I'm with Nina. Plus it just doesn't happen. I have brought in new negatives and new positives. NO ONE has ever 'caught' felv from my positives. One was a feral that had only had her 1st vaccine and I just brought her on in without waiting for the 2nd. She's negative.
Unless you're dealing with unvaccinated cats/kittens......... it's just not going to happen. If I had the choice to live all alone or be killed or live in a 'sanctuary' I'd choose to risk the thunderstorm too. I truly think the odds of a positive transferring the virus to a vaccinated cat would be about the same as being struck by lightening.
NOT vaccinating would be more like holding the metal pole. If they're vaccinated there is simply just not a risk. I've been on this list over 10 years. It doesn't happen. Even positive cats have only a third of a chance of getting sick.
About a third of cats are naturally immune. About a third might carry the virus and never get sick. And the last third gets sick. Add the vaccine to help that last third and even if it's not 100% effective you are looking at excellent odds.
What does happen is that people test their cats one time and get false negatives. Then they don't find out they have a positive cat until it gets sick or they bring in a cat that tests positive and then retest everyone and find out they had a false negative to begin with but think the disease was transmitted. I don't believe it was. The virus can be in the bone marrow for years and then show up. Unless a cat came from an older truly negative mother, and was never exposed to ANY other cats there's a chance it might turn up positive at some point. Any cat you already have could be harboring the virus if it was a stray, if it came from a shelter
or rescue, from a breeder, etc.... even if it tested negative at one time. I truly believe you are 99.9% safe if the cats are vaccinated.
And yes, I think vets need to get their acts together and quit passing out information that is flat out wrong. They know there's next to no chance of a vaccinated cat getting felv, BUT they have to cover their asses.
It's just like what's going on now with vaccinations. They KNOW those vaccinations are not necessary every year, but they are fighting it every step of the way to scare people into getting them every year. Why? Money.
My internal specialist told me he had his household mixed at least 10 years ago. He said the 'right thing to do' would be to tell me to find a new place for my positive............ but that he had a positive himself. felv and fiv. And he said no one had
transferred either to his negative cats.
tonya
Nina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Nina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
If the only place you could be with your loved ones and not feel like a prisoner, was to stand in thunder storms, (even with a pole in your arms), I wonder how much more ready to risk it someone might be. I don't know how well this analogy works, but when you're talking about a pos being segregated away from family fur members and confined to one room "for each other's safety", there are other things to consider besides the "safest" course of action. There is some debate about just how social cats are, how necessary to their well being it is to interact with each other. I just know from personal experience that it is important to my guys. I don't know how I would have reacted if I'd had some warning about the status of my felv kids. They had already been mixed, and even though it did give me pause, there was really no decision to be made. I can only tell you how grateful I am that I didn't separate them from the rest of the household. Maybe I'm fortunate to not have had anyone else contract the disease, the majority of this list has had the same experience, but there are some that have not. I guess part of my decision making process always includes the aspect of what I consider quality of life. I've never been a proponent of quantity over quality. Cats need to interact in as "free" and stimulating an environment as possible. Of course it's important to keep them safe, but I wonder what their answer would be if we posed the question to them directly. We could always pole incarcerated humans and ask them if they'd rather take their chances standing free in a thunder storm. Maybe my view on this has to do with watching, loving and learning from my feral colonies. Perhaps it's just a rationalization to help me cope with not being able to fully protect the "wild" cats that I love, but I am convinced that they would not be living as full or as happy a life if they were forced to live in captivity.
So, as it's too late to not make this a long-winded response, I'll try to at least cut it short... Should the experts update their websites? You bet they should. Part of the problem is that the updating we are looking for is mostly from anequdotal evidence and the experts don't put a great deal of credence in what guardians like us have discovered. At the same time, no one seems willing to do the studies that might back up what we've learned here. There are still many vets that don't think shutting the pos away in it's own room is enough of a precaution. These are the vets that take it a step further and advocate euthanasia of asymptomatic cats, not only for the protection of the negs in the household, but for the pos as well! The owners unfortunate enough to put their faith in that kind of expert advice never get the chance to prove them wrong.
I know that this list and the history of it's members was a breath of fresh air to me when I was confused, distraught and at the end of my rope. I know that the advice I've received here has proven to be as reliable as any I could receive about this unpredictable and insidious disease. Would I take the advice of some of our members over that of a trained, licensed veterinarian? You bet I would, and I have.
Nina
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Here's my take on it. The experts tell me that it is possible to be struck by lightening in a thunderstorm. Me - I've been outside countless times when it started storming - and I've never been struck and neither has anyone in my family or anyone I know. Do the weather experts need to update their websites and literature? I'm thinking it might be a good idea to think long and hard before standing out in the rain with a metal pole. Now - I don't know if it's easier to be struck by lightening than for casual contact FeVL contamination to occur - I simply do not know the odds...but if it's possible - I surely do want to know and take some precautions where appropriate.elizabethIn a message dated 6/20/2006 11:15:05 P.M. Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:This only tells me it's not nearly as hard to catch as they try and make people believe. And I still don't think it would be very easy to catch by grooming, I would watch Bailey and joey groom each other and they actually would groom and touch tongues and Joey still never got it!!
