Most often, people with cats have to make a decision about euthanasia when a disease overtakes the animal’s health to the point that his life is no longer worth living. It’s probably the hardest decision anyone who loves a cat ever has to make. But sometimes, a cat dies unexpectedly. He hasn’t appeared sick and may not even be old, but one day a human family member comes home and finds him gone. Or a cat dies while in the hospital but not because of the condition for which he has been admitted. Or he has been admitted with a number of ailments, but it’s not clear which one took his life. It’s a misery — and a shock — of a different kind.
Numbers on how often that happens haven’t been compiled. But in one review of the records of almost 1,000 cats who had died, investigators at Canada’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine found that nearly 8 percent of the felines lost their lives suddenly and unexpectedly without any history of life-threatening disease.
The main reasons for sudden feline death
Why might a cat die seemingly out of the blue? People sometimes assume their pet was poisoned intentionally, but a study entitled “Causes of sudden unexpected death in dogs and cats—it’s not the neighbor!” shows that’s not the case. Looking at the causes of sudden, unexplained death in 71 cats for the Ontario Animal Health Network, veterinary pathologist Dr. Margaret Stalker of the University of Guelph Ontario Veterinary College found the top reasons to be as follows:
- underlying cardiac disease
- trauma (being hit by a car or attacked by a predator such as a coyote)
- miscellaneous inflammatory disease
Often, the findings are not diagnoses of specific illnesses but just locations in the body where something went wrong.
When to consider requesting a necropsy
If your own cat dies suddenly, is it important to ask for a necropsy to find out why? It’s a very individual decision. But the American College of Veterinary Pathologists, whose members specialize in performing necropsies, says that “in some cases, necropsy findings can give comfort or closure to an owner.” This is especially the case, they say, when there’s a sudden, unexplained death. Some owners may want to learn that there’s nothing they could have missed in caring for their pet — no signs they failed to heed.
The group also points out that “necropsy contributes to the body of scientific knowledge by increasing our understanding of anatomy and physiology in health and disease.”
John Berg, DVM, the editor-in-chief of Tufts Catnip, agrees. “In both human and veterinary medicine,” he says, “autopsies and necropsies are not done often enough. Doctors can learn from them how to better identify life-threatening diseases before they actually take a life.”
That said, not many veterinary offices have people on staff who perform necropsies. It might be much more difficult to find a qualified pathologist at a vet’s office in a sparsely populated region than in a major city.
If you are ever interested in having one done on a cat who has passed, veterinary schools are a good place to start looking; they often perform them. Your pet’s doctor might also be able to provide leads for finding one in your area.
In some cases, an autopsy might cost as little as $100. In a complicated situation where it might be more difficult to nail down the exact cause of death, the price could increase to several hundred dollars, and in relatively rare cases, more than that.
