A question about cats with FelV

[cat~mad]

Does anyone on here have a FelV+ cat?

  My two, George and Suzi, are both FeLV+ but *touch wood* still as fit as fleas     

  We've always fostered the oldies for a local charity (aka running a retirement home for the pensioners  ) but after we lost our last oldie, Misty, in August 2012 we lasted three weeks without a cat      Linda who runs the charity we foster for mentioned George and even though we knew he had FeLV it didn't stop us saying yes straight away.  Suzi followed six/seven weeks later.  Even if we are only fortunate to have him in our lives for, say, a year or two it WILL be a spoilt rotten life full of cuddles and love and if the time comes that the virus begins to affect his quality of life too much then I'll call the vet out and hug my beautiful brave boy till he's gone to The Bridge.....as I did with all my oldies.   

  It may sound strange but we treasure every moment we get with our oldies and our two current FeLV's and get SO much satisfaction for loving these cats and showing them, perhaps in their few final weeks, that not all humans are horrible     

  I've actually been tempted, once I get paid, to see if my own vet would do a blood test on them both and send it off to Glasgow to be checked properly.  They were both diagnosed by other vets with two separate snap tests each but, perhaps I'm just hoping they are wrong, I'd still like to get Glasgow to check them to make sure     

  Oh, and Linda who runs PARRT has a few resident cats of her own and, like myself, has no qualms about having FIV cats living with others.  One of her boys, Benny, who passed away of old age last September, was with Linda for over 5 years after being handed in to the charity.   I adored him but Linda wouldn't rehome him as he had a habit of spraying on the curtains if you turned your back on him     She felt that nobody would 'put up' with that behaviour so he stayed as one of her residents     

[Ela]

Do others retest through glasgow to confirm? Or are the cats doomed from inhouse testing

We would retest if a cat was otherwise well and not suffering. However, I have to say as indeed I have posted before that at our vets I have only ever known one false positive and even then before the bloods were sent to Glasgow the vet said that they thought the results were inconclusive and that perhaps there was not a problem. Even Glasgow had to do extended tests over about 3 weeks to confirm the result.  The cat was re-homed and a special note put on its chip details for if the cat went missing was ever tested again.

[Millys Mum]

Glad to hear hes still doing well 

[Sylvia]

Hi Millys Mum,

Tabs is doing fine.  He and Tatty have just had their first experience of pet sitters, and the whole furry gang behaved impeccably while we were away, which was most unlike them    Now we are back from our holiday, Tabs is making it his full time task to perfect his chest prodding technique (on Jim's chest) with claws fully extended    Whoever said (or sang) "love hurts" wasn't wrong 

Sorry, I seem to have gone off-topic here.

[Desley (booktigger)]

True.

[Millys Mum]

Fortunately, my vets dont do inhouse testing, everything is done through Glasgow, and it isn't that expensive, although the waiting can be hard. Wonder if the RSPCA have ever read this from Glasgows site : Clinically well cats should not be euthanased on a p27 result alone in case the result is a false positive.

They dont wait 7 days for an owner to come forward either, bye bye kitty

Hi Sylvia, hows handsome Tabs doing? 

[Desley (booktigger)]

Fortunately, my vets dont do inhouse testing, everything is done through Glasgow, and it isn't that expensive, although the waiting can be hard. Wonder if the RSPCA have ever read this from Glasgows site : Clinically well cats should not be euthanased on a p27 result alone in case the result is a false positive.

[Sylvia]

I'm afraid I have no experience of FELV, but I just wanted to say how reassuring it was to hear that I am not the only one who would allow FIV kitties to live with non-FIV kitties 

[Millys Mum]

I hope she gets the all clear Liz    my concern is with in house felv results 

[Liz]

We test through Glasgow but what ever the outcome for us FIV it would come home here to stay on the inside!

Just to say Gem is being tested one of the 2 I rescued from Aberdeen in May as since having the kittens and loosing all bar Beijing she has slowly lost weight but is playing the vets a blinder by having normal temp, eating like a horse and having regular solid movements so she is off with Inca on Monday 29 Sept for a full knocked out MOT

What ever the outcome she has a home here for life!

[Millys Mum]

i agree Michelle.

Thats nice to hear Desley.....think You are the only person who does 
I normally get shouted down for saying i'd have an FIV with my lot 

I would too and probably do with one of my strays, hes top dog in his stomping ground so is a good candidate for it. He will be tested before rehoming.
Felv is much worse, i would retest because i cant trust the inhouse results and theres a good chance of them shaking it off and becoming negative.
Not had it yet tho and hope i never will, my ferals seem to be a healthy mob 

Do others retest through glasgow to confirm? Or are the cats doomed from inhouse testing 

[nessa (A C S )]

Last year we got in two totaly feral cats both female one black and white the other tabby and white, both were part of a TNR both cats had runny eyes and the black and white one was sneezing the decision was made to treat them with antibotic for 10 days I got the lovely job af giving both of them there antibotics....Fast forward 10 days no improvement on the black and white one if anything she was worse, We tested them for FeLV and Fiv sadly the black and white one tested pos for Felv and was PTS....Tabby and white was spayed and came back to me to recover she has since then been retested and is still neg and she has wormed her was into my heart and my bed.....If she had tested pos I would have to make that decission to send her to the rainbow bridge as I have to think about all the others that come under my care

Another example is a cat that came here on Saturday Morning one look at him and we knew he was rushed to the vets where he was tested it was pos....he was in the final stages and was PTS.

