My wife and I came across a new kitten outside our house. (As a bit of background, we have a graveyard behind the house that seems to be a favorite dumping ground for cats. We have a dozen or so roaming loose back there). This particular cat was incredibly friendly and obviously young. My wife has a soft spot for red toms, so we got him inside, and took him to an emergency clinic to see what could be done for him / if we could adopt.
Long story short, he has Feline Leukemia, and we can’t take him in (older indoor only cat already, can’t risk infecting her). We have neighbors behind us who already have two friendly indoor / outdoor cats, and he came over later that day to talk to us about the kitten, since he ran into him as well, and loved him too.
We gave him what we found out about the cat (We didn’t have him neutered as he wasn’t ready yet) as he wanted to know if we wanted him, as his wife ALSO fell in love with the kitten. We chatted for a bit, and thought he was taking the cat in at this point. We have seen the kitten hanging out with his two indoor cats outside, and waiting at their window to be let in.
Last night (this is about a week later) we saw the kitten yelling at his back window. He went outside, took the kitten in hand, and went to a shed on the abandoned property next door. I got up this morning and checked, and the kitten was closed in there (with nothing but a towel in the corner). I’m not sure what to think about this part, especially as the temps here are going to hit 90 or more the next 5 days in a row, and that shed had no ventilation. We have no idea what his motives were for putting the cat in there tonight, and we’re concerned.
Tl;dr : Outdoor cat, incredibly loving, we can’t take him in. We thought neighbors were, aren’t sure what they are doing now. We want to do something for this cat.
Any idea of resources we can reach out to would be great; I’ll be searching for shelter information in the area (Greater Philly area here).
Could you ask the clinic where you originally took Red Kitten (to get the leukemia diagnosis) and see if they have ideas for resources? They might know people who specifically take in leukemia-positive cats …
Ignore Omar, he historically has had a bug up his ass about companion animals. He apparently can’t conceive that other people are different from him and actually like them.
I second the idea of phoning up the vet clinic and seeing if they can point you to resources. Also ask them if there are reasonable precautions you could take. I don’t now much about FeLV or how contagious it is, but have occasionally heard of people managing it okay. You could also try Googling for cat shelters / no-kill shelters in your area. We have several that are cat-only, which I suggest as they might have better resources in place to provide for a variety of chronic-illness-positive cats.
Yes. This pretty kitten may infect and kill all the cats in the neighborhood. It’s a nasty disease. Even if you are willing to fork over the cash and attempt to treat it, it may not survive.
Horrible way for a cat to die. And your neighbor’s cats. And probably yours too.
I am a cat owner and lover, but I lived in an apartment complex some number of years ago and this disease swept through the place and took out a lot of cats, including mine.
Perhaps there are better, wonderful treatments now that would save this kitten and keep it from infecting others. You could find out.
But leaving it alone in a shed is putting the whole cat-neighborhood at risk, you can’t just do nothing. You may have to do the hard thing.
I’ve got nothing against companion animals. Just so happens that all of the animals I own are working animals, and I have a degree of affection for many of them. But let’s not confuse them with people.
This cat is going to die a miserable death. It would be much more humane to have it put down.
The issue here is this cat is very obviously a kitten of those animals already out there (not dumped). He had to get it somewhere…
Unless we can trap, test, and take care of ALL the outside cats, the Leukemia is already out there, and was so before this kitten in all likelihood. The main difference here is this cat is already socialized to people, and there may be those out there that can take in an already infected cat.
I’m not against euthanizing when necessary; how could we tell beyond testing many of those outside already.
Feline Leukemia is awful, and it is extremely contagious. If you feel you must “save” the kitten, look for a place that takes in cats who test positive and place him there. He can live out his short life in comfort, and not infect other cats. In the meantime, make sure he doesn’t have access to any other cats. It is very very contagious! Also, maybe double check with the vet and make sure that’s what he has. But, truthfully, in my opinion if the kitten tests positive for feline leukemia, I would have him put down. It’s safer for the other cats this way, and honestly, he is going to die.
If you have cats, he got it from somewhere. Some (all) of the half-wild cats in the graveyard have the disease. You need to start trapping and euthanizing all the cats that test positive, or all the pet cats in your neighborhood WILL catch it and they WILL die. I know this is sad and horrible, and you have my deepest sympathy.