It’s hard to believe that my Mr. Cranky Pants aka Smokey is 17 years old. The average age for a house cat is 13. Of course as you get older things stop working like they did when you were a kitten.

And so it is with Mr. Smokeymon. I always said he was like a little laid back Jamaican “mon”.  He was always so calm and purrfectly friendly but as we know, with age comes  “Crankiness” and Smokey has shown himself to be a bit more short tempered than in his younger days. Hisses are more common toward his roomies but he still likes me, his human. In fact he has become very possessive of me.

He is the cat that has to be in the same room at all times. He has begun to get a little senile and when he finds himself separated loud yowls disturb the peace until I can either get to him or get his attention. Then they stop immediately and turn to loud , rumbling purrs.

His annual check-up rolled around this week. He’s lost weight. At one time he was a rolly poly 13.5 lbs. but over the last couple of years he’s steadily lost weight (Wish I could say the same for me) until he’s now down to 10 lbs. 10 oz. Even so he can still make the other 2 cats in the house “toe the line”.

Because of the weight loss and our past scare with possible renal failure we ran blood panels. On the renal side he’s stable, very little change there. The vet also checked his thyroid, all the numbers were within normal range. Finally they took his blood pressure and found that to be fine too. For a very senior cat he is doing well.

(Meanwhile I was in sticker shock at the size of the vet bill!)

Even so the doctor suggested we follow him closely now with follow ups every 3 – 6 months, also switching to a senior diet.

With luck and my wallet,my creaky old pussy cat will be around for a number of years to come.