Why Would You OR Your Cat Want to Visit the Vet?

It is the subject of great debate, discussion, study, and marketing analysis in the veterinary field...
Why do American own more cats than dogs, but yet bring them to the vet less than half of the time?

This sad statistic is made even more bleak by the latest data showing that cat vet visits continue to decline year after year.

There are about a million reasons, (although I debate that 'excuses' is a more accurate term than 'reason').

Loon, one of our clinic cats.

Here are some of the more popular reasons that I hear;

1. "My cat doesn't go outside." I suppose the argument is that if your cat doesn't go outside that they don't get exposed to anything? Well, critters still come in to your house don't they?
2. "My cat doesn't see other cats, so how could she get sick?" The chance of your cat getting a disease from another cat is slim if they are in your home AND  away from other cats, but the sad truth is that many alleged "indoor only" cats should more accurately be labeled "primarily inside." A cat that spends any amount of time outside is best protected from disease by being up to date on vaccines appropriate for both your cats lifestyle and risk, your geographical location and associated threats, and your local and regional laws.
3. "My cat gets freaked out by going to the vet." OK, there is the stress of traveling, I get that. Some cats have a very difficult time traveling, and some cats are down right impossible to examine, for these guys there are mobile vets available.
4. "I can't get her in the carrier." Your vet can help with this one. There are lots of tricks to try, like leaving the carrier in the house for a few days, or putting your cat in a pillow case and then putting the pillow case in the carrier. Or lowering her into the carrier with the door open facing the ceiling..or use a mobile vet.
5. "She doesn't need anything from the vet." There is great value in your cat being examined by your vet. (A penny of prevention is worth a pound of cure!).When your vet looks at your cat they will assess their teeth (almost 60% of cats have evidence of dental disease by age 3), their heart, lung, muscle mass, ears, eyes, muscle condition, weight, joints, and look for any abnormal growths, conditions, or behaviors. There are very few examinations where I don't find something that the parent wasn't aware of. At minimum we discuss diet, litter box habits, household and living environment and how your cat is doing overall. 

My Wren. My pillow. 
You get it.

There are a whole slew of things to discuss when I see a cat that hasn't been to the vet in a very long time, or even ever. This is made even more difficult if the cat is coming to see me and is ill.

Here are a few things that I think you should ask your vet about at your next visit;

1. Ask about three year vaccines. If your cat is inside and at minimal risk to diseases like leukemia then three year vaccines are a safe alternative. BUT, coming in for a vaccine every three years is still not a valid reason to skip the yearly exam!
2. I now give vaccinations in the tail. IF, your cat is the one in 10,000 cats that get a vaccine induced sarcoma amputating the tail is a quicker, easier treatment option than amputating a leg, or large area of the dorsal shoulder area.
3. How bad are the teeth? I say this because it is much more likely that there is some degree of dental disease. To be even more specific IF your cat is over 4 there they are probably in need of a dental cleaning.
4. Review your cats diet. What and how much are you feeding? Does this need any adjustments?
5. Review your cats coat. Should your cat be groomed? Matted, thick, or long hair has only two places to go. In your home, or in their belly. We take massive hair ball obstructions out of cats who are dying from them. Such a silly thing to die from.
6. Check all nails and clip if needed. This becomes more important to cats with age. (Don't forget the thumbs!).
7. Look at ears. Are they dirty? How can you safely and easily clean them at home?
8. Look at your cats nails, ALL of them. Older cats often need nail trimming more often, (monthly), and you should know how to safely and easily do this.
9. Can you tell if your cat is overweight? or undermuscled? Ask your vet to show you how to monitor for these at home.
10. All cats over 8 years old benefit from yearly examinations, blood work monitoring, (to include the thyroid), and a yearly urinalysis and fecal. 

My Magpie.
No worries here.

The data is indisputable and undeniable. There are a whole bunch of cats in our homes, and a whole bunch of them (like half) are not being brought to the vet on a routine basis! Now we have already cleared the air on why people think that they don't need to visit with their bunch of justifiable credible reasons, but here's my advice; your cat will live a longer, healthier, and happier life if you do!.

There is a wealth of  pet information at your fingertips that is available free, 24 hours a day, all 7 days of the week. It is a resource for anyone who cares about pets. Pawbly.com is a place to share information, help pets and their people and connect those of us are pet professionals. But better than that we invite everyone who has a pet, loves a pet, or wants to connect with other pet people to visit and join the place dedicated to social pet care.

How can I get any work done?
Ah, who cares,, I'd rather play with Wren anyway...

If you would like to meet me I can be found at the clinic, Jarrettsville Vet in Jarrettsville Maryland. I am also on Twitter @FreePetAdvice.

Cats 101. The Litter Box

Frankie, female, spayed Snowshoe cat.
She is awaiting a home after her parents, and very dear clients of ours, died.
She and her brother are both in dire need of a new home.
Please help us find them a new family.
They would have gone to the Humane Society and might have been put down as surrendered cats.

