A cautionary tail..... Don't allow our heart to overwhelm you, please.

thekittykeepers

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Hello, my name is Anthony, and my wife and I are known as the kittykeepers. We have been rescuing cats around our area in Cebu Philippines for more than a year now. We did not set out to become private rescuers, it just kind of happened to turn into that. And for the most part, it was very rewarding and even more difficult to say no. Today, I wish we had said no.

Right now we have more than 30 cats that we have rescued, some we have gone into the gutters and gather up ourselves, others were referred to us by friends of strictly through online reputation. We have taken in abandoned kitten, abused kittens/cats, even a cat with cancer.

This last 4 months, the dream of saving so many kittens, has turned slowly into a nightmare. Some of the trouble is self inflicted, other troubles, just out of our ability to control.

For one, every cat we rescue is spayed or neutered by us when they reach maturity, usually sometime after they are 6 months or older. This means we absorb all the costs ourselves. It is an important sacrifice that we make, trying to reduce the stray/feral population in our are. This is a losing battle, but we do our part.

Once we began getting noticed as rescuers, the number of cases became overwhelming quickly, but when you know that the kittens will die of starvation or exposure, how can you say no? So we have been over run with new cats, and we have paid a heavy price for the pace of the number of cats in our home. I am hoping that by sharing our mistakes, and our pain, we can help others to avoid making the same choices that lead to this posting.

First, it is always about the kittens and cats first. Being ready to sacrifice is essential. Taking in a healthy is a challenge, much more taking in unknown cats, feels, etc, never knowing what congenital issues they may have. Knowing you have the money to deal with emergencies is very important. Having a few thousand dollars that you are willing to use for the care of your cat in an emergency is very important. If you don't have that kind of money, or can't get it in an emergency, then maybe it might be better to reconsider getting a cat/kitten.

This is more important when you have a multi cat household. Each new member must have this financial backing. Having enough for one emergency is not enough, a lesson we have learned the hard way. Not that we didn't have funds, but we don't have enough to handle multiple emergencies happening at the same time. This is where our life began to unravel to a degree.

Fortunately for us, we live in the Philippines. This means two things, some good, some bad. Specialist care is inexpensive by comparison to western countries, this is the good, so is some of the medicines that are often required for care. But, there is a severe lack of qualified vets with cat experience and knowledge, a huge problem here in the Philippines. Luckily, our vet seems to be very well educated and experienced, even with cats, a huge plus for us. But he is also taking on way too much responsibility. Not only is he operating his own private vet clinic, he is the professor of veterinary medicine at a university near our home. He is also the president of the veterinary society in the Philippines. Now he has been made the Dean of the University, and his limited schedule has been chopped to almost nothing. While I am happy for his rise to these distinguished positions, it is going to severely cut his care time, and possibly his ability as well. Being a professor is a bonus, as he is constantly keeping up with the trending changes, but the rest has interfered with his ability, and I hope that he realizes that he must choose a path either as a practitioner or administrative career, doing both well simultaneously is not likely going to work. Something will suffer.

Anyway, our focus has been on saving cats first, then fix/vaccinations. We have spent lots of money on cages, and closed off most of the house into rooms for different levels of quarantine. We absorbed the cost and loss of house just fine. Our rule was usually to get the cats vaccinated when they got fixed, this is our first mistake. Actually, more direct, my mistake. As an American who has had many cats over my life, I never saw the vet usually more than once time for each cat. They would get vaccinations when adopted, and then fixed. After being fixed, I never had a cat get sick again. I did not expect things to be any different here, but I never rescued before either.

Anyway, one became two, then three, then four, and then it was happening at a rate that was out of control. But things seemed be going well, so we didn't think much of it, just enjoyed the new additions to the house. Once we hit around 15 cats, things started to change. We allow the cats to go outside, and all seemed fine at first. But when our first car became sick and eventually died of kidney failure, we lost all heart for rescuing, she was everything to us.

Once time had passed, and our hearts healed, we began rescuing again. But something strange was happening, cats of all ages were just vanishing. At first, we thought they were just running away, until we found one of our new kittens under attack from a 12 foot long python. I was able to rescue that cat, for a second time from a life threatening end, but it changed everything after. No longer would we allow our cats outside. So we transitioned from indoor/outdoor cats, to indoor only. This meant a whole new way of caring for them, and using litter boxes. A new and ever increasingly expensive aspect. Litter is hard to find, mostly low quality and the good stuff is not cheap. But I bit the bullet and found a brand that works, now we go through probably a ton of litter a month. Food is another expensive and difficult to find necessity, between the front end and back end, we are spending close to 400 dollars a month. Still OK though.

