Peace of Mind for Pet Parents Episode 011: They Still Climb: Small Signs of Big Changes in Cat Mobility

Episode Transcript: 

Karen Wylie: Hello, and welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents. I'm Karen Wylie here with Gail Pope.

And we're going to take a look at cat mobility today, something that most of us don't think about as often as we do think about mobility in dogs. And certainly, there are some different issues.

Cats are built a little differently than dogs, too. So it's definitely worth us taking a separate look from what we spoke about in terms of mobility for dogs. So, Gail, how would you like to start us out with this? Because obviously at BrightHaven you had a lot of senior cats that had injuries—broken bones, fractured spines. Paralysis certainly would affect mobility. So you saw quite a range of mobility challenges.

Gail Pope: Yes, you know, it's interesting that you should say that. Because yes, when I look back, I guess I took mobility in all our animals as—it was just something that we worked with. And you know, if someone couldn't get out of bed, then we sprung into action with, “What do we need to do to help them?” 

So I think in general, daily life, people don't think about cats as having a mobility issue. But I guess for us, it was kind of normal. Especially as I think about it now, sometimes doing tours at the Sanctuary, and we'd open the front door, and guests would start coming in, and there'd be one or two cats—like Sasha or Talya—who were both scooting on their bottoms. They both had broken backs, and they were happy as clams. They weren’t elderly, they were very energetic, but they sat on their bottoms because they didn’t like wheelchairs. And people would be really sad. They’d come in and go, “Hi! Oh no!” And it would be heartbreaking for them to see a cat that had that kind of a mobility problem. So I think it is unusual in society. 

But yes, I think you know, a cat can have any kind of illness, the same as a dog or a human, and have a week in bed. So that’s something we haven’t really thought about. Okay, so the cat is immobile, lying in bed, not well—what do we need to do?

Are they eating, drinking? Well how can we help? Do we need to put their food on a saucer so that they can just lean forward and lick it? Do we need to help them by syringe feeding them? Or can they actually stand up? Maybe we need to put their bowl there and elevate it onto another bowl. 

You know, Purrci, my cat now—he’s a big, strong, tough guy—however, he does have some little neurological issues. And I found that when I took a pudding bowl, put a cloth in it, and then put his plate on the top of that, it didn’t work. I tried it without the cloth first of all, and that didn’t work because he just licked the plate off and its contents. But it helped him. He can eat in a better position. 

So yes, I think the world of cat mobility certainly deserves a little exploring.

Karen Wylie: I think, for a lot of us, we don’t think of it. And I guess it’s—cats move so differently than dogs. I think that’s part of why we don’t notice it. Now, like you’re talking about the extremes where they’re paralyzed, and people seeing that and reacting as, “Oh, you know, they’re handicapped, oh my God!” Cats just adapt and keep living their lives! But day to day in the household, I think we tend to notice our dog’s mobility challenges much more quickly than we notice the cats. I mean, it’s like with the dogs, we’re usually—if we’re taking them on the leash for a walk—you know, we have a route that we take. And maybe this is the short route we take on a rainy day as compared to how long we’ll walk on a sunny day. 

But as a dog is aging, and let’s just take that idea for the moment—when a dog doesn’t want to walk that long a route, that’s feedback for us that something might be wrong. Maybe something’s hurt, starting to be sore when they walk.

With cats, they’re not—cats just kind of do what they want. They’re very self-directed.

Gail Pope: Yes, but you actually—that made me think, so I didn’t mean to interrupt you. But that made me start to think that—well, what do you see with cats? And yes, they have these wonderful things called claws!

So instead of jumping to the couch, you might see them using their claws to climb up because they just don’t have as much strength anymore, or something like that.

Karen Wylie: Exactly, because they move very vertically. It’s a whole different thing. With cats, we’ve got to be thinking of them moving UP. That’s where we’re likely to see—exactly like you’re saying—it’s harder for them to get up on the sofa. They’re not just jumping like they used to. Instead, they don’t quite have the oomph they used to, and maybe they’re starting to use their claws, just like you’re saying. So, day to day in the household, it’s a little different when we’re trying to keep an eye on our aging cats, for example. And it can be so gradual too, which is—of course, that’s true for cats and dogs.

