I had a cat with FELV that lived to be 17. I never separated him from my other cats, they ate out of the same bowls, etc., and none of them ever contracted the disease. The other ones were vaccinated against it. I've also had 2 other positives living with my negative cats (one lived to be 4, the other 8), and none of my other cats ever contracted it.
My brother, too, had a positive cat that lived to be 17- and he, too, never separated his cats out. None of his other cats (vaccinated) ever contracted Feleuk. Just sayin'. -----Original Message----- From: Pam Norman [mailto:pam_nor...@charter.net] Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 2:01 PM To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Subject: [Felvtalk] Question re positives & negatives I am trying to determine what to do with Poppy both now & when the IFA test results come in. I've been reading & reading & from what I can gather, the old dictums about NEVER havinig positive & negative cats even in the same house has been abandoned. From what I have read, the general sense is that it's fine for positives & negatives to be in the same home, but should be separate so there is no chance of exchanging fluids such as with a bite, but more importantly with mutual grooming. But I know also that some of you have both positives & negatives really living together, not separate. Right? What about if I put Poppy in her condo in the spare bedroom & let me cats visit, so at least she SEES other cats. What is she hisses & spits? Would that have a chance of infecting any of mine who were nosing around her condo? My feeling is that it would. Also how effective is the vaccine these days? I know that some years ago the figure was about 30% so I never had any of my cats vaccinated. Has it been improved? Right now we are still waiting for the IFA test for Poppy. And I guess she needs retesting on that in at least a month. I do NOT want to keep her alone until then. We have a sanctuary for her if she tests IFA positive cause then we know that she is really positive. But the person who runs it tells me that regardless of how she tests on the IFA, she HAS leukemia. Period. And would go in with the positive cats. But my understanding is that if she is IFA negative, she has a chance of fighting it off & putting her in with the positives is giving up. I think she should only go in with the positives if she tests IFA positive. Can anyone help me sort this out? Pam _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
