Elderly Cats

ILikeBananas

Our family cat is 21 years old and my mother has asked me to use the internet to see how common or rare that is. From age comparison charts I've seen that it appears to be roughly equivalent to 100 human years so I suspect that although she's definitely an outlier in terms of mean cat age, there are likely to be many older cats out there.

However, I don't know anyone who has an older one so I said I'd ask here.

This is a picture of our cat, Sooty, from a few years ago.



Since then she's lost a lot of weight and gotten a bit greyer. Her back legs are also pretty much knackered, in that she can't really jump up on surfaces any more and we have to lift her up and down off of chairs. Also when she goes to sleep she can't tuck herself into a ball like cats normally can. Instead her legs stick straight out as can be seen in the picture below.



Apart from that though she's holding up pretty well for her age. She still has control of her bladder and her eyesight seems to be good although her hearing is definitely poorer now than before.

Do you or have you had an older cat and what particular difficulties did/do you have in caring for them at this age?

ziggy23

Aww Sooty is beautiful. We had a male black cat called sooty but we lost him youngish at 12 a few years ago. I just buried my cat Ziggy yesterday who was 17 21 is an absolutely amazing age for a cat :eek: Is she indoors all the time? My ziggy had bad arthritis too we used to give her stuff call Arthric-Aid (sp!) which I think helped her a little. You should definitely cherish every moment from now on and give her anything she wants:D

fatmammycat

My oldest cat here, Puddy, will be 21 in a few months, and apart from a chronic ear problem that requires her to be knocked out every second/third month or so ( she's had since she was 16) she's in pretty much perfect health. Next is another black and white who's 17/18 year old, then a tabby aged 8. All of them are in cracking form.

mymo

While growing up my family had 11 cats (7 at one time), the oldest lived until 23, two more lived to 22 and another 21, the next oldest was just a few weeks off 19, one 17 and two more 16, can't remember the others but the youngest I remember was around 12 or so and had kidney disease.

Its not that unusual for them to reach a good age, in the UK when I was growing up 15 or so was the norm with friends cats. I was shocked when I moved here and found so many cats die much younger. Maybe its the rural areas I lived in here are more dangerous to cats.

Its lovely to see old cats so well loved and looked after.

The legs thing happened to my dads last cat, she got stiff in the hips and knee's but still had a good life and chased the odd bird. She used to topple over (jack knifed, my dad said) going up the back step towards the end.

ILikeBananas

ziggy23 wrote: »

I just buried my cat Ziggy yesterday who was 17 21 is an absolutely amazing age for a cat :eek: Is she indoors all the time? My ziggy had bad arthritis too we used to give her stuff call Arthric-Aid (sp!) which I think helped her a little. You should definitely cherish every moment from now on and give her anything she wants:D

I'm sorry for your loss. We have only ever kept the one cat so the last pet death I experienced was 21 years ago but I remember it being a traumatic experience.

To answer your question, she now spends most of her time indoors sleeping but get put out about twice a day to "get some fresh air" and go to the toilet in the garden. When she was younger she'd spend a lot more time outdoor's but I think my mother prefers to keep her indoors now for her own safety.

Arthritis is definitely a problem with her as if she ever has to jump onto the ground she'll scream with the pain. She's on heart medicine as well for the past few months and even when at rest her breathing is extremely rapid as if she's trying to catch her breath.

ziggy23

ILikeBananas wrote: »

I'm sorry for your loss. We have only ever kept the one cat so the last pet death I experienced was 21 years ago but I remember it being a traumatic experience.

To answer your question, she now spends most of her time indoors sleeping but get put out about twice a day to "get some fresh air" and go to the toilet in the garden. When she was younger she'd spend a lot more time outdoor's but I think my mother prefers to keep her indoors now for her own safety.

Arthritis is definitely a problem with her as if she ever has to jump onto the ground she'll scream with the pain. She's on heart medicine as well for the past few months and even when at rest her breathing is extremely rapid as if she's trying to catch her breath.

Thanks she'll be greatly missed:( Actually just remembered Ziggy got a really bad flea problem there a few months ago. She had never fleas before but they were really bad my mam had to get a crowd out to fumigate the place :eek: I think it was because she was so frail. She was really skinny in her later years but ate like a horse. Yea you would feel sorry for them with the arthritis. Would Sooty be doddery at all? Ziggy used to grow through phases of acting really strange! I can't believe theres a few cats that have lived to 21 and older! I really thought 17 was good

ILikeBananas

ziggy23 wrote: »

Would Sooty be doddery at all?

