Update
The results just came in at 2:30 this afternoon he was negative for rabies. The tech said he was an old, old guy with a lot of lipofusion granulars in his brain. These are released, she said at the very end of the life of a cat. It is some sort of protein the brain needs in order to stay alive.
First off, I am just really angry right now. I took the cat to another clinic, not my regular one- because this new clinic, they open an hour earlier for emergencies. They wouldn’t even take him out of the carrier! They looked and saw he was blind, and when I told them about his jerky leg movements and snapping at the air, they said they were treating him as a rabid cat! They called the Health Department and were advised that they needed to put him down and I was to take the body to OSU and pay $95.00 for the test for rabies. They said that the deputy should have followed this protocol and never got me involved with it.
When I questioned their opinion they said the only other option for this old guy was for me to quarantine him for 10 days to see if he presents for rabies. BUT they would not give me any pain medication, no antibiotics, steroids nothing! I was just supposed to stuff this cat into isolation and let him suffer for 10 days! That is not what we are about! I told them to euthanize him, I would pay the fee but I said that I wanted to look him over (with the vet’s help and heavy gloves) to see if he might have been hit by a car after he was gone- or what.
There was no evidence of a car hit- claws all intact, no compressions of the body cavity. He was so flea-ridden and emaciated, they couldn’t even find a vein to put the final solution in. They had to heart stick him!
He was old, he was emaciated, he was completely blind, full of mats, he was miserable and I’ll be damned if I was going to put him through 10 days of suffering to prove he didn’t have rabies. There’s something wrong with a vet who would just walk away like that and not even touch the cat to make him comfortable. If he had been younger, I might have fought for him to live- but he was just not there anymore and there was no point in asking him to continue.
I am waiting for them to call on the results of the rabies test. I suspect it will be negative. I think he is a bad survivor of distemper but I will let you all know what they find. Oh they did check for a chip (AFTER he died) No chip. 🙁 What a lousy, lousy morning. Before he died, I whispered to him that I hoped sometime in his life, he had bright spots and memories of people loving him,
Thanks for letting me vent-
Oh my God MaryAnne. My heart is breaking for this poor fur baby!!!! Horrible Vet. He should be reported!!!!!! So glad he was not alone and that there was someone to love him in his final hours. So sorry you had to go through this.
I’m so sorry that you have to, all too often, end up cleaning up after people who care less about their animals.
About the cat – I’m sorry he didn’t have a loving home to tenderly care for him at the end of his life. But – as difficult as this was for you – I’m glad that he didn’t have a long, dragged out, painful end, blind, thirsty, afraid, and suffering.
Cherish the Sweety cats for their balancing of the scales.
some Vets do stink. New clinic just opened here with longer hours. But after 10min of web search, I found some really horrible reviews about the same vet, just a different city. I guess they drove him outta town on rails. Now he’s in our neighborhood. Great.
I would have been as angry as you. As I get older, I find I have less inhibitions about telling people what I think of them and their attitudes. Why didn’t that vet just stay home and phone his diagnoses in each day? It’d save him the trouble of having to look at the animals, since he obviously doesn’t like touching them.
Katiek commented about reviews of a vet; you should find a place to review this one. This is the age of the internet; it may as well serve the good guys as much as it does the bad.
Actually, it was a woman, not a man vet. I had unfortunately had a run-in with this same vet years ago at another clinic. When she walked into the room, my heart sank.
Years ago, I brought to the clinic she was practicing in a litter of kittens that were just days old and fading. I told her that two had died and the others weren’t acting right. She looked them over (barely) then she said to me: “Mary Anne are you sure they died? Maybe they were just sleeping!”
I looked at her, actually shook my head in disbelief and told her that I wanted to see the normal vet- my regular one. She left grumbling and he came in, examined the kittens and put them down with regret- yes, they were all quite sick! I told him what she said to me about them and he said “It is not my responsibility to teach vets under me how to practice medicine!” I left the next day never to go back. I had been a client there for ten years.
Is it normal for Himalayan kittens/cats to hiss ALOT before warming up to caregiver? Or will they warm eventually? Are you in s florida? What area? I will never use a certain vet in my area, should trash but will be kind for now. ????
Tina,
Cats hiss for all kinds of reason. it is their early warning system. They could feel uneasy, they could be ill, they might just be angry. You have to look at the whole body language to tell. You don’t want to make eye contact with a cat who is hissing, or any cat for that matter. This is an invitation to a rumble. Just back off and leave the cat alone. Later, push a plate of food to the cat and after the cat eats, don’t approach the cat until you see it grooming. When they groom they are totally relaxed. I do not live in Florida and thank you for not trashing your vet on this blog
Tina,
Cats hiss for all kinds of reason. it is their early warning system. They could feel uneasy, they could be ill, they might just be angry. You have to look at the whole body language to tell. You don’t want to make eye contact with a cat who is hissing, or any cat for that matter. This is an invitation to a rumble. Just back off and leave the cat alone. Later, push a plate of food to the cat and after the cat eats, don’t approach the cat until you see it grooming. When they groom they are totally relaxed. I do not live in Florida and thank you for not trashing your vet on this blog