Wonky Kitty
I am very concerned about Pumpkin.
He's always been an extremely floppy cat, and for many years now he's often failed to walk in a straight line. A year or two ago I started to notice that when I put him down, his back legs wouldn't always contact the ground and resist, so he would sort of slither into a puddle. We learned to never drop him from even a small height, but to place him carefully on the ground. At the time I discussed this with the vet who agreed it was hip displaysia (dislocation) but while it can be very painful in dogs it didn't really seem to bother Pumpkin - the main difference being in the likelihood of cartilage damage. I've kept a close eye on him for signs of discomfort, but apart from the occasional bit of grumpiness no further action seemed required.
This weekend things started to change for the worse. Several times he dislocated his hips to the point where he started to actually drag his hindquarters before stopping abruptly. When I picked him up and let his legs dangle then placed him back on all fours he was able to walk for a while in a sort of stiff-legged gait. He seems able to get around like that if he remembers, but if he's distracted or just woken up he forgets to compensate and lurches off to the side. Sometimes--but not always--he manages to pull himself together and get back into that stiff-legged gait.
Today we've seen him make several failed attempts to jump up on to quite low chairs, the couch, and the coffee table, and he definitely looks less happy. I don't think it's entirely pain - it seems more like bewilderment and depression. (I could describe at length how I came to these assessments by citing angles of ears, whiskers, eyelids etc, but please accept that I am not completely anthropomorphising here.)
I've made a vet appointment for tomorrow morning at 10:30am. I doubt very much he's lost mobility because of something new like a kidney infection, and I know he's not overweight, but I've been wrong on many occasions before. Occam's Razor would suggest that this is the anticipated degeneration of his previously diagnosed condition, but that's not yet confirmed. That's why we have vets.
What worries me are the lack of viable options. If he's mechanically unsound I suppose it's possible that some kind of orthopedic surgery might be able to reconstruct his stretched ligaments, but I can't imagine it being anything less than major surgery or surgeries on both sides, with a long and painful recovery period. If an option arose for some kind of simple keyhole surgery I might consider it, but I don't want to put him through anything painful. He's a snorer too, so he might even be at risk from a long anaesthetic. He's 14 in March, so while he's my baby and still acts like a kitten (albeit a sleepy one), he's not young any more.
This is where it gets difficult. If he's able to stagger about the house and I'm able to manage his pain as I do for Cally's arthritis I feel he could adapt to being a cat in flatland. The house already sports a few old cat accessibility features - I could add more to make sure he could still reach a few spots off the floor.
But if staggering is beyond him and he's reduced to dragging himself to the bowl and the litter trays, or he's unable to groom himself, that's something else entirely. At that point he would also be unable to sit up to use the tray properly, so even if he made it in time he would likely soil himself because he couldn't get into the correct position. We might be able to stave of the worst of this for a little while by clipping his hind legs, but...
I think we can all see where this is going :-(
He's always been an extremely floppy cat, and for many years now he's often failed to walk in a straight line. A year or two ago I started to notice that when I put him down, his back legs wouldn't always contact the ground and resist, so he would sort of slither into a puddle. We learned to never drop him from even a small height, but to place him carefully on the ground. At the time I discussed this with the vet who agreed it was hip displaysia (dislocation) but while it can be very painful in dogs it didn't really seem to bother Pumpkin - the main difference being in the likelihood of cartilage damage. I've kept a close eye on him for signs of discomfort, but apart from the occasional bit of grumpiness no further action seemed required.
This weekend things started to change for the worse. Several times he dislocated his hips to the point where he started to actually drag his hindquarters before stopping abruptly. When I picked him up and let his legs dangle then placed him back on all fours he was able to walk for a while in a sort of stiff-legged gait. He seems able to get around like that if he remembers, but if he's distracted or just woken up he forgets to compensate and lurches off to the side. Sometimes--but not always--he manages to pull himself together and get back into that stiff-legged gait.
Today we've seen him make several failed attempts to jump up on to quite low chairs, the couch, and the coffee table, and he definitely looks less happy. I don't think it's entirely pain - it seems more like bewilderment and depression. (I could describe at length how I came to these assessments by citing angles of ears, whiskers, eyelids etc, but please accept that I am not completely anthropomorphising here.)
I've made a vet appointment for tomorrow morning at 10:30am. I doubt very much he's lost mobility because of something new like a kidney infection, and I know he's not overweight, but I've been wrong on many occasions before. Occam's Razor would suggest that this is the anticipated degeneration of his previously diagnosed condition, but that's not yet confirmed. That's why we have vets.
What worries me are the lack of viable options. If he's mechanically unsound I suppose it's possible that some kind of orthopedic surgery might be able to reconstruct his stretched ligaments, but I can't imagine it being anything less than major surgery or surgeries on both sides, with a long and painful recovery period. If an option arose for some kind of simple keyhole surgery I might consider it, but I don't want to put him through anything painful. He's a snorer too, so he might even be at risk from a long anaesthetic. He's 14 in March, so while he's my baby and still acts like a kitten (albeit a sleepy one), he's not young any more.
This is where it gets difficult. If he's able to stagger about the house and I'm able to manage his pain as I do for Cally's arthritis I feel he could adapt to being a cat in flatland. The house already sports a few old cat accessibility features - I could add more to make sure he could still reach a few spots off the floor.
But if staggering is beyond him and he's reduced to dragging himself to the bowl and the litter trays, or he's unable to groom himself, that's something else entirely. At that point he would also be unable to sit up to use the tray properly, so even if he made it in time he would likely soil himself because he couldn't get into the correct position. We might be able to stave of the worst of this for a little while by clipping his hind legs, but...
I think we can all see where this is going :-(