Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Bad News on Ben. He's Positive


I guess I knew he would be positive for FIV. He is a massive dominant unneutered free roaming male and his owners, whomever they were, are assholes. He is positive for feline AIDS, but he's healthy, no sign of end stage disease, like mouth sores or stomatitis, so Poppa's president, who has other FIV cats, has agreed to take him. She's had FIV positive Twister from Clover Ridge road for several years and he is still very healthy. So Ben will be headed north soon, to join the positive boys there.

FIV is a terrible disease and mostly preventable. Neuter your males, people. Big Ben didn't need to get, then spread, FIV. He's a massive dominant unneutered male and in todays' world, that means he's going to get FIV, through bite wounds in fighting. Then he's going to spread it in the same manner to every cat he fights with.

One vet once told me, if a cat is male, unfixed, allowed to free roam, three years old or older, and lives in areas where there are high numbers of irresponsible pet owners who allow unfixed cats to free roam, like in Linn County, that male cat is going to be positive for FIV.

Big Ben is positive. That's very sad. It never had to be.

The black long hair feral was also a male, but young and he tested negative. He is now dubbed Ray and will join his brother Adair at a barn courtesy of a nice farmer in a few days. Both boys will remain here until the farmer is ready. Big Ben will travel north when his new home indicates they are ready.

Those two young ferals are lucky they got caught and fixed before they got just a little older, old enough to "engage" with Big Ben, which would have proved very bad for them. They both would have wound up positive also.

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