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 <[email protected]>
To: felvtalk <[email protected]>
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 <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> 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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>
>
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