Thread: Panting after running

Originally Posted by deovolens

When Minos was young it happened some times, now he is running his "triathlon" every day.It's very normal


Look I can fly

awesome :D


Mine does free-running haha, I have a matress on it's side in my room (Instead of throwing it out, I use it as a punching bag for fitness, saved me £100's for a good bag!) well... my cat runs along it, on it's side, even spins around on it. I also got a huge box that my new pc came in too which he dives into. Basically his routine is...

Run on the side of the matress - Jump into box, play with the dog rope - jump out, jump on bed, run around and wrestle on bed - jump off to bed, run around under bed... and he does it a good 4-5 times before the 10 second pant comes, then he repeats till he flakes out for a few hours :P

Open mouth breathing (panting) in cats means that they are trying to get more oxygen to their lungs. In can be a symptom of heart problems (my Pikachu has HCM/CHF and if he is open mouth breathing it can mean he has a build-up of fluid in his lungs and he needs an extra dose of lasix) but in an otherwise healthy, active kitty if it is brief and only happening after vigorous playing, he probably just over-exerted himself and is catching his breath, like we do after a run or something.

Good on you for checking his respiration rates! As a vet-tech I always recommend that people do that at home, it is really useful to know what your pet's baseline vitals are, especially for cats since they will always be high when they are at the vet's office it is good to be able to confirm that they are normal at home.