Patterns answer questions that single bad days cannot, and a daily note builds the pattern one plain line at a time. Write one short entry at the same time each day, ideally straight after the evening feed, and record exactly six fields: the date and time of the note, the food offered and the amount eaten, any vomiting with its time and what came up, the drinking you observed, the litter tray urine and stool you found, and your cat's energy, hiding, and sociability that day. Describe amounts in the measures you actually use, such as half the pouch left or the bowl emptied, and keep those measures steady so entries can be compared across weeks.
What the Six Fields Reveal Together
Read across the fields, not down them. Vomiting timed twenty minutes after eating, again and again, tells a different story from vomiting once, on an empty stomach, early in the morning, and the food field shows whether a new flavour, a faster meal, or a missed meal sat in front of each episode. The litter field steadies the picture, as stool changes alongside vomiting carry information that vomiting alone lacks. Energy, hiding, and sociability guard against a narrow reading, since a cat who vomits weekly yet plays, grooms, and seeks company presents differently from a cat who vomits weekly and has quietly withdrawn. A worked entry follows the same six fields in the same order: date and time of the note; food offered and amount eaten; vomiting, with its time and what came up; drinking observed; litter tray urine and stool found; energy, hiding, and sociability that day. Filling those six slots takes under two minutes once the habit sets.
Keep the Routine Still While You Watch
Change one thing at a time, and preferably nothing at all during the first fortnight of notes, because a new food, a new feeding place, and a new routine introduced together make the timeline unreadable. Feed in the same place, at the same times, from the same bowl, and let everyone in the household add to the one note rather than keeping private versions. If a visitor feeds your cat or a meal comes from someone else's hand, that still belongs in the food field for that day, written by whoever fed her. Photograph anything unusual that words handle badly, such as vomit containing a foreign object or a marked colour change, and file the photo with the date of the entry it belongs to.
If two cats share the home, note in the food field when the other cat may have eaten from the bowl, and tell the vet the record covers a shared feeding station rather than one cat eating alone.
When the Note Says to Call Sooner
A diary supports a vet visit; the diary never replaces one. Phone the clinic promptly if vomiting repeats within a day, if your cat stops eating altogether, if she cannot keep water down, if blood appears in vomit or stool, if she strains in the tray without producing urine, or if lethargy and hiding arrive alongside the vomiting. Take the note to every appointment and offer the whole run, not a summary of the bad days alone, because the ordinary days between episodes show the clinic the rhythm of the problem. Ask the vet which field deserves closer detail from then on, and adjust the note to match that request while keeping the six fields intact. Held in date order and shared before each visit, the daily entries turn scattered worry into a timeline a clinician can act on, and Pet Passport inside KinsLe stores that timeline with the rest of her health papers.