What caused our cats to die?

[ClassicMotorNut]

About 1½ years ago my beloved 7y/o moggy passed away. I had been having a great time at Wheels Day and when I returned home I noticed he was limping. My mother said he had been doing that most of the day, but I hadn't seen him in the morning. Over the evening he just began to move less and less and, because it was Good Friday, we decided to rush him to the bloody emergency vets. He was going to spend the night there but sadly he had some seizures in the night and died. The vet thinks it was something neurological but could not be sure without having taken a really expensive MRI scan.

Anyway, last week one of my mates had his cat die at the same age and of the same cause. He didn't have a clue why, so he asked on Yahoo Answers but only received sympathetic, but ultimately unhelpful answers, and a tirade of abuse from a complete 'tard.

Pistonheads probably isn't the right place to come for serious info on cats, but just in case anyone does have a clue why these deaths happened, could you please relpy with some info?

[Simpo Two]

Blood poisoning?

[Heathwood]

I've heard some people who hate cats lace treats with anti freeze :-(

[Rosun]

Good Friday?
Easter was warm this year I think.
Might have been a snake bite (not cider and lager).
Lost a cat a couple of years ago to the same.

Sorry for your loss.

[Mastodon2]

A couple of strokes could do that to a cat. A smaller one causing the limp or loping gait, then a bigger one causing seizure as the brain is destroyed later in the day. A snake bite does not sound unfeasible either, but if your friend's cat just suffered the same symptoms in December then I doubt your friends cat was killed by a snake bite.

[otolith]

Antifreeze poisoning causes a slow death from kidney failure, doesn't sound likely in this case.

[ClassicMotorNut]

Thanks guys. I think a stroke was the most likely cause, having looked up the symptoms. We now have two 'successors' (not replacements as someone had the cheek to call them): http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a... Caturday - Post Some Cats (Vol 2)

[Thevet]

Sorry to hear what happened to your cat, but I don't think there is enough info to give any meaningful idea of the cause, and I don't think an MRI would have been any use, especially as your cat passed away overnight. The best way would have been to get a professional post-mortem, not something a vet surgery can offer in-house, although they can easily arrange it. I'm sorry that there's no easy answer, maybe I could offer more insight if I'd seen the cat, but all speculative. I hope you don't see the same syndrome again.

[lenats31]

Could be that the cat received a wound to the leg some days before and inflamation had occured. Inflamation can kill a cat.

[Gwagon111]

We've had a few cats that have been attacked by Badgers lately round my way. One of my neighbours cats was killed outright by a Badger attack, my cat was lucky to survive an attack last week. I actually saw the fking thing going for him. The Badger got a swift kick to the head, my (injured) cat got lucky.

[ClassicMotorNut]

Thanks for all your help and sympathy. Looks like this might just remain a mystery.

[ClassicMotorNut]

Could be, custodian, but I'm not sure we'll ever know. Thanks anyway.