Life is not fair: There's not a classic country song about "old cats, and children, and watermelon wine."
Meh. The man who wrote that song finally looks old enough to sing it, but it'll always be George Burns' song to me.
Anyway, there is at least a blog post. about how lovable an old cat can be. This is it. And there are funds available to help meet veterinary expenses for people who want to adopt a senior cat from a shelter but are concerned about its needing medication. Here's an Illinois-based fund specifically for senior humans and senior pets:
Years ago, I came home and found the remains of a fast-food meal dumped out in the yard. Meat and bread were gone. A few French fries and packets of ketchup were spread out on the ground. My cats had obviously enjoyed some of this meal, but another cat was lurking in the hedge. In hindsight, the fact that I couldn't get a good look at him ought to have given me a clue that he was not the Cat Sanctuary graduate I'd called Burr. Burr didn't let me touch him, after he moved out, but he didn't try to hide.
Burr came back to see Samantha, not me. He never was a cuddly pet, even as part of a combined litter of kittens born to cats who were cuddly pets. He was a social cat, though, and took an interest in his sassy, non-cuddly daughter Serena and her sickly, super-cuddly adopted brother Traveller. I didn't try to pet him when he came around, and didn't really check to be sure that all big black-and-white tomcats visiting the Cat Sanctuary were Burr. When Samantha went to live with Burr at his official home, and Burr stopped visiting, I realized that the black-and-white tomcat who was still visiting us regularly was bigger and older than Burr, and had different spots...but I had a chance to notice that because, once he no longer had to show respect to Burr and Samantha, he was friendlier than Burr. I called him Sommersburr, after a movie based on a true story of an escaped convict whose identity theft was found out because he was nicer than the look-alike whose identity he'd stolen.
Sommersburr had been living in the woods for a year or two, accepting food but nothing close to being a pet...but obviously,he'd been a pet once. He knew exactly how, when, and where he wanted to be rubbed behind the ears. He, too, was a social cat, so he might have been a distant relative of my cat family. He stayed around acting like a good grandfather when nobody was interested in sex, and apparently, though neutered, satisfied Serena's daughters expectations of a tomcat.
Cats don't really have a change of life. Old cats still need to be neutered if you don't want kittens. I knew Sommersburr had been neutered, though, because although both of Serena's daughters doted on him, no kittens resembled him. Sommersburr's wide frame and short tail were just like Serena's. Each of them had inherited one weak copy of the Manx gene, or gene cluster. If they'd produced kittens together, those kittens would have had a real Manx look and probably died, painfully, from incurable birth defects, a few weeks after birth. Serena had some kittens with a big orange tomcat and some with a little black-and-white tomcat; the ones that resembled the small tomcat were the ones she thought worth rearing (Serena did not originally want to rear Pastel). Sommersburr and Silver (and Silver's sister, while she lived) weren't monogamous but they were Partners for Life.
Sommersburr was not overweight but he was a bit oversized. Sometimes Manx cats are. After spendng a week or two in the woods he'd come in so thin his old ribs showed, but he was still much bigger than Serena. Serena is about twelve pounds of bone and lean muscle; Sommersburr was sixteen to eighteen pounds. Wide frame, heavy bones, head bigger than my knee.
He always looked as if he needed veterinary care, and he never wanted any part of it. He seemed to like the idea of living on his own, actually, and come to the Cat Sanctuary when he was tired, hungry, or hurt and wanted to recuperate. His personal health care plan included naps in the sun--or in the mud room. (Serena showed him the cat door, and when I blocked it she showed me that she can work human doors if she wants to.) It included a good bit of grooming and massaging on the top of the head and behind the ears. Sommersburr never asked for food--in fact a neighbor, also trying to get him tame enough to take to the vet, was providing him with regular meals!--but my cats insisted he be offered meals. All he ever asked for was warmth and attention. He was not, he "said" clearly, at all interested in letting any humans try to do anything about his broken teeth or rattling breath. He didn't even want any help with fleas. Well, for a Cat Sanctuary we didn't have much trouble with fleas anyway. I think 2017 was the last year when the weather was really favorable to fleas, and we've had Seven Things Cat Fleas Hate, which might be the title of our next cat post.
