Senior Cats?

At what age is a cat considered to be a senior? I always thought it was over 5 years but have heard all kinds of things. Anyone know?

I've seen a range of ages posted, 7 being the youngest. I would say from 7 to 10

(don't swat me!)

The problem is pets are living longer than they have in the past due to advances in their care and nutrition. I start to look at the double digits as being a senior for cats.

According to the cat foods, it ranges between 7 and 9 years old. Personally, I would think of an 8 to 12 year old cat as "middle-aged" or "retired" and those over 12 as "elderly". The age charts I've seen online show that a 10 year old cat is equivalent to a 56 year old human. A 12 year old cat is 64 in people years. I guess it depends on what you mean by senior?

The cat food companies start listing 7 years old as suitable for their "senior" products.

Petfinder starts listing any cat over 5 years old as senior (from what I have seen), but I think that is more for organizing the cats into categories for sake of facilitating adoptions. Like it or not, most people don't want to adopt a cat over 3 years old. But I don't think a regular person is going to call a 5 year old cat a "senior"...that's going overboard.

Nano is 6-8 years old but I am going to start calling her "senior" the day I eventually see her trade some of her curiosity for the sake of staying comfortable. Me: "Want to go explore?" Her: "No, I think I'll sit down in this warm spot and take a nap."

My shelter classifies any cat over 6 years as a senior and won't keep them. (That's how I ended up with Hans. I can't blame them. There aren't too many people who would want, or pay for, an older cat when they can get a much younger kitten.) I've always thought of 9 years + to be senior cats.

I must say that my experience with Spot adopting me has been challenging but completely rewarding as well. I found Spot at the local track, and my boyfriend and I carried him to the car and back to my house. He was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism (which explained his skinniness) so I'm giving him pills twice a day. Fortunately, he's really good about taking the pills. He is also the biggest sweetheart. He loves to sit on my lap (or the lap of anyone else who stops by) for hours. When he wants to be petted, he'll reach up with his paw and place it on my chest. If he would just stop chasing my other cat, he would be perfect.

According to my job and my vet a senior is 7-8 years.. this is when the internal systems start the middle ageing process

Ok thanks guys. I am putting up pictures and information about all the cats in my shelter so I needed to know. Some one was listing them all as babies, even the 3-7 year olds! So I just wanted to go through and change it all and make it correct. We have quite a bit of over 5 years old cats here and I wasn't sure what age would be a senior.