Did my Wife LIE about how long cats will live?

[Anonymous]

Before we got married my wife stated she would not get rid of her 4 cats. She claimed that I was making a big deal over something that lived only for 12-14 years and they are allready 8-15 years old. I was allergic and got on medicine and eventually overcame the allergy.

I was looking around the internet and started seeing that cats are living up to 21 years old. Did she lie to me?

[Anonymous]

I have a friend from high school whose cat I knew from back then (we're almost 40 now) just died this past year.

[Anonymous]

"Lie" may be too strong a word. That said, my cat lived to be 21 years old. My parents' cat lived to be 23.

Look on the bright side -- you're over your allergy and you've only got 12-13 more years to go.

[Anonymous]

it depends on how well the cats are taken care of and their living conditions. outdoor cats, expect only 2-3 yrs. indoor with lots of check ups 20+, but really 10-15 is more typical.

[Anonymous]

She most likely told the truth and inadvertently lied, and the difference is what is known as actuary science. Take a look at an actuarial table. I don't have one for cats, but here is one for people:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf

You can see on this table, that the life expectancy at birth is 77 years.

Yet, if you look up a 67 year old person on this table, they are expected to live another 17.6 years, ie until 84.5

How can that be, especially since medicine has improved so much since that retiree was born? Shouldn't the baby live much longer than someone born in 1944?

The answer, which you can read on the table is this. The life expectancy for someone who has already made it to their 67th birthday is greater than that of an average newborn baby, because the baby faces 67 years in which anything could happen to shorten his life.

So if your wife tells you that cats usually live 12-14 years, that is true. But what you really care is how many more years an 8-15 year old cat can expect to live. You and I both know that 15 year old cat is not staring death in the face. He made it 15 years, and so he could live a lot longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She most likely told the truth and inadvertently lied, and the difference is what is known as actuary science. Take a look at an actuarial table. I don't have one for cats, but here is one for people:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf

You can see on this table, that the life expectancy at birth is 77 years.

Yet, if you look up a 67 year old person on this table, they are expected to live another 17.6 years, ie until 84.5

How can that be, especially since medicine has improved so much since that retiree was born? Shouldn't the baby live much longer than someone born in 1944?

The answer, which you can read on the table is this. The life expectancy for someone who has already made it to their 67th birthday is greater than that of an average newborn baby, because the baby faces 67 years in which anything could happen to shorten his life.

So if your wife tells you that cats usually live 12-14 years, that is true. But what you really care is how many more years an 8-15 year old cat can expect to live. You and I both know that 15 year old cat is not staring death in the face. He made it 15 years, and so he could live a lot longer.

OMG! Are you serious? I hope not! Does that mean that someone who is 92y old will not die anytime soon?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She most likely told the truth and inadvertently lied, and the difference is what is known as actuary science. Take a look at an actuarial table. I don't have one for cats, but here is one for people:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf

You can see on this table, that the life expectancy at birth is 77 years.

Yet, if you look up a 67 year old person on this table, they are expected to live another 17.6 years, ie until 84.5

How can that be, especially since medicine has improved so much since that retiree was born? Shouldn't the baby live much longer than someone born in 1944?

The answer, which you can read on the table is this. The life expectancy for someone who has already made it to their 67th birthday is greater than that of an average newborn baby, because the baby faces 67 years in which anything could happen to shorten his life.

So if your wife tells you that cats usually live 12-14 years, that is true. But what you really care is how many more years an 8-15 year old cat can expect to live. You and I both know that 15 year old cat is not staring death in the face. He made it 15 years, and so he could live a lot longer.

FUCK, 14 more years of scooping cat poop ughh

[Anonymous]

Probably not. Most of us grew up with cats as kids when cats went outside from time to time. I always thought that cats lived for about 10 years. I was shocked when my indoor cat lived until 19. In hindsight, I should have put my cat down when she was 17 but vets are very aggressive in their treatment of diseases now. In the past, a vet would just recommend euthanizing an animal with a chronic illness that impacted its quality of life but now they push to keep them alive as long as possible. You don't want to argue with someone to kill the pet that you love but again in hindsight it is more cruel IMO to keep them around with lots of interventions, surgeries and medications when they are declining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She most likely told the truth and inadvertently lied, and the difference is what is known as actuary science. Take a look at an actuarial table. I don't have one for cats, but here is one for people:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf

You can see on this table, that the life expectancy at birth is 77 years.

Yet, if you look up a 67 year old person on this table, they are expected to live another 17.6 years, ie until 84.5

How can that be, especially since medicine has improved so much since that retiree was born? Shouldn't the baby live much longer than someone born in 1944?

The answer, which you can read on the table is this. The life expectancy for someone who has already made it to their 67th birthday is greater than that of an average newborn baby, because the baby faces 67 years in which anything could happen to shorten his life.

So if your wife tells you that cats usually live 12-14 years, that is true. But what you really care is how many more years an 8-15 year old cat can expect to live. You and I both know that 15 year old cat is not staring death in the face. He made it 15 years, and so he could live a lot longer.

OMG! Are you serious? I hope not! Does that mean that someone who is 92y old will not die anytime soon?

I'm not the pp quoted, but she's right. And yes a 92 year old woman will on average live to 96.

[Anonymous]

Your wife didn't lie. That's how long I thought cats lived, and I grew up with cats. Four cats is a lot, though! You are nice to take that on even with allergies, so I think she owes you a big one!

[Anonymous]

She didn't lie. Growing up I never had a cat live past 12 but they were outdoor. One of my mom's cats did live to be 20, but that's rare. Her other cat lived to be 12. My 10 year old cat is in poor health and probably won't live beyond a couple more years.

[Anonymous]

I think she was confusing cats with large dogs. It is easy to get all these facts confused, especially if subconsciously you may want to get them confused (not consciously).

[Anonymous]

I used to think that's how long cats lived, too, but I grew up with outdoor cats. Now I have an indoor cat of my own who is 13 and is not showing many signs of being "old". So now I'm thinking indoor cats tend to live closer to 17-20 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably not. Most of us grew up with cats as kids when cats went outside from time to time. I always thought that cats lived for about 10 years. I was shocked when my indoor cat lived until 19. In hindsight, I should have put my cat down when she was 17 but vets are very aggressive in their treatment of diseases now. In the past, a vet would just recommend euthanizing an animal with a chronic illness that impacted its quality of life but now they push to keep them alive as long as possible. You don't want to argue with someone to kill the pet that you love but again in hindsight it is more cruel IMO to keep them around with lots of interventions, surgeries and medications when they are declining.

I agree completely. It is very important to chose ones vet carefully or your poor pet will end its life with a year or two of torture at the vet. There are still vets out there that know that animals do not want to spend the last years of their life on painful medications making regular trips to the vet.

[Anonymous]

Cats can live to their early 20s. Many live until their mid to late teens. Most of the cats I've known belong to the second group.

It sounds like this is an important issue to you and that you're not happy with your wife's "claims" and "statements" and possible "LIES" about the cats. Why didn't you look up cats' life expectancy before you married your wife?