can you spot feline pain?

If you can remember leg warmers and big hair, you may remember a time when people seriously believed cats could not feel pain. To all us cat lovers this may seem a crazy notion but as recently as 1989 veterinarians in the USA were taught simply to ignore animal pain. In the 80's, Bernard Rollin of Colorado State University wrote two papers about recognising pain in animals but even then, many still believed only dogs could feel pain, not cats. In fact I can still remember seeing practice where cats were never given any form of pain relief, even for operations, and I qualified in 1999!
So how could this misconception have come about?
Cats are solitary in the wild, unlike dogs who live in packs. Because of this they have no need to convey pain, in fact it may alert predators that they are weak. This is also the reason that cats do not vocalise or cry in pain. So cats get on with it because they have to, they have no pack to rely on for back up. Cats actually have poorly developed facial muscles compared to humans because they have no need for facial expression in the wild. That is probably why many can not read a cats expression of pain but many cat lovers can spot the subtle changes of facial expression that are present. In acute pain cats often draw they ears back slightly which pulls their eyes into slits. If a cat is happy, their ears are up or forward and eyes are round. Cats in acute pain are often withdrawn and hang their head low, with a hunched up posture.

Most of us know our cats well enough to recognise acute pain but chronic pain can be much more difficult to spot. We often attribute many of the signs of chronic pain in cats to old age. Many chronically sore cats will appear to sleep more and lie about because they are reluctant to move. Sometimes you notice that they can no longer jump onto the bed or window sill. One of the commonest signs we see as vets is a matted coat, especially over the spine and hips, and an unkempt appearance. This is simply due to the cats being too stiff and sore to groom properly. Cats often appear more grumpy and less interactive and which again is often put down to age. www.spotcatpain.co.uk is a great website teaching owners how to spot pain in their cats. If you have any concerns or think your cat may be in pain please bring them in for a check up. There are now a wide range of pain relief agents specifically designed for cats, so no cat needs to suffer in silence anymore.