Maybe some animals are just afraid of the dark?
Good Lord, please don’t suggest this to my cats. I never thought of such a thing, but if they get it into their heads that the Service Personnel can be trained to light their paths where ever they go, I’ll never get a decent night’s sleep again. As it is, they’ve managed to convince my parents that they won’t drink water from a bowl (only a running tap) and now we, the staff, have to make regular trips to the sink with them to prevent them dehydrating to death… Yet in the six years prior to coming to stay with my parents, they’d missed out on this little service except on special occasions and, somehow, had managed not to die. Let’s not even get into the “won’t eat tinned food out of a curved bowl” trick.
Good luck with your cat - hope it’s not cataracts.
I wonder if the cat had previous owners that were abusive, accidentally or on purpose, in the dark. Like maybe they kept stepping on her in the dark or something.
When my Siamese was a kitten, she hated the dark. I told the vet about it at a checkup and he checked her eyes (and has every time since), said she was fine and would likely grow out of it - she pretty much has.
The way she reacted to the darkness beforehand was much as you describe.
Does she have the Siamese blue eyes? You can tell by the color that they reflect when you shine a light into them. Regular blue eyes will glow blue-green. Siamese blue eyes will glow red.
Wikipedia says cats with Siamese blue eyes may have less efficient dark vision than other cats.
My Luna has Siamese blue eyes, and she is definitely less active at night than Katya, who has green eyes.
I have two blue-eyed Siamese-mixes, the female is also named Luna. The male, Pi, only has one eye. Judging by all the running around, chasing each other or the other cats and jumping on me that they do at night I don’t think there’s anything wrong with their night vision.
I do have a blue-eyed white cat that is deaf and her eyes are often dilated, she tends to stay in the kitchen where there’s always a light on or the living room adjacent to the kitchen. I figured she was staying near the kitchen because she wants to be around food because she has had dental problems and wasn’t eating well until we pulled all her teeth but now she eats fine and is obsessed with food but maybe she’s also a little “afraid” of the dark.
A long time ago I had a cat with juvenile cataracts the veterinary eye specialist told me that he could only see shadows. Somehow he still managed to steal my jewelry (I guess he could see shiny and shadows) and play with my razor in the bathtub and play with the dogs. He never really had problems in the dark unless I had recently rearranged the furniture. If he got confused he’d just meow loudly until I called to him and then he’d follow my voice. I had to avoid rearranging the furniture too much. One-eyed Pi, is a bit of a klutz but that’s because he’s long and lanky, otherwise he doesn’t seem to have any problems with his depth perception or vision.
So cats can adjust to vision problems pretty well but my main concern would be to make sure there is nothing more serious going on because vision problems could be early signs of other diseases. If the cat seems fine otherwise you don’t need to rush her to the vet but I’d try to get her seen at some point just to be sure.
It could be lowered vision due to malnutrition while she was a stray, or Siamese cats can have vision problems too as part of their heridity if I recall correctly. Go to a veternarian and get it checked out, they are more qualified to tell what it likely is, or isn’t. Good luck, poor kitty!
I think my Luna has managed to get on the internet while I’m not home, and edited Wikipedia to put that in. She probably did it to make me feel sorry for her, so I would give her more attention and more treats.
I just hope she never finds my credit cards and sites that sell treats…
Absolutely. The first thing to do is to see a vet to rule out anything serious.
If it’s not, it might be a Siamese thing, might be from some traumatic event when she was a stray, or might just be an individual quirk.
Yeah, cats are weird.
Good point. We had a friend who said she thought that probably the cat had been a person in another life who had been killed in the dark. The friend is very into reincarnation.
We now have a vet appointment set up for her. The cat, not the friend.
Cats, on the whole, are psychotic. Taking her to get checked by the vet is a good idea, but I give about 50-50 odds that there’s no actual reason behind it. She’s just nuts. It’s a good thing you love her anyway. 
Could it be that she just leaves rooms that are dark because there is nothing going on in them? Maybe she has figured out that you turn the lights off right before you leave the room. When my cat was a kitten, he would always hang out with me in bed when I was watching tv, but he would leave when I went to sleep. Then he starting leaving as soon as I turned off the tv or took my glasses off, because he figured out that meant I was going to sleep and playtime was over.
There is a chance you could be right, but I tend not to agree. She will lie in bed with us until the light goes off. If we fall asleep with it on, she will be curled up there in the morning. We began testing our belief by leaving a light on in a different room each night. If we got up at night, she would always be curled up in that room whether it is the warmest room or not.
Does she sleep under the light or just in the room? My parents have a cat that likes to nap under the most direct light source he can find. They thought he just liked the heat until they realized that the lamp he was sleeping under had a fluorescent bulb in it.