Owners of furry pets often encounter such phenomena as changes in the timbre of the animal’s voice, hoarseness, and sometimes complete loss of voice in a cat. With the help of their voice, pets communicate with their owners, show gratitude or, conversely, demand attention. Violation of vocal function is especially noticeable in “talkative” cats. There are many reasons and factors why a cat lost its voice: from cigarette smoke to dangerous infectious diseases.
Why does a cat have no voice?
The reasons why an animal lost its voice can be divided into three main groups:
- infectious diseases,
- non-communicable diseases,
- associated environmental factors.
One of the reasons for a cat’s loss of voice is infectious diseases of various etiologies: viral rhinotracheitis, infectious laryngitis, calcivirosis, rabies. With viral rhinotracheitis, the mucous membranes of the nose, throat and trachea are affected, which is accompanied by hoarseness or complete loss of voice in the sick animal. The causative agent of the disease is the herpes virus.
Timely and proper treatment and dietary nutrition contribute to the rapid restoration of vocal function in a cat.
One of the common reasons why a cat has lost its voice is infectious laryngotracheitis, the causative agent of which belongs to the herpesvirus family. The disease is accompanied by inflammatory processes in the upper respiratory tract and laryngeal edema. These phenomena lead to hoarseness of the animal, as well as a complete absence of voice.
It hurts the cat to eat, drink water and meow. Infectious laryngotracheitis is often a consequence of advanced influenza, sore throat, colds, and rhinitis.
With viral calcivirus, one of the symptoms of the disease is hoarseness and loss of voice in the animal. This viral disease poses a deadly threat to small kittens and older animals. Symptoms of the disease are respiratory in nature. A sick pet has a hoarse voice and complete loss of voice. Ulcers are observed on the mucous membrane of the oral cavity, on the tongue, and on the tip of the nose. In severe cases, pneumonia develops.
Silence of an animal can occur as a result of a dangerous disease for humans - rabies. This rare and fatal disease causes the cat to lose his voice due to paralysis of the pharynx and larynx. The animal does not speak, refuses to eat, there is drooling, hydrophobia and photophobia. The most effective prevention of a dangerous disease is timely vaccination of your pet.
One of the non-infectious reasons why a cat is hoarse is otitis media. The inflammatory process that occurs in the animal's middle ear leads to the development of edema of the laryngeal mucosa. In this case, the cat or cat loses its vocal abilities until the voice completely disappears.
The cause of swelling of the larynx and, as a result, hoarseness and loss of voice, may be an allergy. Allergic edema reduces the lumen of the larynx, complicating the animal’s vocal abilities.
Hoarseness of the voice and its complete disappearance are often observed when the pet’s body is dehydrated. Your pet should have free access to water at all times. It is especially important to fulfill this condition when feeding your cat dry food.
Very often, the reasons why a cat has lost his voice, does not meow, or the animal’s voice is changed are injuries to the larynx, foreign objects in the oral cavity. The most common injury to a cat's larynx occurs with fish bones or inedible sharp objects. As a result of the penetration of a foreign body into the larynx, mechanical damage to the mucous membrane occurs, which is accompanied by swelling, which impedes vocal function.
"Harmless" reasons
If there is no mother and you want to eat
Weaning from mother
During the first days in a new home, the kitten will most likely miss its brothers and mother. The point is not even that he is bored alone, but the banal lack of maternal care. The presence of a mother cat nearby is very important for a baby even at 3 months, so the kitten will need time to adapt.
You can soften the process and speed it up in a simple way - take a toy or a blanket brought in advance from the breeder, which will smell familiar to the baby for some time. Also, do not leave your baby alone for a long time in the first week. Your care and attention will help your baby adapt.
IMPORTANT: when a kitten meows at night due to the absence of its mother, do not take it to bed; later it will be difficult to wean the kitten from sleeping in the same bed with you.
The mother always warms the kittens, but in a new home the baby may lack her physical warmth.
You can solve the problem by arranging a bed made of natural fabrics like a warm cocoon made of a towel, and for very small kittens you can place a heating pad under the bedding.
Stress from moving
Most often, this reason comes complete with longing for the mother. The space prepared for the baby and the same thing brought from the breeder with a familiar smell helps to smooth out the effect.
Attention and gentle play also help kittens reduce the stress of moving.
IMPORTANT: if there is already another pet in the house, then do not introduce the baby to it every day, let the kitten first get used to the very fact of changing housing, and then get acquainted with the neighbors.
Most often, hungry cats demand food by meowing. Kittens are no exception in this matter. Up to 8 months, all kittens are on fractional meals, so it is not surprising that once every 3 hours the baby becomes hungry again, and a rumbling tummy makes them give signals to the forgotten owner.
