We adopted a kitten and she's FIV+. We have a (FIV-) 10year old cat and we don't know what to do.

Hi everyone. This is my first time posting here. This ended being a bit longer than I thought, so thank you for reading
 

Like the title says, we adopted a female kitten from a shelter and today they let us bring her home. They think she's 5-6 months old and she's neutered. The first thing we did was took her to the vet for a check (she has an eye infection) and have FIV and FeLv tests done. Well, turns out she is positive for FIV.

Now, we don't know how to proceed from here. We have a healthy 10 year old cat (female and neutered too) at home and only find contradictory information on what to do. Our vet recommended us to talk with the shelter and adopt another kitten, and the shelter told us practically the same; they also took her, put her on quarantine and told us to go back tomorrow and speak with their vet. Obviously we searched for more information and for studies, and found that there's a pretty low risk of transmission (apparently by bite wounds only) and that our cat should be OK if they don't fight.

This kitten is the most peaceful cat ever (she didn't even complain when they gave her eyedrops or took a blood sample at the vet, just kept purring on my SO's lap), so I find it unlikely that she'll bite our cat specially if we introduce them right. Our cat lived for 6 years as an outdoor cat with my SO's parents and she's been with us since June 2015, completely indoor. We actually never saw her attack a cat, only hissing and hiding if they don't leave, but she's not very social with other cats so we're still worried. We have no doubt that she'll get along, but we're worried about the first months. We live on a small apartment so while we can have them in separate rooms for a while to introduce them, it's not really a permanent solution that can be done for all the cat's life.

We're at a loss here because all the information we get its contradictory. It seems like it's either 1) A-OK to bring her home or 2) a death sentence for both cats and we'll be broke in vet bills and we should just take her back to the shelter (where they'll likely put her to sleep.. ). We're not sure on how to proceed from here. Some people are telling us to take her back since we just adopted her today and stay free of trouble, but we feel like we can't just abandon her like that if everything could turn out fine. She's the perfect cat for our household personality-wise so we'd love to hear advice on this; if someone has dealt with this situation please tell us how and how did it turn out.

 

Oy. Well, I remember reading an article saying a FIV+ cat can function with one that is negative. My only personal concern would be fecal matter in the litter boxes. Perhaps reach out to other shelters, maybe th mega-shelter called Cat House on the Kings (such a great place. Their number is (559) 638-8696) can offer advice on cohabitation?

Is the FIV confirmed ? There is such a thing as false positives. 

For diagnosis of FIV infection in unvaccinated cats, the ELISA is used to detect specific antiviral antibodies circulating in the blood. These anti-FIV antibodies are produced during the normal immune response to the viral infection. The IFA is not used to confirm FIV infection, says Dr. Scott. Instead, the suspected presence of FIV-associated antibodies can be substantiated by means of a so-called Western blot, in which specific antibodies to FIV can be identified. This procedure, like the IFA, must be carried out at a laboratory that is specially equipped for the test; results will typically be available within a week.

Hi, thanks so much for answering .
 

Slufferk: We don't live on the US and I don't think there's a shelter around here FIV friendly... Most don't even test the cats, that's why we had her tested. Talking with anyone only results in a recommendation to take kitty back to the shelter :/

KittyPa: She got a positive on a FIV/FelV test. Our vet told us is highly unlikely that's a false positive given that she's 6 months old, but that we could try to run other tests to confirm it....the thing is that based on the budget she gave us, we can't afford those tests right now We asked the shelter and they basically told us we're on our own. They actually told us to basically give kitty back and adopt other cat and pay to have a FIV test done on it before it leaves the shelter...

Since FIV is a relatively newer disease for cats, there's still a lot of misinformation and unnecessary warnings being spread by vets and shelters who have not kept up with research. The only way a cat is going to get FIV from another cat is through a deep bite wound so that saliva can enter the blood stream, and this kind of bite only occurs when a male is biting a female cat to mate or unneutered males are aggressively fighting over territory. With fixed cats, it's incredibly unlikely for a fight to escalate to that level, so the risk is incredibly low. Many users on this site have healthy FIV positive and negative cats that live together with no problems. 

(Some sources say that kittens can be infected by their mother by being born, but that is very rare if it happens at all).

It's still possible that the your result was a false positive, and retesting in a month using a different test could verify that. But even if she is positive, it is definitely not a death sentence! Many FIV positive cats live normal-length lives. At the end stage of the disease, the immune system weakens and the cat is more susceptible to disease and cancer, but this often does not happen for many, many years. A healthy diet and a low-stress environment are the best preventative measures for an FIV positive cat. My FIV positive girl is almost 6 and she's never had any FIV related problems.

It sounds like you're planning on doing this already, but I forgot to mention that keeping her indoor-only is also really important to minimize health risks for all cats, but especially FIV positive ones.

There's so much unnecessary stigma around FIV positive cats that they are much less likely to be adopted, and it's a shame because there's actually very little if any difference in how you care for them versus a negative cat, so it would be really wonderful if you did keep her! She sounds like a doll.

One of our cats, Rocky, is FIV+. He was a feral and it took many years to gain his trust. When we finally decided it was time to make him an indoor-only cat we had him tested and found out his FIV+ status. We discussed it with our vet and decided that the risk to our other cats was so little that we would go ahead and move him in. That was 6 years ago. He has remained healthy and our other cats are healthy as well. As our vet explained to us, FIV can only be transmitted through DEEP bite wounds. That was never a concern for us because we were confident that there would never be actual fights between our cats. Thankfully we were right. There is no way to tell how old Rocky is but we know he is at least 12. I have my fingers crossed that we will have another 12 years with this sweet boy!

You need to make the decision that is right for you and your situation. I just wanted you to know that we have positive and negative living together happily and healthy.

I know people who have FIV and non-FIV cats in one household and they say it's fine and that the cats have not contracted FIV. I have also been at the animal shelter for 4 years and we have 1 FIV room. FIV cats can live a very long life as well, but you may experience more illnesses, because they have a weaker immune system.

I have 25 of my own cats that all have tested negative, but I'm not sure what I would do in your situation. I wouldn't return the kitten, because if they don't have an FIV room, they'll royally euthanize it. I would either try to find another home that will be just her as a pet (but don't tell the shelter) or keep her, but giver her separate food, water and litter boxes in her own area (if possible). Sometimes if you put 2 litter boxes out, the cats will each choose 1.

I wish you the best of luck!!

Sorry for some misspellings. The phone auto corrected.

Thank you everyone for your time and answers.

I'm sorry to bring a sad update, but unfortunately we couldn't keep her and ended adopting another kitten After talking with our vet and the shelter's vet and weighing all the facts...it was way too risky for both of them   She was already chaining minor infections (3 in 2 weeks) and having trouble healing from being spayed, so we didn't want to risk her being hurt and stressed out by Sombra (that's our cat's name) and not being able to heal well. We also couldn't risk Sombra being infected from a fight as we can't really let this cat be more prone to being sick because it's impossible to give her any medication.

So yeah...it was heartbreaking . We love our new kitten (Sombra doesn't) but we're still really sad about it