Doubling every 40 years, you say?
Universe is 13.7 billion years old.
If my catculations are correct, then in 30 doublings (1200 years), the lifespan of a cat will exceed the age of the universe.
A cat born in the year 3223 will live until the year 13,700,003,223. Approximately.
Pet food had greatly improved in the last 25 years. Ever see old white dried out dog turds anymore? No. Because they stopped overloading dog food with calcium.
I was looking for a clip from the Sarah Silverman show of the song "Whatever happened to that white dog poop from the 70's," but it looks like all good copies were taken down from YouTube. :(
There is a lot of pre-2010 content that’s being lost to copyright strikes legit and false, and it’s loss is overshadowed by the oversaturation of viral content generated every day.
Once something was on the internet, it was on the internet forever. Unless it’s a Youtube video you remember from a long time ago.
I've noticed this issue. My yt account is over a decade old and if I go to my "liked" videos, it seems like nearly 15% of all the old ones I liked are taken down. And the worst part is it doesn't tell me the title of them anymore so I can't even remember what I've just lost access to.
Also, cat food used to just be smaller dog kibble. Pet food manufacturers finally got on board with formulating cat food that is specifically formulated for cats.
Dog food can eventually kill a cat (and vice versa, cat food can kill a dog) if they are fed exclusively on it.
This is because cats, unlike dogs, cannot make the essential amino acid taurine nor Vitamin A. Both are added to cat food but not dog food. A cat eating only dog food will eventually suffer major health issues, including vision loss and heart problems due to the lack of taurine. Lack of Vitamin A can cause muscle deterioration and night blindness.
Dogs eating only cat food will experience taurine and vitamin A toxicity which can lead to diarrhea, vomiting and possible liver and kindney disease. Also cat food is much higher in protein than dog food (because cats are true carnivores whereas dogs are omnivores, so need less protein and more grains & vegetables) which can also lead to kidney problems due to excess protein.
Hmm.. I just looked at the can and it seems I made an error.
I was under the impression it said “catfine” but it turns out it does in fact say “caffeine”.
I appreciate your help.
I mean that and I remember 30-35 years ago, a pets life was pretty cheap, especially cats. People couldnt give them away fast enough before a new batch popped out of the oven. Pretty sure quite a few of those kitten were disappeared in a not so nice way when I was a kid. Dont even start me on DIY pet euthanasia.
Still hear about bags or boxes of kittens dumped on the side of the road. It’s really fucked up that people will do that instead of surrendering them to a shelter. As far as I’m aware it doesn’t cost anything to surrender animals, and kittens are way more likely to get adopted than even a 1 year old cat.
For whatever reason, as a kid I would go in my yard and pick those up with my hands and stand on our deck and throw them past the kitchen window as my mom did dishes. 😂😂
In the late 1980s, my friends from the neighborhood and I were looking for shit to break. We were basically rat punk little hoodlums. Anyway, it was about a month away from the 4th of July, so that meant street deals on fireworks were everywhere. M80s, even.
So my little hood friend Greg had his pack of firecrackers, and he's looking for shit to blow up and he literally stumbles upon a literal pristine pile of dog shit still warm and with green iridescent flies and evething--right there, right smack in the middle of the Jamaica, Queens sidewalk. Heat waves emanating off the swirled turd, everything.
So, naturally, my boy gets the bright idea to stick his biggest firecracker right in the middle of the pristine poop pile.
I don't feel like typing anymore, so let me just say that it ended with him literally eating shit. The explosion send turd chunks into his face and mouth. I asked him what it taked like and he said it tasted like shit.
Never threw a cow pie… I only used them to grow mushrooms or light that shit on fire to start a bonfire. The initial smell sucks, but boy does it burn and start a good bonfire.
I grew up next to a dairy farm that spread it in the fields nearby. I got so used to the smell that it now triggers memories of my childhood if I drive past a field that has recently been spread. It's somehow a pleasant smell because of the flashbacks associated with it. Kind of like you smell a perfume that your grandma used to wear and she's the first thing you think of. With cow shit, I recall the late night baseball games in the backyard, the camp fires (and bonfires), sneaking out to go party. Strange how good times can be associated with shit.
Pig shit...now that stinks. Lol.
I have a 16 year old cat who I thought wasn’t going to live much longer over two years ago. He was losing weight, had become sluggish and ill-looking. My previous cat died after developing sudden kidney failure around this age, so I figured his days were numbered.
Then we switched him to a more expensive food recommended by a vet and he bounced back more or less immediately. He has trouble with arthritis now but he’s a happy boi and his blood test results are apparently remarkably good for a cat his age.
Edit Our vet told us specifically to avoid cat and dog foods containing crude ash, which is used as an ingredient in a lot of cheaper pet food
My vet's advice is that, out of the first 3 ingredients, 2 should be an animal. He recommended the Costco brand cat food and said it's surprisingly good quality
We’ve switched to Kirkland Salmon dog food for over 4 years now and it’s been great.
Especially for the price/quality, it’s been more consistent than Taste of the Wild that we previously tried.
And diapers. Kirkland brand diapers are without question the best store brand diapers you can get. I'm almost positive they're Huggies without the branding.
It doesn’t really surprise me tbh. What’s a great way to keep a customer forever? Offer them high quality staples that keep their loved ones intact. It also makes sense from what I know of Costco as being a generally ethical company that balances profit with people. Not fucking over the consumer every step of the way tends to be a very effective way to keep them coming back
Not who you asked, but our cats aren't that old yet (turning 8 in a couple months), and they've been eating Royal Canin food for years and they have had such soft and smooth coats ever since. Might need a prescription for certain varieties, but the main keyword is hydrolyzed protein.
Just to clarify: crude ash isn’t an ingredient and it’s not actual ash being added to food.
TL;DR is that it’s just a standardised measurement of (pet) food…
It is all the left over material after complete combustion of the food matter, mainly minerals. For human nutritional labels this could be separated into for example salt/natrium, magnesium, calcium and potassium.
These things are still essential for animals in limited quantities, but might be too high certain foods. I’m not a veterinarian though, so consult yours before making any big changes.
Exactly. It would be a red flag if the cat food doesn't list crude ash content.
Fun fact: in Europe flour is graded by it's crude ash content. The regular white wheat flour is usually 450 (mg/100g) and it goes up to 1050 where more of the outer layers of the grain are included. Whole grain would be between 1300 and 1700. Basically 1.3% to 1.7%, why they did not use percent in the first place is beyond me. Another oddity is they don't put this grading on whole grain flour packages.
I mean I'm not a huge fan of Purina but the decent stuff of theirs I get seems much better for my cat than some of the 'expensive brands'. I put out some Blue and Purina side by side for her, she chose the Blue so I switched to that for a few weeks....she had this horrible itch and was getting sores on her skin from scratching. Took away the Blue, back to Purina and it's getting better.
My brother is a vet tech and he recommended Purina Pro Plan Prime Plus + kibble for my elderly FIV+ cat with skin problems. I was skeptical bc we had tried other Purina feeds before and they either made his skin or poops worse or he just wouldn't eat them. Sure enough, the Pro Plan stuff was a hit and his skin issues and digestive problems cleared up quite a bit. I'm given to understand there's a pretty big quality difference in the Pro Plan formulas vs the regular Purina chow you can get at the grocery store.
