Chartreux Care Calendar: Coat, Weight and PKD Screening

A Chartreux is a big, quiet cat in a woolly double coat, and two things decide how long it stays well: weight and kidneys. The breed runs 7-15 lb (3.2-7 kg) and gains easily on free-feeding. It also carries patellar luxation, HCM, and polycystic kidney disease (PKD) left from the Persian outcrosses of the 1970s and 1980s. A workable year is one or two brushing sessions a week, a monthly weigh-in, a single PKD DNA test for life, and an echo at 12 months repeated every 12-18 months.

A year on a fixed calendar

Put the dull jobs on fixed dates; a cat handled the same way every month is easier to examine when something is wrong.

Months	Coat and nails	Screening	Weight
Jan-Mar	Twice-weekly slicker; nails every 3 weeks	Annual exam, vaccines, dental; PKD DNA if untested	Monthly weigh-in; 15 minutes of wand play
Apr-Jun	Three sessions a week while the undercoat blows	Flea prevention restarts; ear check	Weigh fortnightly; cut 10% if winter gain persists
Jul-Sep	Twice weekly; check belly and leg pits for felt	Heat stress watch in a heavy coat	Monthly weigh; freeze wet food in small portions
Oct-Dec	Twice weekly plus one full comb-out	Echo if due; refill prescriptions	Monthly weigh; slow feeder to stretch meals

Brushing a coat that felts instead of shedding

Ten minutes twice a week with a slicker, working with the coat, covers the body. The woolly undercoat is where trouble starts: it packs into felt under the belly, behind the front legs and around the britches, and a patch that feels like a scab on Monday is a solid mat by Thursday. Run your fingers through those three zones at every session. Work a mat apart over several days with fingers and a wide-tooth comb; scissors catch this breed's thin skin easily.

Spring changes the schedule. From late March to May the undercoat releases in clumps, brushing goes to three or four times a week. That is normal; a lighter shed follows in September. Bathing is rarely needed, twice a year at most, and a bath without a full blow-dry leaves the undercoat damp and quick to mat. Nails need the same discipline; see nail trimming.

Weight: the breed's weak point

A 7-15 lb spread makes the scale useless: a 13 lb male with a waist and palpable ribs is fine, a 10 lb female with no waist is not. Score condition monthly at 5 out of 9 and write it down. A neutered male needs about a fifth less than the bag suggests

Weigh monthly, and fortnightly while you are reducing. Safe loss is 0.5-1% of body weight per week, so 0.3-0.5 lb a month on a 10 lb cat; faster risks muscle loss and hepatic lipidosis. The full protocol is in our weight-loss guide. A pound gained in 3 months or 5% lost in 30 days justifies a visit.

Screening: PKD, HCM and kneecaps

PKD is single-gene and autosomal dominant, so testing is simple: one buccal swab is valid for life, and a clear result never needs repeating. Any age works, but finish before 12 months if you might breed, and ask for both parents' certificates. An untested cat should have an abdominal ultrasound at 12-24 months and again at 5 years, because cysts take years to show. The disease ends in chronic kidney disease, usually from middle age.

HCM follows the usual rhythm: echo at 12 months, again at 18-24, then every 12-18 months to age 8, annually after that. Patellar luxation is found by hand, so ask for both kneecaps to be palpated at each annual exam. Between visits, watch for a hind leg that skips a few steps, or a cat that stops jumping onto its old windowsill.

From age 7, add creatinine, SDMA and urine specific gravity to the annual blood panel. A creatinine that drifts from 1.4 to 2.1 mg/dL over two years matters even when both values sit inside the reference range; keep the printouts to compare. Early kidney changes are covered in this kidney guide.

Feeding and the daily hunt

An adult takes about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of dry food a day, or 5-6 oz of wet, in 2 measured meals. This is a hunter that will not run laps on its own, so 10-15 minutes of wand-and-pounce play does more for the waistline than any diet food. End with the bowl: hunt, catch, eat, groom, sleep is the sequence the breed is built for, and a cat that completes it stops asking for a third meal.

Food puzzles slow a gulper. From age 7, count the water bowls and note any new interest in running taps.

Heat, cold and a house that is too quiet

The double coat handles cold well and heat badly. Above 27 C a Chartreux sprawls on tile and breathes faster, so keep one cool room and comb out the loose undercoat in June. In winter the risk flips to inertia: a cat sleeping 18 hours a day against a radiator gains weight on the ration that held it steady in July.

Noise is the other seasonal factor. Give the cat one room that stays closed to guests, with a litter box, water and a high perch, before people arrive. Hiding for three days after a party is stress, not sulking, and stress in a quiet breed shows up as over-grooming or a litter box strike.

Five habits worth breaking

• Following the bag instead of the ribs, which is how neutered males reach 15 lb.
• Skipping the PKD test because the cat looks healthy. One copy of a dominant gene is enough.
• Brushing only the back and never the belly, armpits or britches, where every mat begins.
• Cutting a mat out with scissors, a common cause of skin lacerations at the clinic.
• Calling a skipped hind leg a sprain and waiting a month, when one exam can diagnose it.

When to book a visit

Same day for a hind leg held up for more than a few minutes, open-mouth breathing, a sleeping respiratory rate above 30, or no urine for 24 hours. Within a week for a limp that comes and goes, 5% weight loss in a month, a mat you cannot work out, or noticeably more drinking for 3 days. From age 7, a creatinine rise on two consecutive panels deserves a urine test and a blood pressure reading, not a repeat in a year.

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