What might cause sudden and (seemingly) painful death of a cat?

Poisoning, a heart attack or a stroke would seem most likely.

Poison?

@dalepetrie I don’t think cats and dogs really have heart attacks.
@CaptainHarley I thought that might be it. Maybe something around the house she got into? It just seems so odd that she died so suddenly, especially for not being a very old cat.

@ANef_is_Enuf Actually, cats can essentially have heart attacks. That link also lists other cause of sudden death in cats. Did your mom’s cat go outside? Is it possible that it could have been hit by a car? Cats can be hit by cars and not show any external injuries yet have internal injuries that are serious enough to kill them. My Bugsy got hit by a car once and there was nothing externally that would have indicated it except for a broken tooth and frayed claws, which I learned later can be a sign of a cat being hit by a car. Then a few hours after he came home, he peed and his urine was bloody so I took him to the emergency vet. The vet said that it could either be a bruised kidney or possibly a fractured pelvis and the bone could have have punctured his kidney. Luckily, the x-rays showed that it was just a bruised kidney. But several days later I noticed a lump in his side and it turned out that car hit had caused a rupture in his peritoneum and one of his organs, god I don’t remember which one, was basically starting to “leak” out of the tear so he had to go in for surgery to fix it. Is it possible that your mother’s cat could have suffered some sort of traumatic injury?

@lillycoyote my grandma, not my mom. No, she was an indoor cat. If she went outside, it was literally only on the patio. She wouldn’t go any further than that, she’d roll around on the patio a few times and hop back in the house… and she has never been outside unattended.

O.K. Sorry about the grandma thing. I’m also very sorry about her cat. I not always good with the details. I don’t know then. Well, the most likely thing is heart disease, some undiagnosed disease process, but poisoning is possible. Can your grandmother think of anything new that she might have brought into the house recently that the cat might have gotten into? It seems unlikely that an 11 year old cat would suddenly get into something that’s been around the house for a long time. Sometimes you’ve just never know. My Bugsy eventually died at 18 and it wasn’t old age. And he had a very well documented medical history and it wasn’t anything that was in his history. He just got weaker and weaker and his blood count got lower and lower and I had all the tests done and they never could figure out what was wrong with him.

Nope, no clue. My grandmother’s English isn’t the greatest, but the only thing she mentioned was that the cat was “off” for the last few days.
I mean, I don’t expect anyone to know for sure how she died, of course. I know that we can’t do a virtual necropsy via Fluther. I have just owned cats all of my life, and I have never heard of a cat just keeling over without any sign of illness or injury before that.

Blood clot.

I don’t know why a cat couldn’t have a heart attack. Basically any part of a living creature can fail. One of ours had a bad heart and died at about age 5. Another had something like a stroke that paralyzed his hind legs; he died not long afterward. My son’s white rat apparently died of a heart attack.

@Jeruba I didn’t say they can’t have a heart attack, I just didn’t think it really happened very often.

At least according to this article, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, is the most common type of heart disease in cats, and it is apparently the most frequent cause of sudden death in adult indoor cats, and that sadly, the first symptom a cat may have of the disease is death. I suspect trauma is the most frequent cause of sudden death in outdoor cats. @ANef_is_Enuf You might want to research hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I have had cats my whole life too, and I have never had one simply keel over and die, but as mentioned above, one of my cats did die of undetermined causes.

@lillycoyote thanks.

@ANef_is_Enuf You’re welcome. Again, I am so sorry about your grandma’s cat. I am always sorry when someone’s beloved pet dies and I am doubly sorry when someone’s grandma gets her heart broken because of the loss of her beloved companion.

@lillycoyote it hit me, I can’t lie. It’s a running joke in the family that her cat was possessed by Satan. Just because she is the meanest cat you can imagine. She was only nice to my grandmother, everyone else she would hiss and yowl and swat at. If you weren’t careful, she’d come running out of nowhere and attack your feet… and she wasn’t playing.
But, my sister and I were talking about it today, and that became sort of an endearing quality about her. Yeah, she was mean.. and for no apparent reason, but it was amusing most of the time. It was also sweet how she could go from a hissing furball of evil, and turn into a sweet little kitten the moment she was in my grandmother’s lap.
Plus, my grandma cried. That was sad. :\

@ANef_is_Enuf My best friend has a cat like that. That creature is the devil incarnate and would rip your face to shreds, then tear your heart out of your chest just for sport, if you got close enough to her to let her do it, but she is an absolute fur ball of love when it comes to my friend. It is kind of hilarious.

@lillycoyote right, that is exactly how this cat was. She was so mean, but over the years it became comical.

I would imagine any animal can have a coronary. A friend of my husband just lost his dog to a heart attack. He seemed fine, went outside to the garden, made a strange noise and was dead by the time they got to him. So, I suspect it was her heart. How awful for your grandma.

Poor kitty. Poor grandma. Poor Nef. :(

So sorry to hear this Nef. My condolences to you and your grandmother. My guess is heart or stroke. :(

Most cases of sudden death in cats that we see involve underlying heart disease and a blood clot.

More on arterial thromboembolism

My 11 yr. old cat died from HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) and it was really a shock.

One minute she was perfectly fine and all of a sudden she cried out and was panting heavily. I thought it was an asthma attack or breathing problems (I later realized it was a pain response) and I called my Vet’s office.

They told me to bring her in right away. 20 mins later, the Vet immediately gave her a shot to get her out of pain and then told me what was going on.

It was very sudden and very sad. After the shock of it all, I did some research about it on the net and realized that, in her case, it was likely a generic thing linked to a dominant gene found in certain breeds of cats like Maine Coons or Norwegian Forest type breeds.

Even if it’s picked up early, there is little successful medical interventions yet developed. I read one account of a Vet’s cat in whom this was detected early through ultrasound etc. And even tho this cat had the best of state of the art medical care (meds, special diet, scans etc) from the time he was a year old, he also died at 11, the same age as my Funny Face.

Your description of what happened with this cat sounds remarkably similar. The only consolation one has is that at least it was not a lingering painful death and he didn’t suffer except for a few seconds.

Of course if one wants to be absolutely certain it was not something else, an autopsy can be done at considerable extra expense but with an indoor cat, the heart/blood clot issue is the most likely cause for a cat that young.

The only reason I mention autopsy is because my sister chose to do that when her cat died. It was an indoor/outdoor cat and there didn’t seem to be any evidence of her being hit by a car.

But my sister wanted to be sure she hadn’t been poisoned by a nasty neighbor or the like, so was willing to spring for the extra expense. But turns out it was hit by a car and all the damage was internal. For my sister it was worth it to know for certain.

But that’s one of the reasons why all my cats have been indoor only.

@ANef_is_Enuf – I’m sorry to hear this. I’ve shared a home with a few cats in my time (though I’m currently catless) and I know how traumatic their death can be. No ideas though.