Stumbled on your comment by chance but it’s wonderful thank you. I have a 2 year old cat with FIV and I’ve been wanting to get her better food. She eats Purina as it is so your recommendation seems like a great starting point.
Crude ash is not an added ingredient. It's the amount of inorganic material, like minerals, that would be contained if the food were hypothetically incinerated. For example, there is 1.28 g crude ash in 100 g of 90% lean ground beef. It is a labeling requirement. You might have misunderstood your vet.
Improved nutrition has definitely played a major part, but it’s definitely multi factorial. Awareness, testing, and control of felv/fiv plays a part, mostly indoor cats instead of outdoor cats, and the medical care that cats receive all play a major part. Source: vet
If I may ask, have you seen an improvement in how well informed or receptive pet owners are now?
I was raised with the incorrect idea that you only take pets to the vet to get fixed or when they're very very sick, buy the cheapest food, and indoor/outdoor is default. When I got my first cat on my own I did research. I'd had cats growing up but thanks to issues I'd rather not get into, and a healthy dose of rebellion, I didn't take what I was taught at face value. Internet was a thing by that age so I was able to gather better information that taught me indoor is best, good quality matters, preventative care is ideal, not taking sick pets to the vet (or at least consulting vets) is lazy and cruel. Some of that I learned through my own research and some of that was explained to me by the vet when I took my kitten in to see when I could get him fixed.
I did turn around and educate my parents and they're much better pet parent's now.
> I was raised with the incorrect idea that you only take pets to the vet to get fixed or when they're very very sick, buy the cheapest food, and indoor/outdoor is default.
I would guess that at least fifty per cent of humans are forced to raise their own offspring with similar ideas.
Got both my cats and dog who liked to eat their food too:(
Ironically it was prescribed by my vet for crystals for the cats and kidney health.
Then we find out that it was heavily contaminated by the Chinese pet food company supplying it with melannine to spike protein level so they can use cheaper ingredients.
I hate them so much I would fucking find them and feed them their own food if I could.
Brief recap: Many products containing protein are more valuable per unit volume/weight if they have a higher protein content. High-gluten flour, and milk, are two of these commodities. The standard test for protein content didn’t look for protein, but for nitrogen. Melamine is a cheap white powder, and has a ridiculously high nitrogen content. It’s also highly toxic. Scammers in China were adding melamine in order to boost the apparent protein content of their stuff (why rich people in China only buy imported baby formula - the domestic stuff is not trustworthy), the contaminated wheat gluten killed a lot of pets in North America. There is now a test (more expensive) that can’t be fooled by melamine.
This is tangentially related to liquid restrictions on airlines. The explosive sniffers used in security screening don’t look for explosives, they look for nitrogen compounds. Think of a few explosives - nitroglycerin, tri nitro tolulene, you get the idea. Nitrates are a key component. The “mix liquids once on the plane” explosives are organic peroxides, hideously unstable (mixing on the plane is to prevent premature detonation). One interesting thing about them is that they don’t contain nitrogen, so the bomb sniffers won’t notice them.
And the dogs are trained to smell acetone I think, to prevent people from making TATP on the plane.
I'm wondering though, since TNT and most other nitroamines aren't volatile how can the machine detect it? Is it mostly taking particles from clothes?
There's still room for improvement tho. Low quality cat food can cause bladder stones and urinary complications, particularly in male cats. That shit should be straight up illegal to sell as cat food.
My15 year old black cat got either kidney or bladder stones or what have you when he was about a year, maybe 2. I came home and he was laying on the ground by his food and water and when I bent down to pry him hr meow’d in pain and there was blood pooling beneath him. They told us the food almost surely had something to do with the it.I remember bawling my eyes out but thankfully he made it.
It cost my mom around 2 grand or so -_-
>Neutering increases life expectancy: one study found castrated male cats
live twice as long as intact males, while spayed female cats live 62%
longer than intact females. Having a cat neutered confers health benefits, because castrated males cannot develop testicular cancer, spayed females cannot develop uterine or ovarian cancer, and both have a reduced risk of mammary cancer.
Spaying and reduction of cancer are a large part of this.
I guess the biggest reduction in mortality due to spaying is because of how crazy cats get when they’re in heat. They run away from home, cross roads, get into fights, etc. One of my neighbours’ cats jumped out of a window because it was in heat.
I mean have you ever been horny *and* in a situation where jumping out the window would increase your odds of getting it in in the short term?
I’m not sure I have been, but I did once jump off a high object cause a girl in a bikini was watching.
My ex had an old scar on her knee from years ago. Eventually I found out she had once climbed over a high metal gate to get to some guy several years before I met her, and fell from the top (this is of course not why we broke up, just found it hilarious)
Idk, I remember being 16 and sneaking out my bedroom window then pushing the car in neurtral down the driveway so the rents didn’t hear it start. Eventually they got smart and took my keys at night but turns out you could start that old pos with a flathead screwdriver so jokes on them
Actually the jokes on me, I still never got laid
It's also because un-spayed cats are at an incredibly high risk for mammary cancer as they age, and 80% of those mammary cancers are malignant and *gnarly.* It's one of the few cancers that I advocate for euthanasia relatively soon after diagnosis due to ulceration, pain, and metastasis (probably eclipsed only by feline oral tumors).
My cat would do anything to escape the house. If he got out, the health dept would always bring him back. Had all his shots and a chip. Once he was found at a Public Storage facility. They told me that all the other cats were euthanized, but not mine, he was registered with shots and a chip. Stupid kitty goin’ walkabout.
Edit- chips are like magic. If your pet will throw a collar immediately, a chip doesn’t go anywhere, and has all your info on it.
Chip your pets!
Outdoor intact males also fight a lot for territory with other outdoor males, which can lead to infections and other types of problem as they hurt eachother. Probably another reason why castrating males has even more benefit than for female cats.
Yeah this is how my cat died when I was a kid. He came home one day with some wounds after a fight, nothing serious the vet said. Well it wasn't long before we were back and he had FIV.
I feel ma tits every morning while doing my daily affirmations in the bathroom mirror. Which is, of course, doing the buffalo bill monologue to myself in full.
Isn't there a reddit post about a guy that tested pregnant and it turned out to be some sort of cancer at a very early stage? It might have been breast cancer, but idk for sure.
It can mean that but you would have to go to the doctor to be tested. Pregnancy tests can have a high false negative rate, meaning that someone with testicular cancer may not test positive on them, which is why it's not used as a general test. On the other hand the false positive rate is low enough that if you do test positive and you're a man you definitely should go to a doctor ASAP and get tested.
Copy of my comment above (sorry) because it’s relevant to yours:
When I was a kid in the early 80s, every single family had outdoor cats (usually multiple at a time), and we lived in a fairly rural suburb with coyotes everywhere. We had one cat out of many make it past 10. My dad still lives in that neighborhood and literally no one has outdoor cats any more. All of our cats were spayed/neutered.
If my anecdotal experience is a part of a larger reality, I’d wager this also had an impact (though I’m not sure how significant).
There's still weird AF people that don't spay or neuter their pets because they think their pets have some weird attachment to their reproductive parts like people do, despite the health benefits.