Gail Pope: That’s absolutely true. Again, I’m thinking of Purrci. And when I noticed that he wasn’t jumping quite as easily as he did before, I had a footstool, so I put it in front of the couch. And he went onto the footstool and then onto the couch. He went straight there like, “Oh thank God, she’s finally realized this is so much easier.” In the bedroom, bed steps—I mean, for the longest time, Purrci would use his claws and climb up onto the bed. And you know, I suddenly realized this isn’t really very fair. So I got bed steps for him, and he loves them. And the dogs do too. I mean, there is a lot of overlap in the kinds of things you can do with ramps, and again—if you’ve got a cat that’s scooting on their bottom, ramps are really helpful.

Karen Wylie: And just like you’re saying with the steps or the stairs to the bed or to the couch, they typically would be very helpful. The ones for cats are cheaper than the ones for dogs because, with the stairs—there’s not as much variability in the size of cats as there is with dogs. I mean, with dogs, we’ve got them from, you know, 4 pounds to what—nearly 200 pounds, depending on them. With cats, we don’t have that—quite that range, shall we say. So their steps are much smaller and don’t take up as much space in the house.

Yes, I mean, it’s interesting for me, in watching my cats and their comfort—I guess I’m going to call it comfort level—because I never used to think about them in pain as they were aging. But I would notice that they weren’t jumping up to the highest shelf on the cat tree anymore. They were choosing the one—the next highest. And maybe over another six months they might change more... I mean, it’s not something I noticed the day it happened. Also, cats move around. They follow the sun a lot of times, so, you know, they’ll jump up to a particular window that has great sun in the east in the morning, and then they kind of follow the sun. They’re in different places.

So with my cats, I would kind of be used to them having a few favorite places. But over time, you’d start to see that they’re not going to the highest shelf in the cat tree—or at least I’d notice that. Or they would choose a window sill that was maybe two feet away from the ground level instead of jumping up to a couple cabinets and going to the highest windows. And that’s kind of a pattern you have with cats. I think you have to look for more of a pattern. I feel like I see dog mobility challenges faster than I see those in cats...

Gail Pope: Exactly. You’ve just summed it up. I think you have to be a lot more observant with cats. Even little things like irritability—sometimes, you may look a little deeper if they seem a little irritable. But the changes in a cat as mobility becomes more difficult for them, in whatever way, are—generally—it’s up to us to see them. Because cats, as you said, they’re so proud and strong. They don’t want to be beaten by something that might ache.

And then, of course, you’ve got incontinence. You know, if you’ve got a cat that is immobile—or, very often the scooters do have continence problems. And again, just as when we were talking about the dogs—we’ve got belly bands and wraps. They make the most amazing jeans and cute panties for girls. There are all sorts of things you can buy for them. 

And if you’ve got a cat who’s immobile in bed for any period of time—coming back to the layering of the bedding and the incontinence pad so that you can change a bed quick and easy—I mean, at least with a cat, very often you can lift the cat up, so it’s a lot easier. However, you can’t change a bed with one hand while you’ve got a cat in your arms. 

Karen Wylie:You can’t easily do that? That’s where the baby slings come in nicely. They come in handy—wear the baby sling, put the four-footer there, and then...

Well, as you’re speaking about incontinence, that’s just making me think of a litter box, you know? And when our cats are at younger ages and we assume they have no mobility issues—you know, we can use those 6-inch or 8-inch high litter boxes, with the covers and all sorts of options these days. But it’s the height. And although a cat’s spine is different from a dog’s—they have more cushioning between their vertebrae, so they can curve their body more easily—but when they’re aging, just like dogs, and just like us, they start losing that flexibility. And so lower litter boxes would be something to explore, for sure.

Gail Pope: Without doubt. Yes, I think the world of low litter boxes and the towel toilets that we’ve talked about before, that were so popular at BrightHaven—they’re a little harder to maintain because of all the laundry involved! But with an incontinence sheet and a towel or a soft rug over the top—you’ve got a cat who does have mobility issues, then they’re probably going to like that. They would thank you for it.

