My cat might have FeLV. How do I treat and protect my other cat?

The best thing you could do for the other cats is to isolate them until they. An be tested and vaccinated for the FeLV virus. The virus is spread through direct contact with saliva, blood, and urine. Routine veterinary care is the best way to make sure the FeLV cat stays as healthy as possible - periodic blood work and exams can catch problems more quickly.

Hi and thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Sounds like Norbert has a great home. One question I always have is, was only one test performed? There can be false positive tests and some cats can get exposed to the virus and fight it off, thus becoming negative over time. A repeat test is advised 30-60 days after the first positive test to assess the leukemia status again. If that one comes back positive, a confirmatory test is usually advised. I would just keep him as happy and as healthy as possible. Follow your vets advise on preventive health care although, I would not be a fan of yearly vaccinations for a cat with feline leukemia. I would get him on a 3 yr vaccine schedule as soon as you can. The initial vaccines are usually good for one year but then you have an option to go to a 3-year protocol. I would keep him dewormed regularly to make sure he doesn't develop problems with intestinal parasites. If appropriate, make sure that he has an effective flea product on also. You want to keep him as healthy as possible. One other thing, when you notice any problems with him, get him seen right away due to his leukemia status. Early intervention will help him battle things that may come up like respiratory infections, urinary problems, etc. Good luck with Norbert

Felv is highly contagious just by the sharing of water bowls. The virus is spread through the saliva, so the chances are quite high for the 2nd cat unfortunately. You can ask your vet about doing annual bloodwork and potentially anti-viral medications to help. However anti-viral meds can be quite expensive, so most owners just try to keep their kitties on a high quality dog food (i.e. Royal Canin, Wellness, Merrick, etc) for overall health.

Hi and thanks for using PetCoach! Sorry to hear about Boots. I have never personally heard that for Feline Leukemia. The vaccines for FeLV do not cause a positive test result BUT previous FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) vaccines cause a positive test result that cannot be differentiated from a natural infection. One positive FeLV test in a healthy cat is always suspect. False positives do occur and if you really want to know, I would advise that you go get a confirmation test done at your veterinarians office. The test is called an IFA or Immuno Fluorescent Antibody test and this is specific for FeLV. This disease along with FIV are very complex and sometimes very confusing with respect to the results. Let me provide a website link here so you can learn more about these retroviruses in cats. Good luck with Boots. https://www.catvets.com/guidelines/practice-guidelines/retrovirus-management-guidelines

You have a little bit of a tricky situation. The only way your 8 year old cat can get Feline Leukemia is if the kitten is infected and shedding the virus. Since the kitten tested negative before you brought him home, you know he was not shedding the virus at that time. BUT since you know he was around another cat that could have have been shedding the virus, he could still become positive from that exposure (which can take a little while to test positive for). The safest thing to do for your 8 year old cat would be to keep him separated from the kitten for the next 90 days, then retest the kitten for Feline Leukemia. If he is negative at that time, then you can reintroduce them. Good luck! I hope everything is fine and that was helpful. Let us know if that doesn't make sense or if you have any other questions. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

FeLV is a non-curable disease which means that once your cat has it he will carry the virus for the duration of his life. I am not sure which SNAP test was used on Tom, but the IDEXX FeLV/FIV SNAP has a sensitivity of 98.6% and a Specificity of 98.2% for FeLV. This means that there is only a 1.8% chance of a false positive on the SNAP. However, it is important to note that cats who have been vaccinated for FeLV can show a positive result on the SNAP. IDEXX recommends that any positive FeLV SNAP be confirmed by IFA. Although there are no statistics shown for discrepant results, they do recommend repeat testing after 28 days rather than euthanasia: http://www.idexx.com.tw/pdf/zh_tw/smallanimal/snap/triple/fiv-felv-diagnostic-guidelines.pdf

Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that Stassi has been diagnosed with lymphoma. If Stassi and all of your other cats have been indoors only, and were all negative for FeLV to start with, there is next to no chance that your other cats have contracted or will contract FeLV. It is statistically improbable that Stassi has tested negative for FeLV four times and would still have FeLV, unless she may have been exposed to another cat in the past 4-5 years that has FeLV. Lymphoma is a fairly common type of cancer that can occur in cats with or without FeLV. I hope that helps to clarify your concerns. I'm really sorry that you and Stassi are going through this situation.