No spring kittens: Meet some of Prince Edward Island's oldest cats

Bagel the cat spends most of her days sitting around, smelling the breeze as it comes in through the window. She sometimes listens to the birds, but she can't see them. Bagel is blind — and she's 24 years old.

"It really was probably in the past 10 years that I started saying, 'Holy smokes, this is a lifetime commitment, above and beyond anything I ever knew,'" said her owner, Aaron Jargo.

Bagel lives in a farmhouse near Murray River with Jargo, his wife Christy, and their three dogs. But she didn't start her life there. 

Jargo moved to North Carolina in his late 20s and decided to get a cat. He'd never had one before, but it wasn't long until he found the kitten that he'd eventually name Bagel.

"She was considered a runt of her litter, very tiny," he remembers. "They said that she would need special treatment and special care and she might not live very long, actually. And I said, 'OK, challenge accepted.'"

Bagel was adopted in April of 2000 and named after Jargo's love of baking. Playful and the boss of the house, Bagel now cozies up on a heated bed with a nearby fountain providing fresh water.

Over time, Bagel developed cataracts, which have slowed her down a little.

"She gets around very well on her own. She knows where she's at, she's got that sense of location," Jargo said. "I always pick her up and hold her in my chest…and while I'm talking to her, I'm pretty confident she recognizes my voice and the way I hold her. She just purrs up a storm, opens herself up, lets me rub her belly."

The condition really started to affect Bagel's vision about four years ago, but because she was already a senior, Jargo decided not to risk treating the cataracts.

"The risk factor involved in having something like that removed from her at her age wasn't worth it," he said.

For Sheri Ross, an internal medicine clinician at the Atlantic Veterinary College at UPEI's campus in Charlottetown, that decision is something she talks through with clients frequently.

"You need to think about what's in your best interest, what's in your animal's best interest. Just because we can do these things doesn't mean we should do these things," she said.

Ross is an expert when it comes to kidney disease in cats, and she's had her fair share of experience with senior cats over the years. Her own feline friend, Kramer, lived to 21.

"He was with me throughout a lot," she said. "He was diabetic, he had chronic kidney disease, he had a feeding tube for five years.