Cats

[uncle fester]

How do you tell the age of a cat? ( without looking at it's nether regions!! )

[incitatus]

cut it in half and count the rings

[sft42]

If you subtract the year it was born from the present date this will give you a rough age....for example a cat born in 1998 would be 5 years old...2003 - 1998 = 5...easy really.

[gilf]

Ask him

[woofgang]

okay I'll do the boring and serious bit...if you have a real need to know, then I guess a vet could make an educated guess, but once they are fully grown, its not easy. Really old cats show the same signs of aging as people, thinning hair, poor eyesight/hearing/digestion, runny eyes, lossand or decay of teeth stiffness in the joints and generally slowing down, they also get alzheimers.

[uncle fester]

Cheers woofgang. The first three answers were funny weren't they!

[Kit]

By about 6 months they have their full set of "adult" teeth, but after that it's really difficult to tell. You can't tell by the state of their teeth - they may have more or less tartar etc depending on whether you live in a hard or soft water area, whether they eat wet or dry food etc. Also, although as Woofgang says they do show signs of age, in general cats aren't "old" for very long, they keep in pretty good nick for a good few years before getting geriatric, so it's not a reliable gauge. I know all this because we've tried to find out the age of our rescue cat, and the nearst the vet could come up with was "over 6 months" when we got her.
(Look at its nether regions by all means, but I doubt that they'll tell you much.)

[woofgang]

you're welcome...and yes I did snigger at the first three