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Here is the preamble to the Cat Fancy Article: Positive Outlook, Positive Environment Veterinariana find cats with the leukemia virus can enjoy life? By Steve Friess Most people try to avoid FeLV positive cats. However, Ron and Debbie Reinstedler will drive hundreds of miles to adopt them. The Louisville, Ky., couple rescued a pair of stray kittens found by friends in 2000 and soon discovered both cats contracted FeLV. To protect their FeLV-negative cats, the couple converted the apartment above their printing business into an FeLV-positive cat haven. Another friend then told them of six other FeLV-positive kittens at a shelter in Indiana, and a colony started to develop. Today, the Reinstedlers usually host approximately 50 FeLV-positive cats ranging in age from four months to 12 years old, some believed to have lived with FeLV for 10 years. On one occasion, they drove to St. Louis to meet someone from Topeka Kan., who wanted to turn over FeLV-positive cats and contacted tham via the Internet. The Reinstedlers turned their veritable cattery into an unofficial laboratory, splitting the animals into three groups and administering different treatments to observe any difference in outcomes. All receive Interferon alpha in the common week-on, week-off schedule, but one set also takes the antibiotic Baytril and another third take the liquid colloidal silver, a homeopathic remedy. The experiement, that started in May, could take eight months or more to yield conclusions, if any. While the effort is expensive---the Reinstedlers sometimes spend as much as $650 a month in veterinary bills---they believe it to be worthwhile. ''They all deserve a chance to live,'' says Ron Reinstedler, 58. ''Many people, as soon as they find a cat is FeLV-positive, they want to put it down. Why? They can live good lives for six months, a year, 18 months and sometimes much longer. They deserve the same as everyone else does.'' Steve Friess is a free-lance writer in Reno, Nev., whose contributions have appeared in The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report and Dog Fancy.