To eliminate this reason for vocalizing, teach the kitten to eat at the same time and in the same place. The cat shouldn't have a daily quest - find food. At the same time, keep a balanced diet, arrange fasting days on a light diet only when it is really necessary, and not for reasons of economy or “everyone is on a diet and you are on a diet.”
IMPORTANT: kittens quickly learn information, so they often become master manipulators right in childhood. Begging for tasty treats from a cowardly owner, even if you have just eaten, or hovering around your feet and heart-rendingly demanding something from the table during a human meal - for some pets this becomes a lifelong habit. Stop your cat from begging right away, otherwise all your dinners will be accompanied by cat accompaniment.
If you want to "talk"
An adult cat, when it wants to get attention from its owner, is more likely to bring a toy or climb into its arms. The kitten will rather insistently meow and spin around at your feet. At such moments, it really seems that the kitten is meowing for no reason. But as soon as you start playing with the baby or picking him up, the heart-rending meowing transforms into purring.
IMPORTANT: by nature the cat is a nocturnal animal, this is especially true in outbred purrs. Therefore, if you do not want to play with a meowing kitten in the middle of the night, monitor its sleep rhythm during the day. It is better to exhaust your furry pet in the evening and not let him sleep in the afternoon. This way you will gradually change your pet’s biological clock and the whole family will sleep at night.
The desire to relieve oneself
Kittens up to a month go to the toilet only with the help of their mother, who stimulates them in a special way. From a month to two months, kittens learn to go to the litter box with the cat. From two to three months the process already becomes independent. But when the kitten gets to its new home, it gets lost. Sometimes he simply cannot find the tray.
There are two ways to solve the problem: take the kitten to the toilet yourself or constantly arrange a promenade around the apartment so that the cat remembers this important path. There is another option: let the baby pee on the diaper for the first time, and then take it to the tray so that the pet can find its toilet area by smell. But there is a risk that the smell has already gotten onto the floor and the baby will pee in the place of the smell, or the kitten, on the contrary, will not want to go to the place where it still smells of its urine.
IMPORTANT: a kitten in a new home may pee, but not poop due to stress. If your new pet has not pooped within two days in its new home, then a piece of baby glycerin suppository will come to the rescue. Give the medicine to the baby rectally and after 30-40 minutes the kitten will go to the toilet and cleanse the intestines.
As cats grow older, their character also changes. Affectionate kittens during the period of hormonal changes can become aggressive or, on the contrary, become lethargic and apathetic. Most often, of course, activity and aggressiveness increases, the cat begins to jump around the house and often meows, hisses and in every possible way shows that he is no longer a fluffy ball, but a full-fledged adult animal.
Here you can either wait for the first heat or rut to pass, or castrate the animal in advance so that its hormonal concerts end before they begin.
IMPORTANT: all breeds mature at different rates. Outbred cats most often rebuild at 6-8 months, but some breeds can begin to mature at 14-15 months.
Factors leading to loss of voice in an animal include:
- Keeping an animal in a room where there is frequent smoking. Cigarette smoke contains high levels of irritating toxic substances that can cause laryngeal swelling in your pet. In this case, the cat often has a hoarse voice.
- The dryness of the air in a room or apartment, especially during the heating season, provokes irritation and dryness of the laryngeal mucosa, hoarseness, and sometimes leads to a complete loss of the cat’s voice.
- Respiratory poisoning of an animal by toxic fumes from paint coatings, organic solvents, and disinfectants. Spraying household aerosols, cosmetics (varnishes, deodorants, etc.) can also cause hoarseness in a cat.
- After anesthesia, the animal may become hoarse for a short period of time.
What a kitten's meowing could mean: 6 reasons
All domestic cats in the world speak the same language. In some situations, the cat's voice brings tenderness, in others it irritates. A kitten doesn't just meow. He gives his voice when he wants to communicate, ask or demand something.
Among the reasons that make a cat meow are the following:
- Adaptation to new living conditions. A kitten adapts to coexistence with a person when its mother teaches it. Personality is fully formed when the cub spends up to 100 days of age interacting with its mother and littermates. Even in this case, it takes 2-3 days to get used to the new conditions. When a baby appears in the house, during the daytime he feels increased attention to himself and explores new places. But when night comes and everyone falls asleep, the kitten experiences stress and remembers its mother. He tries to find her and calls her all the time.
- The cat is a solitary night hunter. The biological clock is set for daytime sleep and nighttime activity. If the owners do nothing to coordinate the cat’s life rhythm with theirs, sleepless nights await them.
- The animal slept in the evening, he is bored and wants to play.
- Hunger.
- The animal felt that family members treated him differently. Some household members allow him something, others prohibit him. If there is a row in the family, the pet tries to take advantage of the situation and take a higher place in the hierarchy of the pride.
- The kitten is sick and asks for help.
The owner of a kitten needs to learn to understand the language his pet speaks. Act strictly but fairly in order to gain the authority of the dominant individual in the human-cat family.
