How old is your cat?

What is the age of your cat and how does it affect you and your household?

My cat Jane is 4. She's a runt though, so she still looks about 8 months old. It's interesting when people meet her for the first time, because they often think she's much younger than she is. I've had to bust out her adoption papers to prove her age before!

She's definitely quite active and spry. Though she's a champion marathon napper, she'll do sprint circuits of the house for hours when the mood strikes her. She also recently learned how to catch and eat bugs. Before that, she would just follow them around, watching them. Once, she got her nose really close to one, it touched her nose, and she jumped backward in terror. It was hilarious.

I think her age affects us in that she is very curious, but skittish when faced with new experiences. I feel like an older cat would be a bit more blase about some of the things that send her into a tizzy. She also needs lots of reassurance from me that she's safe, sort of like a kitten. I don't know if that one is an age thing, or if she just has a nervous disposition

My cat Sadie is about 9 now, give or take a year. Honestly, I have enjoyed having an older cat much better than when she was younger. As a kitten, even up to about 2 years old, she was constantly getting herself in trouble. She would try and knock the fish tank off my dresser to get to the fish, or she would wait across corners and jump out at people and dogs alike. It was pretty scary wondering if she was sitting there in the dark just waiting for you to pass by.

Now that she is older I haven't had any issues. She has matured nicely, and still looks rather young, I'm glad about that too I hope it means she will live a long time. Sometimes she sits so still I mistake her for a cat statue.

I guess you could say her age has had a great effect on my family since she is now a wonderful independent cat that doesn't require a vast amount of attention and we can trust alone with our breakables lying about.

My cats are both quite young. Snookie is five, and Minnie is two and a half. Minnie lives upto her name and is tiny, and thinks she's a kitten though. Neither really affects the household - they are both in good health and don't require a lot of "work". I think we have become immune to hearing Minnies bell as she zooms around the house though.

My friend had a cat who lived to age 20 and passed away a few months ago. Even though he was very old, I don't think they really needed to do any special care for him either. Some things you may need to consider for an older cat are switching to a soft food, and considering physical challenges such as walking up the stairs and maybe moving their bed and food bowls downstairs.

My cat Stretchy is about 8 years old, I think. My other cat Tribble is about 6, however the vets guessed he was around 8. I think he just looks so young, he must be around 5 or 6. I hate to think if he was abused for 6 years of his life if he was 8. My youngest kitty, Smudge, is going to be two years old in a few day's time. I can't wait to see them again.

I have two cats currently. My cat is an old dude, who's name is Max. He's about 16 or so, at least that's what we think his age is. We're not quite sure, because he had three different owners before us. Here's mine now though, haha. He's a American Short Hair, and is a dark coloured tabby. We jokingly call him "Old Man Stoner Cat" because he always has this weird "stoned" look on his face. My other cat, who's more my Dad's cat then mine is about 11 or 12. My Dad keeps saying that she's 8, but he's been saying that she's 8 years old for about 6 or 7 years, haha. Her name is Hufflepuff, she's a dark grey tuxedo cat; she has a strip of white fur around one leg that we call her "garter". She's also an American Short Hair, and oh my God, she is a stinker! She's one of those cats that twine around your ankles when you're trying to do something, like walk down the stairs or cook dinner. I've tripped over her so many times.

I have two sisters, from the same litter, who were born in December of 1990. Yes, they will be twenty-five in a few months. Their mom lived to be twenty-three, then got a rapidly growing cancer, and didn't make it to her twenty-fourth birthday. Both of my twenty-four year-olds are fairly healthy, all things considering. In fact, the last vet bill that either of them had was when one of them got into a fight with another of our cats, probably her sister, and got bit on the butt. I didn't witness it, so I don't know for sure what occurred there, but they often fight over things like cat beds. Although there are four identical cat beds, and only three cats, that is nevertheless a source of contention at times. At other times, it might be some cat issue that only makes sense if you're a cat.

Both of the older cats are black. I have been married for fourteen years, but my wife still can't tell them apart. The alpha female is Cutie. She usually gets her way unless her sister, Lydia, really wants something, in which case Cutie often loses. Cutie has only recently begun to gain a little weight, but she still keeps it pretty much under control. For most of her life, she weighed in at ten pounds even, but she was a couple of ounces over that the last time she saw a vet. She has arthritis; it is pretty much kept under control with Cosequin. I have to make steps for her to get up on things like my desk, but she sometimes decides to make the leap instead. She is still playful, although certainly not as exuberant as she was twenty years ago. Neither am I. The vet wasn't able to find a problem, but I think that her night vision isn't as good as it used to be, because I have to leave more lights on around the house or she will yell. At first, I thought she just wanted me to get back up out of bed but I found that she's okay if I leave a light on.

