The cat has lost her voice - how can I help her continue to lead a normal life?

02/25/2021 17,042 Diseases and treatment of cats

Author: Olga

Each cat has its own character. It often manifests itself in her “talkativeness.” There are pets that constantly try to attract attention by purring or meowing. But even if a cat doesn’t vocalize often, as soon as he loses it, any owner will notice it. The article discusses the reasons why a cat loses its voice and provides recommendations for solving this problem.

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Possible reasons

The reasons for loss of voice in cats can be different. They can be not serious, which can be easily gotten rid of at home, or they can be caused by dangerous diseases. For proper treatment, it is important to find out the exact cause.

Sore throat, otitis and other infectious diseases

One of the following diseases can cause a cat to lose his voice:

1. With otitis media, when a cat's ear becomes inflamed, he may lose the ability to meow for a short or long time.
2. Rhinotracheitis is a viral disease that affects the organs of vision and respiratory tract, thereby affecting vocal functions. If treated correctly, functions are restored.
3. There is another viral disease that causes loss of voice - calicivirus. It is accompanied by the appearance of painful ulcers on the mucous membranes of the nasopharynx and larynx. Painful sensations are the cause of muteness in a cat.
4. If your pet has undergone surgery under full anesthesia. It should not be surprising that after recovering from anesthesia, the animal may be so weakened that it is unable to meow. This may last several days. At first, your voice may be hoarse.
5. After a flu or cold, your cat may develop viral laryngitis, which may cause her to stop meowing. With this disease, the mucous membranes of the larynx become inflamed, swelling of the larynx appears. Mucus forms near the vocal cords, which makes it difficult for the animal to produce sounds.

Foreign object in the throat

All pets are very nimble at an early age, so they need to be closely monitored so that they do not harm themselves. Kittens, like puppies, love to taste everything to understand what kind of object they found. Sometimes these tests end with the kitten swallowing a foreign body or object.

The consequences of this can be different:

• intestinal obstruction;
• internal organ injury;
• mechanical damage to the pharynx when swallowing a bone, sewing needle or sharp objects.

Mechanical damage to the pharynx can affect the upper respiratory tract, and the esophagus can also be affected. To avoid such problems, you need to monitor what your pet plays with. Toys must be safe for the health of the animal.

Dehydration as a Cause of Dry Mouth

Sometimes there are situations when animal owners provide their pets with everything they need, but do not give them free access to water. In this case, dehydration may occur. At the same time, dryness occurs in the cat's mouth, which does not allow him to meow. When dehydrated, cats become lethargic, weak, and dizzy. To avoid these problems, your cat should have a special bowl of clean drinking water. Water should be changed regularly and always be accessible.

Poisoning by toxic fumes - if the cat wheezes and vomits

Signs of poisoning by toxic fumes are the appearance of hoarseness, loss of voice, and nausea. Toxic fumes can come from varnishes, paints, solvents, disinfectants and other chemicals with toxic fumes. Animal access to various chemicals should be limited. A cat does not have to taste these substances to become poisoned; simply inhale the toxic fumes.

During repairs, it is better to place the pet in another room or give it to friends to protect it from toxic fumes. Also, when walking, it is better to prefer places away from polluted places and roads. Even hairspray can cause poisoning in a cat. Therefore, it is better to do your hair in a room where there is no pet.

It is very harmful for a cat’s body when the room has insufficient humidity and too dry air. Cigarette smoke has a negative impact on the health of pets. A cat may become hoarse if it is in a room where there is frequent smoking. Nicotine smoke has a detrimental effect on the vocal cords. The animal's larynx dries out. This increases the risk of contracting infectious and viral diseases.

If you discover poisoning in a cat, you should show it to a specialist, and before that, the pet needs to drink plenty of water. It's better to give him milk to drink.

Rabies

An animal can lose its voice if it becomes infected with a dangerous disease such as rabies. This is one of the characteristic signs of the disease. The disease affects the nervous system, causes irreversible processes and leads to death. Rabies is dangerous because people can get it from their pets. Rabies infection can occur long before a cat loses its voice.

The disease has the following symptoms:

• aggressive, inappropriate behavior;
• copious amounts of saliva;
• loss of activity, lethargy, inhibited movements;
• refusal to eat or lack of appetite;
• fear of light, water;
• in advanced stages, paralysis of the limbs appears.

While an animal is sick, all living beings, including people, are at risk. It is no longer possible to save an infected cat, but you should consult a doctor immediately to avoid infecting other animals and people.

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Description

The appearance of hoarseness is a disruption in the functioning of the vocal cords, swelling of the throat, and the growth of a tumor when it puts pressure on surrounding tissues. The voice may change - it becomes rattling, hoarse. Symptoms appear periodically or constantly. Sometimes the voice disappears completely. This may be preceded by anesthesia (used during the period of sterilization, castration, and other operations). While the pet returns to consciousness, it is weak and cannot make sounds. This condition goes away on its own without treatment.

Treatment Options

If any problems with the voice are detected (the appearance of hoarseness in the voice or its disappearance), you should immediately begin to find out the reasons for this and treat it. First of all, you need to examine the room where the animal is located. Perhaps regular ventilation is enough, for example, after smoking. All chemicals that may be a source of toxic fumes should be removed.

Contacting a veterinarian

If all the described measures have been taken and the problem with the voice remains, you should seek help from a veterinarian. He will determine why the cat has lost his voice and prescribe the appropriate medications.

