Hi, I finally was able to join your list and am so excited to be able to check in for advice and any questions I might have for my cat Leo.
Some history- I trapped Leo last summer to TNR for a neighbor who offered to keep/feed him outdoors. He seemed feral, and was an elusive neighborhood stray for about 3 years prior. We think we know where he was born, as we rescued kittens that were probably younger than him at that time, and they look very similar, from a house where the owners moved and left the cats behind. :-( He has been chased out of yards and finally had a yard to call home with this person, but he tested positive for FeLV last summer and the neighbor would not commit to more in-depth care even though he said he would continue to feed him outdoors in his yard. So, I ended up keeping him as an indoor cat, and he is tame now after housing him in a taming cage that I learned about from the feral cat yahoo group. He is afraid of new things, but is very sweet and gentle. Right now I am keeping him separate from my other 3 indoor cats who are not vaccinated for FeLV, and one has some pretty bad aggression issues Back on July 19, 2012, he was tested with a snap test for FeLV/FIV/heartworm, he tested weak positive for FeLV, neg for the others. The test used was slightly expired by a few months (was a test kit from our rescue group, and I would have liked to have retested that day with a fresh in date kit, but I didn't find out results until the end of that day when he was wide awake and still assumed to be feral...) I tried to bring him in a few days after that to a different vet to get retested, but the vet clinic shook him out of the carrier and freaked him out chasing him around the room, and he bit the tech through a towel and had to be quarantined for 10 days for rabies, since his vacc. was less than 10 days old. I was so upset wondering if that was the time he could maybe throw the virus off, and he would be under so much stress as a feral cat in quarantine. :-( He had to go to a vet again, in Nov, 2012 because I thought he had a urinary blockage, but he ended up being OK. Anyway, this vet retested him because he was very cooperative, with a SNAP 2 test (no heartworm), and I asked them to use serum, assuming first vet used blood but I was not certain of that at the time. It was positive again. So, now it's a year later, he is seemingly healthy, teeth look good, good appetite, he is about 4 years old. I am wanting to do an IFA test. Do you think that he could still be negative after this long? At his check up yesterday, he received a Rabies Purevax vaccine, and I haven't done an FVRCP booster yet. He had one FVRCP last summer. The vet suggested adding Lysine powder, so I have that now, and she mentioned that they can add Interferon to ringers solution and that one bag would last a long time, haven't done that yet. Just would love to get some thoughts on retesting and Interferon. Also, he initially was said to have a grade 3 heart murmur while under anesthesia for his neuter, but it hasn't been heard since... So, with 2 positive SNAP tests (first one with slightly expired test kit)- is a neg. IFA still a possibility? Do you give FVRCP vacc. to your cats? Thoughts on using Lysine and Interferon? Thanks so much! Shelley _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
