This is a picture of my 19 year old cat. She had a little problem because I don’t speak cat, but she had a couple of ingrown toenails which for people is one thing, but for cats think of it as you fingernails growing so long that start to grow into your hand. I took her to my friends at Avenue’s Pet Hospital that I’ve been going to for about 40 years. Dr. Scott Anderson and Dr. Rick Schwach have know our 4 dogs and 2 cats very well over the years and have always offered to help with any problems.
So Morgana is 19 and as I’m talking with Dr. Schwach today I jokingly tell him that I think she’s senile because she meows, LOUDLY for food and water and when I give it to her she’s forgotten I’ve given it to her and meows some more.
Dr. Schwach doesn’t bad an eye, “Well that’s because she is senile. When cats reach this age senility starts in.” OK, that explains a lot to me. I sometimes am woken up in the middle of the night to hear Morgana meowing from the garage and I was thinking maybe it’s because she’s cold or needs food or water or something like that. Dr. Schwach mentioned that the top audience for 3am KGO radio is older people because they don’t really sleep well at night.
I never thought of cats going senile. Our dogs always seemed fine and alert, but cats are kind of new to me. I got my first cat in my 30’s and that was really more because the cat wandered into my house and sat down next to me looking at the food I was eating. After I gave him some steak, Max was a recurrent member of the family. Max died during my trip to London from pulmonary edema that I thank my room mate Jack for taking care of. Morgana was a replacement present from my friend Mike and she’s been doing quite well all these years, but well, she’s senile now. After hearing what Dr. Schwach told me I’m going to start thinking when I hear the meows in the middle of the night that she’s probably starting to see things that aren’t there and I just hope they aren’t scary for her.