Chronic pain in cats is vastly underdiagnosed and undertreated. Understanding how cats express pain differently from dogs and humans is essential to recognising and responding to ongoing suffering in feline companions.
Chronic feline pain represents a welfare crisis that largely operates below the threshold of owner and veterinary awareness. A cat experiencing daily pain from osteoarthritis, dental disease, or chronic cystitis provides few of the obvious signals that alert owners to suffering in dogs: vocalisations are rare, appetite changes are subtle, and activity reduction is attributed to "age" or "personality." Pain assessment scales developed specifically for cats — which focus on facial expressions, posture, and subtle behavioural changes — are rarely used in routine practice. The consequence is that millions of cats experience years of unmanaged chronic pain that could be substantially reduced with appropriate treatment. The expanded pharmacological toolkit for feline pain — gabapentin, frunevetmab, carefully monitored NSAIDs — means that pain management is increasingly achievable where it was once limited by lack of safe options. The welfare imperative is proactive identification: screening for pain in all middle-aged and older cats should be standard practice.