Hi all, I'm a newbie here. Someone suggested this forum to me, so here I am!Let me start out by telling you that we have 4 dogs, 5 cats, 2 buns, 3 hermit crabs, and a betta. It's a pretty full house!
One of our cats adopted us back in August and we decided to name him Joey. We always quarantine our animals before introducing them and we always have a checkup before letting them settle into our family. A week or two after feeding Joey, we brought him in for his neuter and found out he had a weak positive for Feline Leukemia. I'm not sure how many people here know about this disease, but it's very contagious to other cats when they come into contact with them and haven't been vaccinated against it. (Just another reason to have your pets regularly vaccinated!)Joey is a very young cat, so we're guessing he was born with it, unfortunately. He has been living in our playroom off of the garage with a couch, a kitty bed, a heater, good quality food, and lots of toys and we try to give him as much attention as possible. Is this cruel? We have a shelter about an hour away from us who takes in leukemia positive kitties, but it would cost me money to house him there.. and I've grown very attached to him, and so has my family. What would you do? He seems to be happy as he plays with anyone and loves to cuddle.. we even put classical music on for him. I just worry about him getting bored, yet I know a lot of cats have it way worse than him.
The vet said he could live 10+ years with health monitoring and she doesn't see anything wrong with keeping him the way we've been keeping him. Sorry this is so long, I really want advice! I've also never given away an animal.
Also, the room he is in is about 400 sq. feet.
One of our cats adopted us back in August and we decided to name him Joey. We always quarantine our animals before introducing them and we always have a checkup before letting them settle into our family. A week or two after feeding Joey, we brought him in for his neuter and found out he had a weak positive for Feline Leukemia. I'm not sure how many people here know about this disease, but it's very contagious to other cats when they come into contact with them and haven't been vaccinated against it. (Just another reason to have your pets regularly vaccinated!)Joey is a very young cat, so we're guessing he was born with it, unfortunately. He has been living in our playroom off of the garage with a couch, a kitty bed, a heater, good quality food, and lots of toys and we try to give him as much attention as possible. Is this cruel? We have a shelter about an hour away from us who takes in leukemia positive kitties, but it would cost me money to house him there.. and I've grown very attached to him, and so has my family. What would you do? He seems to be happy as he plays with anyone and loves to cuddle.. we even put classical music on for him. I just worry about him getting bored, yet I know a lot of cats have it way worse than him.
The vet said he could live 10+ years with health monitoring and she doesn't see anything wrong with keeping him the way we've been keeping him. Sorry this is so long, I really want advice! I've also never given away an animal.
Also, the room he is in is about 400 sq. feet.