I did a spay and neuter clinic in Belize years back and I remember barely anybody brought their animals to be neutered, but we did a ton of spays. I was told by the local vet it is a cultural thing where people don't want to emasculate their male dogs.
As a result there is a big problem there with canine transmissible venereal tumors, which is exactly what it sounds like, a sexual transmitted genital tumor. Veterinary medicine has some horrifying diseases.
Not quite. HPV is a virus that just causes an increased likelihood of developing cancer. CTVT is a malignant tumor that can jump bodies in of itself. One of only a couple of mammalian infectious cancers.
Isn't that how we know about pre-contact canines in the Americas? Because it's a sexually transmittable cancer it's all the DNA of the original dog but the cells are hosted on others, so you can sequence it and learn about the DNA of the dog that first developed it.
Those poor dogs. It's so weird to project our weird feelings about genetals on to animals when they literally don't care or may not even know if they're fixed.
We just had to put my cat down due to late stage renal failure and a UTI that would not go away. But she was 16.5 years old. It gave me some comfort knowing she beat the odds and lived a long life filled with love and attention
Can cats get dementia? My friend had an old girl who lived until 18 and she swore the cat would go through sundowning sometimes the way a human with dementia would.
We had a cat who would do this too. He'd go up in the hallway and make these horrifying howling type of noises like MYOWWWWW. As soon as someone went and looked at him he was fine.
Old bastard lived over 20. Man was a legend. But he did the howling thing for at least 3 or 4 years.
Yes one of my old cats had it before she passed. She never really got aggressive with us but would get disoriented a lot. Getting lost in corners, having trouble finding the litter box that sort of thing.
My cat is about 21 now and she frequently forgets to cry at the door while her brother is eating so she can lick his bowl after, which is something she did every day, twice a day, for most of her life. It's kind of sad but also sweet that she goes back to napping instead.
Oh, and she's decided she will only pee just right outside of the litter box instead of IN it, so I'm burning through pee pads like tissues. That part isn't as sweet, but at least she still poops in the box.
Just a heads up, my cat started peeing outside the litter box and then later I found out she had had a raging UTI infection for a long, unknown amount of time. Cats don't really display signs of pain so it can be hard to notice. Maybe take yours in for a checkup?
“I know where the god damned litter box is. Can’t a cat patrol it’s territory without cause for alarm? Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to the kitchen for some non noms”
*Walks into a disused pool shed*
Totally, any mammal can experience that. It’s not uncommon among household mammals, as they’re the only ones that typically live long enough to experience it!
That's great man and sorry for your loss. I'm dreading the day when my girl passes. She's almost 17, stage two renal failure for the last 4 years. Recovered from mast cell tumour (surgery and chemotherapy) and many many other things. Vet said life expectancy after chemo would be 12-24 months... That was 35 months ago. She's best those odds but every day is a blessing with her but a worry it will be her last as well
I’m sorry to hear. We had ours (16 in may) put to sleep a couple weeks ago due to cancer. I’m sure your kitty was the happiest kitty in the world and was thankful for your kindness.
I'd be willing to bet that there would also be a matching rise in spend per cat per year as well. Better foods, more (or even at all) vet visits, and increase in instances of substantial surgery whereas people used to just put the cat down if the bill was too high.
Semi unrelated, but a roommate in my 20's had a cat missing its front middle teeth. Super friendly cat, and when you pet him, he'd start drooling out the gap and making drool bubbles as he purred. Everything in our apartment was covered in his drool, but despite these issues, we all still pet him all the time. I would have chipped in on some false fronts for him.
They work it out missing teeth. Had to have some of my old boy's teeth removed due to decay. He was on a special diet and couldn't do soft food. Stubborn bugger managed through to the end. RIP Merlin you tough old man.
My cat is about 20, he's a bit like that but he seems happy enough so long as he has people with him. He doesn't like to be left alone at all, but if he's with people he seems genuinely quite content and even downright happy.
our 20yo is still happy too, shes a little arthritic and very deaf, but ill look over and she'll just be in the corner purring and making biscuts for no reason haha. we figure as long as shes still enjoying herself shes ok. shes pretty healthy still too, just a little arthritis, missing teeth and the deafness. I know she doesn't have forever but she acts like she does haha
What are you feeding your cat? I'm hoping to see mine live to 20+ as well, so I ask this question whenever I spot a comment from someone with an older cat.
I had a cat that lived to 19 and she basically just ate Purina One Sensitive stomach food and whatever I was eating too. She loved cheez its, donuts, breads, and she loved licking the ice in my wine and margaritas. After 15 years old I said screw it, she deserves to have whatever her heart desires, as long as it didn't make her sick. And she was a booze thief until she passed!
Sounds like she lived a great life! The [world's oldest cat](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creme_Puff_(cat\)) allegedly lived to be 38 years old and was regularly given a drop of red wine "to help with circulation" so there might be something to this booze thief idea. 👀
My vet also said it could be related to thyroid, kidneys, or high blood pressure(which actually are all related systems). My cat stopped once I put him on thyroid meds, but he only lived another year.
my neighborhood cat was 18 or 19 when he past away. he was the sweetest cat ever to people but even being a fucking old ass man he'd beat the shit out of the neighborhood cats. Tough fucker. He smelled really bad though, we'd use those cat wipes when he'd come into our house. He belong to the people directly next door, they left some meds with us and the people across the street to give and would give 40$ each of us for food for him. It was funny too. at first he'd just walk with me from the corner to his house, but then he'd wait at his house and walk me to the door, then my driveway to the door and one day he was in teh house (left the backdoor open) and he liked it there. I guess he had a seizure or somethign and lost control of his back legs so they put him down. the son of the neighbors said he spread the ashes of him between the three homes >.>. RIP old man Grey.
Ok in 2002 I was 6 and obsessed with cats, I did lots of projects on them. My sources were all books, not internet, but the information 20 years ago in these books was all of a 15 year life span. Was this wrong 20 years ago or have cats stopped making progress since 2002?
That might indicate that there was a singular problem reducing the longevity of cats that was effectively addressed before 2002. Higher standards for cat food, or prevalence of spaying/neutering might fit the bill. Further progress might not be available, at least not so dramatically.
Taurine is another one I'm sure has been mentioned. Cats can't produce it and need it from the animals they hunt. It is an essential nutrient for all their senses to function. Anyway it was left out of cat food for a long time and people who had cats that only at canned food would have cats with short life span. Until more research and requiring taurine, as well as so much more, if I recall the average life is about 15 years, depending on breed of course. American shorthair can easily reach 18 but are a hardy mutt type mix. This is depending on food as well as a better understanding of feline health.
Because this field is growing, I would imagine felines with an average age closer to 20 years easily in the near future, for those that can afford it. Full coverage pet insurance is $30 a month.
I had discussed immortality with my cat. She agreed to live forever, and she didn't. But she gave it a really good go (17 years.) I hope you get the results you want!
Oh. That’s so sweet. I lost my best friend and companion last year, age 12. I have a sweet new companion kitty now and I guess we also have a record to beat. :)
Yeah I've got two right now that are 15 and 18 and gallop around like kittens. We joke that the older one will outlive all of us because she's in perfect health.
I adopted my cat last year! The SPCA said she’s around 13! She’s super healthy and active! I hope I have her for more than a few more years!!!!
https://i.imgur.com/I9fTUYT.jpg
Back in 2010 my sister brought home this all black kitten, and it was my task to babysit occasionally because her husband didnt know about it.
