Catlovers I need your help! re: vaccines for cats.

[Yulia_R]

Hi guys!

We are seriously considering buying a Selkirk Rex kitten (they were born two days ago and one of the kittens is my favorite color: Cream ).

Anyway, I've never really researched vaccines for pets (and honestly, I don't really have the time to do a deep research on this). So, please share your knowledge.

I have two questions:

1. If the cat will go outside, what are the odds of him getting VPDs?
2. The breeder said that his kittens can go home only when they are 4 months old and that they get all required by this age vaccines. Would you do something about it?

Thanks in advance,
Yulia.

PS. Another question which is irrelevant to the vaccines (but I'd appreciate any input on this one as well) is how often do you de-worm your cats (my kids are almost 2.5 and 4 and there is no way they'd wash their hands every time after petting the cat) and what do you use to de-worm them?

[claddaghmom]

Originally Posted by Yulia_R

Hi guys!

We are seriously considering buying a Selkirk Rex kitten (they were born two days ago and one of the kittens is my favorite color: Cream ).

Anyway, I've never really researched vaccines for pets (and honestly, I don't really have the time to do a deep research on this). So, please share your knowledge.

I have two questions:

1. If the cat will go outside, what are the odds of him getting VPDs?
2. The breeder said that his kittens can go home only when they are 4 months old and that they get all required by this age vaccines. Would you do something about it?

Thanks in advance,
Yulia.

PS. Another question which is irrelevant to the vaccines (but I'd appreciate any input on this one as well) is how often do you de-worm your cats (my kids are almost 2.5 and 4 and there is no way they'd wash their hands every time after petting the cat) and what do you use to de-worm them?

Growing up, my mom always made it clear that we were a vaccine-free family, and our pets were part of our family.

Of course, that means we got our pets from neighbors or newspaper ads. Although I do remember during the flooding of 93, my family took in a lot of kittens/cats and requested that none of them be vaccinated. I don't know if it was due to the crisis or what, but their wishes were granted.

[peainthepod]

Our dear little cat died of an aggressive sarcoma that formed directly under the site of her vaccine injections. The vet told me that it's one reason he prefers to give shots on animals' limbs; legs can be amputated while necks cannot. She had been vaccinated at the shelter we adopted her from so it was never our choice, but that experience really cemented my decision not to vaccinate our animals more than legally required, and NEVER to vaccinate our child(ren). Nasty stuff. She was only two years old. :

Two things: I would encourage you to keep your cat inside, as indoor cats live much longer, healthier, safer lives, and also I would say get her the kitten shots and nothing else. Once her boosters are due, have the vet draw titers instead. FLV and rabies are no joke, but for an indoor cat they are extremely unlikely. Depending on your local laws, you may need a yearly or tri-yearly rabies vaccine, but the others might be unnecessary. And even for rabies, titers usually suffice.

Oh, and if you're considering declawing, please don't! It's inhumane and totally unnecessary. Consider getting the kitty Soft Paws instead.

Thanks for adopting an animal! You're awesome. :

[Yulia_R]

Thanks for your replies!

What is FLV? Is it dangerous for humans as well? Are there other cats' dangerous VPDs such as parvo (I really know NOTHING about cats, if we buy the kitten this will be our first one).

I didn't mean to let the cat to run outside freely, but I would want to take him out on a leash or under our supervision. Perhaps they do live longer and safer lives indoors, but I personally kind of feel that this is cruel. Our house is pretty small, not nearly big enough for wild plays. And also I feel that just like kids need to be allowed to be kids, cats need sometimes to be allowed to be cats as well. If I were a cat, I'd rather prefer more or less free full happy life (even if it's a shorter one) than a long, safe, boring one.

So, if the cat will go out, what are the dangerous VPDs we might be facing? The kitten costs a fortune; anywhere from $300 to $600 (the breeder will get a better idea when he is a little older; both parents are champions, unfortunately, so the price is likely to be close to $600). Having said that, it’s not like we would not worry about a kitten if he was free, but you know what I mean…when you pay $600, you want to try to cover all if’s…

I'm NOT considering declawing.

