Comments on: Senior Cats and Hearing Loss

By: Darlene

Darlene — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:04:36 +0000

I was doing some research on hearing loss in aging cats and I came across your article. It was very well written and informative. My cat, Chloe, will be 19 years old in a few months. She suffers from arthritis and spondylitis in her spine and she has difficulty in her mobility. I have her on a number of medications for pain as well as medication for hyperactive thyroid and high blood pressure. I just recently noticed that she was not acknowledging me when I talked to her when she was turned away from me. I clapped my hands behind her head and no response. She does not seem to be too upset over the hearing loss so I would not even consider the hearing test or hearing aides.

By: tomatogal

tomatogal — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:43:23 +0000

My oldest cat, Cagney is deaf as a post, after almost two decades of loving care and robust good health. He’s over seventeen, and often I’ll notice Cagman strolling around; he appears to be cat-kvetching when he says “rroww rrrow!”at the top of his voice, which no amount of “shut up, and eat your crunchies!” from me will silence.

I view Cags with affection, thinking of him as a sort of resident geezer, with whom I have had many wonderful years. He seems to be enjoying himself, presbycusis notwithstanding. So, I guess after a trip to the vet for evaluation, just take that deaf old kitty home and love him.

By: Patti C.

Patti C. — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:21:01 +0000

Thanks for the info on cats and hearing loss. I’m now sure that my cat, Coco, is definitely not hearing as well as she used to. She does seem able to hear certain sounds that I make, but I don’t think she hears me talking. And when she “speaks,” she’s quite a bit louder than she used to be. Now I understand why.

By: Pax

Pax — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 01:01:14 +0000

Hi Rochester,
It would be great if we could actually meet. My personal assistant has told me about you. I wish you had told her sooner how sensitive our hearing can be. She bought a new telephone with all sorts of tone rings and adjustments. She could not understand why I ran and hid under the bed every time the phone rang. It did not matter which ring I heard, I did not like any of them! I finally made her return it to the store and she bought a more pleasant sounding phone.
Keep up the great work, sharing your cat knowledge with the world!

By: Kristy

Kristy — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 21:01:44 +0000

Priceless. I kept laughing the entire article (well, except for the serious, informative parts.)
Love the style, love the info, love Rochester.
Keep up the great work.

P.S. Now I have a great way to keep my boyfriend’s stereo turned down. He will consider it much more serious if I tell him it hurts the cats ears. Thanks!

By: MaineMom

MaineMom — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 19:47:53 +0000

Hi Rochester
We moved to WA in ‘93 and had the FP insert installed in ‘94. Moved back to CA in ‘99 and none of our gas fireplaces have had remotes, just wall switches, since then. Thanks for the update!

By: furmom

furmom — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 17:59:22 +0000

Bridgett,
For a moment I also wondered how you would identify hearing loss if your cat normally doesn’t listen anyway. Of course it then occurred to me that if you open the fridge, take out the meat tray, (or open your cat food container), and the cat doesn’t appear, your cat is either very ill or has lost his hearing.

By: ROCHESTER

ROCHESTER — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 09:52:40 +0000

Hello everybody, and thank you for reading my article.

Bridgett, I’m glad that I could help you recognize some symptoms of hearing loss, and I hope that people with younger pets take care to turn the volume down on noisy things. Your kitties will be very grateful!

Roger, I visited your blog site and love all the pictures of beautiful cats and the variety of articles.

MaineMom, that was a very good observation about the remote! It’s also very interesting though, because fireplace remotes usually operate at more than 300,000 Hz, which is well out of a cat’s hearing range…. or is supposed to be. Fireplace remotes have to be on an unusual frequency for safety reasons… you don’t want remotes from other devices setting off your fireplace.

While ultrasonics is still around for some applicat8ions, newer remote electronic devices use infrared light instead. Now, we cats can see infrared light, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. Vision is a subject for another article!

By: MaineMom

MaineMom — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 04:04:07 +0000

Thanks for another great informative article from Rochester. Another sound we can’t hear that may harm our cats can be emitted by a remote control device. We had a high-end gas fireplace with remote installed in our home when we lived in Tacoma WA. Took us three turn-on/offs to realize that our young Maine would run to the farthest corner of the house and hide when we used it. We didn’t hear anything in that frequency, but he sure did. We never used it again.

By: Bridgett

Bridgett — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:55:38 +0000

Rochester,

Another excellent article. You are very articulate.

I can imagine how loud TVs and radios would hurt feline ears. Kitties have such good hearing.

My question when reading the title of your article was, “Since my cats ignore me most of the time, how will I know if they have hearing loss?” Now I know. My cats are young to middle aged. So hopefully, I have many years before I have to worry about getting hearing aids for my cats.

By: JustMe

JustMe — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:24:21 +0000

Great story and information for those of us with senior pets.