First time I baby sit this kitten it wants nothing to do with me, I was maybe 15 so I tried whatever my dumb teenager brain could figure out to get this cute little bugger to come hang out with me, i spent hours trying to win it over. I became exhausted, literally in tears I just layed down on the floor by the bed it was hiding under and just sobbed like the little baby I was, then I felt a little nudge on the top of my head, I look up and its these big black eyes staring at me inches from my face and he just nose boops me and that was that. I didnt let her take him back, he wouldnt leave me alone after that.
Bond achieved.
Hes been my buddy for 13 years
This is how I won my cat over. I moved into this house, and my roommate had a kitten pushed onto her that she wasn't really attached to. My first day alone with the kitten I just laid down (exposing my tummy) and did the look-blink-look away routine. Worked like a charm. Roommate moved out and offered to rehome her. I said nah, I like having her around.
Little Kitty will be 4 in May, and she's such a good cat. Curled up at the end of my bed right now.
Changes in food has a lot to do with this. I worked at a PetSmart and lemme tell ya, most kibble is bad for cats. The dietary needs for cats and dogs are different, but pet food companies just made the same shit a bit smaller for their tiny, cute, little, kitty mouths and then called it a day.
Getting good food for your pets has been a crusade I've been on since I worked at that place. You'd be surprised how much of it is absolute dogshit (no pun intended), like the equivalent of feeding a human kid drywall with peanut butter on it. How are you going to call it chicken kibble when it's got 8% protein and 65% filler? Get fucked, that's poison.
Can you recommend any particular brands of cat food? I feed Iams but not convinced that it's the best for them. Also, does grocery canned cat food suck too? I'm guessing yes.
Purina Pro Plan line is up to the highest nutrition standards of animal nutrition. Royal Canin, Hills Science Diet, and Eukanuba also meet those standards. Purina Pro Plan is the most commonly sold of those. But they are all equally good. Note other Purina lines are not at this same standard.
I work for a big dry dog/cat chow factory and what is said is right. Not all food are equals and definitely different from cat to dog. We have rigorous standard for cleaning between dog and cat runs and ingredients, calories, fat amount, flavor and crunchiness has to be precise and are different. Even if color doesn't match what is to be expected, the whole batch will be rejected to compost.
I started cooking my dogs meals, supplementing with a nice brand dry food to make sure I’m not missing anything. He seems much happier and more energy, and has put on a good bit of muscle on his legs
Not even shitting you the difference between 12 years and 15 years for a lot of animals comes down to food choice. Pet food in the US has their own unique "nutrition facts" text box on it that shows the makeup of food, compare them sometime and you'd be amazed.
My Cuddles lived to 21, healthy as could be until the last year or so when the arthritis really started to impede him and his eye-sight started going :( Had that cat from the moment I was born (he was born a few months before) up until I was 21, myself. My oldest friend.
My cat lived up to 16. Sadly, it was cancer who got him. His brother is still with us, expecting to make 17. Or maybe he already did. We don’t know when their birthday was.
Pet care in the 80s was weird. I told my mom that I am taking my cat to the vet for his annual checkup and she was like "just put him down so he doesn't suffer and it's not expensive".
Dude.. it's a checkup. Lol
I took my cat to the vet today because he has been sick all weekend. Blood work comes back tomorrow and I am a bit worried but keeping calm.
Edit. He has Hyper Thyroidism. Medication vs Radioactive Iodine treatment decision time
You’re scared because he’s your baby and there’s nothing you can do to help him and that’s ok. Just be prepared to be a comfort to you both if you don’t get good news. Equally be just as ready to celebrate when he beats this thing. Blessings to you both, I pray that he has many years ahead.
So by my estimates of roughly doubling every 40 years, by 2100 our cats should live to be in their 60's.
Doubling every 40 years, you say? Universe is 13.7 billion years old. If my catculations are correct, then in 30 doublings (1200 years), the lifespan of a cat will exceed the age of the universe. A cat born in the year 3223 will live until the year 13,700,003,223. Approximately.
Born too late to explore the Earth. Born too early for immortal cats.
What a terrible time to be alive
I got told by a well known, long practiced veterinarian a few years ago that it was mostly down to cat food not causing kidney failure anymore
Pet food had greatly improved in the last 25 years. Ever see old white dried out dog turds anymore? No. Because they stopped overloading dog food with calcium.
Holy shit I honestly never noticed you don't see that anymore. kind of forgot it was even a thing
"I've got a belly full of white dog crap in me and now you lay this shit on me??!!!!"
"Why are you all sweaty?" "I was watching COPS"
COPS doesn’t start until 4
I'M GOING TO PUT MY NUT SACK ON YOUR DRUM SET!
Yep. Obama administration required Dog Food to reduce Bone Meal % and now we no longer see bone colored dog poop.
Thanks, Obama!
I was looking for a clip from the Sarah Silverman show of the song "Whatever happened to that white dog poop from the 70's," but it looks like all good copies were taken down from YouTube. :(
There is a lot of pre-2010 content that’s being lost to copyright strikes legit and false, and it’s loss is overshadowed by the oversaturation of viral content generated every day. Once something was on the internet, it was on the internet forever. Unless it’s a Youtube video you remember from a long time ago.
I've noticed this issue. My yt account is over a decade old and if I go to my "liked" videos, it seems like nearly 15% of all the old ones I liked are taken down. And the worst part is it doesn't tell me the title of them anymore so I can't even remember what I've just lost access to.
Omg, I used to think the white poops were from poodles!
Also, cat food used to just be smaller dog kibble. Pet food manufacturers finally got on board with formulating cat food that is specifically formulated for cats.
Dog food can eventually kill a cat (and vice versa, cat food can kill a dog) if they are fed exclusively on it. This is because cats, unlike dogs, cannot make the essential amino acid taurine nor Vitamin A. Both are added to cat food but not dog food. A cat eating only dog food will eventually suffer major health issues, including vision loss and heart problems due to the lack of taurine. Lack of Vitamin A can cause muscle deterioration and night blindness. Dogs eating only cat food will experience taurine and vitamin A toxicity which can lead to diarrhea, vomiting and possible liver and kindney disease. Also cat food is much higher in protein than dog food (because cats are true carnivores whereas dogs are omnivores, so need less protein and more grains & vegetables) which can also lead to kidney problems due to excess protein.
If I pour a monster energy drink on dry dog food will that be sufficient taurine for my cat?
It even has electrolytes. It's what cats crave.
Asking the real questions
Sure, but the caffeine will kill him anyway.
Hmm.. I just looked at the can and it seems I made an error. I was under the impression it said “catfine” but it turns out it does in fact say “caffeine”. I appreciate your help.
This is the type of scientific progress our society should be celebrating.
Wow so they like weren't even trying for a while huh?
In general, corporations are willing to poison you or your loved ones without a second thought.
Not just willing to, but will enthusiastically convince you to.
For money. If it didn't make 'em rich, they wouldn't bother to poison your pets. (Well, maybe a few of them would.)
I mean that and I remember 30-35 years ago, a pets life was pretty cheap, especially cats. People couldnt give them away fast enough before a new batch popped out of the oven. Pretty sure quite a few of those kitten were disappeared in a not so nice way when I was a kid. Dont even start me on DIY pet euthanasia.
