Hi everyone,
We adopted a very energetic kitten a few months ago who is now 9 months old. Ever since he was a tiny kitten, he has sometimes panted when playing intensely because he doesn’t seem to know when to stop. At the time, it was quite rare and only happened after a lot of effort, so our vet told us not to worry.
However, since the summer heat arrived, we’ve become more concerned. We live in a top-floor flat where the temperature reached between 30 and 33°C during the recent heatwaves. During that time, he was panting very frequently, sometimes several times an hour (up to ten times).
His behaviour is usually the same: he plays and runs around despite the heat, stops to pant, then immediately starts running again as soon as he’s recovered slightly, which triggers another panting episode. It’s worrying us a lot, especially since our other cat never pants. He can also spend the whole day sleeping and then start panting again at the slightest effort.
What also concerns us is that even when the temperatures drop to 20-25°C, the problem doesn’t completely go away. He pants less than in the middle of a heatwave, but playing for just a few seconds with him or getting him to jump for 10 to 30 seconds is enough to make him start panting. Before the hot weather, it took a much bigger effort to cause this, especially as the temperatures have been lower for a week now.
To help him, we’ve tried several things: a cooling mat, wet food to help his hydration, four water stations around the flat, and even air conditioning. Despite all this, we haven’t seen any real improvement.
We’ve also seen our vet. A chest X-ray and blood tests were done, and the results were normal. We were then referred to another vet for a heart scan, which was also reassuring. According to them, he’s likely healthy and just struggles to regulate himself when he’s overexcited or exerted.
Despite these reassuring tests, we’re still finding it hard to feel completely at ease. Have any of you had a cat that reacted like this? Is it possible he’s just very high-energy and simply can’t regulate himself?
Thanks in advance for any feedback or stories you can share.
