Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Found a cool cat test

Jessica asleepI found an interesting cat test today. The purpose is to tell you how "old" your cat is in some sort of comparison to people's ages.

catage.com

Interesting cat fact I picked up from the test: an outdoor cat has an average lifespan of 5 years, while an indoor cat has an average lifespan of 15 years or more. Since Jessica was always an indoor/outdoor cat - although she never was a roamer - I'd guess that means she has far outlived her predicted lifespan.

A couple of critiques on the test... First, it doesn't account for changes like the one above. When they asked, "Does your cat go out?" I honestly answered "No," though in fact she used to go out a lot. She never roamed, though. I seriously doubt she left my yard more than a handful of times in her outdoor life.

The other critique I have concerns the fact that they ask about vision problems (Yes!) but not about hearing problems, like deafness doesn't make a difference, especially if the cat is blind. And I also had to honestly answer that she doesn't play or scamper anymore, though she just gave that up in the last few months because she can't see. I'm sure she'd still be jumping and playing, even catching mice if she could see and hear them.

Jessica's Cat Age: 79

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