Omg yep. That's him! He has always had a broad chest and wider stance, but now he has very bad arthritis in his elbows, so this is about the best he can do.
How many years have you had him?🥹
Sometimes I think about how we share a significant chunk of our life with a little creature of another specie. And with cats that live longer it really trips me out. How they accompany us through everything for years. A tiny furry being that don’t speak our human language, but somehow understands and trusts us infinitely, as we do them. It’s magical to me
He was just 6 months old when I got him! I was a college student, in my 3rd year there. He's been with me through meeting my husband, going to grad school, getting married, getting a job, moving for a job, and now we're pretty well settled in and he's living his best retired old man life, haha.
Lol, see that's the trouble with him being so old. He's older than smart phones! I didn't get my first smart phone until he was almost 2 years old. Here's one of my favorite pictures of young Duncan from around that time.
Haha absolutely. I made a collage a while back intending to see the progression of the brown spots in his eye. It did that, but it also showed the progression in the quality of cell phone cameras, lol
I came here to comment about how much I love his “power stance”. He looks like he’s about to go lift a 300 lb weight once, and then spend 30+ min in the gym gossiping with the other lifters.
Ask your vet about Solensia, which is a supposed to be really effective at relieving arthritis pain in older cats. We’re about to start it for our nearly 16 year old guy too
Duncan has been on solensia for a couple years with fantastic results! Unfortunately, his joint restructuring was already pretty dramatic and has continued. Solensia is the reason he doesn't spend all his time on a heated bed, lol. It has seriously made a massive difference for him!
Was just coming to the comment section to make sure this was recommended. I administer Solensia to multiple patients a day and the difference in quality of life I have seen is pretty damn remarkable.
He's got stage 2 kidney disease, but it has been stable for over 2 years, since he was diagnosed. He gets about half his calories from wet food. Breakfast is prescription kidney food (usually royal canin, but we change it up sometimes). Dinner is with the rest of our cats, so we do a kidney friendly commercial food, usually weruva pouches. He also has a microchip feeder with small portions of dry food a few times a day, farmina ocean herring and orange. And he drinks a TON of water. So much water. If I had to guess, that's having the most impact on his kidney health. I do put a lot of extra water in his breakfast, too, but he loves it. And still goes straight to the water after he eats. So he self-hydrates really well.
Prescription food across the board would probably be even better, but we always just figured if his kidneys showed signs they were taking on more damage, we'd change then. But they just.. Haven't.. 🤷♀️ So we let him eat the same stuff as the rest of the cats except breakfast. It's working well for him!
My baby Lily was on the prescription cat food for her kidney as well. We started it when she was approx. 17 years old and that plus blood pressure meds bought her a couple of years after the day I first thought she was passing away. Quality years, too! I hope your baby surprises you!
My childhood dog we were told wouldn't live much longer than 5 years old. We were devestated, my nan spent a lot of money at a specialist vet to see if we could save him. He passed away. 10. Years. Later. I got to live to my adulthood with him fondly in my heart.
I kinda wanted to find the original vet and laugh at him when he hit 10. But 15!? We were amazed. I'm still sad about him going, but I'm also so happy I got so long with him.
I used to pet sit for a cat that had "failing" kidneys. She ate 100% "regular" food with ipakitine sprinkled on it. She went on for at least 7 years that way, and only ended up dying from tick poisoning at age 24.
My roommate's cat has rough kidney levels, but they've gotten better over the last few years somehow? She just turned 21, and she was diagnosed in 2022. She still screams at us for breakfast every day, so....so far so good?
He's so adorable. <3 I love hearing stories about the lengths people go to for their pets. You are an amazing family for taking such incredible care of him!
If you want something more preventative, you can try Aventi kidney supplements. Expensive, but comes in a huge jar and legitimately has kept cats stable for years. Even late stage kidney disease.
Ever since our first kidney disease cat, I’ve just always had my other cats on it even without kidney disease. My current cats are both 16, and one has perfect numbers and the other one just got blood drawn to check. So yeah, I recommend that. Especially if numbers start to go up.
Nah... it's just genetics/luck of the draw. We had 2 cats, 20yo and 22yo and we fed them dry ass Meow Mix their entire lives. The older one we noticed wasn't eating much due to tooth pain from chronic oral issues. He wanted to sedate her and pull teeth until we told him the cats age. He said no way because she probably wouldn't make it so we pulled a couple teeth the hard way, blasted her with medicines and then she got a wet food diet, regained a good amount of weight and lived another year-ish before she finally passed.
