Eek, cats getting older

[ailbhe]

Just realised, the cats are about eight and a half years old. We only have another eight or so years of them left. We're about halfway finished with them.

Yuck. Though we might be some of the lucky ones whose cats live to 20 or 22.

Comments

[rosefox]

I try not to think about these things, but I am very aware that Sam was the brain-damaged runt of her litter; she's only 6, but I have no idea what percentage of her unlikely life she's used up. And Java is 14 and it shows, though he's phenomenally healthy and looking to keep going a while longer. And thinking about it just gets me thinking about whether we would want to get another cat right away, or maybe just have one cat for a while (I think Sam would love to be an only cat), or even wait until we have no cats and can travel all we want without arranging for a sitter... but I can't really imagine being catless. They are necessary creatures.

[ailbhe]

I thought indoor cats lived longer? Though now I'm not sure you *have* indoor cats, of course, but I assumed you did, people I know in America somehow nearly always seem to.

I'm wondering how the youngest child(ren) as yet unborn will react when the cats start to die; they will be pretty young. I expect the older two will be a bit more able for it.

But I could be wrong, I'm talking about people I've never met, after all...

[rosefox]

We're in an apartment building; there's no outdoor for our cats to be outdoor in, unless you count the fire escape, which no. The closest they get are occasional excursions into the hallway.

Despite that, I still think of cats as maxing out around age 18, maybe living to 20 if they're very lucky.

I don't know how I'll react when our cats die; I've never experienced the death of a beloved pet. I hope the sad eventuality isn't too hard on your kids.

[ailbhe]

That's about the life expectancy people, um, expect for cats here (where they are almost never kept indoors) - I wonder why people say outdoor cats don't live as long? Maybe the US has special outdoor cat fatalities we don't get here.

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

Are there predators larger than foxes about in the UK? There are coyotes not too far from where I am in the northeast US; I heard them occasionally when I lived at the edge of town, and a friend recently suspected them as the cause of her cat's disappearance. Or maybe FIV, feline leukemia, and rabies are more common here. Those are the things I think of as being relatively common problems.

[ailbhe]

Cats are routinely spayed and vaccinated here, and there isn't rabies in general - I think it might be completely foreign, but I'm not sure. There are strict rules about importing animals and quarantine, to keep it out. Diseases don't seem to be common; most ill cats I've heard of develop eg kidney disease in old age (age 15 ish), or diabetes or something.

And no, I don't think there's much around in the way of predators.

[(Anonymous)]

I think that predators and disease related to other animals are the big killers of outdoor cats in North America. My parents' suburban neighbourhood near Toronto still has coyotes around, for example, who are quite happy to eat cats. (Assuming the cats survive dashing across the busy streets, of course, though I don't know if the UK would be hugely different on that score.) Disease, including but not limited to rabies, is also a real issue, even though I think most people who let their cats outside vaccinate; Toronto is currently really concerned about distemper, for example.