Karen Wylie: A few years ago and this is going to involve Mr. Hope, who I talk about a lot. We had just diagnosed him with cardio but he is fine. My vet said, "How's he moving around at home? Are you noticing any differences?" And I'm like, "No. I don't think so." "The reason I'm asking is that there's a new injectable drug that's come out that's been around for dogs for a long time", she said. "So I was just wondering about that for Hope." I said, "That sounds interesting." And she said, "I'll get you the pamphlet that goes along with it. You can take that home and read about it. We can talk about it." I thought to myself, "oh, now this could be good though. This could be a twofer." Because with cardio, having the blood be a little bit thinner can make it a little easier to pump. I wonder if this might be a good drug to try both for that reason. He was 14 and a half years old at that time and so I agreed to try it.

So Mr. Hope gets his injection, I bring him home and two hours later I'm looking around for Mr. Hope, and all of a sudden he's up at the highest window where he had to jump. Seriously and it was like, "Oh my God, I don't think I've seen him up there in at least a year." It's like until all of a sudden he was up there, I wasn't making the connection that he hadn't been going up there. Then, another few days and I'm seeing him higher up on the cat tree. Again, because he wasn't in dire straits, I hadn't been as sensitive to the fact that he obviously was feeling a little sore. I just really hadn't been as sensitive to that as I think I could have been.And you know, It is a conventional drug— you give it every three to four weeks over time. But it did have that wonderful side effect of possibly thinning the blood a little bit which for a cat with hypertrophic cardio was a fine side effect to have. I was thinking there just wasn't that much you could do to help a cat as they aged— unless they were paralyzed or unless they had a big injury. I just think we just take for granted that when they start sleeping in lower places, that's just how it is.

But even two months before Hope died, two and a half years later, he was still getting up in that highest window. I don't want to say it's a miracle drug, but for me, I saw a black and white difference in his ability. He responded really well to that and now of course they do recommend it for cats. You've used a lot of alternative therapies with your animals, and so what are some that you think people could consider that are in the homeopathic or alternative range?

Gail Pope: You are reminding me of the opposite side of the coin, something that I think we all tend to neglect. When you have a cat who is used to being on countertops, used to being up high—and I know I’ve done it myself—we tend to move a chair, move a table over a bit so he’s got an easier way to jump up to things. But we don’t stop to think about—they can’t necessarily, you know, jumping down when you're getting a little older sometimes isn’t a very good thing. So that’s something that I learned. There comes a point where you shouldn’t be helping them as much to go up, because very often they won’t come down that way, and they’ll take a flying leap and can hurt themselves.

But yes, going back to treating animals—yes, for me, I think diet. If an animal is older when they come to us, I think changing the diet for a more holistic diet—if they haven’t been having such a diet—is huge for mobility. It can really bring in a new surge of energy and change in the animal. All sorts of holistic therapies. But I do think that cannabis comes in that respect for working with joints. There are so many different supplements, and everybody has their own favorites that they come across. So I think it’s always good to talk about them.

And I think in our current world, the word arthritis is becoming a norm—whatever, you know, whether you're on two legs or four legs.

Karen Wylie: It's true. It really is. And maintaining a normal, average good weight on our cats also helps. And they do tend to put on a little bit of weight as they age, just like two-legged people do. And so that can certainly affect their mobility.

Gail Pope: Oh yes, that takes me back—way, way back to the early days of BrightHaven. We had a cat called Sybil. Oh, she was such a darling. And she'd been born deformed. She had short legs—she had all four of them, but they were very short. We never really found out her story. She was beyond the word obese. I mean, she was huge. She was absolutely huge. And when she first came to us, she could still walk a teeny bit. But, I mean, it was a little teeny—you couldn’t even say a stagger, because her body was so big that she couldn’t really move her legs.

But obesity, I think, is something that—we tend to love a fat and cuddly cat. But there comes a point where you really need to be careful that they’re not getting too big. And the same as in people—you know, it spoils your life if you put on too much weight: health-wise and mobility-wise.

Karen Wylie: Right. And of course, that’s one of the first things that’s pointed to in dog mobility—is that, especially the larger the dog, the more stress on their structure. So weight really comes into play there. But it’s the same with cats. If their build is really best at 8 pounds, and they’ve gone up to 11 or 12—it’s time to ease it back.

