Cats are masters of concealing pain, making recognition challenging for owners and veterinarians alike. Validated pain assessment tools are transforming feline welfare in clinical practice.
The undertreatment of feline pain represents one of the most significant welfare failures in companion animal medicine. Cats in pain rarely vocalize or show obvious distress — instead they become quiet, withdrawn, and reduce activity in ways often mistaken for normal aging. The Feline Grimace Scale gives veterinary teams and trained owners an objective way to detect acute pain that has transformed post-operative care. Recognizing chronic pain requires behavioral history-taking: has the cat stopped jumping to previously favored spots? Has grooming declined? Does it resist handling of specific areas? Effective multimodal analgesia combining NSAIDs (where safe), gabapentin, and environmental modifications dramatically improves quality of life for cats with chronic pain conditions.