Yes. Her movement is very much hampered by a lack of flexibility. Amazingly though she can still have a rare burst of running when she needs to chase a rival cat out of the garden. She'll be wrecked for the rest of the day though!

fatmammycat

Ah, that's sad. Puddy runs about the place like a loon in the morning, her and the tabby play a pretty vicious chasing game, then it's into my office for snoozing. She does jump though, and climbs walls and stuff, she's just not as good at doing it as she used to be and does a lot of wiggling and preparing before hand.
Photo attached is her a few months ago, usual place, end of desk.

ILikeBananas

fatmammycat wrote: »

Ah, that's sad. Puddy runs about the place like a loon in the morning, her and the tabby play a pretty vicious chasing game, then it's into my office for snoozing. She does jump though, and climbs walls and stuff, she's just not as good at doing it as she used to be and does a lot of wiggling and preparing before hand.
Photo attached is her a few months ago, usual place, end of desk.

Handsome. Why does she need to be knocked out every few months?

fatmammycat

ILikeBananas wrote: »

Handsome. Why does she need to be knocked out every few months?

She has ear polyps, and needs them to be cleaned deeply, so she's weighed carefully and put under while they are being cleaned.

ziggy23

ILikeBananas wrote: »

Yes. Her movement is very much hampered by a lack of flexibility. Amazingly though she can still have a rare burst of running when she needs to chase a rival cat out of the garden. She'll be wrecked for the rest of the day though!

No doddery as in senile! Poor Ziggy used to go through phases of just acting bizarre she'd be in then out then in again she couldn't decide what she wanted! And Fatmammycat your little guy is lovely

ILikeBananas

ziggy23 wrote: »

No doddery as in senile! Poor Ziggy used to go through phases of just acting bizarre she'd be in then out then in again she couldn't decide what she wanted! And Fatmammycat your little guy is lovely

Ahhh right. Yes! She'll often want to come in and out of a room several times in a matter of minutes. I was wondering was she forgetting why she wanted to go there in the first place.

Delancey

In the mid 1970's I watched an episode of the famous BBC childrens programme ' Blue Peter ' ( those of you of a similar vintage to me and from beyond the pale were saddled with RTE's Wanderley Wagon instead ).

On this episode they had the world's oldest cat and his owner on , the owner had been a sailor in the Royal Navy during the Second World War and had found a kitten that some **** had tried to drown in the toilet bowl in a public convenience near Portsmouth naval base , this sailor rescued the kitten which some 30 years later was still with him

theghost

My Dad had 2 cats some years ago - mother and daughter. Mother was 20 when she died and the daughter was 21 when her kidneys started to fail and he thought the kindest thing for her was to have her put to sleep. Funny thing was that the daughter was the runt of the litter and we didn't think she'd survive, but she outlasted her father and 5 siblings by quite a few years

ILikeBananas

The vet said that my cat's kidney's had shrunk alright. I guess that's typical at their age.

mymo

You can get special foods if she's showing kidney problems, if she sleeps indoors keep an eye out or maybe a litter tray for the night as my dads girl started to pee by the toilet during the night. So he put a tray there and she was happy, with the kidney food she was fine for a long while and my dad used to give cod liver oil on a spoon to her. (to help the stiff joints)
His cat also went slightly senile, she used to walk in an bawl in a terrible noise(my daughter called it her godzilla meow) at any chair out of place until you moved it back. Sometimes she stared at the wall for a few minutes at a time too. The vet said they can become senile, but she seemed happy and healthy as expected for a 18 year old cat.
She still chased squirrels (more on principle than to catch I think) and would guard the garden.
We used to groom her gently too as she got more stiff, she couldn't always do it herself in hard to reach spots.

Teyla Emmagan

My Mam's cat died over the summer, also at the age of 21. She was a great girl, loads of personality right to the end. Physically she was in pretty good shape, but was arthritic and didn't jump much any more. She was also very cold (possibly due to the lack of movement) and had 2 hot water bottles a day to keep her warm. Also, she couldn't groom herself properly any more, so we had to look after her fur (on her back, legs, rear end etc). She also found it difficult to chew, and could only eat meat that was absolutely shredded. Tiny tiny pieces. My Dad kept her alive for the last few years by feeding her Aldi's best mince and fresh fish. And for the last few months he gave her Complan every day. Sounds kinda mental, but she was in good form and we didn't see any reason to put her to sleep. She just needed extra care.

Anyway, in the last few days of her life she stopped moving around very much. She just lay in her bed all day. She stopped eating on the Sunday and only took water on the Monday and Tuesday. They brought her to the vet on the Wednesday morning. Very sad. Big tears all round.

But she had a great life, even the last few years where she was pretty ancient. She could still fight her patch if required. Even though she was stone deaf. And she stopped purring in the alst year or so, I don't know what that was about. But she still loved to be picked up and stroked. She lay in the sunshine all summer and watched the birds. It wasn't such a bad life really.

RIP old cat

OP, I hope your girl is as happy.