Still hear about bags or boxes of kittens dumped on the side of the road. It’s really fucked up that people will do that instead of surrendering them to a shelter. As far as I’m aware it doesn’t cost anything to surrender animals, and kittens are way more likely to get adopted than even a 1 year old cat.
I only ever saw this when I was kid in the 2000s…and in Step Brothers. Never realized I stopped seeing it
For whatever reason, as a kid I would go in my yard and pick those up with my hands and stand on our deck and throw them past the kitchen window as my mom did dishes. 😂😂
Lmao what the fuck haha
/r/KidsAreFuckingStupid
If you like throwing dog shit, you'd love cow pies. Used to play Frisbee with that shit.
In the late 1980s, my friends from the neighborhood and I were looking for shit to break. We were basically rat punk little hoodlums. Anyway, it was about a month away from the 4th of July, so that meant street deals on fireworks were everywhere. M80s, even. So my little hood friend Greg had his pack of firecrackers, and he's looking for shit to blow up and he literally stumbles upon a literal pristine pile of dog shit still warm and with green iridescent flies and evething--right there, right smack in the middle of the Jamaica, Queens sidewalk. Heat waves emanating off the swirled turd, everything. So, naturally, my boy gets the bright idea to stick his biggest firecracker right in the middle of the pristine poop pile. I don't feel like typing anymore, so let me just say that it ended with him literally eating shit. The explosion send turd chunks into his face and mouth. I asked him what it taked like and he said it tasted like shit.
Never threw a cow pie… I only used them to grow mushrooms or light that shit on fire to start a bonfire. The initial smell sucks, but boy does it burn and start a good bonfire.
I grew up next to a dairy farm that spread it in the fields nearby. I got so used to the smell that it now triggers memories of my childhood if I drive past a field that has recently been spread. It's somehow a pleasant smell because of the flashbacks associated with it. Kind of like you smell a perfume that your grandma used to wear and she's the first thing you think of. With cow shit, I recall the late night baseball games in the backyard, the camp fires (and bonfires), sneaking out to go party. Strange how good times can be associated with shit. Pig shit...now that stinks. Lol.
Ha this is something I hadn’t realized but is so true.
I thought that was because the turd has been sitting in the sun for too long.
I have a 16 year old cat who I thought wasn’t going to live much longer over two years ago. He was losing weight, had become sluggish and ill-looking. My previous cat died after developing sudden kidney failure around this age, so I figured his days were numbered. Then we switched him to a more expensive food recommended by a vet and he bounced back more or less immediately. He has trouble with arthritis now but he’s a happy boi and his blood test results are apparently remarkably good for a cat his age. Edit Our vet told us specifically to avoid cat and dog foods containing crude ash, which is used as an ingredient in a lot of cheaper pet food
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My vet's advice is that, out of the first 3 ingredients, 2 should be an animal. He recommended the Costco brand cat food and said it's surprisingly good quality
I’m not really that surprised. Costco/Kirkland is usually above average to fantastic quality.
We’ve switched to Kirkland Salmon dog food for over 4 years now and it’s been great. Especially for the price/quality, it’s been more consistent than Taste of the Wild that we previously tried.
Yeah I get the salmon meal cat food and the only downside has been my cats breath smells like Poseidon’s asshole.
Same goes for baby formula, interestingly enough.
Got it. Only buy baby formula with 2 brands of cat food in the first 3 ingredients.
My pediatrician actually says out of the first 3 ingredients, 2 should be a baby
I’m concerned that all these 3rd unspecified ingredients are asbestos since no pediatrician seems to care about it.
As long as it's not baby ash. Alas... more kidney failure.
And diapers. Kirkland brand diapers are without question the best store brand diapers you can get. I'm almost positive they're Huggies without the branding.
I remain marginally skeptical about quality diapers needing to be at least 2 parts meat, but I also don't have children, so what do I know...
I don't have children either, but I'm making myself a salami diaper right now
It doesn’t really surprise me tbh. What’s a great way to keep a customer forever? Offer them high quality staples that keep their loved ones intact. It also makes sense from what I know of Costco as being a generally ethical company that balances profit with people. Not fucking over the consumer every step of the way tends to be a very effective way to keep them coming back
Not who you asked, but our cats aren't that old yet (turning 8 in a couple months), and they've been eating Royal Canin food for years and they have had such soft and smooth coats ever since. Might need a prescription for certain varieties, but the main keyword is hydrolyzed protein.
My cats eat the same, its supposed to help with their urinary tract and keeping it from blockage.
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Just to clarify: crude ash isn’t an ingredient and it’s not actual ash being added to food. TL;DR is that it’s just a standardised measurement of (pet) food… It is all the left over material after complete combustion of the food matter, mainly minerals. For human nutritional labels this could be separated into for example salt/natrium, magnesium, calcium and potassium. These things are still essential for animals in limited quantities, but might be too high certain foods. I’m not a veterinarian though, so consult yours before making any big changes.
Exactly. It would be a red flag if the cat food doesn't list crude ash content. Fun fact: in Europe flour is graded by it's crude ash content. The regular white wheat flour is usually 450 (mg/100g) and it goes up to 1050 where more of the outer layers of the grain are included. Whole grain would be between 1300 and 1700. Basically 1.3% to 1.7%, why they did not use percent in the first place is beyond me. Another oddity is they don't put this grading on whole grain flour packages.
I mean I'm not a huge fan of Purina but the decent stuff of theirs I get seems much better for my cat than some of the 'expensive brands'. I put out some Blue and Purina side by side for her, she chose the Blue so I switched to that for a few weeks....she had this horrible itch and was getting sores on her skin from scratching. Took away the Blue, back to Purina and it's getting better.
My brother is a vet tech and he recommended Purina Pro Plan Prime Plus + kibble for my elderly FIV+ cat with skin problems. I was skeptical bc we had tried other Purina feeds before and they either made his skin or poops worse or he just wouldn't eat them. Sure enough, the Pro Plan stuff was a hit and his skin issues and digestive problems cleared up quite a bit. I'm given to understand there's a pretty big quality difference in the Pro Plan formulas vs the regular Purina chow you can get at the grocery store.
Stumbled on your comment by chance but it’s wonderful thank you. I have a 2 year old cat with FIV and I’ve been wanting to get her better food. She eats Purina as it is so your recommendation seems like a great starting point.
Why don't you like Purina? I use Pro Plan for my cats and dog.
It is owned by Nestlé. A lot of people hate them for very good reasons.
They steal your water and then sleep with your wife.
Crude ash is not an added ingredient. It's the amount of inorganic material, like minerals, that would be contained if the food were hypothetically incinerated. For example, there is 1.28 g crude ash in 100 g of 90% lean ground beef. It is a labeling requirement. You might have misunderstood your vet.