"What's the trouble here?" I'd say as my fingers hit a bump or skin wound in Sommersburr's dense, soft, Manx-type coat.
"Nothing serious. Leave it!" Sommersburr would nonverbally say, backing and meowing.
Or I'd say, "You seem a bit feverish this morning. You're coughing. Would you like to see a vet?"
"No! No vets! I'm fine! Leave me alone!"
The thing about living in an orchard is that any cat who wants to elude any human, for any reason, can.
"Vet" seemed to be one word Sommersburr understood--to mean something of which he wanted no part. No, I did not mess with his mind by informing him that the word "veteran" can also be shortened to "vet" and thus at least one human he seemed to like could be called a vet. I only do that sort of thing to humans...
More than once I thought he'd gone off to the woods to die, but he came back, tired, hungry, welcoming affection but definitely not interested in any vets. He had trouble crunching kibble, sometimes due to obviously uncomfortable abscesses and gumboils, but he'd get by on broken bits my cats would leave for him to swallow, or on cooked meat he could shred and swallow.
He was old and dozy enough to be brought indoors, but he'd have none of that, either. I wondered whether he'd been some old human's indoor pet and had spent his youth dreaming of the wild life he'd have when his human was gone.
During the days or weeks when he wasn't here, I'd remember the old song my parents hadn't quite learned, that each of them sang differently. "Thought he was a goner, but the cat came back!' Sommersburr seemed too old to survive another wilderness adventure...but soon I'd hear him outside. He was one of those cats who greet different friends with such distinctive "meows" that even humans can tell that they've given us names. More than once Sommersburr's friendly greeting to my Professional Bad Neighbor was what tipped me off that the Bad Neighbor was approaching the house. He seemed to have given names only to neighbors who had offered him food, though. Most humans he simply ignored.
When his time finally came, Sommersburr chose, as social cats often do, to be well separated but close enough to "talk" to their friends. He died under my front porch. Who knows how old he really was but I'm sure he was well past age ten.
With shelter cats, unless someone has brought in a cat with actual records, it's very hard to tell how old they are. A shelter cat I paid the full adoption cost to foster for a few weeks, once, looked like a year-old kitten when I met her. She still looked like a year-old kitten seven years later. Her human said she only really looked, not so much "older" as thinner and less energetic, in the last two weeks before she died, apparently of old age. Whether her old age was nne years or nineteen will never be known.
Some cats instinctively feel that old age deserves special privileges. I was always amused by fierce little feral-born Polly's awestruck reactions to the vet's geriatric social cat, Old Toby. Toby spent his last days in the veterinary clinic's front office, looking large, old, and healthy and purring at terrified cats, "Nothing very bad happens here. Good things happen here! I'm the proof!" Cats always seemed impressed by him but Polly looked a bit like some waif in Victorian fiction, about to stammer, "Please, Sir, are you God?"
I was amused, too, by Serena's daughterly reactions to Sommersburr. Other cats are not allowed to nap on objects high enough to put them into range, sniff at my face when I pass by. Serena has warned her own kittens that that's her purr-rogative, and they're not to try it. Sommersburr was, if anything, encouraged to share that honor with Serena. Sommersburr was positively welcomed to share the mud room. Cooked meat and rice were for him to eat first. Now that his life's over I can say that although she's been jealous and "catty" if other cats got close to her human, I never saw Serena show any jealousy of Sommersburr. Anything she wanted for herself, she seemed quite happy to share with him.
