Identify the Unique Behaviours of Sick Cats

When cats are not well, you can identify that they need help by keeping watch for certain behaviours. When they are coming to the end of their life, they will display a particular set of behaviours. Identify the Unique Behaviours of Sick Cats by reading on to find out the answers.

Loss of Willingness to Eat or Drink

It is natural with animals as they draw nearer to the end for them to stop eating or drinking. This is mainly because they are too tired and also very sick and hence do not possess very much energy to process their food and drink. This results in further damaging their health, making them extremely drowsy. They can also become dehydrated.

Very Weak

As cats approach death they will become weaker in their body. They are usually fighting a lot of illness internally which often we are unaware of. Hence the cat becomes very tired and fed-up. A cat will usually lay in one corner of the house and literally do nothing. They spend most of their day sleeping. Their legs will lose muscle tone from not walking or running or climbing trees. They become very inactive.

Decrease in Body Temperature

Cats usually have a very high body temperature. Their body temperature doesn’t drastically fall before their death. It does, however, slowly and gradually start to decrease. You can detect this by examining the extremities of your cat, ie. the ears and the paws. They tend to become cooler and cooler as the cat draws nearer to the end. In most cases their body temperature will drop below a hundred degrees Fahrenheit or 38 degrees Celsius.

Change In Appearance

Cats are very sensitive pets. They very much delight in keeping themselves neat and clean. When they feel strong and healthy they give a lot of attention and time to grooming themselves. When cats get closer to the end of life they usually become very messy and very dirty. Due to old age they lack the internal energy that would normally be used for grooming or cleaning themselves. They sometimes start to smell of a bad odour too. This type of odour usually results from the very simple reason that since cats are very ill they build up toxins in their body.

Hiding

The common culture of the jungle is that whoever is weak and small becomes the easy target for other animals to hunt. A similar thing happens with cats. As they come nearer to their death they usually go into hiding. When they were healthy and possessed good strength to defend themselves, they could roam anywhere. However, now with a lack of energy, strength, and the ability to fight back or defend themselves, they are easy targets to be hunted. Hence they prefer to go into hiding and stay there so that they can be safe and can die in peace without the threat of any other animal taking advantage and killing them.