A significant number of cats that have been alive for several years and are considered old in terms of cat years and age may experience certain signs of aging. And these signs may be closely related to how they function intellectually and cognitively.
If you are an owner of an old cat, you might be able to see a few or all of these signs in your aging cat. The first one is a decreased interaction by your pet. The cat would rather stay in a corner and waste the day away. You will only observe your cat on top of your fridge, your window or on its bed.
Not only will there be a decreased interaction of your cat with you. If you have other pets or other animals, there might also be a considerable decrease in interaction of your cat with these other pets. It would seem that your pet is no longer interested to play with its friends.
When this happens, do not force your pet to play with you. Let it sleep or rest. Older cats might easily get tired and would prefer not doing anything.
When it's feeding time, you can notice that your pet no longer rushes to you unlike during its younger years. You might have to leave its food beside it and it still won't be very excited. However, you should be able to differentiate signs of brain aging with a loss of appetite. Of course, you have to consider the age of your pet. Aside from that, a cat whose brain is aging will still eat its food, albeit on smaller amounts. A cat that has a loss of appetite might have to skip several meals without having the urge to eat.
Even though your cat was potty trained when it was younger, you might see it urinate or defecate outside of its litter box. This can be a problem for a lot of owners. Cleaning the house almost every day when this happens entails a lot of work.
For cats that are faced with challenges like a wall in front of them, they might not be able to solve that particular issue. A younger cat might have easily tackled and got over the problem. The older cat will seem to work slowly and might not know how to react and proceed with the situation.
Your cat might get less excited. Even if there is immediate trouble near it, it will not spring up as quickly as it used to. This can be attributed to the fact that it has lesser awareness of stimuli that is present in the environment that it is in.
Sometimes, you will notice that there are differences in the times that your pet is awake or is asleep. There can be days when it sleeps the whole day. Sometimes, it will be away during the day. At other occasions, your pet will be awake at night and be sleeping in the day. These inconsistencies are definite signs that your cat is manifesting signs of brain aging.
