If your cat is sneezing a lot, has goopy eyes, or stops eating, don’t blame your cold. That’s a sign of a feline upper respiratory infection (URI), which can be serious for kittens or older cats. A trip to the vet is in order.
But if you’re both sniffling and it’s December? It’s more likely that you both caught something from the environment—dry air, dust, or even that drafty window you keep meaning to seal. Correlation is not causation, as the nerds say.
And please, do not give your cat human flu medicine. I know you love them, but Tylenol can kill a cat. Just… don’t. Trust me on this one.
A little irony: you might be the one making your cat sick.
Okay, not with the flu itself, but with your behavior. When you’re sick, you might cuddle Jasper more. You might breathe heavily on him. If you’re carrying bacteria from a secondary infection (like a sinus infection), that’s technically possible to transfer—but again, rare.
Can Cats Catch Human Flu? Facts And Prevention Tips | PetShun
Ironically, the bigger risk is that your cat thinks your illness is a behavioral change. They might stress out because you’re acting weird. Stressed cats can develop cold symptoms, too. So in a roundabout way, your flu could trigger a kitty URI—through stress, not germs.
So to answer the question you really came here for: Can your cat catch the flu from you? The honest, blog-friendly answer is: probably not, but maybe, sort of, in very rare cases—so don’t stress, just wash your hands.
