[Felvtalk] 5 leukemia positive kittens

Fri Nov 14 18:10:00 CST 2014

Hi all,

I'm sorry that people on this board disagree about the adoption fee and I'm disappointed that some people are making judgmental comments.  This board has been a great source of support to my family over the years and I am not feeling that at all at the moment.  I have adopted 12 positive cats of my own and have been on this board since I took my first mom and 3 kittens over 10 years ago.  I have never owned a non-leuk positive cat until this year.  It sounds to me like people think I'm trying to make money off these cats or that I'm asking people to do something unreasonable.  Do you know what I spent in the past two months trying to save one leuk positive?  Over $5000.  That is one of them.  Did I not treat her because she is leuk positive?  No I treated her like I would any other cat and gave her every opportunity to live, despite her status.  I do the same with all my positives even though I know the end result is usually them losing the battle with
 this horrible disease.  I'm not saying that whoever adopts these cats should go to those lengths to save them but I know the veterinary care that is involved with leuk positives.  If somebody is worried about paying a $100 adoption fee because the cat might die, are they going to say the same thing about vet care?  "I don't want to spend the money because it might die."  And what about senior cats/dogs or special needs cat/dogs? Rescues charge adoption fees for them as well and they can die in a year or two.  Why are leuks any different?  I paid an adoption fee at a shelter in CT for 2 of my leuk positives.  I do understand there is a controversy about free adoptions vs. fees.  We are not a rescue that cares about numbers.  We are a no-kill and we commit to an animal for life.  We do the best we can for that animal and are committed to finding it the best home possible.  We don't do free adoptions or try to move cats as quickly as we can.  It just isn't
  how we operate.  We have a very selective adoption process and we try to make sure all our cats are going to loving forever homes.  I am trying to do the same for these cats, even though I am well aware of how awful this disease is.

The woman that contacted us about these kittens has placed lots of kittens, no vetting, no applications, no follow up.  That is not helping the situation to give kittens away to people that aren't going to take care of them or be responsible about this disease.  Asking for an adoption fee simply helps show that the adopters are committed and that they understand the expense involved in owning an animal.  It in no means makes a dent in the money that we spend to help them, nor is it meant to.  We are vetting these cats and we are trying to teach this woman about helping in a responsible way.  She was going to adopt these cats to anybody and just spread the disease or release them outside.  As it is, we are trying to get a hold of the stray mom who is probably outside and leuk positive.  I'm trying to help educate her and teach her about leukemia and everybody makes it sound like I'm doing something wrong.  I have placed numerous cats on this board over
 the years as people constantly call me to help the positives.  This woman called me and we are trying to do the right thing.  Money is not the issue.  It costs us about $500 to vet a kitten completely.  There are 5 of them which means about $2500.  I am not trying to get that money back.  We already paid to combo test all of them and to treat the one for a URI without any commitment to these cats or any thought of an adoption fee.  She could have euthanized them all and we would have been out that money.  We were just trying to help her out.

Anyway, I'm probably not going to convince any of you about the adoption fee but I would like to say that I never said anything about not placing these cats in homes with other FeLV positive cats.  I said I would do an IFA first because both Cornell and the SPCA suggest that.  I have researched this disease for the past 10 years of my life and talked to vets all over the country about it.  I've talked to sanctuaries as well and many will not take a leuk positive cat without a positive IFA.  If the cat is going to convert and you send it to a home with leukemia when it is IFA negative, you could be giving that kitten a death sentence when it could have a happy full life leukemia free.  Right now we are giving them 30 days to start converting and then we will retest.  But if somebody wanted  one and they had cats with leukemia, I just would want to make sure the kitten is truly positive.  As I mentioned, we recently had 5 positives at our rescue and I
 posted it about it a while back.  They are now all leuk free on both the Elisa and IFA.  We separated them from the positive mom and we gave them 90 days to convert before retesting.  They have been tested 3 times as negative and Cornell, the SPCA and numerous vets said they are leukemia free and can be adopted out as such.  I know that is highly unlikely but it can happen.  The SNAP tests only indicates exposure, not true infection from what I've been told.  Not every exposed cat remains infected as you all know and I just want to be sure these are true positives if they are going to mix with leuk positives.

So anyway, that is all I can say about these babies.  Not sure why people are on my case.  I thought this would be a great resource because I've seen people ask about finding a leuk positive kitty.  Just wanted to post here in case somebody was willing to open their home and heart to one of these babies.

