How old is a cat

Chili

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Hi, maybe someone will have an answer.

Is it possible to know for sure how old is a cat?

We got a rescue persian cat. According to the shelter she would now be approximately 4 years old. But our veterinarian think she could be much older. The shelter know about where she come from but it's confidential so we don't have every info they might have.

She is a tricky case. She had only skin on her bones, the vet said it's obvious she wasn't eating enough while growing up. She have lost some teeth and an eye due to neglect. She is also not genetically lucky as she have a heart murmur and severe nasal stenosis.

We know she can be playful but never for long as she struggle to breathe. She clearly never had the chance to climb before as she couldn't climb to the top of the cat tree when she first got here but she is becoming more agile everyday. So what she physically can do is no help either.

Even her behaviour is no help, it's like she is still learning how to be a cat by repeating what the kitten do. She is just starting to meow.

To my knowledge, every sign to guess how old a cat could be was impacted by negligence. Is there any way to know for sure how old she is?
 

BNE

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Welcome Chili! This link might be worth a try, it's where I base my knowledge off:

https://www.cuteness.com/article/tell-cats-age

Please post some photos of your cat - that way I (or someone else) will have a better chance at being able to work it from the photos and your description in your first post.

Hope this helps 🙂😸
 

BNE

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Hmmmn, she looks a bit cloudy eyed, your vet might be right.
 

fionasmom

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It can be harder to tell the age of an animal if they are not either somewhat young or very old; I have been told this by several vets. I agree that the cat might be older than four. You are so kind to have given her a home as whatever her age, she has had a hard life.
 
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Chili

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Thanks everyone, I guess her exact age will always be a mystery, at least she do seem to be middle-aged.

We have many specialists she need to see so we can know if she can have a surgery to fix her nose. I only hope we will not discover she could be too old for that! Poor thing really struggle to breathe in winter (aka 6 months a year) and we want her to be able to play as much as she want.
 
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