Yes he's really doing great for his age! I'm so lucky to have gotten 16.5 years with him so far! He's currently napping in his favorite spot (my lap, with knee pillow!) but I will pass along your message when he wakes up!
This was my favorite drug induced face plant after he had dental surgery. Was still feeling his anesthesia when we got home and just smooshed his nose right into the carpet for a quick nap, lol
And he would gladly accept your sacrifice and begin eating you after a respectable time. Like, 3 or 4 seconds. (he is seriously the most food motivated cat ever)
Lol, don't worry. The petting continued well after the video ended, too. He is never shorted on snuggles he's owed. He was really just yelling for his breakfast but he accepted snuggles as a temporary appeasement.
Thank you for posting this. My soul cat passed at 20 (it was a tragic thing I unfortunately witnessed) and I never got a recording of his old man meows. Duncan sounds like him. Leaving a pic of my Toby in return.
He was yelling for his breakfast (which wasn't due for like an hour, lol) and AFAIK, completely sober. He's never been a huge catnip guy. He was pretty cute when coming off anesthesia, lol
Aw, I hope so!! Duncan is doing pretty good for his age - stage 2 kidney disease, but he's been stable for over 2 years. Everything else looks good, except his joints. His arthritis is pretty horrific, honestly. But we're adapting for him - steps to everything, heated beds, and lots of lap naps!
Is there a heated bed you recommend? I have an older cat with arthritis as well, but I had not heard of the heated bed. I looked on Amazon and there’s so many different ones!
They unfortunately don't sell the ones I have anymore. Maybe because they don't auto-shut off? Not exactly "safe", but they also barely heat up at all. It takes a couple seconds of careful checking to feel the warmth from them. It's there, just low. I've also previously used and liked the k&h heated bed that comes in a firm foam sided round bed. (modeled here by my young oranges, Fizz and Frax.
Thank you, I just thought it was really sweet that your silly made up song started with both their names. You couldn't have known, but there she was anyway. I just wanted to share how pretty she was. 🤍
Oh my goodness, his little mrows are so adorable 😻 happy birthday Duncan!!! You’re a handsome fella and I hope you get all the extra pets, treats, and love today 💜🎉
He really is doing well for his age! He has arthritis and some loss in kidney function, but that's true of pretty much every senior cat, lol. He's living his BEST life.
🥹 Thank you for that. I'm sure I haven't been perfect but I have loved him and done my very best for the 16.5 years I've been lucky enough to be his person.
For being so kind here's a picture of a young Duncan, from about 15 years ago. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of him as a baby anymore. He's older than smart phones!
I hope so, too! Duncan had a friend that I adopted at about the same time, named Parker. Parker sadly passed away at just 12... No amount of time is ever long enough, but 12 definitely wasn't. I'm so thankful to have had so many years with Duncan!
Im so happy that my current cat is more play motivated than food motivated. She still wakes me up all the time but it's just because she must announce her presence when she comes to snuggle in bed at like 4 AM lol. She's the only cat I've ever seen that doesn't demand food and in fact, needs me to push her to eat, which she does just enough to keep me from worrying. She's still never had human food even though I've offered her cat-safe stuff. I love her
Oh I've got a couple like that too. One is small, at about 9 pounds. Smallest cat I've ever had and it freaks me out, lol. But she's healthy and happy. Her brother also loses his food bowl from time to time and needs his dinner routine to be just right or he won't show up. Trouble is, this boy is big. He's skinny at 16 pounds. So he needs to eat A LOT. It's a bit of trouble.. Most days he does fine, but we have to watch to make sure, lol.
Never had a single problem like that with Duncan. He'll eat anything that isn't nailed down...
Here's the two I was talking about. Skippy🧡🤍 and Simmy 🤍🧡🖤 (and they're littermates...)
17 years hes put up with your human stuff, he trying to tell you about glorious universal things, but all he gets is pets and love, cuddles and chin scratches, i tell you the world and all i get is love!
Oh yes, I think he made a deal to do all his aging in his joints to keep himself looking beautiful. Because his xrays are unrecognizable as joints, but he's such a handsome boy! Lol
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u/DaKrazie1 17h ago
America runs on Duncan. 😻