Punished!

The gods of catdom have punished us, as both Derek and Frank seem to have developed URIs.  We took Frank to the vet yesterday as he just wasn’t himself and sounded congested, and he was put on some precautionary antibiotics.  He’s such a good boy about taking pills, and it was a relief that it was a simple malady and so easy to treat.  Derek is already a few days into it (I thought it was just allergies), and he’s still eating like a pig, so we’re just going to take a “wait and see” approach with him—I was more concerned about Frank because he was really out of sorts, and was starting to show a lack of interest in food.

I know that a URI is technically a virus, but the antibiotics will prevent secondary infections.  It wasn’t until I got home that I read cats can be vaccinated against the most common causes of URIs, so I don’t know if our cats didn’t get those vaccinations, or if they weren’t helpful, or what.  If anyone from the vet community can chime in on this, I’d be interested in knowing why two of our cats seem to be affected but the others (including the kittens) seem fine.  The two cats who are sick, Derek and Frank, are both “strays” of unknown origin, and while we had them vaccinated as per our vet’s suggestion when we took them in, I don’t know their histories.  Say it’s the herpes virus causing the URIs in Derek and Frank—does that mean that when they were kittens they weren’t vaccinated against herpes, and so they might just harbour the virus and it might periodically recur?  If our other cats stay healthy while Derek and Frank are sick, can we assume the others have an immunity?  I should have asked these questions at the vet yesterday, but we were squeezed in as an emergency appointment so they were already pressed for time, and when we were there, I didn’t have the background information I needed to know the right questions.

The ironic part of this is that even though we have *more* cats around the house now, they seem to be reduced in numbers because they’ve finally spread out.  Instead of all sticking to one room like they always have, the kittens have given the adult cats incentive to move around.  So, instead of 4 cats in one room all the time now, there might be 2 cats in their normal spots in the TV room, a cat hanging out in the bird room, a cat in the spare bedroom, two cats in the master bedroom, etc.  Our “cats per square inch” has been reduced because the cats have expanded their territories, so it’s sort of frustrating that now is when we have a “disease caused by overcrowding” affecting Frank and Derek.  We’ve got a 2-storey, 2100 sq. foot house… there’s plenty of room for cats to expand their horizons without passing around germs!

On an unrelated note, condolences to Vet Mommy on the loss of her wonderful dog, Montana.  I always enjoyed reading about Montana’s antics in Vet Mommy’s blog.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 03/16 at 02:39 PM

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  1. Thank you so much for your words of condolence.  It has helped me so much in this sad time.  I finally acted on your kind suggestion and put a link on my blog to a charitable organization.

    I sure am enjoying watching these felines grow up.

    Posted by vetmommy  on  03/19  at  07:47 PM
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