Btw, to the poster that told me I most likely have 3 girls.  Yes, I suspected the blue cream, the tortie and the calico would be girls.  They are.  The black and the gray and white are boys.  I just wasn't 100 sure yet :)

Amy Weygandt

________________________________
 From: Kelley S <moonvine at gmail.com>
To: felvtalk <felvtalk at felineleukemia.org> 
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 3:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] 5 leukemia positive kittens

Marsha..sorry..when I said "I don't know what you want" I was referring to the OP, who if I recall correctly said something along the lines of "we don't want these cats in with other FELV+ cats if they could possibly be negative."  So the way I read her post was:  we want people with no cats who are willing to take the very probable heartbreak of a FELV+ kitten and promise to not expose it to other FELV+ cats and who will pay us over a hundred dollars for doing so.  This is possible, but not very likely IMHO.   Even in our rescue, after a certain point they would eat up over $100 worth of food and we would be losing money even if we did get $100 plus for them.  More importantly, everyone is limited in space, and an animal in a foster home means another animal your rescue cannot help.
The facebook group is interesting, and I encourage those on Facebook to join, not that I want to take traffic away from here, but most are very very very very stridently against mixing.    I tried to get them to come here, but haven't had any luck that I know of.  There is a very strange situation going on there that I'd like to get some input on.  There is a kitten who has tested (snap and IFA) pos for FELV.  This kitten came from a breeder who tests all her cats regularly and none has ever tested positive.  The kitten's owner took the kitten to the vet as per contract within 10 days of buying the cat and got a positive test.  Rechecked with IFA, still positive.  ALL THE OTHER CATS were retested by the breeder and are still negative.  All the other kittens in the litter have tested negative.  HOW did this kitten contract FELV?  

Anyway here is the link:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/26073442228/

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 1:39 PM, Marsha <martia at lynxe.com> wrote:

>
>
>Kelly, now *I'm* confused.  I don't want anything.  I was just sharing my personal experiences and putting some suggestions out there.  Some of the resources you or others may already know about, but others might be new to some people.  Feel free to list your Facebook resources so people here are aware of those too.   Or maybe you were really replying to the same person I was replying to?  
>
>Idea for everyone:  make up a flyer with some basic info about
      FeLV, with a picture of one or more or your FeLV+ cats looking
      happy and living the good life.  Maybe put a link on the flyer to felineleukemia.org or other resource(s).  Distribute the flyer to local vet offices for when the vet gets a client with a cat that tests positive.  The vet could show the flyer to the owner so that the owner can see that there is support available, and that FeLV+ cats can live a happy life for a variable number of years.
>
>Marsha
>
>On 11/14/2014 1:00 PM, Kelley S wrote:
>
>There are some other places to list on Facebook, if you would like the links.  One thing that struck me when I read your post was confusion on my part as to what exactly you wanted.  It seemed to me reading it, and I may be reading things into this, that you did not want the kittens to go to a home with FELV+ cats in there already.   That, in addition to the adoption fee, is going to make it *almost* impossible to ever find these kittens a home (nothing is 100% impossible of course).  Also, once you adopt the kitten out, you don't have control over what the adopters do later.  They may bring in FELV+ cats later.  My heart kitty died of heart disease brought on by a congenital defect.  I spent a lot of time holding her and crying because she was going to die.  They are all going to die, we hope after many years in a happy home.  I spent more time mourning her death than I did celebrating her life.  This was  a grave mistake on my part.
>>
>>
>>
>>On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 12:15 PM, Marsha <martia at lynxe.com> wrote:
>>
>>Some adopters may make a donation to the organization they adopt a zero-fee cat from.  I did.  You might make a cat low or no fee, but say, "donations gratefully accepted".  If you list on PetFinder, consider adding FeLV+ to the heading, besides just listing them as "special needs".  Some people are looking specifically for a FeLV+ cat as a companion for one they already have, and not putting that in the heading forces those people to sift through every special needs listing to find the FeLV+ kitty.  I turned to PetFinder after having no luck locally finding a companion for Harley, and did a search by zip code.  I specified "up to 100 miles", and that's how I found Brock.  Actually, 113 miles away, but the search goes by zip code.
>>>
>>>There are also some listings here (up for adoption or
            looking to adopt FeLV, FIV, FIP +): http://www.bemikitties.com/felv/cgi-bin/suite/classifieds/classifieds.cgi
>>>You can also get to that by the felineleukemia.org website.
>>>
>>>One other place to list is the PurringPixie yahoo group.
>>>
>
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>Felvtalk mailing list
>Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
>http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
>
>

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