How do I protect my cats when volunteering at a shelter?

[Mochiandme]

Hi all. I volunteer and foster kittens from an spca near me. They have/had panleuk going around and I wear ppe in those areas and avoid when possible. I literally don't do anything else with my time except volunteer and work in a warehouse. I brought home upper respiratory infection and 7/8 of my cats have it. My oldest (11yo) is bad and I took him to the vet and was given meds for him but was told it was probably viral and needed to run its course. He getting worse it seems like but is still eating; she said that if they stop eating I should bring whoever in for meds. I absolutely hate myself for doing this to them and need to know how to protect them in the future. I want to continue volunteering because I get special privileges and learn new things to save animals which I want to do as a career. But I will stop for the safety of my cats.

 

[maggie101]

Immediately change clothes and shower. Do you let them outside?

 

[Mochiandme]

Immediately change clothes and shower. Do you let them outside?

no they're all indoor but sometimes will run out to make me mad and run back in almost immediately.

 

[fionasmom]

You have to be meticulously careful when you come home to your cats. Think about your routine of getting dressed for the job at the SPCA, how you are protected, what you might have touched and not been aware of, whether you ever walk in your house in those clothes. I feed a cat who lives at some local apartments and while she looks very healthy and is fixed, I have special clothes that I wear which I remove before I enter my house. It is so easy to spread URIs even when you are being very careful, so ramp up whatever routine you are using between your house, the job, and back home.

 

[neely]

I have special clothes that I wear which I remove before I enter my house.

This is very important.

One of our vets told us you should always take off your shoes before you come in the house because you can track in communicable diseases on shoes.

 

[CatladyJan]

I would leave my work shoes/boots there and sometimes change clothes there as well or remove my clothes and shower when I got home and put my clothes in a plastic bag

 

[Father of furbabies]

If you can and they have the facilities, try taking a sealed bag of work clothes in and storing them in a locker or a closed box with your name on it. If they have a place to shower, use it (after you seal your work clothes away) then dress in your normal clothes. Have Lysol or some disinfectant spray on hand also. This is so you can spray your shoes and the bottom of them. This is what nurses at my hospital have done with the Covid pandemic happening.

 

[silent meowlook]

What I do, is change clothes and shoes at the facility. Bag everything, then bag again. Wash my face, hands, arms, chest and hair before getting clean clothes on. Bagged stuff goes into container in the trunk. I carry a good disinfectant, I use Rescue. I spray the car inside and drive home. Once home I spray my shoes again. I have a garage with a separate entrance, you may not, but I put clothes I am wearing either into a ziplock away from the cats, or directly into washer. I immediately jump in the shower. I spend at least 15 minutes in the shower and then different towel and new clothes.

If I have known exposure to something, I don’t go right home as an added precaution. I will wait at least an hour. But, still follow all of the above.

It’s allot of work but knock on wood ( knocking on my head) I have never brought anything home.

Panleuk is nasty. It can live on surfaces for a year.

 

[misty8723]

Where I volunteer they have community rooms and cats in individual cages in the back in various stages of going through the process. It's typically a two week process of testing, shots, spay/neuter, etc before they become adoptable. With the rooms, we wash our hands thoroghly between rooms, don't use the same trash bag across rooms, change all water and food bowls. We carry our own pens to note what we see in the rooms, and we also let the shift leader know if anything unusal is going on. Any cats with Panleuk or other contagious diseases, you don't have to do if you're uncomfortable. The one we had recently, a volunteer who has only dogs did her room. In the back we wear gowns and change them when we go to another bay. We've been advised to leave our shoes outside when we go home and to shower immediately and put the clothes in a hamper or wash right away. A couple times they've had a breakout of ringwork, and those cats are isolated and tended to by staff, not volunteers.

 

[catsknowme]

Thank you for your volunteer work! Please don't beat yourself up because of this URI. If your cats have the standard vaccines, it is HIGHLY unlikely that it is panleukopenia/feline distemper, especially since you use PPE at the shelter. URIs are typically viruses aka "the common cold" so your cats could have been exposed to a virus from the supermarket floor or an unseen urine spot on the driveway, etc.
You can ask your vet about using L-lysine for immune support. My ferals do well with Homeopet's Feline Nose Relief. Be alert for yellow or greenish nasal discharge which could indicate a secondary bacterial infection that will respond to antibiotics. Probiotics are often helpful - I like Benebac Plus although my country vet recommends generic human grade Lactobacillus.
Here is the link from American Veterinarian Medical Association:
Feline panleukopenia

 

[Caspers Human]

I like all the things people say, above.

Kinda' tangent here... I used to work in a chemical factory where I walked through clouds of steam from boiling vats of chemicals all day.
Then, if you include my work with those chemicals, my clothes could have been contaminated with anything from acids to cyanide. I had a special uniform, shirt and pants, that I wore only for work. As soon as I got home, every day, I went straight upstairs, took off my work clothes, threw them in a separate hamper, took a shower and put on fresh clothes. I had heavy boots, gloves, apron and goggles that I wore only inside the building and took off then put in a locker before going home.

