Animal Welfare Professionals

While all of our cats are rescued we want to highlight the story of Rose. Rose was a feral cat spotted on the streets of Chestertown for weeks. Eventually, a volunteer from Cat Colloquium was able to lure Rose in and take her to the local Humane Society. However, the Humane Society was at full capacity for cats and therefore could not take her in and she found herself back at the CatCo. A few days after bringing her home, Rose began feeling lethargic and upon going to the vet, we learned that she was anemic. Cats normally have a hemoglobin of around 35-36, Rose was testing at 9.  The local vet implored us to get her a blood transfusion immediately, however, the closest place to carry blood for cats was 2 hours away. When we reached the hospital, the vet tested Rose for feline leukemia and she tested positive. Due to this, the hospital refused to give her blood, as she was in a fatal condition and they did not believe it would work. It felt unfair and we immediately began looking for solutions. We found an article published online stating that if a cat has both anemia and feline leukemia, doctors are urged to treat the kitten for anemia first, as it is not a symptom of the leukemia. We called the doctor again and with the help of this article, they agreed to perform the blood transfusion! 

Rose immediately started to improve and the doctors believed the feline leukemia test was a false positive due to Rose's anemia and therefore recommended getting her retested. We were eager to agree, as feline leukemia is highly contagious and Rose was currently being isolated from the rest of our resident cats. After weeks of no news, we finally got a negative test result and Rose was able to reenter society! Rose is now thriving at the CatCo and her story has inspired us to take initiative to create a local blood bank for cats. We do not want any cat to go through what Rose did and we hope to encourage others to see the benefits of funding local cat blood banks!

While all of our cats are rescued we want to highlight the story of Rose. Rose was a feral cat spotted on the streets of Chestertown for weeks. Eventually, a volunteer from Cat Colloquium was able to lure Rose in and take her to the local Humane Society. However, the Humane Society was at full capacity for cats and therefore could not take her in and she found herself back at the CatCo. A few days after bringing her home, Rose began feeling lethargic and upon going to the vet, we learned that she was anemic. Cats normally have a hemoglobin of around 35-36, Rose was testing at 9.  The local vet implored us to get her a blood transfusion immediately, however, the closest place to carry blood for cats was 2 hours away. When we reached the hospital, the vet tested Rose for feline leukemia and she tested positive. Due to this, the hospital refused to give her blood, as she was in a fatal condition and they did not believe it would work. It felt unfair and we immediately began looking for solutions. We found an article published online stating that if a cat has both anemia and feline leukemia, doctors are urged to treat the kitten for anemia first, as it is not a symptom of the leukemia. We called the doctor again and with the help of this article, they agreed to perform the blood transfusion! 

Rose immediately started to improve and the doctors believed the feline leukemia test was a false positive due to Rose's anemia and therefore recommended getting her retested. We were eager to agree, as feline leukemia is highly contagious and Rose was currently being isolated from the rest of our resident cats. After weeks of no news, we finally got a negative test result and Rose was able to reenter society! Rose is now thriving at the CatCo and her story has inspired us to take initiative to create a local blood bank for cats. We do not want any cat to go through what Rose did and we hope to encourage others to see the benefits of funding local cat blood banks!