My cat Travis is approaching his 19th birthday (that is, we believe Bide-a-Wee accurately sized up his age when his daddy picked him up almost 17 years ago). He seems pretty spry – considering that he has a thyroid issue and is on steroids to combat his weight loss over the past year – but I was wondering if anyone has tips or things to look out for regarding senior cat behavior. He seems to go into much deeper naps than he did before.

19, wow!!! Is he on senior food? Keep an eye on water consumption and urniation – either in excess usually points toward kidney problems, which are fairly common for older cats.

Jen, Schmitty started sleeping really heavily during the last 2 years of his life. I think that’s perfectly normal but I am no vet, that’s for sure. Sometimes, I would go in and touch him and when he was a little guy he used to wake up immediately. But later on it took a few pets and talking to to get him to come to. I used to think that this was his way of saying, “Hey, I’m relaxed in my old age. I no longer need to freak out. I know you’re not going to hurt me.” :]

I have heard that you have to start watching their hips and how they jump and where they jump to. One bad hit to the floor and they could really hurt themselves. We started to give him assistance to make sure that he didn’t hurt himself jumping around because, and we all know cats, they are going to do what they’re going to do no matter what you say. Plus, it’s their instinct to jump around even when/if they are in pain.

We put little step stools around the windows and at the foot of the bed. Sometimes when I saw him about to jump down off the table or the back of the couch, I’d get up and put him down before he’d get the chance. This might be the paranoid me speaking, but it’s because a boss of mine lost a cat after 18 years when she jumped down and hurt her hip really badly. She never fully recovered after that. Two months later, they had to put her to sleep. :]

Schmitty lost a lot of weight FAST when he got sick. And his personality changed as well. Over the last 4 months, he started to hide a bit more and retreat to weird places around our apartment and for an extremely social and needy cat, we knew something was going terribly wrong in the end. I guess look for personality changes. That’s about all I can offer, sadly.

Anyway, I wish I knew more about the older guys. Unfortunately, cancer took Schmitty at the young age of 14. I didn’t expect to have him forever, but somehow I thought he’d live longer than that.

Oh, and we found that Derm Caps worked wonders for our older guys’ coats (and dandruff). Get the liquid (see link above) and put it on some of their food. They eat it up and the change in their coat is nearly immediate. Seriously, we were amazed. :]

Amazon has it too.

I can’t really add much to what has already been said here – my Cinders lived to age 19, and my dog Brandy lived to be 17. Both fell ill pretty quickly at the end, which I guess was probably a blessing. In both cases, they moved more slowly, needed to eat more easily digestible foods, that sort of thing. They were definitely less active and slept for longer periods of time than in their youth.

Changes in eating/drinking/elimination are things I look out for in an animal of any age; my cat Nikko was given up by his family at age 11 (a) because they had gotten a new kitten and (b) because he had started urinating on their rug. Luckily he only spent a week in the shelter before I met him and fell in love. Know why he was peeing? He was diabetic. He was trying to tell them something was wrong with him and they either didn’t realize or care enough to take him to the vet and find out if there was a physical cause for his behavior. He only had to take glipizide to stabilize his blood sugar for a few months, and we switched him to a prescription diet for diabetic cats. Easy peasy, and as far as I know (he and his brother Riley live with my ex), he is still healthy and going strong.

Thanks for the insights. Travis does pee constantly and probably drinks 10 ounces of water a day (dehydration is also a side effect from his steroid), not including the fluids we give him. The tip about more step stools is a good one, mihow, but even in bedroom where this is a trunk to give him a little help, he ignores it and jumps from the floor. Silly, stubborn boy!