Gail Pope: Yes! Time to ease back on the treats.

Karen Wylie: Ease back the treats. You know, and fresh food is generally a little easier to maintain calorie-wise than the kibble and all the canned food. So that is something, too. I think that fresher food or freeze-dried food or raw food—are all going to produce more energy—plus it tends to maintain their weight better. I don’t know that I ever asked you that question before, but that was my experience with it. You know, when I was feeding—like half of the diet was raw, and then the rest, there’d be a bowl of kibble for anybody who wanted or needed a snack—that I never had a weight issue with any of my cats when I was doing that.

Gail Pope: Oh, well, we didn’t do it that way. When we switched to a raw diet, we literally went cold turkey.

Karen Wylie: Did you?

Gail Pope: Yes, we did. Many, many years ago. And the difference that we saw in the animals in literally a matter of about two weeks—was astonishing. Good heavens, yes. I have all these pictures of old cats in my mind. Chocolate Chip comes to mind first. He was an old Burmese. He was in his early twenties. He was as thin as a stick, and he—and actually his two brothers—had a couch. And they had steps up to the couch, and he would get himself up onto the couch and back down again. I mean, he was absolutely adorable. And luckily, he took to the diet and decided to eat it. And then came the day—literally, a couple of weeks later—I saw him jump from the floor up to the arm of the couch, and I was astonished.

Another day I walked back into my kitchen—that was kind of open towards the living area—and there was Nigel. Nigel was rotund. He was—yes, very rotund. He seemed to have a small head, but his body was very big. And he walked with a wobble. I mean, he was delightful. He didn’t have energy, you know. He was an old man. He’d come to us for the last part of his life. And as I walked through into the kitchen, there went a mouse—a toy mouse—flying across the floor with this great, big, lumbering old man chasing it.

Within weeks he was losing weight and gaining more and more energy.

So those—I mean, those kinds of things are why we switched. Although I should tell the story of Spotty. Spotty was about 18. She came to us as a spoiled tabby. And she said, “I am not eating this awful stuff. I’m not going to have a treat with it. I’m not going to have kibble before or after. I am only going to eat kibble.” And you know, it took two years before I finally converted her. And she ended up eating a raw diet, but that was a challenge. Sometimes you have to pull out all the stops with some animals.

Also, some may not be able to eat it anyway due to their own health issues and metabolism. Sometimes it just doesn’t suit.   

And you know, it’s the same thing with us. We can’t all necessarily eat exactly the same diet. And we have to be aware that some cats thrive on kibble. And some thrive on a raw diet. Some thrive on canned food. So I think we just have to be open to what works.

Karen Wylie: And while we’re talking about food—the same issues in terms of selecting bowls and the height of the bowls that we did talk about with mobility in dogs—it’s the same kind of consideration for the cats. Although cat necks are not quite connected the way dogs’ are, so they seem—they have fewer neck issues than the dogs do. But again, if we’re just assuming whenever any of us are growing a little older, there’s going to be a little arthritis, then we could support the cat by raising the water bowl and raising the food bowls for them a little bit.

It makes such a difference. —especially in the aging. 

Karen Wylie: Well, look at this. When we started talking about, “Should we have a conversation on cat mobility different from dog mobility?” It was like, “Well, are there enough differences?” I think we’ve talked about the fact that there are a lot of differences. We do have to approach it a little differently.

Gail Pope: Yes. They are different species. And we have to be a little more observant with our cats. I think they’re cunning.

Karen Wylie: I agree with you. We're so used to them moving wherever they want to move, going where they want to go. Dogs are kind of with us more. They’re more social. We can direct them a little bit. It’s harder to direct those cats!

That’s where observing—like you’re saying—we just have to pay more attention to what our cats are doing or not doing as they age, if we’re going to be able to support them a little better.

Karen Wylie: Well, as always, I enjoy talking to you about all these things. And we hope that you have also enjoyed this conversation, and hopefully received some ideas for your own cat as he or she ages. And we’ll look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you. Now, bye-bye.

Gail Pope: Bye-bye. Thank you.