How do we tell a cats age

[andrea w]

How old are cats in human years?

[BadBob]

Normally expressed as 1 cat year = 7 human years. so if a cat is ten then its 70 in human terms. However there are plenty of cats which live much longer than this, my old cat Jet was 18 when he died so thats 126.

[sft42]

There is no direct correlation....the record for a cat was asked on here a while ago and was found to be over 30 (the exact figure escapes me)....this would be well over 200 using this calculation...obviously not right....Any vets out there?

[BadBob]

Of course there is no direct correlation, its just a rough estimate and I highighted this when mentioning my 18 year old cat. The worlds oldest dometic cat was 34 years 2 Months and 4 Hours old when it died.

[bernardo]

The often-quoted ratio of 1 cat-year being 7 human-years (for dogs as well as cats) is a silly old myth which was invented by people who are not very good at arithmetic. According to the Guinness Book of Animals, the actuarial equivalent of 1 year (dogs) is 16 years (human); 2 is 23; 3 is 28, and every further year is about 4. So a dog aged 10 is equivalent to a human aged 56, and 15 is equivalent to 76. This is based on the physical development of a dog, and how many dogs live to each age. Hence it is very common for silly people proudly to proclaim that their 15-year-old dog is the equivalent of 105, even though it's only 76. I do not know the specific statistics for cats, except that they tend to live slightly longer than dogs.