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Are cats automatically vaccinated before you adopt them?
What do you mean? Shelters vaccinate for rabies and distemper and some add the FeLV vaccine. No shelter I know of uses the FIV vaccine, nor any vet either. The limited protection is not worth the risk of a cat always testing positive. Most cats ending up in a shelter who tests FIV+ are going to be killed. The shelter doesn't know or care if it's a true infection or brought on by the vaccine. People are working to change this, but like any change, it is slow going.
There is no way to know the vaccination status of a cat rescued "from the street" so to speak.
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Originally Posted by =^..^=
Why? Was he showing he was sick?
Sorry forgot to answer this. No he was not sick. They were ignorant and afraid, and didn't want to bother with learning anything about FIV or taking care of a less than perfect cat.
I haven't forgotten the links to information I promised. I'll post them tomorrow.
Please have her retested to ensure that it wasn't a false positive. You will need to make sure that it is the right type of test. The standard Elisa has been known to show false positives so make sure they can do what is called a Western Blot. There is also the issue of the test being positive because the cat may have been vaccinated. If the cat does test positive they have a new test now called the discriminant Elisa which can tell the difference between antibodies from the infection versus antibodies from the vaccine so if the discriminate comes back negative you should feel pretty confident that she does not have FIV infection.
Yes, my vet explained that to us that day at the Animal Hosp but those other tests run $225 and more. We don't know if she was vaccinated in the past. She was spayed.
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If I were in your shoes, and all tests came back to indicate FIV, I would still take her into my home. But that is just me. I have taken in so many ferals and each time I understood there was a chance that one or more could have FIV. Is it fair to my other ferals (who I rescued first) that were negative? But is it also fair to have taken a cat under my wings and then decide that her life is now not as important because she is FIV+? Your situation is a little different because you didn't actually bring her into your home BUT you still in a sense took her under your wings. The question now is.....do you think she has grown too dependent upon you and if so would it be fair to her to just abandon her (if you can't find another home for her) due to her FIV status?
It's not a case of abandoning her. Dumping her somewhere. We wont do that to her. We're not always home. We travel a lot, leave for the winter and camp on and off all year long. There is no one there to feed her while we are gone. We are at a campground not far from our house this week so drive back every other day to feed her. The neighbor who was supposed to feed her while we're not at home has had something happen - both husband and wife are in very poor health. The place looks empty and the phone has been cut off. We don't know what's going on with them.
Don't you worry one of those ferals you take in has FeLV? Without blood tests, you can't know if they have FIV, FeLV or IP. The last two really nasty infections.
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Again my heart really does go out to you because I know you want to help her but are afraid that by doing so that you may put your others at risk. In my case the way I had to look at it was.....it would be a very small chance that the virus would be transmitted to another and if it did occur they still would live a better life than had I not rescued them. But again all of mine were ferals , 3 of which have Cerebellar Hypoplasia and all came with a whole bunch of other conditions. Their life on the streets would have been very painful and very short :-(
Mine is a totally different situation. None are feral. All 4 are indoor-only with immune systems that would not be top notch since they are not exposed to anything (parasites, disease) in our home to stimulate it. All 4 are healthy and were tested FIV and FeLV negative before I brought them in. With what vets charge these days we're trying to keep them as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
Sheba also needs $250 to $300 worth of dental work. She has a broken infected upper fang on one side and an infected upper fang, not-broken off, on the other side. Any any other broken or infected teeth would have to be removed. There is a lot less inflammation in her mouth now than in April when we took her to the vet.
My greatest concern is her starving to death when we go to FL for the winter. Right now she catches moles and field mice - in winter there is nothing for cats to eat out in the rural areas.
What do you mean? Shelters vaccinate for rabies and distemper and some add the FeLV vaccine. No shelter I know of uses the FIV vaccine, nor any vet either. The limited protection is not worth the risk of a cat always testing positive. Most cats ending up in a shelter who tests FIV+ are going to be killed. The shelter doesn't know or care if it's a true infection or brought on by the vaccine. People are working to change this, but like any change, it is slow going.
Where I live she would be killed.
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There is no way to know the vaccination status of a cat rescued "from the street" so to speak.
And with Sheba, we have no information at all. One day she just showed up as do so many cats and dogs in rural areas.
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Sorry forgot to answer this. No he was not sick. They were ignorant and afraid, and didn't want to bother with learning anything about FIV or taking care of a less than perfect cat.
Perfect or imperfect, we don't care. I'm sure some people do. We're trying to figure out what's best for all the cats, including Sheba. We're very much attached to her already, even with her ugly broken tail and .... well if she moves in with us she will need the dental work done, be chipped....but those other tests are quite costly. And there's the introducing them to handle - so there are no fights. They know each other through the outside Catio. She and Callie hiss and yowl at each other. And will Sheba use the litterboxes? Remember one of the males I took in a few years back? He wouldn't go near the litterboxes and didn't get along with one of the females. He cost us $350 at the vet. He was vetted and had to have an injury on his leg cleaned and sutured. We had to find him a home and he ended up with a known Hoarder to our horror.
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I haven't forgotten the links to information I promised. I'll post them tomorrow.
That's OK I don't have much time to spend online right now anyway - not until I'm back home on Monday.
Re-test and if still positive, go with your gut. If you really don't think it's a good idea to take her with you when you move, don't.
Aside from her FIV status, our two RVs are not those large million dollar rigs. We are cramped already with the 4 cats we have. They can't have a roomy space of their own which makes them crankier with each other when we're on the road or snow-birding. We do have to Budget to do the traveling we do and spending the winters in FL. Our vet bills and cat food bills do add up. Phaedra's last bill was several hundred dollars as was Callie's eye problems last year. My emergency vet-fund was wiped out last year. Zephyr may need her anal glands removed - several hundred will go there. Each cat adds to the cost of having them. Each cat is a responsibility we take seriously once we're committed.
Adding to our distress is the missing neighbor we thought would feed her when we were not there. It doesn't look like that's going to happen. I can't depend on them as I thought I could.
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If you have to take her to the kill shelter, take a deep breath and do it. We can't save all of them. Sometimes you have to say "no" for the good of the household. It's not easy or pleasant, but that's life.
This is true.
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Taking her to the shelter is tons better than leaving her loose in the neighborhood.
She's loose now. She stays by the garage and side of the house. She doesn't wander. She has a box of rags in the garage she chose as a bed where she spends the night. We leave the garage door propped open enough for her to get in and out at will.
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I've had to take in several abandoned cats over time to the kill shelter because the no-kill shelters were totally full and at the time I had only enough to support one cat, mine. It sucked! ):
I truly hope the test is negative if you want to keep her.
=^..^= Sometimes all we can do is pray and ask that god help us make the right decision and then put it in his hands. For some reason stray animals always find my husband and I (weekly) and we all know our limitations (I'm at my limit now). So all I can do at this point, if I can't find an owner or rescue, is pray that god watches over his babies and if and when he decides it's their time that he makes it as painless as possible. I know it sounds morbid but sometimes that all we can do :-(
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I'm sure some people do. 