[peainthepod]

Originally Posted by Yulia_R

Thanks for your replies!

What is FLV? Is it dangerous for humans as well? Are there other cats' dangerous VPDs such as parvo (I really know NOTHING about cats, if we buy the kitten this will be our first one).

I didn't mean to let the cat to run outside freely, but I would want to take him out on a leash or under our supervision. Perhaps they do live longer and safer lives indoors, but I personally kind of feel that this is cruel. Our house is pretty small, not nearly big enough for wild plays. And also I feel that just like kids need to be allowed to be kids, cats need sometimes to be allowed to be cats as well. If I were a cat, I'd rather prefer more or less free full happy life (even if it's a shorter one) than a long, safe, boring one.

So, if the cat will go out, what are the dangerous VPDs we might be facing? The kitten costs a fortune; anywhere from $300 to $600 (the breeder will get a better idea when he is a little older; both parents are champions, unfortunately, so the price is likely to be close to $600). Having said that, it’s not like we would not worry about a kitten if he was free, but you know what I mean…when you pay $600, you want to try to cover all if’s…

I'm NOT considering declawing.

FLV is Feline Leukemia Virus. It's contagious and causes a form of leukemia in cats that is often fatal. They get it from other cats, usually after outdoors or kennel exposure. It is not a danger to humans. Rabies, as you probably know, is quite dangerous to humans and should be taken very seriously. If your cat is not vaccinated for rabies and bites someone, it may need to be confiscated and destroyed so they can test its brain for the presence of rabies. Not worth the risk, IMO.

I'm not trying to argue with you, but as an experienced cat owner I will make a few points. Cats, unlike dogs, really don't need much room to be happy. They lounge around all day with only limited bursts of activity. Your average adult cat spends roughly 16 hours of the day asleep. When they are awake, they enjoy climbing and perching with occasional mad dashes throughout the house or apartment. Cats are happy in very small spaces, which is why they're ideal pets for apartment dwellers.

While it might seem cruel to keep a cat indoors, most cats adapt quite happily to such a living arrangement. In fact it's even possible to successfully adapt a formerly outdoor cat to an indoor-only environment. As long as you provide some kind of ledge, climbing post, or other area for them to hang out on, and plenty of interesting toys to play with, and lots of love and affection, almost any cat will be perfectly content inside forever.

Why shouldn't you let your cat out, though? Well, cats did not evolve to survive in an urban environment. Even the most "street smart" alley cat will usually not live to be much older than three or four years. Outdoor cats die horribly and tragically in a number of unpleasant ways; poisoning, getting hit by cars, falling off of roofs and balconies, being tortured and killed by the assorted psychopaths who live among us, being captured by city authorities and then euthanized in shelters, being stolen and then sold for animal research...

If you are going to spend several hundred dollars on an animal, you probably want your investment to last more than a couple of years, right? Even if your cat isn't killed outright, the emergency veterinary treatment could quickly add up. When you're taking your cat in every other week for the latest wound or poisoning scare, you quickly realize why it's best to keep cats inside.

And if all of the above information doesn't convince you, know that feral/outdoor cats are considered vermin in many communities and are removed and taken to be destroyed on sight. They wreak havoc on local songbird and frog populations, not to mention the health risks of having them use area gardens, sandboxes, and playgrounds as a litter box. Really, there is no good reason to allow a pet cat outdoors. If you have an outdoor cat, it should be a barn cat and active mouser...with the understanding that it probably won't live very long.

Note: there are exceptions. Nearly everyone has a story about the outdoor cat that lived to be 12. But those cats are just that: exceptions. The vast majority of outdoor cats die young, and they die painfully.

Hope this helps, please feel free to PM me with any questions.

[FernG]

Originally Posted by Yulia_R

Thanks for your replies!
I didn't mean to let the cat to run outside freely, but I would want to take him out on a leash or under our supervision. Perhaps they do live longer and safer lives indoors, but I personally kind of feel that this is cruel. Our house is pretty small, not nearly big enough for wild plays. And also I feel that just like kids need to be allowed to be kids, cats need sometimes to be allowed to be cats as well. If I were a cat, I'd rather prefer more or less free full happy life (even if it's a shorter one) than a long, safe, boring one.

