Neighbours old cat limping

[Zella]

Our neighbours have gone away for 3 weeks and asked us to look after their cat. He's an old cat who was once living in an old barn in our village but now enjoys the luxury of our neighbours house!

Nobody knows how old he is but he seems to be a bit stiff when he moves. Probably just old age but I wonder if something can be done? They give him standard Tesco packet food but would a senior version be better to help his joints etc? Also do cats get on with glucosamine? We used to have it for our old dog and it helped his mobility so much.

I don't think they take him to the vets at all but at least they have been kind enough to feed him and give him a bed in their home. Any suggestions would be great.

[lilynmitz]

It sounds to me like arthritis, and it's a shame that people write off medical conditions as "old age" assuming that nothing can be done and we should just suffer it in silence (applies to humans too!). A trip to the vet would certainly help to get an overall view of his health and see if there is anything that can or should be treated to make him more comfortable. An anti-inflammatory pain relief treatment called metacam is often very helpful, and certainly helped my creaky old lass Lily in her final years, who had terrible arthritis, but you need to check if there are is kidney disease first (blood test), as Metacam can cause problems if there is.

But it may also be injury, in which case it also needs investigating and treating before it gets any worse.

Thanks for caring for this puss so well in his owner's absence. If you can get him to a vet, it might prick their conscience to look after him a bit better in the future.

[elastu]

I agree 100% with this reply, don't think I could have worded it better myself.

[Zella]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure it would be appropriate to take their cat to the vet myself, but I will certainly have a good chat with them when they get back, and try and convince them to get him checked out.

[Kay]

can I just add that Tesco's own basic dry food is just about the worst diet they could give the cat, especially one getting on in years - does he never get any wet food, or chicken?

I'm sure they mean well, but there are so many better foods out there

[lmills75]

Hi
I can really recommend Cosequin as a supplement to help with the joints.
One of my cats had a cruciate ligament repair (twice) last year and now has severe arthritis in the joint. My vet recommended Cosequin which I have been sprinkling on her food daily (she seems to love it) since the op but to be honest, I didn't know if it was making too much difference. That was until I ran out and kept forgetting to order it. Within a week, she was barely able to jump on the sofa, let alone the fences she'd been leaping about on the previous week. Within 4 days of being back on Cosequin, she was back to her normal(ish) self. I cannot recommend it enough!

[Zella]

Hi Kay

It is a wet food, though they do give him some biscuits too in a separate bowl. They do have good intentions, it's just that they kind of took him in because he kept popping in to see them, so they are kind of his guardians by his choice

I will mention that perhaps a senior food might be better, can someone recommend one that can be bought in most UK supermarkets?

Thanks for the tip lmills75

[Kay]

apologies - I assumed packet meant dry

Tesco do a senior pouch selection costing the same as the non-senior, and Felix have a variety of senior pouches, costing a bit more, but very widely available

[catslave16]

Iams do a range of age-appropriate dry foods in various flavours. I fed my Blake on the senior variety and he lived to be 18. He got wet food as well, and tinned tuna, which he loved. He was always fit and healthy until his last year when he developed kidney problems, and I now wonder if that was caused by the tuna, as I've recently learned it's really not good for cats...

[Lilith]

Hi
I can really recommend Cosequin as a supplement to help with the joints.
One of my cats had a cruciate ligament repair (twice) last year and now has severe arthritis in the joint. My vet recommended Cosequin which I have been sprinkling on her food daily (she seems to love it) since the op but to be honest, I didn't know if it was making too much difference. That was until I ran out and kept forgetting to order it. Within a week, she was barely able to jump on the sofa, let alone the fences she'd been leaping about on the previous week. Within 4 days of being back on Cosequin, she was back to her normal(ish) self. I cannot recommend it enough!

Hi l milis, I was very interested to read this, as my Mouse, 14, is just starting to walk a bit stiffly. She and the others had to be fostered earlier in the year and she managed very well (with a lovely and very understanding foster carer) for such a timid cat, but she's only been home for less than three weeks; I'm loath to take her off to the vet just yet, and have ordered the Cosequin sprinkle capsules for her to try (she loves tuna so I don't think there'll be any difficulty.) She'll have to be checked out by the vet soon I think for her comfort and my peace of mind, but hoping the Cosequin helps in the meantime - thanks for that

Hi Zella, good on you for being so concerned about this old lad - although his situation's better than it was it's not ideal by the sound - and it's so easy to medicate for arthritis. I had an old tomcat on Metacam and I just mixed it in with a bit of tuna every day; every day he'd present himself in the kitchen - 'Where's me tuna then?'

