The 2010 clinic season begins....

[ondine]

Apparently the cat got into a fight with something that bit its tail; the cat escaped and took part of the other animal's jaw with it.

Holy Moly! No, it is never boring. But man, you had a jaw dropper there. Did the cat go home OK?

I laughed about the little demon cat - we had one - someone's "darling little baby" who clawed up three volunteers so badly, one had to go to her doctor. God bless her, she was back next time, ready to go.

I'm also glad to hear about your policy about FIV/FELV. I know of a couple of colonies with positive cats who are doing quite well, thanks to the good nutrition they get. And - they're neutered, so no fighting!

 

[addiebee]

I just want to say, bless you both for doing this sort of thing!!!

 

[ipw533]

"I laughed about the little demon cat - we had one - someone's "darling little baby" who clawed up three volunteers so badly, one had to go to her doctor. God bless her, she was back next time, ready to go."

Sometimes it's not. I had to deal with one cat, a house pet, that was legendary for throwing clawing, biting and screaming fits. I had to microchip this cat, while it was awake, aware and very feisty.

Ever microchip a cat? It's done with a very large guage needle (personal confession--I hate needles and will do damn near anything to avoid getting shots). The injection is subcutaneous between the shoulder blades. The microchip is the size of a grain of uncooked rice. My personal technique is to insert the needle into a tented flap of skin and then pinch the needle; after I inject and then pull the needle out I can feel the microchip. An electronic reader confirms that the chip has been implanted and is active. This is easy enough to do when a cat is unconscious, but it's tough when the cat is awake--even tougher when it wants to fight.

We had one volunteer who was hospitalized for five days after being mauled by a female feral. She was caring for both the mother and her kittens but the mother apparently had been abused or damaged in some fashion. Feral cats do not normally attack humans, but this one did and tore up her arms, creating a serious infection. The cat was euthanized and the volunteer is back in business.

Our protocol is to do as much as possible while the cat is unconscious, but with high volume and a speedy vet that's not always possible and it makes things often--interesting.....

 

[breellablue]

I'm a foster, one of those people who come in with tons of kittens we've acquired from our rescue-- and I want to thank you guys. You rock.

Having worked in a vet clinic for a while as an assistant I know first hand what your job can entail and I applaud you

for continuing to do it. (I'm aiming to be a zookeeper)

mice in the autoclave... I have a sad feeling of what steamed mice look like.

 

[ipw533]

Today's clinic was light--only 38 cats, and not all of them required surgery. Good thing, because due to a surprise snowstorm in the morning we were initially short-staffed. No pregnancies, but we did have to give fluids to two postpartum cats. We had three FIV positive cats but none were euthanized; more about that later. One cat was a monorchid who could not have his undescended testicle removed due to a bad abdominal rash; that one also had a broken humerus that could not be set without being broken again because it was already healing--we don't have the means for that kind of care.

One feral cat we dealt with--a non-surgical case--had an absolutely scary case of ear mites--initially it looked like he was trying to claw off one of his ears to get at them. He'll be back next week, and we'll try applying microdrops of Frontline into the ears to kill the parasites. Today he was sedated because he needed shots and a microchip as well as ear cleaning. Whether or not he'll be sedated then is an open question.

One of our volunteers celebrated her 17th birthday at The Cube, and her mother had pizza and a cake ordered. It's good to know that it's not just crazy older folks doing this work; this girl is our discharge paperwork volunteer but can also do vaccinations if we get jammed up.

The cake had Felix the Cat announcing her birthday. One more slice and we'd have neutered Felix. I'm guessing that happened when they took the cake home.

Back to the FIV positive cats--one was part of a group of rescues used as "window cats" by a pet store chain to promote rescue adoptions. All well and good, but the rescued cats they were using were not socialized and had poor adoption prospects--I'm not so sure about their other cats. Imagine what would happen if someone adopted a cat that turned out to be both semi-feral and FIV positive!

Another was a more heart-wrenching case. Many of us have been here before, and I doubt it was easy for any of us. This cat was in seriously bad shape. He was FIV positive, had an eye infection with thick yellow discharge and inflamed eyelids in both eyes, a bald and infected spot on his chest twice the size of my thumb (the whole finger), and bloody diarrhea.

Normally in a case this bad we would strongly consider euthanizing the cat. The trapper who brought him is well-known and respected in our small community and has often made the hard decision to put a sick or badly injured cat down--he was the one who brought in the hot roofing tar cat. He declined to have this cat euthanized and will be attempting to nurse it back to health; I'm dubious about that because it looks like multiple opportunistic infections have pretty much overwhelmed this cat's already compromised immune system. I don't see this cat surviving for long, and I would have ended his suffering today. Some of you will agree and some will disagree--but I think we can all agree it's a tough case-by-case call and the best decision isn't always the easiest....