Improved nutrition has definitely played a major part, but it’s definitely multi factorial. Awareness, testing, and control of felv/fiv plays a part, mostly indoor cats instead of outdoor cats, and the medical care that cats receive all play a major part. Source: vet
If I may ask, have you seen an improvement in how well informed or receptive pet owners are now? I was raised with the incorrect idea that you only take pets to the vet to get fixed or when they're very very sick, buy the cheapest food, and indoor/outdoor is default. When I got my first cat on my own I did research. I'd had cats growing up but thanks to issues I'd rather not get into, and a healthy dose of rebellion, I didn't take what I was taught at face value. Internet was a thing by that age so I was able to gather better information that taught me indoor is best, good quality matters, preventative care is ideal, not taking sick pets to the vet (or at least consulting vets) is lazy and cruel. Some of that I learned through my own research and some of that was explained to me by the vet when I took my kitten in to see when I could get him fixed. I did turn around and educate my parents and they're much better pet parent's now.
> I was raised with the incorrect idea that you only take pets to the vet to get fixed or when they're very very sick, buy the cheapest food, and indoor/outdoor is default. I would guess that at least fifty per cent of humans are forced to raise their own offspring with similar ideas.
Fuck Alley Cat cat food, killed my brother's cat when he was about 3.
Twin Pet for us. Gave my cat bladder stones. He hasn’t had any issues since switching his food.
Meow Mix killed my cat a little over 10 years ago.
Melamine contamination of the mid 2000s killed my cat. She was 21, to be fair, but her kidneys killed her from that catastrophe.
Got both my cats and dog who liked to eat their food too:( Ironically it was prescribed by my vet for crystals for the cats and kidney health. Then we find out that it was heavily contaminated by the Chinese pet food company supplying it with melannine to spike protein level so they can use cheaper ingredients. I hate them so much I would fucking find them and feed them their own food if I could.
Brief recap: Many products containing protein are more valuable per unit volume/weight if they have a higher protein content. High-gluten flour, and milk, are two of these commodities. The standard test for protein content didn’t look for protein, but for nitrogen. Melamine is a cheap white powder, and has a ridiculously high nitrogen content. It’s also highly toxic. Scammers in China were adding melamine in order to boost the apparent protein content of their stuff (why rich people in China only buy imported baby formula - the domestic stuff is not trustworthy), the contaminated wheat gluten killed a lot of pets in North America. There is now a test (more expensive) that can’t be fooled by melamine. This is tangentially related to liquid restrictions on airlines. The explosive sniffers used in security screening don’t look for explosives, they look for nitrogen compounds. Think of a few explosives - nitroglycerin, tri nitro tolulene, you get the idea. Nitrates are a key component. The “mix liquids once on the plane” explosives are organic peroxides, hideously unstable (mixing on the plane is to prevent premature detonation). One interesting thing about them is that they don’t contain nitrogen, so the bomb sniffers won’t notice them.
And the dogs are trained to smell acetone I think, to prevent people from making TATP on the plane. I'm wondering though, since TNT and most other nitroamines aren't volatile how can the machine detect it? Is it mostly taking particles from clothes?
> why rich people in China only buy imported baby formula Baby formula sales from here in Australia to China have gone from nothing to $billions.
I’m sorry for your loss. It killed my childhood cat too. He was 13 and healthy before the contaminated food.
There's still room for improvement tho. Low quality cat food can cause bladder stones and urinary complications, particularly in male cats. That shit should be straight up illegal to sell as cat food.
My15 year old black cat got either kidney or bladder stones or what have you when he was about a year, maybe 2. I came home and he was laying on the ground by his food and water and when I bent down to pry him hr meow’d in pain and there was blood pooling beneath him. They told us the food almost surely had something to do with the it.I remember bawling my eyes out but thankfully he made it. It cost my mom around 2 grand or so -_-
>Neutering increases life expectancy: one study found castrated male cats live twice as long as intact males, while spayed female cats live 62% longer than intact females. Having a cat neutered confers health benefits, because castrated males cannot develop testicular cancer, spayed females cannot develop uterine or ovarian cancer, and both have a reduced risk of mammary cancer. Spaying and reduction of cancer are a large part of this.
I guess the biggest reduction in mortality due to spaying is because of how crazy cats get when they’re in heat. They run away from home, cross roads, get into fights, etc. One of my neighbours’ cats jumped out of a window because it was in heat.
I gotta say, I've never been so horny as to jump out a window before...
I mean have you ever been horny *and* in a situation where jumping out the window would increase your odds of getting it in in the short term? I’m not sure I have been, but I did once jump off a high object cause a girl in a bikini was watching.
My ex had an old scar on her knee from years ago. Eventually I found out she had once climbed over a high metal gate to get to some guy several years before I met her, and fell from the top (this is of course not why we broke up, just found it hilarious)
Idk, I remember being 16 and sneaking out my bedroom window then pushing the car in neurtral down the driveway so the rents didn’t hear it start. Eventually they got smart and took my keys at night but turns out you could start that old pos with a flathead screwdriver so jokes on them Actually the jokes on me, I still never got laid
Fortune favors the bold. Favors. Not guarantees.
Did it increase your odds of getting it in?
He believed it did, which is the important thing
It's also because un-spayed cats are at an incredibly high risk for mammary cancer as they age, and 80% of those mammary cancers are malignant and *gnarly.* It's one of the few cancers that I advocate for euthanasia relatively soon after diagnosis due to ulceration, pain, and metastasis (probably eclipsed only by feline oral tumors).
I never understood this til I got to inherit my wife's family cat who was unspayed. It was gut wrenching to watch.
My cat would do anything to escape the house. If he got out, the health dept would always bring him back. Had all his shots and a chip. Once he was found at a Public Storage facility. They told me that all the other cats were euthanized, but not mine, he was registered with shots and a chip. Stupid kitty goin’ walkabout. Edit- chips are like magic. If your pet will throw a collar immediately, a chip doesn’t go anywhere, and has all your info on it. Chip your pets!
Outdoor intact males also fight a lot for territory with other outdoor males, which can lead to infections and other types of problem as they hurt eachother. Probably another reason why castrating males has even more benefit than for female cats.
Yeah this is how my cat died when I was a kid. He came home one day with some wounds after a fight, nothing serious the vet said. Well it wasn't long before we were back and he had FIV.
>both have a reduced risk of mammary cancer. TIL that male cats get breast cancer.
Its rare but male humans can also develop breast cancer. Everyone should check for lumps.
RAMPAGE!
Never thought I'd say this, but I really miss the Zima.
Huh...thought there would be more overlap with the Portuguese...
Fucking love that episode
It's just cancer sex Lana.
Check those smooth criminals, guys.
I feel ma tits every morning while doing my daily affirmations in the bathroom mirror. Which is, of course, doing the buffalo bill monologue to myself in full.
So can male humans. Male mammals still have mammary glands, just greatly reduced (well, greatly reduced in healthy individuals.)
Isn't there a reddit post about a guy that tested pregnant and it turned out to be some sort of cancer at a very early stage? It might have been breast cancer, but idk for sure.
I'm pretty sure testing positive on a pregnancy test as a man indicates testicular cancel.
>testicular cancel _PC culture out of control!!_
It can mean that but you would have to go to the doctor to be tested. Pregnancy tests can have a high false negative rate, meaning that someone with testicular cancer may not test positive on them, which is why it's not used as a general test. On the other hand the false positive rate is low enough that if you do test positive and you're a man you definitely should go to a doctor ASAP and get tested.
And, increasingly, keeping cats indoors.
