A fever often is a sign infection. Infected fight wounds are the number one cause of fevers in outdoor cats. But this cat was kept indoors and had not escaped. Why was his temperature so high?

The owner decided to volunteer additional information. She had noticed that he was reluctant to walk and jump. He didn’t wan’t to raise his tail to “wink at her”. It seemed to her that his “butt” might be sore. And at one point she noticed that one of his “butt cheeks” seemed larger than the other. She suspected that one of his “butt glands” might need to be “squeezed”.

I evaluated the cat’s hind end. It seemed symmetrical to me. However, cats have notoriously hairy butt cheeks and it was hard to see through the fur. The owner allowed me to perform a Brazilian trim on her cat.

Once the hair was out of the way, it was clear that the area to the left of the cat’s anus was swollen. A rectal exam revealed that the left anal gland was infected and infiltrated with pus. I drained the pus and the fever broke within an hour.

Fortunately the client did not ask to be present when I lanced her cat’s anal gland abscess. She surely would have regretted it.

Photo: here’s looking at you, kid.

This morning I finished a series of overnight shifts at an emergency hospital near San Francisco. I saw a dozen cats. Only one of them was an indoor-only individual. She was a fifteen-year-old with kidney failure. Her syndrome occurred naturally due to old age.

Every other cat I saw during the last two nights didn’t need to be there. They all suffered consequences of going outside. One suffered the most serious consequence of all.

The outside world is a dangerous place for cats, regardless of age or experience. In my years as a vet, I cannot count the times I have heard someone say something like, “Fluffy has been going outside for ten years and this is the first time he ever got into trouble.” Let me reassure you that when Fluffy finally does get into trouble, the results can be disastrous.

In my career I have treated innumerable cats who have been in fights with other cats. These fights lead to abscesses and feline AIDS. Cats are hit by cars, trucks, bicycles, and trains. I have treated cats that have been attacked by raccoons, bobcats, mountain lions, dogs, coyotes and hawks. I have seen cats suffer hypothermia after being caught outside in thunderstorms. These cats may be so weak that maggots infest their wet fur and infected skin. I have treated cats that fell from trees, cliffs, and ledges. Cats are brought to my office after suffering deliberate abuse at the hands of deranged psychopaths. Outdoor cats frequently are shot with BB guns. They may be kicked, twirled by their tails, or thrown long distances. Twice I have treated cats who were deliberately wrapped in duct tape.

Indoor cats do not suffer these maladies. Every one of these common yet horrible problems is preventable if you keep your cat inside.

As I mentioned, of the dozen cats I saw in the last two nights only one had a problem that was unavoidable.

Ten of the cats I treated had been in fights with other cats, leading to abscesses and lacerations. These cats will survive, although they are at risk of feline AIDS. Their owners shelled out thousands of dollars to my bosses.

One cat, however, broke my heart. If you already keep your cat indoors, I recommend that you stop reading now. What follows is graphic.

If you believe that your cat is “happier outside”, or if you think that going outside is “natural”, or if you think that your cat’s life will not be complete unless he goes outside, or if you think that nothing bad will ever happen to your cat, please read on.

A sweet, loving, and formerly beautiful 16-month-old cat was outside in a rural area near San Francisco. Somehow he made it home.

The cat’s owners thought that he had been caught in a trap, because his left front foot was missing. When I examined him, I came to a different conclusion: he had been hit by a car.

True, his left front foot was missing. Bones, tendons, and muscles were exposed at the stump. The site was bleeding profusely. But both rear legs had similar injuries. The owners hadn’t noticed this.

I suspect that the cat had been basking on his side on a road when a car ran over three of his four limbs.

Two nurses immediately placed an IV catheter into the cat’s only remaining leg–the right front. We gave him the maximum labeled dose of a narcotic painkiller. It didn’t touch him. We doubled down on the medicine, and he seemed to relax a bit.

I went into a private room to talk with the owner. She felt horrifically guilty. She knew that if she had kept her cat inside this would not have happened. In the end there was only one humane choice. We put the cat to sleep. It has been a long time since I have seen anyone cry that hard.

I apologize if this story offends you. But I would be very happy to go to my grave without ever seeing another case like this again. And it would be so easy, if only everyone would keep their cats inside.

Ottilie
South Africa

Feline AIDS is caused by the feline immunodeficiency virus (also known as FIV). FIV is related to HIV, the virus that causes human AIDS. There is no evidence that FIV poses a health risk to humans.

Like HIV, FIV is not highly contagious. It is spread by fighting. And like HIV, untreated FIV takes seven to 10 (or more) years to be fatal. Sadly, there is no safe or effective method to treat FIV.

Like your vet, I am worried that your cat is spreading FIV to other individuals in the area. The sort of fighting that leads to abscesses is exactly the type of behavior that transmits the disease.

Also, remember that the virus may have weakened your cat’s immune system. He is therefore more likely to suffer from serious infections and other complications from fights and injuries that occur outdoors.

However, I don’t agree that euthanasia is the best option for your cat. I recommend instead that you keep him indoors. You state that he cannot be kept inside, but you don’t offer many details that indicate why. Have you truly made a concerted effort to keep Charlie indoors?

I recommend that you seriously try to keep him inside. There may be a difficult adjustment period as he gets used to his new lifestyle. But if he is like most cats I have known, he ultimately will adapt and thrive.

If you do not keep Charlie indoors you will be endangering his health as well as that of other cats in your area.

In my original post I mentioned a few reservations I had about prescribing the drug. One of my (not explicitly mentioned) reservations was that there were few independent clinical efficacy and safety studies published in peer-reviewed journals.

That is beginning to change. A study released in the January 1, 2009 Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) compared Convenia to a commonly used conventional antibiotic in cats. Here are the results.

Effectiveness of [Convenia] in the treatment of cats with abscesses and infected wounds was similar to that of [the conventional antibiotic]. There were no serious adverse events or deaths related to treatment. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2009;234:81-87)

This study does not address the long term concerns about injection-site tumors in cats that I mentioned in the original post. But it, combined with my personal experience with the medication (which has been highly favorable), makes me feel better about using Convenia in cats who refuse to take oral medications.