Care Guides

The vet said "arthritis" and I blamed the stairs, because blaming the stairs is easier than blaming the years. My old cat had started missing the sofa, landing halfway up the cushion, then giving up and sleeping on the floor. I thought she was being difficult. She was being in pain, and I had missed it because cats are brilliant at hiding exactly that.

Arthritis in cats is common and desperately under-diagnosed. They do not limp the way dogs do. They move less, jump less, groom less in the spots that hurt, and sleep more in odd places. I only noticed because she stopped jumping to the windowsill she had claimed as a kitten. That sill was her throne. When the throne was abandoned, something was wrong.

The first change was physical. I put a step stool by the sofa and a low platform by the bed. Within a week she was back on both. The lesson stung: she had not stopped wanting the high spots. She had stopped being able to reach them, and I had read it as a change of taste. Steps cost me nothing and gave her back the rooms.

Weight was the next piece. An extra few hundred grams on a small cat is real load on sore joints. We measured her food, swapped to a senior diet, and she trimmed down to a weight her legs could carry. The change was not dramatic, but the stiffness after rest eased, and she groomed her lower back again, which told me more than any chart.

Working with the vet, not around them

Pain relief for cats is its own careful field. Human painkillers are dangerous, and even some dog meds are wrong for them. I took her in, got a proper exam, and we built a plan: a cat-safe anti-inflammatory for flares, a joint supplement, and a warm bed away from drafts. The vet also showed me how to watch for the signs that the dose needed review, because cats hide trouble until they cannot.

Movement helps, counterintuitive as it sounds. A stiff cat left to sleep all day gets stiffer. I added short play with a wand toy at ground level, encouraging a few steps and a pounce without the leap. She rediscovered the hunt in small doses, and the muscle she kept around her joints did some of the work the cartilage no longer could.

The home itself needed a rethink. Litter tray with a low lip, food and water on the same floor she lives on, ramps to the favourite perch, soft bedding that holds heat. None of it is expensive. All of it is the difference between a cat who waits for the pain to pass and a cat who keeps living her life.

The vet mentioned supplements, but was clear they are support, not cure. We tried a joint formula suited to cats, introduced slowly so she would actually eat it, and I watched for any stomach upset. Hard to say it alone did much, but combined with the steps, the weight, and the warm bed, she moved with less hesitation in the mornings. I treat it as one part of a plan, not a magic drop I pour and forget.

Night warmth turned out to be underrated. Cats with sore joints stiffen in the cold, and the draught by the window she loved became a problem. I moved her bed to a sheltered spot and added a low-heat pad rated for pets, one she could step away from if it got too warm. She slept deeper, and a cat who sleeps without shifting every few minutes is a cat in less pain. The change was quiet but consistent, the kind you notice only when you compare weeks.

I keep a simple log now, a note on good days and bad, because arthritis waxes and wanes and the vet needs the pattern, not my memory of it. A flare gets a call. A steady stretch gets left alone. The log also stopped me from over-worrying on a single off morning and under-worrying on a slow decline. Old age is not a disease, but it deserves attention, and my cat deserved better than my guessing.

Play did not stop, it changed shape. The wild kitten pounces of her youth became slow, ground-level stalks and a gentle bat at the wand. I met her there instead of trying to drag the old energy back. She still hunts, still celebrates the catch, and the muscle she keeps around sore joints does real work the medicine cannot. A cat who plays, even softly, is a cat who is still in the game.

She is old now, and she will not be young again. But she is on the sill most mornings, washing in the sun, and she meets me at the kitchen with the same slow confidence she always had. Arthritis took something, but the steps and the plan gave most of it back. I only wish I had read the signs a year sooner, before the throne sat empty so long.