I taught our cat to walk on a leash when she was 15 years old. She loves it! She knows to stop when I pull back (gently!) on the leash 1x and to change directions if I pull back 2x. The outdoors can be dangerous, but cat's are very sensitive to flame retardant and indoor cats have a high incidence of thyroid disease due to flame retardant exposure.

I don't know about the diseases. Our cat had kitten shots and nothing since then. She goes to the vet for regular checkups. She hasn't been dewormed for years and years.

I read those pediatrician/child care sites that all say kids should wash their hands after petting a family pet. That is not feasible with our lifestyle, and I'm not convinced that it would be healthy. Our cat is with us all the time and we pet her and play with her all the time. She and DD share toys and sleep together.

[Yulia_R]

When I said about taking the cat outside I never meant to just open the door and let it run. I mean walking on a leash or letting him run under our supervision.

We live in a co-housing, which is a wonderful very community friendly neighborhood. There are NO cars inside the neighborhood, only ped ways. To my knowledge (I asked people who were living here from get-go) NO cat died around here due to being hit by a car, from poisoning (all our neighbors are wonderful animals loving people) or being tortured by a crazy person/kid for as long as this neighborhood excited (which is over 15 years). The only accidents that took place (and there WERE quite few of those) is coyote. So, that is why I think that supervision is crucial.

But now back to the vaccines question. I know that rabies vaccine is required by low and I am fine with it. Thanks for the info on FLV, it looks like another thing that is worth vaccinating (at least the initial, kittens shot).

Is there any other VPD that you would feel is worth while vaccinating for?

[peainthepod]

Originally Posted by Yulia_R

When I said about taking the cat outside I never meant to just open the door and let it run. I mean walking on a leash or letting him run under our supervision.

We live in a co-housing, which is a wonderful very community friendly neighborhood. There are NO cars inside the neighborhood, only ped ways. To my knowledge (I asked people who were living here from get-go) NO cat died around here due to being hit by a car, from poisoning (all our neighbors are wonderful animals loving people) or being tortured by a crazy person/kid for as long as this neighborhood excited (which is over 15 years). The only accidents that took place (and there WERE quite few of those) is coyote. So, that is why I think that supervision is crucial.

But now back to the vaccines question. I know that rabies vaccine is required by low and I am fine with it. Thanks for the info on FLV, it looks like another thing that is worth vaccinating (at least the initial, kittens shot).

Is there any other VPD that you would feel is worth while vaccinating for?

Supervising a cat off-leash outdoors? Good luck with that! I don't see a problem with leashed walks although I've never been able to get my cats to tolerate them. Coyote attacks happen in the blink of an eye, to cats and small dogs alike (I have owned both). You will also want to watch out for hawks and other birds of prey, especially while the cat is a juvenile.

To answer your vaccines question, I can't really say. Aside from the initial kitten shots, I would not vaccinate an indoor cat for anything but rabies, and only then because I would hate for the cat to be confiscated and destroyed if it bit someone. But I don't know about outdoor cats; disease-wise, they carry a lot more risk and I'm not sure that I wouldn't keep them up to date. That's sort of out of my area of experience, as I just don't find that allowing them to go outside is worth it whatsoever. Not to sound harsh, but it's entirely possible the cat will be killed before any long-term vaccine reactions or health problems become symptomatic.

Good luck whatever you decide.

[angie7]

My dogs are not vaccinated and my indoor/outdoor cat isn't either (my sig says 2 cats but one ran away and I haven't changed it yet). We are getting ready to move to the country where they will encounter wildlife and they will still be vax free. Like a pp said, they are part of the family and we are no vax family...

But since this cat is from a breeder, they may not let the cat go without any vaxes so you'll have to weigh how important it is that the cat remain vax free.

