Raura's FIV Page

When I first met her, she was a 3.5lb ball of fur. She was very sweet, and purred through the whole exam. The owner explained to us that she had just picked up the baby (her name at the time was Zoe) from a shelter (that I will not release the name of) earlier that day, and she has not been to their house to meet their other cat yet.

We took her out back (if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a vet tech) and pulled some blood to test her for Felv (leukemia) and FIV. The test is run in the hospital, and only takes 10min. So we got the restults back before they took their new baby home. She was positive for FIV.

The owners did not want to expose their other cat to the disease, so they were faced with bringing the kitten back to the shelter. The shelter they got the kitten euthanizes any positive cats. Well, I could not have that happen, so I offered to take the kitten (an ongoing problems with techs world wide - soft hearts for cute faces). They gladly gave her to me, knowing that I would take good care of her.

I have never had a cat before Raura, so it has been interesting. The ferrets keep her busy, though. At any rate, we tested her again at 16 weeks, and then again when she was 6 months old. She was still positive. So I was very careful with her. If she so much as sneezed, she was in to see the doctor. They told me I was being obsessive, but I love my Raura.

On 2/13/04 I brought her in for her annual vaccines (my baby is 15 months old!). She was very upset with being away from home, and hid in her bed all day. We decided that we were going to retest her to see how strong the positive would be at this age. Yes, she was going to be used as a guinea pig, but maybe we would have learned something.

How is this possible, do you ask? The answer is shrouded in darkness ... literally. When she was in her mother's uterus, mom passed antibodies for FIV through the placenta. Babies of all species recieve antibodies from mom in utero, and hold on to them for a given amount of time. For our feline friends, it's typically less than 6 months.

Therefore ... she never had FIV, but tested pos due to maternal antibodies. The shelter would have euthanized a perrrfectly healthy kitty. Lucky for her, I'm a sucker for a cute face.