I was told yesterday: old people can’t get new pets. No details, like how old, what kind of pets, who would be enforcing such a rule, what if there are contingency plans in place, and so on. Just straight-up anti-age bigotry. I didn’t bother to have a discussion with this person about it. I may have snickered.
A friend of mine in his mid eighties adopted one young cat and then another, from a shelter. He reasoned that he could live another 10 years, and having time in his house was better than anything else these cats were guaranteed. He lived several more years but not 10, and I wound up adopting them.
For the cats, this is often a life and death issue. I’m not certain how to think about it.
As for who would be enforcing this - it would be wherever you are trying to get the pet from. I don’t have any experience with breeders, but a lot of rescue groups have what I think are somewhat crazy rules, including requiring that you agree to let them visit your home both before and after the adoption , that you agree that they can take the animal back if they don’t think you are caring for it properly and that you will return the pet to the shelter rater than re-homing it yourself if you can no longer care for it. It would not surprise me at all if some of these places would not allow someone to adopt based solely on their age. I’m pretty sure actual pet stores wouldn’t care.
That’s an interesting perspective. I have a little experience working with shelters but none with rescue groups. They are often portrayed as the saviors of animals that are not easy to re-home, so I guess it makes a little sense that they are extremely protective of the animals. Considering how some animals are treated, most of the conditions that you specified don’t seem that crazy to me. I wonder if they want to see your will to see what happens to your animals if you die.
Around here the shelters seem to be trying to actively get older people to take older pets. They advertise a sort of Senior Pets for Seniors program. – googling on that phrase brings up a lot of such programs, using variations on that sort of wording.
I’m sorry, I meant to include shelters along with rescue groups since I’ve seen both with these rules. I didn’t include all the rules. But I do think it’s crazy to expect people to allow the shelter/rescue to demand to see the dog and take it back at any point in the future - a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now.
Sometimes, rescue groups/shelters are protective of the animals - and other times , the needs of the people running the group are at least as important as the needs of the animals. It happens in all sorts of non-profits and animal groups wouldn’t be any different. .
I have two cats that are nearly 14 years old, and I’ve been considering whether I want to adopt another. I’m 69, and it never occurred to me that I might have trouble doing so because of my age.
If you’re trying to get kittens but having trouble getting any from a shelter, but you live anywhere near dairy farms, wait till around June and go ask. (While kittens may be born any time of year, February is prime mating season, kits will be born around April. You need to get them old enough to wean, but they may be semi-feral, so you want them young enough to tame: 2 to 4 months, not older unless the particular farm handles their cats a lot. First stop should be a previously-made appointment at the vet.; farm cats are often not vaccinated for anything, and very rarely for as many things as they should be.)
So, did you? It’s no big deal. And my wife had both a knee and a hip replacement during Covid, no problems.
I’ve had 3 or 4 colonoscopies. My only problem is drinking the damn liquid.
Our cat died yesterday at 17 years old.
He was a farm cat, but was checked out, wormed, flea’d and neutered the first day we had him. Couldn’t have been a better friend.
We’re both 71. I had a new knee four weeks ago, and Mrs I is in hospital today having her gallbladder removed.
Should we have another cat? Probably, but not just yet. It’ll be an older rescue cat: don’t want kitten drama at our time of life.
A friend of ours was widowed at 82; got a rescue cat for company. It cost a fortune in vet bills, and had to be put down after 3 years. But it had a good life, and they were very good for each other, which is what matters.
If you need a cat, you need a cat!
Certified Crazy Cat Lady here - I have 16. Only 4 of those are barn cats, the rest are house cats with their own cat-safe fenced paddock.
I recently adopted a kitten (because I needed 12 house cats, not just 11 
), and it occurred to me the other day that I will be well into my mid 70s when her life comes to a natural end. I don’t like the thought of never being able to have another kitten in my life 
So my next project is to set up a trust, plan, and will for my animals so that when I’m gone they are safe and cared for. I have a lot of other animals, but the cats pose the biggest challenge because few people actually choose to adopt senior cats with health issues, and adult cats aren’t much easier to find good safe homes for.
I cannot imagine a life not surrounded by animals, especially cats.
I’m very sorry!
but glad that you and he had that 17 years.
Yes.
None of us, at any age, knows how long we have. And three good years is three good years.
– I’m 70, with heart problems. I’d been thinking that maybe the next cat (I nearly always have three or four at a time) should be an older cat; but when the one who showed up meowing at the door two years ago was not quite full grown, well, he was the one who was meowing at the door. (And now there’s another cat intermittently around, who won’t let me near him, but does meow at me from a distance. I don’t know yet whether he’s going to move on. Sounds like a tomcat, and this is February; he might live around here someplace.)
Thanks for asking!
Yes, I broke down and took my butt to the doctor. She referred me for a colonoscopy, so I expect to be setting up the appointment this week. 
I feel so grown-up now.
I’m in my mid-70s, and my cat, Vienna, is 15. I have it in my will that when I pass, my cousin will get custody of whichever cat(s) I have at the time.
The last cat I adopted was already 7 at the time, and lived another 9 years. If I adopt another, it will definitely be another senior.
Good for you. I hope your results are as clean as mine.
My first one was a less intensive one where I was awake for the procedure. (It wasn’t a colonoscopy, it was something else.) I got the see live video of my insides. That was cool.
And no, I didn’t see a tiny submarine with Raquel Welch swimming alongside.
We’re all geezers here, so I bet everyone will get that reference.
When my gallbladder was removed laparoscopically, my surgeon told me afterwards how complicated it was. He was glad he recorded it. I was offered to the chance to view it, but declined. I would have loved to watch a cholecystectomy similar to mine, but couldn’t view mine for some reason.
I hear you! And this is a curious phenomenon, isn’t it?
I watched with considerable interest many years ago when I had sliced through a thumbnail, and the ER doctor numbed my thumb and cut the nail off with a scalpel.
But nowadays I don’t even want to watch my blood draw. And when I went through a great deal of spinal trouble (cervical fusion, lumbar laminectomy, spinal cord and root damage) I got particularly upset thinking about the spine. It bothered me to look at anonymous diagrams.
Which isn’t a good situation. We make much better medical advocates for ourselves if we are comfortable digging in.
Sigmoidoscopy perhaps? I had one of those once but I thought it was decided (after I had mine of course) that they were not much use.
When they did my heart catheterization and stent placement a few years ago I was only mildly sedated and theoretically could have been watching the monitor during the procedure. Except they took off my glasses, so everything was a big blur. It was interesting hearing the doctors discussing how things were going, and deciding that there was sufficient blockage to warrant placing two stents.
I was perfectly fine with being completely unconscious when they decided to treat my kidney stone by placing a stent and then removing it a few weeks later.
When mine was done I was told I was given fentanyl. Wooooeeee! I was into that idea. But they must have given an infinitesimally small dose, as I felt nothing. I even asked for more. “Are you in pain?” “No.” “Then no.”