Tachypnea is an important clinical finding in dogs with cardiac and respiratory disorders. Many healthy cats, however, have a high respiratory rate at the veterinarian's consultation room, making the interpretation of this finding difficult. The purpose of the present study was to establish a reference range of the respiratory rate in clinically healthy cats at the veterinarian's consultation room.

Clinically healthy, client-owned cats in 6 private veterinary practices were observed by a single investigator between May and August 2016. The cats were brought for consultations for various reasons. Medical history and clinical examination revealed no abnormalities. The respiratory rates were recorded under 4 circumstances: by the investigator at the veterinarian's consultation room prior to and after manipulation, by the owner at home when the cat was resting or sleeping, and by the investigator by watching a video that was recorded by the owner at home when the cat was resting or sleeping. The owners were asked to perform the video-recording immediately after that they counted the respiratory rate.

A total of 95 adult cats with a median age of 4.7 years (range 8 months–17.1 years) fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Calculated reference interval for the respiratory rate at the veterinarian's consultation room was 33–133 breaths/minute.

Physical examination by a veterinarian led to either increased (n=13), decreased (n=10), or unchanged (n=3) respiratory rates in the 26 cats, on which this second measurement could be performed.

Video-recordings were provided by 77 owners. The resting and sleeping respiratory rates were 14–48 breaths/min (n=36) and 13–31 breaths/min (n=41), respectively, both counted by a single investigator on the video-recordings. A significant decline in sleeping respiratory rate with older age was noted: -0.4 breaths/minute/year. Only 32 owners were able to count the respiratory rate of her/his cat. In 17 out of these 32 cases the reported value differed from the respiratory rate that was observed from the video-recordings. The owners' results were either higher or lower than the respiratory rates counted by the investigator on the videos.

We conclude that the reference intervals that veterinary textbooks usually report for healthy cats is the resting respiratory rate. These values are not applicable at the veterinarian's consultation room because many cats would erroneously be categorized to have tachypnea. Since the resting and sleeping respiratory rates show less variations, owners should be educated and encouraged to count or record their pets respiratory rate before they visit their veterinarian.

Disclosures

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