A specialist must remove a foreign object from the throat. If you extract it yourself, you can injure the animal, damage the vocal cords, and in this case the cat may lose its voice forever. Once the item is removed, proper care should be provided at home. You may need to treat wounds with prescribed products. This depends on the severity of the damage.

If the cause of voice loss is an infectious or viral disease, the veterinarian will prescribe appropriate treatment based on the causes that caused it and the stage at which the disease is located. If injections are prescribed, you can do them yourself or bring the animal to the clinic.

It is important that a doctor prescribes medicine to treat infectious diseases. The disease can be caused by different pathogens, each of which is treated with a specific drug.

Examination and treatment at home

Before contacting a veterinarian, you should examine the animal’s larynx yourself. If it is determined that the cause of the vocal dysfunction is mechanical damage to the larynx due to a foreign object getting into it, it is necessary to fix the cat’s head and jaw. It must be fixed so that the item does not cause additional damage. The animal must be taken to a veterinary hospital immediately.

If, upon examination, swelling of the mucous membranes is detected in a cat, pain can be relieved with the help of antihistamines, such as Suprastin, Claritin, Tavigil, Diazolin, etc. The sick animal must be shown to a doctor so that he can prescribe treatment.

Keeping pets in the home entails responsibility for their health. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly monitor the behavior of animals. If something unusual is found in their behavior, you should find out why the pet behaves this way. Particular attention should be paid to changes in behavior related to the health of the animal: lethargy, lack of appetite, loss of voice or the appearance of hoarseness.

You should not delay treatment; you should immediately consult a doctor.

Why does a cat have no voice from birth?

If your pet refuses to meow, this does not mean that the kitten does not have a voice. There are more talkative and completely silent cat breeds. They behave quietly:

• British;
• Scots;
• Maine Coons;
• Norwegian forest;
• Siberian;
• Cornish Rex;
• Devon Rex.

Of course, there may be exceptions here, but among these breeds there were often cases when cats did not meow for 10-15 years, they only purred. And in old age, animals used to become overly talkative.

There is no need to look for reasons for a cat’s deafness or muteness; deaf cats meow beautifully, but dumb cats are practically never found. Most often, if a cat doesn't meow, he just doesn't want to do it. And there is no need to worry about silence, unlike situations when the voice suddenly disappeared.

However, even here the “muteness” may turn out to be transitory, and if the kitten meowed “something wrong” a couple of times, and then everything was restored, this is not a reason to worry.

So, wondering why the cat lost his voice makes sense solely out of curiosity. If you are afraid of illness, then the animal will show more noticeable symptoms, except for missing sounds. And to protect your pet from the deadly disease rabies, just get vaccinated annually.

Video “The cat lost his voice”

This video features a cat who has lost his voice.

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Preventive actions

1. Avoid keeping your pet in drafts.
2. Get a course of preventive vaccinations against viral pathologies at the veterinary clinic (if you haven’t done it before).
3. During repairs, if possible, move the cat to friends or family.
4. Do not spray spray cans near the animal.
5. Be careful when choosing detergents. Provide sufficient water and normal humidity levels in the room.
6. Do not leave small objects on the floor or tables that could get stuck in the throat of a curious person.

Sometimes cats stop "talking" because they get tired. After conducting an independent examination, consulting with a veterinarian and finding no signs of illness, leave your pet alone for a while. Be gentle, pet her, feed her as usual, and soon her voice will return. The cat will continue to delight you with purrs and meows.

Video on the topic

All cats communicate using their voice, and although people do not speak cat language, by the intonation of the said “meow” you can still understand the pet’s insistence. But what if the cat lost his voice and his behavior changed? As a rule, a cat’s loss of voice is influenced by a number of circumstances, knowing which it will be easier for the owner to help the pet.

Varieties

If the owners find that the cat wheezes when he breathes, wheezing and other pathological noises are recorded, then it is worth taking the pet to the veterinarian. Such a violation is divided into several types, presented in the table:

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.

The owner himself can help the pet - after securely fixing the animal with tweezers, you can try to remove the object from the throat. The owner's movements should be as careful as possible. If you are not confident in the safety of independent manipulations, you need to consult a specialist. To prevent the development of a dangerous situation, it is necessary to check the cat’s diet, avoid the presence of bones or larger pieces in the food, and do not leave small household items in the animal’s free access.

If the kitten meows hoarsely and makes strange sounds

When a kitten is hoarse, owners often assume it has a sore throat, but acute tonsillitis in cats is very rare. The most common cause of hoarseness is infections that affect the respiratory organs. These are viral diseases:

• rhinotracheitis;
• calicivirus,

and protozoal diseases:

• chlamydia;
• mycoplasmosis.

When hoarseness or loss of voice occurs, owners usually complain of decreased appetite, discharge from the nose and eyes, and general lethargy. Kittens may cough and sneeze.

These diseases can be treated. Only rhinotracheitis cannot be cured completely. It is caused by one of the viruses of the herpes family: once it settles in the body, it remains for life.

With any weakening of the animal’s immunity, the virus begins to become active, and this may be manifested by periodic hoarseness of the voice. If, in addition to hoarseness, there are signs of ill health in your cat, visit your veterinarian.

If the kitten squeaks rather than meows, pay attention to the patient's age. In kittens up to three months of age, squeaking is the norm, because children also do not immediately master a stately baritone voice.