Yeah! Casey finally made it off of the streets but now he has yet another journey. He tested FIV positive. While this is not a death sentence by any means, he is going to need to find parents that aren’t freaked out by this. Often someone won’t know their cat is FIV until he is old and getting tested for something else. This can affect their immune systems. They can live 3 years or 20 years. But the most important thing is that he is strictly an indoor cat where he won’t be exposed to lots of parasites, viruses, colds, outside.
If he is given a holistic diet and lots of love he has a great shot at life. FIV is spread between cats by bite wounds. Not general play. I actually ended up with an FIV+ kitty about a year ago and knew nothing about it so was pretty concerned. The other disturbing fact I learned is that if a cat has been given a vaccination against FIV, then he will ALWAYS test positive for the virus. To date there is no reliable test to see whether a cat has FIV or only has been vaccinated against FIV. Most likely Casey was not vaccinated against FIV, but just a “heads up” to people that is such a “gray” issue. I joined an FIV yahoo group and found out that pretty much everyone there keeps their FIV cats with their other cats. You generally would not keep cats together that were actually biting each other anyhow. Just things to think about. Of course it is just an individual decision, but just wanted people to realize that a lot of people keep all of their cats together with no problems.
And of course if you have no cats now, then this isn’t even an issue! But we do want to leave Casey’s options open. Maybe some of you have FIV kids already and would be willing to welcome him in your home either temporarily or forever. This guy is just a doll. He has been begging PJ for his rescue day for months now and we just want to find someone great to welcome Casey to the Gateway family.
Can you help?
And don’t forget PJ’s Birthday Challenge.