How COVID Responses Impact Feline Health

"We have seen a rise in blocked bladders in male cats and cystitis in male and female cats during the lockdowns and coming out of lockdown."

"Blocked bladder is a life-threatening condition and if you notice your male cat straining to urinate or not urinating or urinating in strange places around the house or blood being present, then contact your vets as soon as possible."

Debbie James, veterinary nurse, Vet's Klinic, Swindon, England

Worldwide, people are stressed with the necessity to change the ordinariness of their lifetime habits, taking everything casually, following the methods they've always relied upon before a life-threatening virus suddenly swooped down purportedly from a live animal market in Wuhan, China, to change human behaviour into life-protection mode. Lockdowns, mask-wearing, avoidance of personal contact, strained relations, loneliness, a new kind of privation have all helped to protect people from infection, but has also frayed nervous sensibilities.

Evidently other creatures are also being affected by a change in human lifestyles where people have been convinced by health authorities that the ultimate protection is prolonged sequestration in their homes. Cats too, living in households where suddenly the quiet and peace of a day when all human inhabitants are absent at work or at school, have seen changed routines as people remain indoors to disturb the peace and serenity that their household cats have so long been accustomed to enjoying, welcoming the presence of human residents for a mere proportion of the day, under normal circumstances.

Life-threatening illnesses are descending on domestic cats, according to a warning from veterinarians as an additional fallout effect of the global coronavirus pandemic. There has developed a steep rise in conditions such as blocked bladders among cats, blamed by experts on upheavals to daily routines as people occupied their homes full-time during lockdowns.

"It would appear that some cats may have become more stressed in their home, during the pandemic."

"Changes to a cat's routine always has the potential to cause stress as they are creatures of habit."

"As well as this, 'safe' or 'quiet' places that a cat could have escaped to in the home previously may have been re-purposed as a home office."

Daniel Cummings, Cats Protection behaviour officer, feline welfare agency, Britain

 

The sudden presence of boisterous children at home instead of being at school during lockdowns has particularly stressed cats. Including unfamiliar sounds and activities suddenly swamping the household with everyone at home and banging about. Owners, according to the Cats Protection charity, should be alert to symptoms of chronic stress or depression in cats.

 

Cats that appear to be more withdrawn, their haircoats less healthy in appearance, changes to eating, drinking and toilet patterns, as well as new habits of pacing or restlessness and exhibitions of abnormal behaviours. Cat stress-reduction techniques such as placing new hiding areas in the home, avoiding handling the cats more than usual, making use of pheromone diffusers; maintaining home routine as predictably as possible, under the circumstances. 

"Some may enjoy human companionship and time with people more than others", advised clinical animal behaviourist Sarah Tapsell. The key is to introduce household routine changes more gradually, particularly on returning full-time to the office; giving due consideration that less sociable cats may become agitated by abrupt alterations in their humans' working patterns.