10 Care Tips For Senior Cats (Keep your Cat Happy)

by Carole John

1. Increase veterinary visits.

Care Tips For Senior Cats

Veterinary visits are an important senior cat care tip as it helps with health issues that increase with cats aging. Regular checks on their weight issues, oral health problems, and joint and muscle problems among others are critical to ensure the cat is in good health. These visits help the veterinarian discover health issues the cat could have in good time and ensure prompt treatment improving the cat’s quality of life and reducing potential suffering for the cat. Therefore it’s crucial to develop and maintain a good relationship with your veterinarian throughout the cat’s life.

Care Tips For Senior Cats

2. Monitor your senior cat’s nutritional needs.

The nutritional needs of the cat are likely to change with age and it’s important to pay close attention to these nutritional needs. This helps in monitoring the cat’s weight to avoid them being overweight or obese. Obesity causes serious health problems including diabetes, liver problems, and joint pains.

How to care for your senior cat

Nutritional changes for the senior cat include feeding them a balanced diet, and appropriate amounts and working with your veterinarian to meet the specific nutritional needs of the cat. These include ensuring adequate caloric intake.  Senior cats may need to reduce their protein intake and reduce meal intake as they can’t tolerate large meals, and these should be put into consideration to avoid health issues.

How to care for senior cats
Source: Animates

3. Assist your senior cat with grooming.

Care tips for cats

Assisting your cat with grooming is important especially when your cat is experiencing mobility, obesity, or health issues that may hinder them from sufficient self-grooming. Assisting your senior cat will ensure you reach all the areas and help with ensuring their fur is not tangled and matted. Also constantly clipping their claws as they become thick and brittle with aging.

4. Dental care (Care tips for a senior cat)

Dental care is fundamental for cats of all ages and more important for senior cats. Senior cats are prone to dental disease and oral issues that could have significant impacts on the cat’s quality of life. These issues could cause the cat to develop infections in the mouth, affecting the liver, kidney, and heart through the bloodstream.  Also, these cause the cats chronic pain, and distress and impact their well-being

care tips for cats
Source: Tufts Catnip

5. Make the environment senior cat friendly.

Senior cats will need a friendlier environment that will allow easy access to their needs, including water, food, a litter box, and a bed. These cats may have different health issues hindering their mobility, such as joint pains and arthritis.

How to keep my senior cat healthy

Therefore, it is important to make their environment comfortable by adapting their living spaces by being aware of their habits and behaviors. The environment should be adapted to ensure the cat experiences social interaction, mobility, and physical activity to ensure they keep their bodies active and minds engaged.

Source: PetPlace

6. Check for signs of pain (Care Tips For Senior Cats)

Tips for caring for a senior cat

Senior cats may experience pain from different health conditions such as arthritis, oral infections, and joint conditions. It may be difficult to notice the cat is in pain without close care for the cat as they are excellent at concealing its pain. Therefore, the cat owner needs to be aware of the cat’s behavior to allow for timely realization when the cat is in pain. It is important to take the cat for a vet’s check-up when its behavior changes, maintain a healthy lifestyle and adopt lifestyle modifications to avoid health conditions that may cause pain.

tips for caring for a senior cat
Source: Cats.com

7. Increase access to water

Care Tips For Senior Cats

Senior cats will require increased water intake to help with healthy aging and prevent health problems. Senior cats are prone to constipation and kidney diseases, which can be prevented by ensuring they are well-hydrated at all times. Create more options for drinking water for your cat, ensure accessibility to the water dish, and add more water stations around the house to facilitate increased water intake.

senior cat care tips
Source: Getty Images

8. Be Considerate & Gentle (Care Tips For Senior Cats)

It is important to show love and care to the senior cats especially when they are experiencing different changes. Let your senior cat feel they are loved and understood by ensuring you understand their needs and help them with everyday tasks.

How to keep my senior cat healthy

For instance, when dealing with older cats with health issues such as poor vision it’s important to ensure lighting to improve their vision and assist those with mobility issues to get to a particular spot. This also includes understanding the cat’s emotional needs, offering them emotional support by providing attention when needed, and leaving the alone when they need alone time.

how to keep my senior cat healthy
Source: The Spruce Pets

9. Assist Your Aging Cat With Daily Tasks

Senior cats experience different mental and physical changes that may affect their ability to conduct daily activities. The cat owner needs to understand this dependency and assist them with daily tasks. For instance, senior cats may need help with grooming, feeding, and moving around to get to different areas.  Senior cats may experience forgetfulness and as the one, you have a duty to assist them to avoid distress.

care tips for your senior cat
Source: Purina

10. Keeping your older cat safe outdoors

Care Tips For Senior Cats

Senior cats may be unsafe outside due to the different health issues that may cause the cat to get lost, get hurt, or fall. Therefore it is critical to ensure their safety when they are outside by ensuring they do not get lost when they get confused, which can be achieved by microchipping your senior cat. Similarly, it involves ensuring the environment outside is safe including the playing area by placing steps around to avoid falls and hurting joints. Also, it is important to keep your cat safe from harm from other cats by fencing your garden to avoid interaction with neighboring cats.

Care Tips for senior cats
Copyright: Michael Westhoff

You may also like

About Us

Welcome to LACA LIVING! 

We bring you a lot of fresh content that you will love. This will include; health and wellness, holiday & events, home and living, recipes, and money matters.

Home & Living

Editors' Picks

Newsletter

Subscribe my Newsletter for new blog posts, tips & new photos. Let's stay updated!