Caring for an ageing dog or cat: what changes, and what to watch for

Watching a pet age is one of the quieter parts of the whole business, and the most useful mindset is that old age itself isn't a disease.

Slowing down is normal. A great many of the specific changes we wave away as just getting old are treatable conditions that respond well when caught.

The single most valuable thing you can do for an older animal is to notice change and refuse to dismiss it, because much of what shortens the comfortable end of a pet's life is a problem that was visible and got read as ageing.

When does old even start?

It varies enormously, and knowing where your animal sits changes when you should start paying closer attention.

Cats are generally considered senior from about eleven and geriatric from fifteen, which is a long stretch — plenty of cats live well into their late teens.

Dogs depend almost entirely on size. A giant breed is old at six or seven; a large dog somewhere around eight; a medium dog at ten; and a small terrier may be sprightly at twelve. The same birthday means completely different things to a great dane and a jack russell, and the dane's owner should be running senior checks years earlier.

The practical upshot is that senior care isn't triggered by a number of candles but by the size and breed in front of you. If in doubt, ask your vet when they'd start treating your particular animal as an older one — it's a question they answer readily and few owners think to ask.

What genuinely changes

With age, most animals slow down, sleep more, and lose some of the edge off their senses. Hearing and sight dim gradually, which is why an old dog may seem to ignore a call it simply didn't hear.

Joints stiffen, so a cat stops jumping to its favourite high spot and a dog is slower on the stairs or after a rest.

Weight can drift either way — some older pets gain it as they move less, others lose it, and unexplained weight loss in particular is a change to take to the vet instead of accepting.

The muzzle greys, the coat may change, and the animal generally wants a bit more warmth and a bit more rest.

What to watch for, and not wave away

Some changes deserve a vet visit instead of a shrug, because they're common in older animals and often treatable.

Drinking noticeably more or less, and weeing more, are among the most important — they can point to several manageable conditions and are easy to miss. So are unexplained weight loss, a change in appetite, new lumps, bad breath or difficulty eating, stiffness or reluctance to move, and any change in toileting habits.

Cats are the harder case here, because they're extraordinarily good at hiding illness. In a cat the small signs — sleeping even more, grooming less, going off food slightly — carry more weight and deserve earlier attention.

Behaviour changes count too. An older animal that becomes disoriented, restless at night, or seems to forget familiar routines may be showing age-related cognitive decline, which is a real thing in both dogs and cats and one there are ways to help with.

As a rule, the older the animal, the lower your threshold for mentioning a change should be, and many practices run senior check-ups more than once a year for exactly this reason — an older animal changes faster than a young one.

Arthritis, which is the one most often missed

Worth pulling out on its own, because it's extremely common, genuinely painful, very treatable, and almost invisible if you're waiting for a limp.

Animals with sore joints don't usually limp. They adapt. A dog takes the stairs more slowly, hesitates before jumping into the car, lies down more carefully, or stops asking for the long walk. A cat stops using the windowsill, sleeps somewhere lower, grooms its back end less thoroughly, and starts missing the litter tray because climbing into it hurts.

Every one of those reads as an animal slowing down with age. Most of them are pain, and pain that responds well to treatment.

The test worth applying: has anything your animal used to do daily quietly stopped? A cat that hasn't been on the kitchen counter for six months isn't being better behaved. Take that specific observation to the vet, because it's far more useful than a general sense that the animal is getting old.

The small adjustments that help

Comfort is mostly a set of small, practical changes.

A soft, warm, easily-accessible bed away from draughts matters more to stiff old joints, and a cat that can no longer leap up appreciates a step or a ramp to its favourite spot and a litter tray with a low side it can actually get into.

Food often needs to change — an older animal's diet shifts with a slowing metabolism and changing needs — and dental trouble, which is common and painful in older pets, can quietly be why one has gone off its food.

Keep exercise going but gentler and more regular, since movement helps stiff joints as long as it isn't overdone.

Traction is the cheapest improvement most homes can make. Laminate and tile are treacherous for an animal with weak back legs, and a dog that has slipped once becomes reluctant to walk on that floor at all. A run of cheap rugs or mats along the routes it uses daily changes how much it moves, which changes how stiff it gets.

Failing senses, and what to do about them

Deafness and dim sight arrive gradually enough that owners often mistake them for stubbornness or confusion, and both are easier to live with once named.

For a deaf dog, hand signals work beautifully and can be taught at any age — most dogs are watching you far more closely than they're listening anyway. Approach a sleeping deaf dog by putting a hand where it can be seen, or by making a vibration through the floor, and never by touching it suddenly. A startled deaf dog can snap without any bad intent at all.

For failing sight, the answer is mostly furniture. An animal that has lost vision navigates from memory, so keep the layout unchanged, don't leave bags or boxes in new places, and be careful about open doors and stairs. Cats manage this astonishingly well provided nothing moves.

Both are reasons to keep an animal on a lead or indoors more than before. A dog that can't hear a car or see a cyclist is at risk in places it used to handle perfectly.

The night-time problem

Cognitive decline gets discussed as though it were memory loss, and for most owners it shows up as something more practical: the animal stops sleeping through the night.

A dog that paces, whines or stands in a corner at three in the morning, or a cat that howls at nothing in an empty hallway, is a common and exhausting version of this. It's also one of the things people are least likely to mention to a vet, because it doesn't feel like a medical symptom.

It should be mentioned. Some of it is cognitive, some of it is pain that's worse when lying still, some of it is a bladder that no longer lasts the night, and some of it is failing sight making a dark house frightening. Those have different answers, several of them straightforward — a night light, a later toilet trip, pain relief, or a specific medication.

What doesn't help is telling the animal off. It isn't being difficult; it's awake and doesn't know why.

Planning ahead, while it's calm

The part nobody wants to think about is easier thought about early, and it genuinely helps.

Talk to your vet, before you need to, about what the end of this animal's likely condition looks like and what the options are. Ask what home visits cost and whether the practice offers them, because for many animals a quiet death at home is kinder than a final car journey they always hated.

Have the quality-of-life conversation as a conversation rather than a decision. Vets use simple frameworks — is the animal eating, is it comfortable, does it still do the things it enjoys, are the good days outnumbering the bad — and having that vocabulary in advance makes an impossible judgement slightly less impossible.

This isn't morbid. It's the same instinct as registering with a vet before anything is wrong, and it spares you from making the largest decision of an animal's life in a waiting room at ten at night with no information.

The relationship that pays off most

Old age is when a vet who knows the animal is worth most, because they can tell what has genuinely changed from the baseline.

Whether a slowing-down is ordinary ageing or the first sign of something treatable is exactly the judgement they're there to make — and how long a dog is likely to live depends a great deal on size and breed, which shapes when old even begins.

None of this stops time, but a comfortable, well-watched old age is very much within your gift, and mostly it comes down to noticing.