Mary Allen
When the cat trembles, people often react with concern – and suspect fear or cold. In cats, however, the causes usually lie elsewhere.
When the cat trembles, our first guess is that it is afraid of something or that it is cold. Our experience is playing tricks on us here. Because too often we transfer our human reactions to our animal friends.
If the cat trembles, there are usually completely different reasons behind it than in humans. These can be of a harmless nature, but they can also be signs of serious illnesses. Therefore, it is important for all cat owners to know about the causes. Then it will be easier to decide when and if you should take your cat to the vet.
What does it mean when the cat trembles?
The medical term for this physical reaction is tremor. Tremor occurs when muscle groups contract (i.e. tighten) at the same time as opposed to each other during normal operation. These muscles are called the antagonists.
Every warm-blooded creature is affected. However, tremor, i.e. shaking, is not visible or noticeable at low frequency and amplitude (few repetitions and low intensity).
Depending on how often the contractions repeat themselves and how strong they become (high frequency or amplitude), the tremor becomes clearly recognizable from the outside and can also be felt by the living creature – in our case the cat.
Tremors can occur during wakefulness as well as during sleep, during extended periods of rest, and also during periods of intense activity.
Cat trembles: What are the causes?
Pay attention to your cat’s tremors if they last more than a few minutes. Then try to figure out where it might have come from. It is important for you to know that this physical reaction can have completely harmless, slightly alarming, but also very serious causes.
Sometimes, even as a layman, you can immediately see why your house cat is trembling and you can let it tremble without hesitation. Sometimes, however, you should take him to a veterinarian so that he can make a decision on how to proceed and possible treatment. For these reasons, it is sensible and responsible for you as a pet owner if you inform yourself as well as possible about tremors in cats.
Harmless causes
Emotions
Strong emotions are often expressed physically. This means the entire range of negative and positive feelings such as joy, tension, expectation, fear, or sexual excitement.
Strong emotions often make themselves felt through muscle tension and subsequent tremors: This can then be viewed as a discharge of the nerves and muscle fibers that are under tension.
Hunting tension
You’ve probably seen your cat observing and ambushing prey. The same as for prey animals applies to toy mice or artificial birdies. The whole body of the lurking cat is under tension, which is then discharged with a harmless tremor.
Trembling when marking
You can often observe a trembling of the tail and legs (rarely the whole body) in tomcats when they mark their territory.
Wild Dreams
Cats and dogs process their experiences while dreaming. A twitch, even if it lasts a few seconds or even minutes, has nothing to do with a tremor, although it often looks like it.
Cold
As with all mammals that need to maintain a constant body temperature, our purring housemates tremble to generate heat. It is completely harmless and a normal physiological reaction. Shivering suggests to the organism that it needs more energy, which is why all reserves are mobilized immediately (as in sports and all other types of exercise).
So the body temperature of about 35 to 36 degrees can be maintained. Cat owners only have to be careful if their darling reacts quickly and severely to the cold by trembling, because then there is usually another, often organic cause.
Normal is somewhat more frequent shivering during the change of coat if the animal gets into a storm or is exposed to wind and weather for a long time. Shivering only affects indoor cats after they have been bathed and left in a cool apartment until their fur has dried.
Exhaustion
When cats have exhausted themselves, they may experience an exhaustion tremor. Maybe your cat was stressed for several hours because a car ride was taking too long. Perhaps there were particularly intense fights within the cat family so that the animal has to recover. This reaction will pass and is by no means a cause for concern. However, it can also be an indicator of more serious illnesses, especially if your cat begins to tremble with any physical activity. Then maybe a metabolic, heart, or lung disease is the cause.
What you need to know is that cats, young and old in particular, suffer from stress, exhaustion, cold weather, or loss of routine much more quickly than settled middle-aged cats. They are also often affected by tremors.