Bad news, cat lovers.
Cheese is suffering from dementia. Not a sentence you hear every day of the week I'll admit, but none the less true. Or at least we think so.
The behaviour in the video I published recently, which showed the two cats "Fighting", is a fairly recent development. Onion (the smaller one) has always been fairly protective of her personal space, and likely to have a swipe if Cheese (the larger one) happened to enter it. However, these recent episodes are mostly instigated by Cheese, normally the more docile sibling. This, along with his newfound habit of howling at irregular intervals for no particular reason (he's stone deaf), led us to believe he's declining into senility. He also conforms to other known symptoms, e.g. chasing things around the floor like a kitten (he's at least ten) and staring at walls for extended periods. He also recently became fascinated by shadows and lights. If he sees the fridge door open he usually tries to "capture or kill" the shadows on the floor created by the internal light.
I don't suppose there's a cure for this illness, and we can probably expect him to lose his remaining faculties in the months/years to come. Sadly, the time may come when we have to make the hardest decision, based on his quality of life. I'm jumping the gun of course, they could both live for another ten years, but the signs are not good.
Wow, what a depressing post. Must try to do better.
Laters
Cheese is suffering from dementia. Not a sentence you hear every day of the week I'll admit, but none the less true. Or at least we think so.
The behaviour in the video I published recently, which showed the two cats "Fighting", is a fairly recent development. Onion (the smaller one) has always been fairly protective of her personal space, and likely to have a swipe if Cheese (the larger one) happened to enter it. However, these recent episodes are mostly instigated by Cheese, normally the more docile sibling. This, along with his newfound habit of howling at irregular intervals for no particular reason (he's stone deaf), led us to believe he's declining into senility. He also conforms to other known symptoms, e.g. chasing things around the floor like a kitten (he's at least ten) and staring at walls for extended periods. He also recently became fascinated by shadows and lights. If he sees the fridge door open he usually tries to "capture or kill" the shadows on the floor created by the internal light.
I don't suppose there's a cure for this illness, and we can probably expect him to lose his remaining faculties in the months/years to come. Sadly, the time may come when we have to make the hardest decision, based on his quality of life. I'm jumping the gun of course, they could both live for another ten years, but the signs are not good.
Wow, what a depressing post. Must try to do better.
Laters
actually the time has come based on my quality of life to GET RID OF HE CAT!!!!
ReplyDeletei need sleep, 5am is not good :-(
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ReplyDeletet?
ReplyDeleteIrony. I get it.