The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on July 22, 2008

Pinky had the sniffles. It's okay, all the cats had the sniffles. Otherwise, they were fine. Pinky was eating, drinking, playing, and would come over and want to be picked up. He wanted to play and be petted and held.

This weekend, he went to an adoption clinic. He and his sister were adopted by a little girl (probably 6 or so) who had just had to put down her 22 year old cat a few weeks earlier.

This morning, I got an email from a woman at the agency which runs the foster program.

Pinky is dead.

It is not the little girl's fault. Pinky died of feline distemper.

The woman emailed me to let me know this, and that I should get the other kittens (the three we are keeping) checked (which they will be as part of their upcoming physical and vaccinations).

Our kittens have the sniffles, but are rapidly improving. Since the momcat (who would chase our other cats) is now gone, we can let them out, and they have been wandering and exploring. Aside from rapidly improving sniffles and the one with the bad (but healing well) eye, they are all just fine.

It doesn't make any sense. I mean, this Panleukopenia virus is pretty much everywhere. Most kittens are exposed, and when you have a lot of them together the aggregate volume of virus is too much and some will succumb. It kills quickly, with 90% of kittens dead within five days. A particularly strong strain (or kitten with weak immune system) will kill within hours. If we had such a strain, shouldn't the kittens we kept be showing symptoms? Aside from the normal “baby poop” that kittens have while nursing, all of the kittens had proper non-diarrhea poops, were eating, drinking, and playful. Like I said, no symptoms.

Some thoughts:

- Maybe I should have taken Pinky to the vet for the sniffles. However, I didn't really think much of it. He was getting better. So are our other two. They're going in to the vet for their shots in a week and a half, but I'm not going to move up that appointment, because they're getting better. If their situation worsens, and they stop getting better, sure I will, but these kittens are not really sick – not like the symptoms which are described when talking about distemper.

- I probably shouldn't have taken him in to get neutered. He was a bit small for that, and I don't think this helped any. I figured they wouldn't neuter him if he was too small. I listened to the agency and took him in and let the vets running the low cost spay/neuter clinic decide.

- I don't know that it is a good idea to run a public adoption clinic with cats who have not had their shots. Reading the literature, pet owners can carry this distemper on themselves and their clothes. All the other cats who were at that clinic are getting checked. It will be interesting to see who has what. If they all are infected, and ours are fine, then it kind of suggests where they got it from. Further, it could even have been the cage used at the clinic – not properly sanitized or whatnot.

- Further, if only Pink and his sister turns out to have been/be sick, then it was (unfortunately) the little girl's house. It is kind of a shame, because they had no way of knowing this, and had Pinky not been fighting a cold, it might not have been a problem.

I really feel quite terrible about all this. Pinky was a sweet kitty, and I can't help but think that there was something I could have done to fix him. It's part of how I'm wired – I have to fix things.

If I'm this broken up over a kitten, I can't imagine what I'm going to be like when I can't save someone at a fire/accident scene.

I know it will happen, but that won't make it easier.

I dread that day.

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