My 15-Year-Old Cat Stopped Washing Her Back End. I Thought She'd Just Got Lazy. The Groomer Told Me What It Really Meant.
If your senior cat's coat has gone spiky, flaky or matted along her back and hips, this is the conversation I wish I'd had a year earlier.
The first thing I noticed was the flakes.
Mitzi is a black cat, so you can't miss them. One morning she jumped onto the bed and the whole length of her back looked like someone had shaken a salt cellar over it.
Then the fur along her spine started to stand up in little tufts, like she'd slept on it wrong. Every day. Her front half was as glossy as ever. Her back half looked like it belonged to a different cat.
Then I found the mat. A hard knot of fur right where her tail meets her back, about the size of a fifty-cent coin.
I'm 71. Mitzi is 15. And I'll be honest, my first thought was the one most of us have.
She's an old lady now. Old ladies stop doing their hair.
What I Tried First
I did what you'd do.
I bought a soft brush. She let me do her head and shoulders and purred like an engine. The moment the brush got past her ribs towards her hips, she spun round and hissed at me. Mitzi has never hissed at me in fifteen years.
I tried unscented baby wipes on the flaky bits. That helped for a day.
I cut the first mat out with nail scissors while she was asleep, terrified the whole time I'd nick her skin. A week later there were two more.
I rang a mobile cat groomer. And that phone call is the reason I'm writing this.
"Half the Cats I Shave Aren't Dirty. They're Sore."
The groomer was a woman called Deb who has been grooming cats around Ballarat for longer than I've had Mitzi. She arrived with her clippers, took one look at Mitzi's back, and didn't plug anything in.
She ran her hand from Mitzi's shoulders to her tail. Gently. When her fingers reached the hips, Mitzi flinched and flattened her ears.
"There it is," Deb said.
I asked what she meant.
"Look where the mess is," she said. "Front half, perfect. Back half, flakes and mats. That's no lazy cat. To wash her back and her bottom, a cat has to twist right round on herself. If her hips or her lower back hurt, she just stops doing that bit. Half the senior cats I shave aren't dirty, love. They're sore."
"Half the senior cats I shave aren't dirty, love. They're sore."
I felt about two inches tall. I'd been brushing straight over the sore spot and wondering why she hissed.
What My Vet Said Next
Deb shaved out the mats and told me to book Mitzi in with the vet. I did, that week.
The vet pressed along Mitzi's spine and moved each back leg slowly. Mitzi complained at every one. The vet said arthritis in both hips and probably the lower back, and that it's so common in older cats that she assumes it until proven otherwise.
She wasn't exaggerating. When vets X-rayed a group of 100 older cats in one well-known study, about nine in ten had arthritis changes in their joints. Most of their owners had no idea, because cats don't limp the way dogs do. They just quietly stop doing the things that hurt. Jumping onto the bench. Using the high windowsill. And washing the parts of themselves that need a twist to reach.
Pain specialists actually list a change in grooming as one of the clearest signs of long-term pain in a cat. I'd been looking straight at it for months.
Then Came the Hard Part
The vet offered me two things.
The first was an anti-inflammatory liquid, every day. But Mitzi's last blood test had shown her kidney numbers creeping up. Not kidney disease yet, but close enough that the vet wanted to be careful with a long-term anti-inflammatory. Lots of older cats are in exactly that spot.
The second was a monthly pain injection. Which meant a car trip, a carrier, and a very upset cat every four weeks for the rest of her life. And a bill each time.
I said I'd think about it. I went home and sat in the car in my driveway for a while.
What Deb Told Me on the Phone
I rang Deb to book Mitzi's next shave and ended up telling her all of it. She was quiet for a bit, then said something I've repeated to three friends since.
"The coat tells you twice," she said. "The spiky, unwashed bit tells you she's sore. The flakes tell you the skin itself has dried out. Old cats' skin goes dry like ours does. You want something that works on both."
She said that for years she'd suggested fish oil to her owners with old, stiff, flaky cats. Not as a cure. As the one thing she'd seen help the joints and the skin at once.
I'd heard fish oil was good for people's joints. I had no idea it applied to cats. So I did what I always do. I looked it up properly.
Why Fish Oil Matters for an Old Cat's Joints and Coat
Here's what I found, in plain English.
Arthritis is inflammation in the joint. The body makes the chemical messengers that drive that inflammation out of the fats in its own cell walls. Most cat food is heavy in omega-6 fats, which make the loud, painful kind of messenger. The omega-3 fats in fish oil, called EPA and DHA, make much quieter ones.
So a cat with more omega-3 in her cells has the same arthritis, with the volume turned down.
There's real research behind it in cats. In one controlled study, cats with sore joints were put on a joint diet rich in EPA and DHA, and others on an ordinary diet. They all wore activity collars for nine weeks. The cats on the omega-3 diet became more active. The cats on the ordinary diet became less active. The difference was clear enough that the researchers published it as a way to help cats with joint pain move more.
And the skin? Those same omega-3 fats are part of the skin's natural oil barrier. When an old cat's diet is short on them, the skin dries and flakes. Build them back in, and the skin has what it needs to hold its moisture again.
To wash her back and bottom, a cat has to twist round on herself. Sore hips or a sore lower back and she quietly stops.
Older skin dries out. When the diet is short on omega-3, the skin's oil barrier thins and starts to flake.
The coat tells you twice: the spiky back half says sore joints, the flakes say dry skin. Omega-3 works on both.