[luminesce]

One of our cats got a fibrosarcoma in his side from a rabies vaccination and after several surgeries, had to be euthanized. It is a well-known side effect of the adjuvant. There is an alternative vaccination that is adjuvant free. Our vet only gives this shot and only gives it in the limbs, just as an added precaution. Fibrosarcomas are generally only locally aggressive so limbs can be amputated. The only caveat of the vaccination is that it has to be given yearly instead of every three years (though our vet said that this may change soon.)

I would not forego the rabies shot. Exposure could happen in a situation you do not expect and rabies is no laughing matter. It is 100% fatal and nothing can be done once symptoms start. If a bite/scratch happened, your animals could be taken away, destroyed and you might put someone in a bad position where they feel they need to get vaccinated for rabies. It just isn't worth skipping in my opinion.

I wouldn't worry too much about the other shots if your cat is indoors. The feline leukemia virus is bad but unlikely to be encountered unless outdoors and around other cats. I read some likely crazy theories once about FLV being connected to leukemia in cat owners but I never followed the science on that claim.

When we owned indoor cats, we didn't do the upper respiratory vaccinations but then one cat got a bad respiratory infection which resulted in tons of sneezing, terrible cough, eye drainage, etc. Once a cat gets it, it is always there and flares up at times. Our vet said the vaccine had been shown to lessen the symptoms when it reoccurred so we finally decided to give it after the third round of the poor kitty being really uncomfortable for over a week at a time. The vaccine seemed to make a huge difference. When she got it again, she just had some minor sniffles. I've always wondered, however, if this is a live vaccine and if our newly vaccinated cat passed it on to her; she got sick right after we got a new kitty, who had been vaccinated by the animal shelter (and incidentally had a reaction to the vaccines - chills, fever, lethargy.)

[Magali]

I have 4 cats and 2 dogs. All but the puppy are vax free (he came with shots). We are a no vax home (with the exception of the vaxes given to our puppy when he wasn't ours). So no, for me, there are NO vaxes worth giving. I can't answer your question about what the chances are that a cat will get a vpd. But I will say worms are nasty!! We let our cats outside this summer and have been battling worms all winter. We just use whatever the vet gives us. For the reason of worms alone, our cats are now indoor pets again. We are building a huge outdoor pen for them though, because i know how much they love being outside. I have tried (not as hard as I should) to get my cats to eat raw food. My dogs love it, but only one of my cats with eat it. I have read that pets eating a healthy diet of raw food have less of a chance of becoming infested with parasites, and are generally healthier.

On a side note, my son touches the pets all the time and I do not wash his hands constantly and he has never gotten worms or sick from the pets. When the pets had worms, we quarantined them till treatment was over.

[twinsplusone]

my furbaby is lying on his deathbed as I type this......due to post vaccinal fibrosarcoma.
He will be euthanized tomorrow, & my heart is totally breaking
He is almost 21 y/o, but was vaccinated until he was 16years old.

Our next pet will not be vaccinated

[jgracefrank]

Might I suggest you check out the forums at The Cat Site? Those people know cats like the people here know children. It's also a really nice community.

[Yulia_R]

Originally Posted by twinsplusone

my furbaby is lying on his deathbed as I type this......due to post vaccinal fibrosarcoma.
He will be euthanized tomorrow, & my heart is totally breaking
He is almost 21 y/o, but was vaccinated until he was 16years old.

Our next pet will not be vaccinated

WOW! This is a loooooooong life! I never knew cats can live THAT long (vaccinated or not). The fact that your cat lived that long while being vaccinated for 16 years is pretty reassuring, actually.

On a separate note, I'm so sorry you will have to say Good-bye to your dear cat tomorrow (HUGS). I wish you strength and healing...

[Debnicolai]

Originally Posted by Yulia_R

WOW! This is a loooooooong life! I never knew cats can live THAT long (vaccinated or not). The fact that your cat lived that long while being vaccinated for 16 years is pretty reassuring, actually.
.

I have 3 cats currently, 2 sybs and one we adopted 3 years ago... all are 17.5 years old and perectly fine. We stopped vac's for them about 6 years ago. No regrets.