Good luck to this boy - hope the owners see sense!

[Marla]

There's a number of reasons why a cat might be limping, including:
- injury (for example, pulled muscle, paw injury, in-grown claw)
- arthritis
- luxating patella
- muscle wastage (for example, from an untreated disease such hyperthyroidism)

If it's arthritis, a good first step is Yumove Advanced Cat. Metacam has risks which need to be explained and weighed against the benefits.

We have two 19 year old female cats. Rosie has limped for several years because of luxating patella which have fused together. We took her to see a vet who specialised in lameness, to see if we needed to put her on Metacam. He put her on the floor and she trotted happily around his office. He said she wasn't in any pain and didn't need Metacam.

She also runs around the house and jumps from the cat stand to the top of a cupboard and back, which I don't think she would do if she were in pain. We starting giving Yumove Advanced Cat to both Rosie and Flo, and quickly saw an improvement in both of them. I will always give it to my old cats and in fact have started taking the human version myself.

Recently, Rosie had somehow injured herself and was clearly in pain, hardly moving or eating. So we took her to the vet and asked for Metacam which helped her recover, but she was only on it for a couple of days before she got diarrhoea so we had to stop it.

So it really depends on what's wrong and whether the cat seems to be in pain.

[Lilith]

Hi Marla - I shall also be trying that for Mousey if needs be - it's good to hear of another alternative and thanks. Yes, arthritis does tend to spring to mind first when an older cat limps - very true about other possibilities, especially for a free-roaming cat like Zella's 'guest'. My Mouse isn't free roaming but she IS prone to ingrowing claws and it was the first thing I checked her for, but no problems there. She had a vet check while with the fosterer and was fine save for a slight heart murmur.

I confess I spent a sleepless night before first allowing Finn to go on Metacam; I'd had a lot of info from the vet and had done further research myself, but Finn was fine, no side effects. I hadn't heard of any alternatives at that time, save for Glucosamine and had tried him on something containing this called 'Stride' for cats, but no improvement. I'd much rather use an alternative if it did the trick (apparently the only side-effect of Cosequin is diarrohea, but Mouse is on the constipated side) but I shan't be ruling out the possibility of Metacam if she proves to need it. However these are early days.

It's hard to know what to do about a free-roaming cat whose owners may not consider a vet check. I do hope they come round to your way of thinking, Zella; perhaps, once the seed is sown, they might start worrying and take him for a check-up. Good luck

[Lilith]

Just looked up Yumove for Cats and reviews on Amazon - surely all those reviewers weren't in the pay of Amazon??

Have ordered some to have in, just in case (no I won't be dosing that and the Cosequin together lol, but if Mousey proves not to need one of them I can always pass the stuff on.) £13.30 for 60 sprinkle capsules, free delivery. Also, since supermarket delivery arrives tomorrow, ordered some of those little Encore tins which Mouse loves, so that she's not permanently on the tuna. Apparently YM's got a strong fishy smell (which some cats are said to object to but fortunately she's the proverbial fishface) and the best value Encore is the pack of 8 fish flavours...ohhh dear, there's going to be a riot in this house every day when the Grabby Gingers start bawling for their share toowooowoooowoooowooo!

I daresay they'll get it, the little horrors...

[Marla]

I hope it helps yours like it did ours! Rosie and Flo get Yumove twice a day and we decrease the amount of food in that portion to make sure they eat all of it. Then they get seconds.

[Ruth B]

I'm a bit late coming to this thread so I hope the cat is better and isn't limping any more. One I wanted to mention, my mother has a teenage cat that has artheritis in her front leg, she was put on Metacam and refused to eat any food with it on. As an alternative the vet suggested acupuncture. We were all a bit sceptical but she was booked in for a session to see if she would tolerate it and it worked wonderfully. She ended up having weekly sessions for a few months and the limping vanished. It is expensive but it might be worth a try if any of your cats decide they can't tolerate the medication. I can't explain how it works, but in a cat it surely can't be a placebo effect which I would have put it down to in humans.

Another alternative the neighbours might be willing to try long term, is Cod Liver Oil, if you can get the actual oil then I have heard of cats that liked it as it does taste fishy, and is meant to be good for joints.