Other than Burr, Sommersburr, and Traveller, Serena has not been especially partial to male cats. She loves all kittens, male or female. She's not been especially gentle or loving with the fathers of her kittens. Instnctively aware that unfamiliar cats might carry diseases, she's usually received the fathers of her kittens up in the orchard, with a very cavalier "give me kittens and go away" air. I doubt that Serena ever mistook Sommersburr for Burr; male cats have fairly distinctive odors, and Serena knew her father well. I think she gave Sommersburr special treatment because he was an elder.
Serena did not grow up watching other cats defer to a grandparent. Serena was not, in fact, so impressed by seniority alone as to show a great deal of respect to Samantha. But she had some sort of sense of what a grandparent is and how they deserve to be treated. Some cats, including some cats that can't otherwise be called social, just do have that instinct.
In some ways I suppose Sommersburr had nothing to offer...me, anyway. I had elders of my own species; still have a few; cherish them. Serena and her daughters did all the hunting. (Tomcats are bigger and stronger, but they tend to be poor hunters, compared to female cats.) There was no shortage of fur to stroke, or meows to wake me up in the morning. Sommersburr did not, in any material way, earn his keep.
But his keep was so little, and my cats' delight in his company had to be worth something. In an emotional way Sommersburr more than earned his keep.
Outdoor cats get some safety from numbers (up to the point of overcrowding). Indoor cats, who tend to go a bit batty from boredom, tend to behave better and live longer if they have cat companions, even if they don't seem to like their cat housemates. Rivalry or even hostility relieves the boredom. Love and respect are, of course, better. Cats who have not bonded with a mate, sibling, or co-survivor of alley and/or shelter life, are most likely to accept a cat housemate who is either very young or very old. If not awestruck like Polly or protective like Serena, they can at least respect a grandparent figure. Cats show respect most obviously by avoiding each other (and even avoiding each other's humans) but even paying enough attention to each other to avoid each other reduces the boredom for indoor cats.
Here are three great shareable photos of indoor cats. They're all starting to show age. If they're kept indoors, well nourished but not overfed, and kept from reaching self-destructive depths of boredom, how long they may live is anybody's guess. On its own a cat's life expectancy is about ten years. With veterinary care that can often be extended to fifteen years--but some cats live twenty years. If you adopt a senior animal because you don't know how many years in your own home are left for you, it's good to think of this decision in terms of "giving the animal a few more good years." These senior cats are likely to enjoy a few more good years.
Zipcode 10101: Alice from New York City
Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/alice-30006137/ny/new-york/anjellicle-cats-rescue-ny488/
Her web page is somewhat out of date. It mentions her tolerance for the company of a sister who has apparently been adopted by now. Alice was left behind, possibly because she is the classic Queen Cat she's posing as. This web site has mentioned the quirky personality of pale orange cats generally. First they seem unfriendly, may hiss, spit, even nip if approached, and then they bond and want all the love and attention they can get. The classic Siamese temperament includes this trait, or gene. Very lovable pets for the right person. Sometimes they want to own their humans and will warn other animals to leave their humans alone, even if you are boarding a friend's pet and want to cuddle and comfort it. They do a lot with a look like the one shown, plus lots of snuggling up to you.
Zipcode 20202: Zoey from D.C.
So somebody goofed. They gave this tough city tomcat a girly-girl name. My guess is that if you changed it to Joey or even to Louie, he'd think you had a speech impediment and like you anyway. He's getting desperate to find a home, and the shelter's getting desperate to reassign his cage...there is no fee for adopting him, if you can guarantee him a decent home!
Zipcode 30303: Nina from Lawrenceville
Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/nina-66213611/ga/lawrenceville/pippis-place-pet-rescue-ga1029/
Nina was given up for adoption by an elderly human who became unable to care for her. She had had a horrible time with no grooming assistance. Had to be given a short cut. The rest of her is probably fluffier by now than it was when the picture was taken. This is a cat for someone who loves to brush and comb. She is said to have a delightful purrsonality, staying close without clinging or whining for attention.
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