What to do if your cat has lost his voice
In a situation where a cat has lost its voice, what to do is the first question that puzzles the animal owner. First of all, you need to closely monitor your pet. It is possible that loss of voice is not the only symptom. You should not put off a visit to a veterinarian.
If there is no complete loss of voice, but the cat is hoarse, a veterinarian will also tell you what to do in this situation after examining the animal and finding out the causes of hoarseness. If the cause of the symptom is unfavorable environmental factors (smoky room, foreign odors, use of paints and varnishes, etc.), the animal should be taken out into the fresh air and given milk to drink. After providing first aid, your pet should be shown to a veterinarian to rule out more dangerous causes of muteness.
There are many factors and reasons why a cat’s voice has changed. The owner of the animal should closely monitor changes in the behavior of the pet and, if hoarseness or complete absence of voice is detected, take measures to determine the causes of this symptom. You should not self-medicate a domestic cat or kitten, since the animal should be assisted by a qualified specialist.
Silent from birth
There are as many characters as there are cats - perhaps you just became the owner of a particularly taciturn kitten. If the baby eats well, plays well, and there are no strange things observed in his behavior, the chances that he simply does not like to communicate using his voice are very high. Perhaps, over time, the kitten will become more sociable and will begin to remind itself of itself by loud meowing. There are also “dumb” cats that never vocalize. If the health of the animal is not in doubt, then the owners can only accept it.
Some cat breeds are especially silent - for example, phlegmatic Persians, short-legged munchkins. Many representatives of the Scottish Fold breed, as well as Maine Coons, are taciturn.
If a kitten is picked up on the street, perhaps he is simply afraid to make his voice, trying not to attract unnecessary attention to himself. If the new owners are affectionate and patient, the baby will soon begin to trust them.
You can often see cats opening their mouths silently - it is believed that these animals are able to communicate with each other in the ultrasonic range, emitting sounds of a frequency that people cannot perceive. The kitten, having become accustomed to communicating in this way with its mother, tries to “talk” to people, not yet realizing that it is not being heard.
If you are still alarmed by something in the behavior of an excessively silent pet, it is worth checking his hearing - deaf cats can either meow loudly, often and out of place, or not make any sounds at all.
Colds, infections, viruses
A cat, like a person, is susceptible to colds; it can be attacked by numerous infections and viruses. The main route of transmission of such ailments is airborne; often the disease occurs in an animal due to its long stay in unfavorable weather conditions, from hypothermia or exposure to a draft.
A cat will not be able to fully meow if it has signs of illness:
- Otitis or inflammation of the ear - the development of a pathological process in the animal’s ear is accompanied by severe pain, it can affect the larynx, where the animal’s speech apparatus is located, which makes it much more difficult for it to reproduce sounds;
- Sore throat, when the disease occurs, characteristic signs arise - the animal’s voice begins to disappear; if you open its mouth and examine it, swelling and inflammation of the mucous membranes, the presence of a sufficient amount of mucus covering the vocal cords will be noticeable;
- Rhinotracheitis, signs that can be suspected are discharge from the eyes and nose, first serous, then mucous, purulent; the cause of its development is infection with feline herpesvirus type 1;
- Calicivirus is a viral pathology in which ulcers of a watery structure appear on the pet’s larynx and tongue, the process is accompanied by severe pain, the animal loses the ability to swallow food and make sounds.
The cat becomes lethargic, may open its mouth silently, refuse to eat for several days, its nose may become dry - such symptoms are a reason for an urgent visit to the veterinary clinic, examination of the animal, and prescription of medications. shutterstock
Blocking of the pharynx with a foreign object
An object, a piece of food, or a sharp bone getting stuck in a cat's throat is a common reason why she loses her voice or develops severe hoarseness. The situation is complicated by the fact that the animal is not only unable to independently free itself from a foreign body, its fear, desperate, instinctive attempts to remove the object by coughing or vomiting lead to severe trauma to the tissues of the respiratory organs, larynx, and esophagus. The presence of such damage contributes to the development of inflammatory processes and can lead to prolonged absence of voice.
Upper respiratory tract infection
Since the larynx is part of the upper respiratory tract, laryngitis is included in this group of conditions. However, there are many different infections that can affect the upper respiratory tract and cause a cat to lose her voice. One of these infections is the common cold, a problem not directly caused by cold weather but potentially exacerbated by it. Often a cat will only have a runny nose, but many other symptoms will not appear. Voice loss usually occurs only in acute cases.
Cat flu is another type of upper respiratory tract infection, but it is much more worrisome. What we call cat flu is usually caused by two viruses: feline herpes virus (HVF-1) and feline calcivirus (FCV). Feline herpes virus causes a condition known as rhinotracheitis, which is both highly contagious and potentially life-threatening. Since the problems are viral in nature, there is no cure for the virus itself. However, we can help treat associated symptoms and strengthen their immune system.
