EXPRESS: Beyond the bowl: behavioural, sensory and environmental strategies to support healthy ageing in cats

Ageing in cats brings a shift in clinical priorities: While extending lifespan remains a primary concern for many owners, the clinical goal moves toward safeguarding healthspan, ensuring that added years are accompanied by maintained function and quality of life. With increasing numbers of aged cats, veterinarians face a growing incidence of dysrexia situations that markedly worsen prognosis, especially in the presence of comorbidities such as chronic kidney disease. Feeding difficulties in older cats rarely originate from the composition of the diet alone. Instead, they arise from a multifactorial interplay of sensory decline, chronic pain, cognitive decline, mobility impairment, and environmental or social stressors that disrupt the expression of normal feeding behaviour.Cats are carnivores with distinct feeding behaviour characteristics that must be understood in order to provide appropriate nutritional recommendations, extending beyond the simple selection of a diet that meets nutrient requirements. Feeding strategies must take into account food distribution (spatial and temporal organisation of food presentation), the surrounding environment, and the species' natural activity patterns. Ageing further increases the need to adapt the behavioural component of nutritional management. Ageing affects olfaction, gustation, vision, hearing, circadian feeding rhythms, motor abilities, and socio-cognitive function, all of which influence a cat's capacity to locate, access, evaluate, and consume food. Chronic pain may also reduce meal frequency and size. Cognitive dysfunction may impair spatial navigation, disrupt foraging sequences, or alter appetite, while systemic inflammation may exacerbate muscle loss and reduce behavioural engagement.Beyond diet formulation, clinicians must consider the ways ageing cats interact with their environment and caregivers. Integrating ethology, sensory biology, pain assessment, and environmental management with nutritional strategies is critical to quality of life in older feline patients. This review calls for greater recognition of these intertwined mechanisms and urges clinicians to move "beyond the bowl" when supporting ageing cats.