#Kitty cats how to#

I’m content with the first three categories and their associated age ranges however, I feel that the senior stage should be further divided, resulting in a five-stage classification that, in my opinion, covers all the bases: If you’re a lumper, you probably love this streamlined version. In a recently updated (2021) report, the AAFP/AAHA described four basic age-related feline life stages: However, dividing younger adult cats into “junior” and “prime” felt a bit contrived. I never knew exactly where to draw the line between “adult” and “senior.” Dividing older cats into “mature,” “senior” and “geriatric” categories based on these age ranges seemed sensible.

Splitters were probably happy with this six-stage version, although as a cat veterinarian, I had mixed feelings. The updated age-comparison chart mentioned above also describes the life stages of a cat, dividing it into six distinct stages: The only common ground among all the versions is the first life stage: kitten. The variations are mostly based on semantics, and whether you tend to be a “lumper” or a “splitter.” Lumpers prefer to group some stages together into a larger category, while splitters prefer to subdivide the stages. There are several opinions on this subject but no consensus. Cats are all roughly the same size, so the chart is universal for cats.Īnother topic related to age and longevity is cat life stages. Dogs have different age equivalents depending on their size (big dogs have shorter life spans than small dogs, for example). This is a more logical approach and, in my experience, it seems pretty accurate. After that, you add four human years for every cat year. (See sidebar.) According to this chart, a 1-year-old cat is equivalent to a 15-year-old person, and a 2-year-old cat is like a 24-year-old person.

#Kitty cats how to#

How to compare cat years to human yearsĪ number of years ago, the American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) and the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) collaborated to create an age-comparison chart that takes this into account. Can people have babies at this age? Of course not! The 1-equals-7 rule doesn’t work for the simple reason that cats age faster when they’re younger and slow down when they’re older. Using the 1-equals-7 rule, a 6-month-old cat is equivalent to a 3½-year-old human. Cats and dogs can get pregnant and produce offspring as early as 6 months of age. Using the 1-equals-7 rule, a 20-year-old cat would be the equivalent of a 140-year-old person, which simply isn’t possible. In fact, at one point I had over 30 20-year-old cats in my veterinary practice. We’ve all seen (or at least know of) cats who have lived to the age of 20. Of all the myths involving companion animals, one that continues to persist (and still drives me batty) is the notion that cats (and dogs) grow older at a pace of seven years for every human year.įrankly, this idea has never made much sense to me.