So the rescues began again, and have accelerated until the point we are today. All the kittens we had rescued before, have grown into adults, and had been doing very well. But over the same time period, we have had other kittens come into our home, and we focused first on getting them fixed, and put vaccinations secondary, again this was my mistake. Eating all the vaccinations for so many cats, since we never had a sick cat, seemed like an expense that was precautionary at best, possibly a waste of resources. And what happened this year, may not have been avoidable anyway.

About 6 months ago, one of our adult cats became ill. Nothing bad at first, but as time passed, it progressed from an unhappy cat to something much more serious and scary. That was the beginning. There has never been a firm diagnosis for what the illness was, but it swept through the house like a wave. Some of our cats had the protection, and some did not. The vaccinations only seemed to work partially, but it did seem to effect both who got sick, and how bad they became. The unvaccinated cats that got sick, all required hospitalization. The cats with the vaccine that got sick, we're able to recover at home with co-amoxiclav treatment, hydration and supplements. All in all, we have had more than a dozen cats fall ill, some spent weeks in the hospital, others as out patients, and a few have been in the hospital over multiple stays amounting to weeks of treatment with anti-viral meds, antibiotics and intravenous support. We have also seen entire litters of kittens wiped out. They were too small for vaccinations, but it has been absolutely heartbreaking. We have been emotionally and financially wiped out over the past 6 months, spending thousands upon thousands of dollars, and for the first time in more than 15 years, having my savings wiped out.

The message is simple and clear. For one, vaccinations are absolutely imperative. We have been lucky that we haven't lost one of the cats we raised from kittens to adulthood, but we had some very close calls.

Now we have cats in all these different rooms, in cages for further quarantine from other cats in the same area, and under some form of veterinary care. The costs are enormous. We seem to have gotten past the outbreak, which has wiped out a lot of cats in the area. Our vet has done a wonderful job help get us, but others have not been so lucky. The reports of dying cats was peaking in August, with dozens of dead cats in every vet clinic and shelter in the area. The belief is that a mutated version of calicivirus has evolved locally. Since it has a high morality rate and effects cats with vaccinations as well. But nobody knows for certain. They are unable to even do bloodtype identification here, so finding the cause is that much harder.

We are certainly not out of the woods. One of the cats re accepted, has cancer. We knew that when we took her in. Her form of cancer is on the skin, but may be metastasized to other parts of her body, we take her in for her first surgery this week. They will remove the primary tumor and check for other possible tumors as well. We thought that she would need chemo, but that appears to be ruled out as ineffective to this form of cancer cell. If it has spread, then it's a losing battle anyway, so we are crossing our finger.

In closing, if you do plan to rescue, set a limit to the number of cats, and stick to it. Make sure that our can segregate the cats properly until their vaccinations are complete and the antibodies have formed, which means more than a month from the second round of vaccinations, if you are unable to do this, don't rescue any new cats. Don't learn the hard way as well. Veterinary bills can add up very fast, and if you are not prepared, it will destroy your finances.

The worst part of this experience. Placing cats that we had already rescued in danger, having to save them all over again. The viruses that are out there, often spread through casual contact and survive outside the body on everything they touch. Your shoes, clothing, carpets, drapes, bedding all become carriers, and some times the cats become hosts for their entire lives. Having a litter born in a rescue home, becomes a nightmare of trying to keep the kittens and the mother protected in their most vulnerable state.

We have lost entire litters these past few months, and we have no way of knowing what happened, how they got infected, or how to save them when they do get infected. We have spent thousands trying to keep all our cats alive and healthy, buy the best foods available here, and won the majority of the battles, but they have been at great costs. We have run out of tears and out of room in our yard, which has become a makeshift graveyard. This has been a tough year, and we are hopefully at the end of the illness phase. While we love each and every cat we have saved, and do not regret taking them in, we know with certainty that we can not take on any more, and we only hope that with all of them vaccinated, it won't happen again.

Learn from out pain, our mistakes, and never take lightly the challenges of raising stray/feral cats. And most of all, learn to say no. That is the hardest part of all, it's too bad there are not enough people out there with the heart it requires to take on such a tremendous responsibility, but the rewards outweigh the risks, if you are just starting out with a mini-rescue, just stop it there and help to encourage others to become rescuers too. That is the best we can do, for all our furry friends. Sincerely, the kittykeepers.
 
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mani

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An excellent, first-hand reminder of how hard it can be.  Thank you. .
 
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