When we first got Chris he would lie across my neck or on top of my head. Rose used to joke that, “You can wear him as a hat, you can wear him as a scarf…” Because we could hear his heartbeat when he did that, we noticed early on that his heartbeat was incredibly fast. It seemed as though he just finished a marathon, and since Chris was such a busy kitten, we concluded that he was exhausting himself.

Besides the fast heartbeat, Chris would also breathe very quickly, taking in many breaths of air in a short time. My concern led me to do some research where I found this to be somewhat normal for kittens.

Fast forward about a year where Chris and Tigger were napping on the bed. I noticed Chris was breathing very quickly while he was napping. I decided to count the breaths. Chris took in 88 breaths in one minute while Tigger only took in 11. That was an incredible 8 to 1 ratio.

I thought about taking him to the vet but we couldn’t justify spending hundreds of dollars on endless tests for a cat that had more energy than an atomic bomb.

I was reminded about this problem this morning when he woke me up and I could hear his heart racing. The good news is, Chris and Tigger are napping here now and I counted 23 breaths for Chris and 32 for Tigger. I hope I don’t have to worry about Tigger now.

Chris and Tigger, just took this picture as I was writing. To the left was Abbey’s bed.