In my years being involved with animal welfare and being with the ACS I have only had 2 cat test pos for felv.

Hope this makes some sense!
 

[Liz]

We had an FIV feral Miss Hissy Holly for 8 months till it proved to much for her but in that time she became a member od the Clan and was our first girl at the bridge and I can honestly say I would take on an FIV cat again feral or not with our lot - the ones in our mob who are permanant house cats most by our choice although several now the winter is coming in by theirs have never had any issue with incommers and Holly fitted in just fine when she learned that cats were grat, dogs ok and humans feed you treats although I never touched her from the moment we released her to run with ours even moving she ran in to the nice dark trap for safety until the day she died in my arms.

To us it really doesn't matter in fact we took on 3 ferals in May this year aged 14 and 2 at 8 and CP asked if we wanted them tested - nope just let us know when we can expect them!  Now Miss Cissy, Ragamuffin and Smudger have all adapted to house life with gusto, use the litter tray and live in our upstairs study - lost my in tray and top of the printer to Miss Cissy, have 3 radiator beds on the radiator for them and they fitted in with our lot very well, they know who is Alpha female and Alpha Male and act accordingly.

They do however run from the hooligans Miss Beijing - 3 months and Master Archie aged 9 weeks a.k.a "the Doodles"

[Desley (booktigger)]

i would have no hesitation in having an FIV+ with mine, as long as neither were aggressive - and only two of mine have ever been tested, the current lot are, so i could have had one without knowing it.

[Michelle (furbabystar)]

i agree Michelle.

Thats nice to hear Desley.....think You are the only person who does 
I normally get shouted down for saying i'd have an FIV with my lot 

[Desley (booktigger)]

i agree Michelle.

[Michelle (furbabystar)]

FeLV is so different to FIV
I would, as i have said many times before, have a FIV cat live with my lot but because FeLV is transmitted in a totally different way i wouldnt take on an FeLV with mine

[Ela]

I would like to say that since more and more people have taken advantage of the FeLV injection, the number of cats I hear about with FeLV has fallen dramatically. So much so that in 6 years we have not taken in or been asked to take on one cat that was FeLV+ .. Few and I do mean a few have been FeLV+ & FIV+ but they have been very ill and sadly it was necessary to PTS, so although I did feel guilty and sad I know there was no choice in the little ones interest.

[Desley (booktigger)]

Fortunately not something I have had to deal with, but I can see why the guidelines are there - they do need such a special kind of home, and it is tying up a space for potentially a long time. I don't know anyone on here who has them, but there is someone on the US forum I use who purely has FeLV cats, I think she has around 10 at the moment, and she does go through a lot of hearbreak, much more than I do with my oldies.

[Debsymiller (Rufus' mum)]

CP new welfare guildelines state that after second test result of FELV cats the cat is PTS..

Yes this is what was brought up at our meeting. I understand that it could be in the cats interest in some cases as it would be awful to make them suffer but it does bother me that this may not be the only solution in some cases.

Does anyone on here have a FelV+ cat?

[Canterbury_cats (Sharon)]

As another CP branch we have seen only a few FELV cases and in the majority its not easy to deal with.. CP new welfare guildelines state that after second test result of FELV cats the cat is PTS..

We find it soooooooooooo difficult to deal with, not being able to put in pen, the risk of transfer to fosterers other cats maybe. Very often they are in care for months and one CP branch Adel CP i think has severel FELV cats rehomed but all died very young.. Very often the vets advice PTS esp to cats that will not take to being indoors... We routinely vac for FELV and i know that a few rescues do rehome but we have a difficult task with FIV that we consider no where near as difficult to rehome and much harder to transmit... All in all its a hard call... but FELV cats will have a reduced life span and thats something to be aware of when rehoming. The last FELV cat we had in the people that brought it into our care decided to give it a home in an outside run for the rest of its life and retest in 6 months time, not many people will do that.. The otehr cases have been cats that were not coping with indoor life and on vets advice they were PTS due to the nature of the rehoming. Two kittens proved to be FELV pos and where PTS as they were showing symptoms.. We do however retest all the pos results to confirm if the cat looks otherwise healthy..

Very difficult and I pray we dont see it too often

[Debsymiller (Rufus' mum)]

I recently heard that cats who are diagnosed with FelV who come into a lot of rescues are automatically PTS to avoid the painful suffering they would have with the disease. Not knowing very much about the disease, I wonder about whether this is right or not or whether they can live happy, if shorter lives. This came up in a meeting I recently attended with our welfare team and it has been niggling at me ever since.