Stray Kitty

[bniles]

Hi Everyone, it's been awhile since I've written, not since the new board that's for sure. Very nice.

I have a question. I'm picking up a 5 or 6 month old stray tabby cat tonight from the friend of a co-worker. I couldn't get a vet appointment scheduled until tomorrow at 2pm. What precautions exactly should I take with this kitty? I have four other healthy cats. I'm planning to keep her in a small room downstairs.

My biggest concern is our cats being able to come nose to nose with her under the door. Is that okay? We have a huge plastic dog crate that's used when we travel with our golden retreiver. If it's not okay for our cats to even be nose to nose with the kitty I can put her inside that in the room until I get her checked out and vaccinated. There's plenty of room for a kitty litter box and food and water bowls in there, it's huge.

This cat hasn't been vet checked at all and although it supposedly looks completely healthy I don't want to take any chances. I haven't seen the kitten at all yet.

[Traci]

Until the exam and tested for FELV/FIV, keep her completely seperated/isolated from your other cats. Nose to nose or nose to mouth contact isn't ideal. Most viruses can be transmitted airborne and not necessarily through direct contact, so try to minimize the potential for contact in every way. For infectious disease virals, it usually takes direct contact through nose to nose, grooming, sharing food/water dishes, constant contact, etc, just use precautions. If your other kitties are current on their vaccinations, this affords them extra protection (but is not absolute).

Also, use a smock or robe or whatever when handling her, remove it, and wash your hands thoroughly before handling your other cats.

[bniles]

Thanks for the quick response Traci, I'll do exactly that then. I'll keep her crated in a room until after she's examined and I get the test results. The smock or robe isn't something I'd thought of so I'll be sure to do that too!

I'll post back with the results when I get them. Hopefully everything will come back clean and clear.

~Brandi

[Traci]

Brandi, I don't think it's necessary to actually crate her, just try to minimize the contact between her and the other cats. If they can touch noses beneath the door, that wouldn't be good though.

[bniles]

Hi Traci,

They can actually touch noses under the door, our cats can get their whole arms underneath the doors in our place. Actually, one of our cats is known for reaching under and pulling the hallway rug into the room whenever she's locked in a room for any reason. We live in a really old house (early 1800's, it's been redone but kept with the time period) anyway, because of this we have old, uneven, wooden floors and older style doors. There's a good half inch to an inch between the bottom of the doors and the flooring in most of the rooms. The kitties love to hide around and play underneath the doors and stuff. Makes it difficult when you need to isolate someone though.

Anyway, we picked her up and she looks really healthy. She's gorgeous and really friendly. All she wanted to do when we brought her home was purr, head-butt, snuggle and love. I didn't actually hold her when we picked her up where she had been living, my husband crated her. When I let her out of her crate when we got home though she immediatly wanted me to pick her up. When I did so I noticed that she feels pregnant. Hard belly and enlarged nipples. So I guess we have adopted a pregnant kitty. My best guess would be that she's about 6 weeks pregnant and around 5-6 months old. I'll see what the vet thinks about her pregnancy and age tomorrow. I do worry about the kittens though because the people said they tried to "ignore her and hope she'd go away" before a cat-loving friend of theirs convinced them to feed her and try to find her a new home. Hopefully everyone is okay, I'm really anxious to get her to the vet tomorrow now!

~Brandi

[Tina B and crew]

Good luck with the new kitty Brandi...and I agree with Traci's suggestions...

[bniles]

An update on our newest addition. She checked out great at the vet. Was given what shots she could be given. Since we're not sure if she's pregnant or not we have to wait on some of the shots.

We started introducing her to the rest of our family. The first thing she did was scope out the kitty tunnel in the dining room. Then she proceeded into the dogs room. I had the dog crated at the time and the kitty went up to the crate and poofed all up, arched her back and hissed. She did the same when she met the first of our four cats. She's really outgoing and when let out into the house she was walking tall, head up, tail up. She's one happy cat. Our other cats are keeping their distance but are coming around. There's been a lot of hissing and growling but no actual fights or contact short of sniffing. It's going really well and I think in the next couple days they'll all warm up to each other.

We've named the kitty Sophie.

We've also discovered she's quite the escape artist so we're going to be screening in our porch this weekend. We've discussed screening it in for awhile and had everything on hand to do it BUT the actual screen material. We picked up the screen last night and will do the project over the weekend. This way if she gets through the door she can't get off the porch.

We're happy she's fitting in so quickly and is so healthy.

We took some pictures if anyone is interested:
http://www.nilesweb.com/brandi/Sophie.htm

[Traci]

Awww......great pics!!

I take it your vet didn't guess what term, so maybe in another week or so, ask about an x-ray to try to detect kitten fetuses (skeletals will show). Some vets, if they have an ultrasound machine, may even do a quick check for you if you bat your eyelashes once or twice or tell them you just don't know WHAT you're going to do with new kittens! Heh, heh. (in other words, if you can determine the pregnancy, you can also opt for spaying now)

[jason]

We took some pictures

i think my rocky and your sophie are related, i thought i was looking at pics i took of rocky when i saw yours.

[Tina B and crew]

great pics Brandi!! Sophie looks like a sweetie