Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello All!

I'm sure this question has been posted before, but I was not able to find any information. I was wondering with cats that are FIV, FIP, and FeLV postitve, how does your shelter manage their intakes, House them, ( in a seperate room, are they up for adoption? how do you properly market and educate the public about these types of cats?

Thank You for all your help 

FIV cats have their own room in the adoption building, and can be adopted to indoor-only homes, preferably in pairs. I remember only one FeLV cat that my shelter had. Staff said it is against policy to adopted him out (in fact he was double ++). He stayed in sick room for quite some months, until his health declined, and they put him down. Why on earth someone would house an immunocompromised cat (with no clinical signs) in a room full of sick cats is beyond me, but, I am only a volunteer who is not involved in any decisions. Meanwhile volunteers are not allowed in sick room any more. Voicing concerns is no welcome.

At the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society they have FIV+ cats on the community floor with the negative cats as long as there is no fighting.  Many organizations in MA are not even testing for FIV anymore.  On the Community Cats Podcast blog page I am doing a blog post series on organizations that adopt out Felv+ cats so you might want to check out some of their profiles.  FIP is a whole different ballgame and disease and hard to clearly diagnose. I will let someone else tackle that one.    https://www.communitycatspodcast.com/felv-positive-adoption-program-profile-series-begins/

At the direction of our DVM, we no longer automatically isolate our FIV+ cats.  Now, we introduce to our open rooms FIV+ felines as long as they are proven to get along with other cats.  It's time to end the stigma of FIV!  That said, we do separate our FeLV cats, and though we very rarely see FIP, we would isolate them, as well.

I agree 100% and am so glad the word is spreading.  our FIV cats live in our cat community rooms with unaffected cats and all is well.

Pat Rock,Oshkosh Area Humane Society

We house FIV+ cats the same as FIV- cats. If they get along with other cats, they can go into community cat rooms if there's space, otherwise they have to stay in cages, but there's no special area for them. We do have a "Positively Purrfect" program where we discount the adoption fee to $50.00 to help find them homes. It helps people take notice and ask about the cat and FIV, giving us an opportunity to educate the public.

Unfortunately, we do not keep FeLV+ cats. When we're able to find rescue for them we send them out. Rarely, we have people looking specifically for FeLV+ cats and are able to place them that way, but aside from that, sadly, they are euthanized. Thankfully we have a very low occurrence of FeLV. 

We don't see FIP much at all. I can remember two cases in the nearly 15 years I've been with our shelter. Both of them were kittens who stayed in foster until they were no longer comfortable and were euthanized. We had one false case of FIP, and I took him home to foster until he was ready to pass. Turns out the little monster was just fat. He's still a round football of a cat, three years later, lol.

thank you all so much! Your information has been extremely helpful and i now know that we will put our FIV cats upstairs with the rest and hopefully educate the community and get them into the right homes. 

Here's a great resource from UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program -- "Why are some shelters no longer testing all cats for FeLV and FIV?  https://www.sheltermedicine.com/library/resources/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&site=sheltermedicine&search%5Bslug%5D=why-are-some-shelters-no-longer-testing-all-cats-for-felv-and-fiv