Your Kitten: 12 Months Old

Mental and Physical Development

How Do I Know If My Kitten Is Overweight? In order to determine if your kitten is overweight, you must first physically assess her and ask yourself the following questions:

- When placing both your hands around your kitten's chest, is it difficult to feel their ribs without having to use too much pressure?

- When looking at your kitten from above, can you see curve from the ribs to the abdomen, producing an oval shape?

-As your run your hand underneath your kitten, from the rib cage to the abdomen, does her abdomen sag or hang down behind the ribs?

If you answered "yes" to any or all of these questions, then your kitten most likely has a weight problem. Since all kittens are different in terms of their caloric requirements, it can be challenging to gauge how much to feed, since the guidelines printed on food packages are just that - guidelines. Your kitten may require more or less food than the recommended allowances, which is why it is important to perform monthly body condition assessments, using the above criteria, to ensure your kitten's proper feeding and weight gain.

Check with your veterinarian if you need further guidance on how much to feed your kitten.

Changes in Diet At 12 months of age, your young cat should be eating an adult cat food diet. While young cats at this age still have a bit of physical growth before they are completely mature, they no longer need the high amounts of fats and calories in kitten foods. If you have not already done so, gradually change your cat's diet to a premium high-quality cat food at this time.

The amount of food that your young cat requires each day depends on the cat's breed and size, but you can use the suggested feeding amount on your cat's food bag as a guide. Regardless of your cat's size, you can either free feed your cat or feed your cat two or three times a day.

Free feeding - when the food is left out -- is best for young cats that like to nibble throughout the day, and twice-a-day feedings are recommended for young cats that gobble all their food in one sitting.

Health and Veterinary Care: Hyperthyroidism

Hyperthyroidism is a very common condition in older cats. In this disease, the thyroid gland becomes overactive, which speeds up the cat's metabolism and eventually leads to liver or heart failure.

At one year of age, your young cat is not yet at risk -- but you should be aware of this disease, because there is a real possibility that she will be diagnosed with it one day.

The disease strikes middle- to old-age cats. All cats should have a blood screening test performed annually starting at seven years of age. The clinical signs of this disease include weight loss even though the appetite is normal, gastrointestinal upset, hyperactivity and yowling at nighttime.

Luckily, hyperthyroidism is a very treatable disease. It can be managed with medication or surgery, and it can be cured with an injection of radioactive iodine, a procedure that is performed only at certain specialty facilities.

Training: Pack Rat Disorder Young cats can develop a number of psychological problems that are more commonly associated with people -- and in many cases, the behavior begins at approximately 12 months of age. Young cats may develop anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders or a puzzling and rare disorder where they have an urge to collect and hide certain objects, known as pack rat disorder.

Pack rat cats usually have a favorite object that they like to collect: toys, socks, gloves, pencils or pens, and even specific types of silverware such as only forks or only spoons. These cats will go to great lengths to collect and drag their object to a favored secret location, and they become upset if their hidden goodies are disturbed. While this type of behavior is certainly odd, it is harmless, and most cats with this condition are perfectly normal in all other ways.