Since 1970, I have had over 17 cats. The oldest have been 22, the youngest to die was 14. The average for our cats is 17 and they have all been outdoor cats. Always permitted to go and come as they please.

BUT I have trained them like they are puppies from the get go. Teaching them to come when they hear names or specific whistles. Training includes positive renforcement with fresh turkey and the like. Once I feel they are trained, they get to go out. i have only ever lost one out of 17 to a car. We are in a suburb in CT, closest to NYC and have a fair number of cars and traffic.

The keys IMO to long cat life are early training, treat them like kids outside, and feed them real turkey, chicken, limited fish, and catnip and grasses. NO CAT FOOD EVER. It is surprisingly inexpensive to boil up fresh chicken and turkey. NOT to mention the lack of smell in their poop.

[broodymama]

Our cats have had sporadic vaccines throughout their lives, but nothing regular. A few when they were kittens, then they all had the full spread of vaccines about 6 years ago when we had to board them when we went on vacation. For the most part I do not vax my cats, and will do that for all future cats too. My cats do not go outside, though, so if they did I might reconsider the rabies vaccine, I don't know for sure.

Just another unsolicited $0.02 from me. Please, please get your kitten spayed (assuming she is female) when she is young. This isn't from a preventing pet overpopulation aspect, though obviously that is important, but from a cancer perspective. In October I lost one of my 12 year old cats Zoe to mammary adenosarcoma, and right now my 13 year old female Tatjana is essentially under hospice care for the same thing. She had a radical mastectomy (all 8 mammaries removed) back on New Years, but it's too late and the cancer has spread, and I know she only had days left. This kind of cancer is very rare, and early spaying essentially prevents this kind of cancer. I was a poor college student when I got these cats and couldn't afford to have them spayed until they were several years old, now I have incredible guilt that this could have been prevented if I had somehow found the money to spay them earlier. So I apologize for the unsolicited advice, I just want to prevent someone else from going through this heartbreak, I'm sitting here with my painfully thin sick kitty on my lap, trying to squeeze as much love into these last few days as I can, when I saw your post.

[amnesiac]

Mine have had rabies before but nothing else. And I have never done any de-worming.

[eireann]

for what it's worth, i don't believe my cat has had any shots. she's been to the vet maybe four times in her life, and only twice she was actually hurt/sick (she stepped on something and 2nd time she had an eye infection.) other times she got her teeth cleaned and a skin tag on her bum removed. she is 18 years old and is pretty darn happy and healthy thank God.

oh, she also got fixed when she was 1.

[eireann]

Originally Posted by Red Sonja

Our cats have had sporadic vaccines throughout their lives, but nothing regular. A few when they were kittens, then they all had the full spread of vaccines about 6 years ago when we had to board them when we went on vacation. For the most part I do not vax my cats, and will do that for all future cats too. My cats do not go outside, though, so if they did I might reconsider the rabies vaccine, I don't know for sure.

Just another unsolicited $0.02 from me. Please, please get your kitten spayed (assuming she is female) when she is young. This isn't from a preventing pet overpopulation aspect, though obviously that is important, but from a cancer perspective. In October I lost one of my 12 year old cats Zoe to mammary adenosarcoma, and right now my 13 year old female Tatjana is essentially under hospice care for the same thing. She had a radical mastectomy (all 8 mammaries removed) back on New Years, but it's too late and the cancer has spread, and I know she only had days left. This kind of cancer is very rare, and early spaying essentially prevents this kind of cancer. I was a poor college student when I got these cats and couldn't afford to have them spayed until they were several years old, now I have incredible guilt that this could have been prevented if I had somehow found the money to spay them earlier. So I apologize for the unsolicited advice, I just want to prevent someone else from going through this heartbreak, I'm sitting here with my painfully thin sick kitty on my lap, trying to squeeze as much love into these last few days as I can, when I saw your post.

[moondiapers]

We vax our pets for rabbie, but that's it. Our vet says that boosters are rarely needed, most animals area adequately immune after their baby shots. The boosters are a money grab.