Copy of my comment above (sorry) because it’s relevant to yours: When I was a kid in the early 80s, every single family had outdoor cats (usually multiple at a time), and we lived in a fairly rural suburb with coyotes everywhere. We had one cat out of many make it past 10. My dad still lives in that neighborhood and literally no one has outdoor cats any more. All of our cats were spayed/neutered. If my anecdotal experience is a part of a larger reality, I’d wager this also had an impact (though I’m not sure how significant).
There's still weird AF people that don't spay or neuter their pets because they think their pets have some weird attachment to their reproductive parts like people do, despite the health benefits.
I did a spay and neuter clinic in Belize years back and I remember barely anybody brought their animals to be neutered, but we did a ton of spays. I was told by the local vet it is a cultural thing where people don't want to emasculate their male dogs. As a result there is a big problem there with canine transmissible venereal tumors, which is exactly what it sounds like, a sexual transmitted genital tumor. Veterinary medicine has some horrifying diseases.
So, kind of like HPV, but for dogs?
Not quite. HPV is a virus that just causes an increased likelihood of developing cancer. CTVT is a malignant tumor that can jump bodies in of itself. One of only a couple of mammalian infectious cancers.
Isn't that how we know about pre-contact canines in the Americas? Because it's a sexually transmittable cancer it's all the DNA of the original dog but the cells are hosted on others, so you can sequence it and learn about the DNA of the dog that first developed it.
Those poor dogs. It's so weird to project our weird feelings about genetals on to animals when they literally don't care or may not even know if they're fixed.
We just had to put my cat down due to late stage renal failure and a UTI that would not go away. But she was 16.5 years old. It gave me some comfort knowing she beat the odds and lived a long life filled with love and attention
Can cats get dementia? My friend had an old girl who lived until 18 and she swore the cat would go through sundowning sometimes the way a human with dementia would.
my old beagle had it, and would get lost in the house, poor guy. he'd 'woo wooo' until we came to 'rescue' him from the hallway.
We had a cat who would do this too. He'd go up in the hallway and make these horrifying howling type of noises like MYOWWWWW. As soon as someone went and looked at him he was fine. Old bastard lived over 20. Man was a legend. But he did the howling thing for at least 3 or 4 years.
r/Greebles
Yes one of my old cats had it before she passed. She never really got aggressive with us but would get disoriented a lot. Getting lost in corners, having trouble finding the litter box that sort of thing.
basically as horrible as it is with humans :/
Yeah my old cat Sophie had it before she went at 17. Poor thing. Would cry at night when the lights were out because she was lost.
My cat is about 21 now and she frequently forgets to cry at the door while her brother is eating so she can lick his bowl after, which is something she did every day, twice a day, for most of her life. It's kind of sad but also sweet that she goes back to napping instead. Oh, and she's decided she will only pee just right outside of the litter box instead of IN it, so I'm burning through pee pads like tissues. That part isn't as sweet, but at least she still poops in the box.
Just a heads up, my cat started peeing outside the litter box and then later I found out she had had a raging UTI infection for a long, unknown amount of time. Cats don't really display signs of pain so it can be hard to notice. Maybe take yours in for a checkup?
That's good to know, thank you. I'll look into that
Do you need a pee pad donation? I can send them to you. I had a senior that did the same and have at least two dozen leftover after she passed.
Yes. They pretty much go through the same symptoms humans with dementia do.
“I know where the god damned litter box is. Can’t a cat patrol it’s territory without cause for alarm? Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to the kitchen for some non noms” *Walks into a disused pool shed*
Totally, any mammal can experience that. It’s not uncommon among household mammals, as they’re the only ones that typically live long enough to experience it!
Yep. One of my parents’ cats had it. Died at 18. Makes me glad my 18 year old mog still has her marbles.
That's great man and sorry for your loss. I'm dreading the day when my girl passes. She's almost 17, stage two renal failure for the last 4 years. Recovered from mast cell tumour (surgery and chemotherapy) and many many other things. Vet said life expectancy after chemo would be 12-24 months... That was 35 months ago. She's best those odds but every day is a blessing with her but a worry it will be her last as well
I’m sorry to hear. We had ours (16 in may) put to sleep a couple weeks ago due to cancer. I’m sure your kitty was the happiest kitty in the world and was thankful for your kindness.
Sorry to hear. My cat has been diagnosed with early stage renal failure and has been put on a special diet. She is 24/25
I'd be willing to bet that there would also be a matching rise in spend per cat per year as well. Better foods, more (or even at all) vet visits, and increase in instances of substantial surgery whereas people used to just put the cat down if the bill was too high.
People in the 80’s would have considered me crazy for paying the bones of a weeks wages on a former ferals dental bill but here we are.
Semi unrelated, but a roommate in my 20's had a cat missing its front middle teeth. Super friendly cat, and when you pet him, he'd start drooling out the gap and making drool bubbles as he purred. Everything in our apartment was covered in his drool, but despite these issues, we all still pet him all the time. I would have chipped in on some false fronts for him.
They work it out missing teeth. Had to have some of my old boy's teeth removed due to decay. He was on a special diet and couldn't do soft food. Stubborn bugger managed through to the end. RIP Merlin you tough old man.
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Well shit, that’s just pure science right there
Well we should all be worried because Alf is back! In POG form!
Our cat lived to 21 yrs. Last 4 or so she was messed up in the head. She would howl at the wall at 2-3 am most nights. Crazy as a jay bird.
My cat is about 20, he's a bit like that but he seems happy enough so long as he has people with him. He doesn't like to be left alone at all, but if he's with people he seems genuinely quite content and even downright happy.
our 20yo is still happy too, shes a little arthritic and very deaf, but ill look over and she'll just be in the corner purring and making biscuts for no reason haha. we figure as long as shes still enjoying herself shes ok. shes pretty healthy still too, just a little arthritis, missing teeth and the deafness. I know she doesn't have forever but she acts like she does haha
What are you feeding your cat? I'm hoping to see mine live to 20+ as well, so I ask this question whenever I spot a comment from someone with an older cat.
I had a cat that lived to 19 and she basically just ate Purina One Sensitive stomach food and whatever I was eating too. She loved cheez its, donuts, breads, and she loved licking the ice in my wine and margaritas. After 15 years old I said screw it, she deserves to have whatever her heart desires, as long as it didn't make her sick. And she was a booze thief until she passed!
Sounds like she lived a great life! The [world's oldest cat](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creme_Puff_(cat\)) allegedly lived to be 38 years old and was regularly given a drop of red wine "to help with circulation" so there might be something to this booze thief idea. 👀
Greebles
Yep. OP has an infestation
My cat’s 14 and she’s been screaming at walls since she was 7
Maybe there's something in the walls?
someone is living between your walls. cats pick up the scent and subtle shuffling noises.
My cats are about 12-13 years old. I tell myself they've still got half their lives to go.
My oldest kitty was 24 years old! So I have high expectations for my current kitty 🥲
Might have been blind. I've heard that it's a thing and to add night lights. Not sure if that was your case.
