A Michael Broad Blog
There is an article in the online news media today (24th August 2024) about a female mountain lion in Colorado, USA, which was seen staggering around with paralysed hind legs. The journalist said that the cat suffered from “staggering disease”. That’s a generic term which doesn’t specify the virus causing it. But in this …
Feline morbillivirus (FeMV) was, I’m told, first reported in Hong Kong and mainland China in 2012. It has been associated with kidney inflammation (nephritis). It can infect domestic and wild cats. A study in 2016 published on the National Library of Medicine in the USA, concluded that the association between morbillivirus and chronic kidney …
The question in the title is incomplete because it implies that the question is about cancer; a type of blood and bone marrow cancer but when leukaemia is spoken about in the context of domestic cats it means a virus, specifically, the feline leukaemia virus (FeLV) which is the most important cause of cancer …
You might not have heard of the words. I certainly hadn’t until today. They are “gentling” and to be “gentled”. Gentling is the action of stroking a cat gently and talking to them equally gently. It is the kind of thing that a rescue centre worker would want to do naturally because it is …
A research study by the scientists of Cornell Wildlife Health Center, in association with others e.g. Dr. Sarah Cleaveland of the University of Glasgow, have concluded that even a low rate of vaccination at two Siberian tigers per year within a small population can reduce the tigers’ risk of extinction significantly “at a cost …
Indoor cats can get colds if they come into direct contact with infected discharge from another cat who has got a cold. Or they come into contact with contaminated litter boxes, water bowls and human hands. The disease is also transmitted by airborne droplets. The virus can be stable for as long as 10 …
As a concerned cat owner, have you heard of feline foamy virus (FFV or FeFV)? It is not listed in the excellent Cat Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook and yet the AVMA in their online journal recently say that it is present in a high proportion of domestic cats. For example 64% of domestic cats …
This advice by the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) applies to any country. Dr Michael Lappin the chairman of the association has encouraged all cat owners to keep their companion animals indoors for the time being. This is interesting advice because no one, not a single person, in the UK is listening to …
