I’m not very helpful but I had a cat who had 2 UTI’s very close together, even when these infections were gone she would not use the litter box again. I guess she associated the box with pain. Good luck with your cat, I hope you can retrain it.
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Just figured I would report back. Both of our cats are attracted to the Cat Attract litter.
Older cat hasn’t peed in the house for a couple of days now, so we are hoping we’ve turned a corner. She’s definitely slower than she used to be, and she may have a little kitty dementia or something, but she doesn’t seem to feel terrible now.
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My fifteen year old kitty is not looking good. She was diagnosed with a thyroid issue about a year and a half ago and takes pills for that. At first, her levels were more normal and she put on weight. Now her levels are pretty good, but she is losing weight and is not herself. I suspect something else is going on. The vet saw her not too long ago and said to bring her in if she does not start gaining weight. Until the last two days, she has kept to herself more, often staying outside where it is super hot. She has not had much appetite, unusual for her.
My question is what does kitty end of life look like? She does not seem to be in pain. She just wants to be alone more and is wasting away. There are flashes of normalcy, like bringing home a lizard or scarfing down human leftovers if it is something really good. The last two days she has sought me out more and she slept with me last night.
When my 22 year old rescue (who was probably part or fully Ragdoll) was approaching the end of his life. He could no longer managed to use the litter box and hid most of the day under a bed in an unused bedroom. I think he wanted to avoid the two younger cats in the house. I placed a Chux on the floor next the bed he hid under and he always peed and pooped on the Chux. I don’t know if he couldn’t managed to climb into the litter box or just wanted to avoid the 2 other cats.
He had gotten very thin and frail the last 6 months of his life, although if you had to pick him up to know that. He looked like a much younger cat. People were always shocked to learn he was over 20 years old. He never grayed at all and his medium-long coat hid his weigh loss. But if you picked him up, it was clear he weighed much less and you could feel his boniness though his coat.
I don’t think he was in pain. He never acted like he was, he was just…tired… most of the time and spent his days sleeping under the bed. He was still sociable in the evenings and would come out to visit with me and eat his dinner. He would let me pet him, but really didn’t want to be picked up and held. He would allow me to pick him but would squirm and ask to be put back down.
He eventually stopped eating the last 2-3 days of his life and stopped drinking the last 12-24 hours The morning he died, he jumped up into my lap while I was sitting in a recliner. Something he hadn’t done in months. He let me love him for about 40 minutes, purring loudly the whole time, then jumped down, walked across the room, had a brief seizure and died.
He clearly knew his end was coming and wanted to say goodbye.
Beware… cats are excellent at hiding pain. Pure evolutionary instinct. Even if a cat doesn’t show any signs of pain, it can be in pain. Cats in pain can purr as if they are happy. This is what my veterinarian said (and my vet sister confirmed). Look for other signs of approaching the end of life like refusing to eat, being lethargic, not engaging with your as usual, etc.
I’d say that a cat that is still nabbing lizards 
is doing ok.
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I’m sobbing. Hugs to you.
We have two cats at the moment. Our most recent kitty was rescued by my son off the streets of Binghamton. She is a tiny little tabby, clearly a stray, and pregnant. She was hanging around my son’s apartment for a few weeks. My son and his gf felt sad for her. They picked her up and had her scanned for a chip at the vets. No luck, of course.
Son’s gf brought her to her apartment and the kitty had 5 kittens in a box a couple of days later. When kittens were about a week old, gf brought her to a foster home near me until the kittens were weaned. Then we fostered her to adopt right after she was spayed.
She developed an infection and nearly died. She had to stay in the shelter for six weeks recuperating. She’s now been with us for 18 months and is a really great cat. Feisty as anything, and still so small.
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All of our cat are rescues.
The Ragdoll was a stray that the GF of a friend of my husband found in a parking lot in a commercial area. She took the cat home, but she already had 3 dogs and a bird. She liked the cat a lot who immediately had put all the dogs in their place. While she was out of town on a business trip and BF was caring for her animals, he gave the cat to my husband who in turn gave it to his 5 year daughter for her birthday. She had wanted a cat. (We already had a dog.) He was loving cat who alway knew when someone was injured/recovering from surgery and he slept with them when the were.
Right now there are 3 cats in our household: a 18 year old all black shorthair that my older daughter acquired during college. A co-worker took in a pregnant cat who delivered 3 kittens then the mama cat disappeared–probably killed by a car. My daughter agreed to take one of the kittens who were still so young they hadn’t been weaned yet. D fed the kitten every 4 hours by eyedropper and was very relieved when a week later, the kitten learned to lap kitten formula from a bowl. D kept the cat until she moved cross country to do her medical residency 9 years later. Her apartment in CT didn’t allow pets so the cat came to live with me. Then I have a 16 year old medium-coated grey tabby w/ white chest and 4 white paw who my younger daughter adopted from the local Animal Humane Society where she volunteered. That daughter went off to college 3 months later and I got the cat. He is my special kitty and follows me around like a dog. The last cat is a former street cat that my older daughter and her husband acquired when they lived in Australia. This kitty was born wild and grew up semi-feral. She is quite small and all black. Not a single white hair on her anywhere. Even her claws are black. When she was first captured, the rescue people thought she was a very young cat maybe 6 moths old, but the vet determined she had given birth to one or more litters of kittens and put her age at around 2. She’s now 6 years old. She is still a wild cat at heart. D said they tried to keep her indoors but that the cat once jumped off a second story balcony to get out. When D and SIL moved back to the US, they brought the cat with them. She is a fierce hunter even now that she is a pet and is fed daily. Just 2 days ago she killed a rat that was as big as she is. She left its partially eaten corpse on the back door step for us to share.
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We said goodbye to our 20 year old earlier this year. We had the same question: How do you know? Our vet always shared what BunsenBurner mentioned, that cats can be excellent at hiding pain, so it is tough.
We think our kitty had a stroke, and dragged her hind leg for a few days, but it was slowly getting better. She would still use the litter box, and still eat, so we felt she still had the will to live. But then she just quit all her normal routines (except snuggling). Didn’t eat. Didn’t want to drink from the faucet. You could see it in her eyes, that she was just too tired. I think that was a strong indication she was ready.
Earlier in her life, we had to force feed her, and it worked to ‘jump start’ her appetite at that time. We tried that again, and it was awful. It was awful the first time, but for a good reason. I regret trying it when she was so old.
Thanks. That is my fear, that she is becoming too tired to continue living.
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