I made myself a little list after all this reading.
Why the Fish Oil in My Cupboard Was No Good
I actually had a bottle of fish oil. My own capsules, for my knees.
I pricked one and put a few drops on Mitzi's dinner. She sniffed it and walked away from the whole bowl. I tried a pet fish oil from the pet shop, the pump bottle kind. It smelled like a fishing boat after a week on the bench, and she wouldn't touch that either.
When I told Deb, she laughed. "That's the oil going off," she said. "Once a bottle's open, the air gets at it. Cats can smell rancid oil long before we can." She said she'd started telling her owners about one in particular, because it was the only one she'd seen fussy old cats actually eat.
The One Deb Uses
It's called Fureeze. It's an Australian company, which I liked (they also ship to the UK and US, and it only takes about 5 days).
Every day's dose comes sealed in its own little snap-pack, about the size of my palm. You snap it in the middle and squeeze it over the food. Because each one is sealed until you open it, the oil never sits around going stale. There's no bottle, no fridge, no measuring spoon.
- One sealed snap-pack a day. Snap, squeeze over food, done
- Emulsified so it mixes into wet or dry food, no oil slick
- Anchovy fish oil + krill oil, guarded by natural vitamin E and astaxanthin
- Chicken and goat milk flavour cats actually eat
- No fridge. No bottle going stale on the bench
The oil is emulsified, so it blends into her food instead of sitting on top like an oil slick, and the company says it's three times easier to absorb than regular fish oil. It's anchovy fish oil with krill oil, plus natural vitamin E and astaxanthin to keep the oil fresh, and it's flavoured with chicken and goat milk. I think that last bit is what won Mitzi over.
More than 20,000 cat owners use it now. I'm one of them.
The First Morning
I was ready for the sniff-and-walk-away.
Mitzi ate the lot. Then she licked the plate where I'd squeezed it. I had to sit down.
That was the part I'd been most worried about. A 15-year-old cat has firm opinions about her breakfast. Here's a video Fureeze shared of another cat with the same reaction.
What I Watched For
I'm a retired teacher, so I kept a little notebook. I'd recommend it.
I can't promise every cat will go the same way. Mitzi still has arthritis. She's still 15. She still sees the vet, and if she needs more pain relief down the track, she'll get it. But my cat washes her own back again, and I can stroke her from her ears to her tail without her flinching.
What I Do for Mitzi Every Morning Now
People ask me for the routine, so here it is. None of it takes more than five minutes.
Breakfast first. One snap-pack squeezed over her wet food, mixed through with a teaspoon. She eats it before I've put the kettle on.
A two-minute brush, front to back, stopping before the hips. Deb's advice. Brush the parts she enjoys and let the omega-3 do the work on the sore end. If she leans into it, carry on. If she flattens her ears, stop.
A step up to her favourite windowsill. My son-in-law built a little wooden step out of an old fruit crate. She uses it every day. A cat who can still get to the sun is a cat who keeps moving, and moving keeps old joints going.
A soft bed somewhere warm. Hers is on the heat pad in the lounge in winter. Stiff joints feel worse in the cold, ours included.
The notebook. Once a week I run my hand down her back and write down what I feel. Flakes, spikes, mats, flinching. It's how I knew it was working, and it's what I take to the vet.
I'm not doing anything clever. I'm just finally giving her what her body was asking for.
What Other Owners Have Noticed
When I started telling friends, a few of them looked up the reviews. These are from real Fureeze customers.
Salty, my ten-year-old cat was getting really scruffy fur. She has oral hygiene problems, which have been fixed by the dental hygiene powder and in combination with the daily taurine and probiotics, her fur quality and grooming has also improved. Both my cats take all three supplements, including the krill fish oil supplement.
Our cat Oscar is 17 years old. He is absolutely thriving on Fureeze krill oil supplement. He's livelier, glossier and rejuvenated. I can absolutely recommend Fureeze.
My Tom Cat is 15 years old and he has been on it for 6 weeks... He played for the first time in months. He had the zoomies for the first time in ages.
My 17 year old cat seems to be enjoying the addition to her dried senior diet. Hopefully it is helping to keep her well and healthy. Her fur certainly seems softer.
My senior cat, Larkin, loves the taste of the fish and krill oil supplement. She is a fussy cat who will refuse to eat some canned food and even some cat treats.
"Isn't She Too Old to Bother?"
My sister asked me this. Mitzi's 15, after all.
I'd turn it around. The older she is, the more of her day is spent in that body. Fifteen-year-old cats can live to 18, 19, 20. That's years of mornings. I'd rather they were mornings where she can reach her own back, sleep on the windowsill and let me brush her without spinning round.
The years she has left are the ones that count.
If Your Cat's Coat Is Telling You Something
Look at her back tonight. Run your hand from her shoulders to her tail, slowly, and watch her ears when you get to her hips.
If her front half is neat and her back half is flaky, spiky or matted, that's her telling you something. Please book her in with your vet, as I did. And while you're waiting, give her what I wish I'd given Mitzi a year earlier.
Give it 90 days. If you don't see a difference in her coat, send back the empty box and get a full refund. Fureeze offers that on every order, which is what got me to try it in the first place.
P.S. I wasted months thinking Mitzi had got lazy. She hadn't. She was sore, and her skin was dry, and she couldn't tell me. If your old cat has stopped washing her back end, she's probably telling you the same thing.