Farewell to a brave feline

This morning, all the hopes we’ve had for Hi-So, the little cat rescued from a department store last month, vanish with one phone call.

She’s so mistrustful of humans, we know that we could never find anyone to adopt her, but she could live a life of freedom and safety in the clinic’s carpark.

Another strike against her is that she’s infected with feline leukaemia (FeLv). Readers ask if cats can transmit the disease to humans. No, only to other cats.

Unlike feline Aids (Fiv), however, the virus that causes FeLv easily travels from cat to cat, in the air, on food bowls, on your shoes.

This virus so readily attacks healthy cats. Some cats infected with FeLv don’t even show symptoms - the sneezing, the lack of energy and appetite, the loss of any foetus an infected female might be carrying. Instead, these cats, seemingly healthy, shed the virus for their entire lives, infecting any other cat who comes near. Just be sure to keep up your cat’s vaccination for protection against FeLv.

The virus has only one “good” point. It dies easily within two or three hours after leaving the host body, but vets warn that you should sterilise any area or utensils that the infected cat has come near. You need to be sure.

With Hi-So, we’ve needed to be sure about another contagious illness, one she could have transmitted to me or to the department store guard when she bit us - hydrophobia.

Also known as rabies, hydrophobia is common in Thailand, even in Bangkok. It generally enters the body through open wounds on your body.

If a cat or dog is suspected of carrying the rabies virus, vets normally keep it under observation for 14 days. During this period, the animal may or may not show signs of rabies infection. (In next week’s column, I’ll give additional information on rabies.)

Since Hi-So has been at the clinic for a month without a sign of rabies, we continue to plan her introduction to the carpark. Our only concern is that she’s been sneezing, each day more and more.

That sneezing is one of the early indications that FeLv has taken hold of her body. The vets could treat her to make her feel better (FeLv has no cure), but they don’t want to increase her stress by coming too near her.

You rescue an animal, you make plans for her, and then this morning, that phone call comes from the vet. Hi-So died in the early morning.

The vet is sure that she died of FeLv, not rabies, but I still feel bad. She never had much of a life, did she?