[tammy karlson]

My daughter saved a kitten from the animal shelter. It was found on a remote road very weak and very hungry. She was estimated to be 4 weeks old. At first we fed her with a large syringe then whe quickly learned to eat from a dish. She is now about six months old, and her eyes (ever since we've had her) are dilated all the time and I was was wondering what this could be. She is very healthy and normal in every other way except for the fact that she seems to have problems focusing. She wants to attack your toes and puts her paws out to do so but it just seems like it takes her a second or so to actually find exactly where your toes are at. Is this something to be concerned about or is this fairly normal for a kitten.

[RubyPitbull]

Hi Tammy! It is always nice to hear from people who have gone out of their way to rescue an animal.

At 6 months old, kittens are very much like adult cats in their ability to respond and "attack" to stimulus quickly.

Since you notice that her response time is lagging, there may very well be something wrong with her vision. On top of that, the dilated pupils are a sign something systemic (internally) is going on. There are a couple of things that it could possibly be and I am not going to play "couch" vet here, give you a long list, and worry you unnecessarily.

Please take your kitten to the vet, give him the history, and have him check her over thoroughly. Also ask him to run a "combo" test. This is important. A lot of times shelters don't do this with kittens. It is one of those tests that needs to be done when they are older. The test runs about $45 or so, depending on where you live.

When you receive the full results of the vet's exam, if the vet hasn't fully explained to your satisfaction what is going on, or you have additional questions, please come back here and let me know what happened and what concerns you have. I will try to help you further.