A lot of what the others say is similar to my experience. Do your best to keep work "stuff" at work and keep home "stuff at home.
"Never the twain shall meet."

Something I didn't notice being mentioned... I think it's wise to make sure that your home cats are up to date on all their shots.
While you are at it, same goes for you.

 

[di and bob]

I agree with Feline Nose Relief being very good with URI's. I put it in a tiny bit of lickable treat and they lap it right up. We had distemper make its rounds a few years back and it was horrible. Out of 15 cats, 12 died. They were all outside strays and ferals. I'm sure my cats were exposed because we didn't know what it was for a while. All my inside cats were fine, (the vet did come to my house and give them boosters) as long as you are up to date on their vaccines they should be fine. I would wear paper booties or bring along a change of clothes and shoes to wear after washing up. Hand washing is still the number one preventer of MANY diseases.

 

[Mochiandme]

You have to be meticulously careful when you come home to your cats. Think about your routine of getting dressed for the job at the SPCA, how you are protected, what you might have touched and not been aware of, whether you ever walk in your house in those clothes. I feed a cat who lives at some local apartments and while she looks very healthy and is fixed, I have special clothes that I wear which I remove before I enter my house. It is so easy to spread URIs even when you are being very careful, so ramp up whatever routine you are using between your house, the job, and back home.

Thank you. I have to remember to change immediately after volunteering. I came back and completely forgot

 

[Caspers Human]

Don’t worry so much about a single incident.

It’s not supposed to be like rolling the dice one hundred times in a row and hoping it doesn’t come up craps. It’s more important to make sure you’ve got all your bets covered so that you don’t have to worry about crapping out in the first place.

It‘s better to think about the long haul.

 

[tnrmakessense]

Please don't beat yourself up. What you did - volunteering - you did out of love for cats. Maybe you brought the infection home, maybe it was coincidence. There's just no knowing until real life experiences like yours are studied. What the veterinary community in this country relies on most of the time are studies done on cats in laboratories. And what could be MORE stressful and unnatural for a cat than to be in a cage in a lab.

The National Institute of Health has an area called "PubMed" which is free. You can search any cat health issue, and find most U.S. published studies on the subject. You can also Google studies done outside of this country, where information is often shared more freely. It's how I found a Scandinavian study on cats dosed with Megestrol Acetate for birth control (successfully) , and a French study on adverse reactions to Megestrol Acetate (a fraction of one percent.)

The world needs more people like you. Keep fighting the good fight.

 

[momof3b1g]

I've had this same concern when caring for strays who come into our yard. I told myself I would no longer take them in my home. But keep them outside until the shelter appointment. Then one got hit by a car. I feel so guilty trying to save them but have to be careful for the safety of my own cats. I told myself we would build an outdoor shelter. But then worried about predators and if we put them in the garage. What if there are spiders. The struggle is real:/

 

[Mochiandme]

This is very important.

One of our vets told us you should always take off your shoes before you come in the house because you can track in communicable diseases on shoes.

Yes the vet tech said she sprays under her shoes before she leaves but I have a spare in the car now lol

 

[Mochiandme]

I would leave my work shoes/boots there and sometimes change clothes there as well or remove my clothes and shower when I got home and put my clothes in a plastic bag

I have a volunteer pair of shoes in the car now lol thank you

 

[Mochiandme]

If you can and they have the facilities, try taking a sealed bag of work clothes in and storing them in a locker or a closed box with your name on it. If they have a place to shower, use it (after you seal your work clothes away) then dress in your normal clothes. Have Lysol or some disinfectant spray on hand also. This is so you can spray your shoes and the bottom of them. This is what nurses at my hospital have done with the Covid pandemic happening.

Thank you the vet tech said to spray the bottom of shoes too but I have spare shoes in the car now lol. They don't have lockers unfortunately.

 

[Mochiandme]

What I do, is change clothes and shoes at the facility. Bag everything, then bag again. Wash my face, hands, arms, chest and hair before getting clean clothes on. Bagged stuff goes into container in the trunk. I carry a good disinfectant, I use Rescue. I spray the car inside and drive home. Once home I spray my shoes again. I have a garage with a separate entrance, you may not, but I put clothes I am wearing either into a ziplock away from the cats, or directly into washer. I immediately jump in the shower. I spend at least 15 minutes in the shower and then different towel and new clothes.

If I have known exposure to something, I don’t go right home as an added precaution. I will wait at least an hour. But, still follow all of the above.

It’s allot of work but knock on wood ( knocking on my head) I have never brought anything home.

Panleuk is nasty. It can live on surfaces for a year.

Thank you for your detailed routine! It's really helpful and I can come up with something. My cats are vaccinated against panleuk. But the bottles im fostering are not.