Her sister, Lydia, has always been a strange cat, but she is the reason that I learned to feed my cats healthier food. About fifteen years go, she began losing her fur. She would lick and pick at her fur, especially on her legs, but anywhere that she could reach well. She also began acting out in ways that resulted in messes around the house. I brought her to the vet and he put her on steroids. That seemed to help a little, but only for a while, and i was worried about having her on steroids. Then I came across a Blue Buffalo representative in a pet store, and she suggested that the problem could be due to a reaction to corn, soy or wheat. At any rate the foods that didn't have these ingredients were better foods, so I tried it. Within a few days, she calmed down a lot, and then I could see that she was no longer picking at her fur. It grew back, and she still have nice fur today. Although the vet says she is very healthy for her age, she is a lot thinner than I would like. Throughout her life, she would bulk up, then get thin, and bulk up again, but over the past couple of years, she is no longer bulking up. Then again, I suppose that's not so unusual given her age.

Until a year ago, I had another cat who was just a few months younger than Cutie and Lydia. Born a feral kitten, I had fed her for several years, gradually making friends with her, and named her Bird. I didn't want to take her in because I already had four cats at that time and didn't want to become one of those people you read about in the newspaper every now and then. She had been born in the open porch of a vacant house next to one of our ambulance stations (I was a paramedic at the time). I secured the porch so that dogs couldn't get in, but she and her sister could, and I fed her every day. Another day, I will tell the interesting story about Bird but I'll cut it short for now, except to say that, when we moved from Texas to Maine, we decided to take her with us. Her sister had been killed in traffic by that time, and it was just her.

Cutie and Lydia hated Bird. Although they were to be together for fourteen years, they still treated her as if she didn't belong. Having been born feral, I couldn't keep Bird restricted to the house. She would have escaped at some point, and would have been in unfamiliar surroundings, so it seemed safer to allow her outdoors. I know how some of you might feel about letting a cat outdoors and I often agree with you, but in her case, I felt that it would have been cruel, and potentially more dangerous than allowing her out. She lived to be twenty-three, so I am satisfied that it wasn't the worst decision in the world.

Despite the fact that Cutie and Lydia hated Bird, once she was gone it was as if their purpose in life had gone away. Rather than competing with Bird for attention, or seeing who could be the rudest to her, they just laid around in their cat beds. After a few months of that, we decided to get another cat, and took in Ella, who was just over a month old at the time. Of course, they hated Ella, but now they had something to live for, even if it was only trying to get us to get rid of Ella. Ella is about eight months old now, and Lydia still hates her, but they don't hurt each other. Cutie, on the other hand, has taken to her like a long-lost daughter, although she hated her at first too. They play, Cutie chases her around the house and Ella lets her catch her sometimes.

Ella is quite the little diplomat. Having made friends with Cutie, she does not leave Lydia alone. She makes a point of being near her as much as possible, and when it comes time for canned food, she nearly always chooses the spot next to Lydia. Twice, I caught them cleaning one another, but mostly Lydia just follows her around grumping at her like a crabby old lady.

We have had some issues over the last few months. We have a cat that is 12 and another cat that is almost a year old. We are having an issue with them getting along. Sometimes they are ok and sometimes they fight constantly. The younger cat is always trying to bully the older one. We have been trying to work through it in hopes that as the younger one gets older he will calm down a little bit and realize that the other cat is here to stay too!!!!

Danyel

(10-01-2014 03:33 AM)Danyel72 Wrote:  We have had some issues over the last few months. We have a cat that is 12 and another cat that is almost a year old. We are having an issue with them getting along. Sometimes they are ok and sometimes they fight constantly. The younger cat is always trying to bully the older one. We have been trying to work through it in hopes that as the younger one gets older he will calm down a little bit and realize that the other cat is here to stay too!!!!

That sort of thing concerns me, but I only worry about it until they get past the point where they are likely to physically harm one another. After that, it becomes pretty much a cat thing, and something for them to work out.

Fortunately, our young cat, although she is as large as the older ones, and twenty-three years younger, gives deference to her elders. My older cats are slow, they have arthritis, and one of them needs stairs to get up on my desk, so there is little doubt who would win if there were an actual fight. Yet Ella will go through the submissive gestures, allowing the older ones to keep their dignity.

She knows she's in no danger because all she has to do is jump up on a chair and they can't get her. She has proven to be expert at kitty politics, and has made fast friends with one of the older cats and is continuously working on the other.

I would be more concerned, as you are, if the younger one were dominating the older one, because that has to be particularly rough on an older cat. Quite likely though, they will work it out in time.

In another thread, I just told the story of a cat that I had, until recently, whom I had taken in as a feral. Together for fifteen years, my other cats never grew to like her, but they did arrive at an uneasy truce. There were occasional skirmishes, but only two that required a visit to the veterinarian. There were also moments when I was able to catch them being nice to one another. For example, one cold morning, I found them all, including the formerly feral cat, under the same couch cover, where they had huddled for warmth.