Feline Dementia

Do cats suffer from the feline equivalent of Alzheimer's? I believe they do.

My cat, Tom, will celebrate his 17th birthday in June, assuming he lives that long (I'm superstitious about assuming he'll last the night), and I feel certain that he is loosing his marbles.

In his prime, Tom was a magnificent specimen of feline grace and hunting prowess. He chased and beat up a border collie who had the temerity to walk into Tom's garden, he caught a rat and brought it indoors as a gift (I'd have preferred shoes or diamonds, but cat's just don't get it) and he would disappear off over the fields for a week at a time, feeding himself off hot mouse take-aways and reappear back home all glossy and sleek, none the worse for a lack of commercial cat food.

These days, Tom is like an old person whose body has gone into survival mode, you know the old people who are stick thin and look as if they could be blown away by a light breeze? That's how Tom is now. He staggers off his cat sofa in the kitchen and flops on the back path if the sun is shining, but if it's grey, he will manage the stairs and come up to my office and lay out on the carpet, slapping his tail every so often to make sure I haven't forgotten him.

Like many old people, Tom has become a creature of habits and routines and his favourite, after eating, is to wander into the sitting room of an evening and sit beside me on the sofa, with his back pressed against my leg to warm himself. It's an arrangement that suits us both, for affection and warmth.

Over the past weeks we have noticed that Tom seems to be getting disoriented and confused. He will come into the sitting room at his normal time (you can set the clock by him), but instead of walking over to the sofa, he will wander over to the bookcase in the corner and then look perplexed. Unless called, he will just sit in the corner looking confused - it's as if he has forgotten where to find his warm spot.

Funnier, or sadder still, is Tom's perception of owning three gardens. He normally goes out through the main kitchen door to get on to his sunbathing spot on the path. Lately, however, we opened up the old scullery door and now there's a way into the garden through the scullery. I know it has confused the poor old cat because he wandered out through the scullery door and then sat outside the main kitchen door meowing pathetically to be let in, while the scullery door was still open. Imagine the confusion when we opened the conservatory door, which gave him another exit, albeit within a few feet of the main kitchen door! He wandered out of the conservatory, sniffed some flowers, then back in and he walked all around the dining room, through the hall and kitchen to get to the kitchen door to go out again. When you consider the minuscule size of the garden, and the proximity of the doors, the only conclusion I can draw is that my cat is senile.

I don't know what I shall do when Tom finally gets too weary to carry on. He has been my friend and companion for nearly 17 years now, after I took him home from a cat rescue sanctuary when he was a ten week old wild kitten. So much of my daily routine revolves around catering for my old codger's needs that I dread the emptiness that will follow his parting. Still, I have been worrying about that since he turned 12 and he's still staggering about, even though it's much less purposeful these days.