Hi, everyone;
Simba moved in with us at the end of August last summer. He was a stray that had been severely starved. When we took him to the vet for shots, bloodwork, checkup, etc, the vet said it is really difficult to guess an adult cat's age. Simba had quite a bit of tartar on his teeth, but the vet said often young cats have lots and older cats can have virtually none. All we knew for sure is he was full-grown physically.
I didn't think he was really old - he just didn't look it or act it. But I didn't think he was really young, either - mainly because he was so sedate. So I was guessing his age at somewhere around 3-5 years old.
One of the reasons I didn't think he acted like a young cat is that he would never play - but someone pointed out on this thread that since he was starving, he might have 'shut down' that kind of behavior to save desperately needed calories. Well, after about a month and a half, he finally started a little fairly mellow playing, and it's gradually been getting more frequent.
Last night I was playing with him, and it hit me that his favorite game has become me running down the hall and stairs dragging his feathers-on-a-stick toy, then running back and dragging it up on the bed. He chases it full-speed like crazy, then rolls and attacks it. If I stop early, he will keep running and skid to a stop at the usual place, then turn and tear off after me. It made me think that he might be younger than I thought. Running back and forth full-speed a whole bunch of times seems like pretty young behavior to me - what do you think?
Simba moved in with us at the end of August last summer. He was a stray that had been severely starved. When we took him to the vet for shots, bloodwork, checkup, etc, the vet said it is really difficult to guess an adult cat's age. Simba had quite a bit of tartar on his teeth, but the vet said often young cats have lots and older cats can have virtually none. All we knew for sure is he was full-grown physically.
I didn't think he was really old - he just didn't look it or act it. But I didn't think he was really young, either - mainly because he was so sedate. So I was guessing his age at somewhere around 3-5 years old.
One of the reasons I didn't think he acted like a young cat is that he would never play - but someone pointed out on this thread that since he was starving, he might have 'shut down' that kind of behavior to save desperately needed calories. Well, after about a month and a half, he finally started a little fairly mellow playing, and it's gradually been getting more frequent.
Last night I was playing with him, and it hit me that his favorite game has become me running down the hall and stairs dragging his feathers-on-a-stick toy, then running back and dragging it up on the bed. He chases it full-speed like crazy, then rolls and attacks it. If I stop early, he will keep running and skid to a stop at the usual place, then turn and tear off after me. It made me think that he might be younger than I thought. Running back and forth full-speed a whole bunch of times seems like pretty young behavior to me - what do you think?