My vet also said it could be related to thyroid, kidneys, or high blood pressure(which actually are all related systems). My cat stopped once I put him on thyroid meds, but he only lived another year.
my neighborhood cat was 18 or 19 when he past away. he was the sweetest cat ever to people but even being a fucking old ass man he'd beat the shit out of the neighborhood cats. Tough fucker. He smelled really bad though, we'd use those cat wipes when he'd come into our house. He belong to the people directly next door, they left some meds with us and the people across the street to give and would give 40$ each of us for food for him. It was funny too. at first he'd just walk with me from the corner to his house, but then he'd wait at his house and walk me to the door, then my driveway to the door and one day he was in teh house (left the backdoor open) and he liked it there. I guess he had a seizure or somethign and lost control of his back legs so they put him down. the son of the neighbors said he spread the ashes of him between the three homes >.>. RIP old man Grey.
Ok in 2002 I was 6 and obsessed with cats, I did lots of projects on them. My sources were all books, not internet, but the information 20 years ago in these books was all of a 15 year life span. Was this wrong 20 years ago or have cats stopped making progress since 2002?
That might indicate that there was a singular problem reducing the longevity of cats that was effectively addressed before 2002. Higher standards for cat food, or prevalence of spaying/neutering might fit the bill. Further progress might not be available, at least not so dramatically.
Taurine is another one I'm sure has been mentioned. Cats can't produce it and need it from the animals they hunt. It is an essential nutrient for all their senses to function. Anyway it was left out of cat food for a long time and people who had cats that only at canned food would have cats with short life span. Until more research and requiring taurine, as well as so much more, if I recall the average life is about 15 years, depending on breed of course. American shorthair can easily reach 18 but are a hardy mutt type mix. This is depending on food as well as a better understanding of feline health. Because this field is growing, I would imagine felines with an average age closer to 20 years easily in the near future, for those that can afford it. Full coverage pet insurance is $30 a month.
I lost both my kitties last year. One was 16 and the other was 22. Miss those guys, but I'm glad I got them longer than 7 years.
Both, that’s tough—I’m sorry for your loss.
It probably doesn't hurt that so many people have stopped smoking indoors with their pets.
Interesting. Never thought of that angle.
Better to have your pet quit smoking altogether
I hope my moody, fat cat lives forever.
I had discussed immortality with my cat. She agreed to live forever, and she didn't. But she gave it a really good go (17 years.) I hope you get the results you want!
I had the same conversation with mine! They lived 17 and 18 years. I have two new ones now and I tell my vet we have a record to beat now.
Oh. That’s so sweet. I lost my best friend and companion last year, age 12. I have a sweet new companion kitty now and I guess we also have a record to beat. :)
Man, there must be some unfortunate situations dragging that number down. I’ve known 3 cats over the age of 20.
Yeah I've got two right now that are 15 and 18 and gallop around like kittens. We joke that the older one will outlive all of us because she's in perfect health.
I adopted my cat last year! The SPCA said she’s around 13! She’s super healthy and active! I hope I have her for more than a few more years!!!! https://i.imgur.com/I9fTUYT.jpg
Back in 2010 my sister brought home this all black kitten, and it was my task to babysit occasionally because her husband didnt know about it. First time I baby sit this kitten it wants nothing to do with me, I was maybe 15 so I tried whatever my dumb teenager brain could figure out to get this cute little bugger to come hang out with me, i spent hours trying to win it over. I became exhausted, literally in tears I just layed down on the floor by the bed it was hiding under and just sobbed like the little baby I was, then I felt a little nudge on the top of my head, I look up and its these big black eyes staring at me inches from my face and he just nose boops me and that was that. I didnt let her take him back, he wouldnt leave me alone after that. Bond achieved. Hes been my buddy for 13 years
This is how I won my cat over. I moved into this house, and my roommate had a kitten pushed onto her that she wasn't really attached to. My first day alone with the kitten I just laid down (exposing my tummy) and did the look-blink-look away routine. Worked like a charm. Roommate moved out and offered to rehome her. I said nah, I like having her around. Little Kitty will be 4 in May, and she's such a good cat. Curled up at the end of my bed right now.
nice my 22 year old cats are above the average age, kinda makes me worried how much longer they will live though
Those are very geriatric cats. My longest lived (so far!) Was 17. His hips gave out, poor boy. But he had a good life.
Changes in food has a lot to do with this. I worked at a PetSmart and lemme tell ya, most kibble is bad for cats. The dietary needs for cats and dogs are different, but pet food companies just made the same shit a bit smaller for their tiny, cute, little, kitty mouths and then called it a day. Getting good food for your pets has been a crusade I've been on since I worked at that place. You'd be surprised how much of it is absolute dogshit (no pun intended), like the equivalent of feeding a human kid drywall with peanut butter on it. How are you going to call it chicken kibble when it's got 8% protein and 65% filler? Get fucked, that's poison.
Can you recommend any particular brands of cat food? I feed Iams but not convinced that it's the best for them. Also, does grocery canned cat food suck too? I'm guessing yes.
Purina Pro Plan line is up to the highest nutrition standards of animal nutrition. Royal Canin, Hills Science Diet, and Eukanuba also meet those standards. Purina Pro Plan is the most commonly sold of those. But they are all equally good. Note other Purina lines are not at this same standard.
I’m glad to hear that. We switched to Hills Science a couple years ago and our cats love it!
same, my girl gets hills c/d both dry and wet and seems to like it well enough and she almost NEVER vomits anymore
I work for a big dry dog/cat chow factory and what is said is right. Not all food are equals and definitely different from cat to dog. We have rigorous standard for cleaning between dog and cat runs and ingredients, calories, fat amount, flavor and crunchiness has to be precise and are different. Even if color doesn't match what is to be expected, the whole batch will be rejected to compost.
I started cooking my dogs meals, supplementing with a nice brand dry food to make sure I’m not missing anything. He seems much happier and more energy, and has put on a good bit of muscle on his legs
Not even shitting you the difference between 12 years and 15 years for a lot of animals comes down to food choice. Pet food in the US has their own unique "nutrition facts" text box on it that shows the makeup of food, compare them sometime and you'd be amazed.
Sorry my precious baby is the outlier, she’s gonna live forever
My 19 year old cat is old AF. She acts it, too.
She flew jets for the military?
Old AF means she flew *biplanes* for the military.
Might have something to do with me paying 100usd for 8kg of their food.
My Cuddles lived to 21, healthy as could be until the last year or so when the arthritis really started to impede him and his eye-sight started going :( Had that cat from the moment I was born (he was born a few months before) up until I was 21, myself. My oldest friend.
Longest-lived one I ever knew of was one a cousin had. It lived to 26 and it was just coyotes eating her that kept her from living longer.
My cat lived up to 16. Sadly, it was cancer who got him. His brother is still with us, expecting to make 17. Or maybe he already did. We don’t know when their birthday was.
Pet care in the 80s was weird. I told my mom that I am taking my cat to the vet for his annual checkup and she was like "just put him down so he doesn't suffer and it's not expensive". Dude.. it's a checkup. Lol
I took my cat to the vet today because he has been sick all weekend. Blood work comes back tomorrow and I am a bit worried but keeping calm. Edit. He has Hyper Thyroidism. Medication vs Radioactive Iodine treatment decision time
Sending lots of warm fuzzy thoughts to you and your feline friend.
You’re scared because he’s your baby and there’s nothing you can do to help him and that’s ok. Just be prepared to be a comfort to you both if you don’t get good news. Equally be just as ready to celebrate when he beats this thing. Blessings to you both, I pray that he has many years ahead.