05/10/2024
I’m sure some of you have seen this new life expectancy study from the UK. While it’s great there is more research being done into feline health I don’t like the clickbait title of all these articles!
Dear all…you may have seen what’s hit the news. The grim “life expectancy” of our feline owners.
I urge you to please NOT PANIC.
The article was based on a study, which looked at data gathered from 6 large corporate veterinary chains - IVC, CVGS, Linnaeus, Medivet, Vets4Pets and VetPartners.
1) From over 1 million records, 159k were identified as records with “death” attached to them. These numbers were then somehow recalculated and we ended up with 7936 records (through manual checking).
From 7936 records:
2) 10% of cats were pedigree (819).
3) 83.7% were euthanised.
Ask yourself these questions:
1) Does expected life end at euthanasia?
2) Why were they euthanised? Was there alternative? Here’s something you didn’t realise - IF an owner, is unable to afford a treatment for the pet in question, and there is no other alternative, the pet will be euthanised.
3) Whilst male to female ratio in the study was somewhat balanced…is it fair to assume, that this study is also balanced when evaluating breed? 1:9 ratio here!
4) Is it fair to assume, that these pets were euthanised due to trauma / accident? Most pet owners do not keep their cats indoors preferring them to explore the great outdoors…cars are the number one reason for cats deaths in UK. When a pet in brought in following a traffic accident…how many are likely to need a quick fix vs “the kind act”?
Articles like these, have put panic in people. Article like this is why countries are banning certain breeds…so when you see them, find the root (study) this article is based on…and then…ask yourselves relevant questions.
10%… I still can’t get over that!