There are a few BIG advantages to cats over dogs.

My mom and her kitty Ramsey.
At 15 years old he had been chronically vomiting.
An ultrasound revealed an intestinal mass. It was removed and he has made a full recovery.

There’s the whole compact design, portability, and ease of care. Cats require a smaller space and have simple needs and demands. They also learn quickly

The list of items to provide your cat is short.;

Litter box

Remember there are some guidelines for litter boxes.

1.      Two for the first cat and one additional for each additional cat.
2.      Also remember that cats prefer unscented, non-clumping sand-like litter.
3.      In a large low sided open litter box.
4.      Away from any electric outlets, noisy areas, high traffic spots, or dark scary areas.
5.      It should also be kept on the floor in an area that your cat isn't afraid to go to.
6.      If your cat seems to be missing or avoiding the box, rethink everything associated with it. Size, shape, litter, and placement. Cats are discerning, complex individuals. They are far more sensitive to smell, touch, and their environment. Think like your cat, and provide them what they prefer, not what you prefer.
7.      It is important to keep the litter box clean. Scoop out waste daily and dump all of the litter weekly. Every week the litter box should be cleaned and dried. Be careful to not use any harsh chemicals that might cause your cat to not want to visit the box again.

Jitterbug, scoping and claiming his spot on the bed.
The puppies stand quietly and let him do whatever he wants.

I know many of my clients don’t want to share their living space with their cats litter box, but putting the litter box in the basement, in the laundry room, or garage is fine as long as it is in a place your cat can get to easily, safely, and quickly.

This is my art studio.
There are four cats in my house and Magpie has decided she prefers to not be with them all of the time. So, Magpie has claimed it as her space.
Can you see her litter box?

Litter box issues are one of the biggest complaints I hear from clients. For the simple demands that our cats place on us, the continual use of the litter box is the single greatest demand we ask of them. If your cat starts to have issues with inconsistent use of the litter box see your vet immediately to rule out a medical problem first. Then take a good long well thought out look at your cats litter box and ask yourself if there is anything about it that you would change if you were a cat? Remember the longer there is a problem the harder it can be to fix or resolve it.

Magpie's room has a bed, windows, and her own litter box.

She may not be affectionate with two of the other cats,
but she loves her own time on the couch with me.

For more information on litter boxes, and litter box issues, please see;

The 20 Minute Cure To Peeing Outside Of The Litter Box

Inappropriate Elimination in Cats

Feline Marking

If you have a cat, or any kind of pet question you can ask it for free on Pawbly.com. It is free for everyone to use, so come on and join in the conversation! We are dedicated to helping pets everywhere!

Or you can find me on Twitter, @FreePetAdvice.

Moe's gentle heart

I am a veterinarian. I usually don’t believe that your job should define you, but sometimes it is the most accurate summary descriptor I can use to characterize myself. I, like most of the rest of my colleges went into veterinary medicine because we like animals better than people. Not really an admirable quality, but honest. Of my many memorable veterinary experiences it is usually the pets that burn a place in my heart and head. This time it was the clients more so than my patient that made this case so memorable.

Any seasoned versed veterinarian will tell you that there are many important qualities to put in your holster on your way to becoming a great practitioner. You have to remember all of that stuff you were taught, tested on, and were supposed to have read, absorbed and understood while in veterinary school, then you graduate and have to learn how to integrate what you learned into what you are seeing, and on top of that, and probably the most challenging, you need to learn how to build a strong trusted relationship with your patients’ owners. Here is where the cavernous juxtaposition lies. We go into veterinary medicine because we like animals then we have to learn how to relate to people so we can help their pets. If a veterinarian can’t master this skill they may be able to practice great medicine but they will never feel as if they made a difference in a life. You see we have the ability to heal but without that human connection you can’t feel the difference you may have made in someone’s life. The longer I practice medicine the more I understand that it is the human’s lives I am impacting through the healthcare of their pets.

Those seasoned vets will also tell you that it is the people you help and touch and the lives on both sides of the file, owner and patient, that in the end leave you feeling as if your career, your talents, and what you give along the way are what makes this job rewarding. You also learn to not judge your clients. Sometimes the softest hearts come in the most unexpected packages. I have learned to treat every client as if they were my mom. You see my mom has a big heart but she is really bad at making healthcare decisions. Whatever her vet tells her to do she does. It isn’t an interactive experience. She cannot understand and decide what to do for her pets.  She wants her vet to decide for her. Unfortunately my dad has to pay the bills. So on many occasions the vet gets stuck in the middle of the healthcare professional and the accountant. I try very hard to present every owner with my professional findings and what treatment plan will be best for their pet. I also give estimates. Sticker shock is an unpleasant thing for all of us. But I cannot decide who gets offered the “great medical plan” and who gets offered the “discount corner cutting medical treatment” plan.

On one Sunday I met the Smitts. They were very kind, soft spoken gentle people. They didn’t dress fancy, and didn’t put on airs of being anything other than very concerned about their kitty Moe. They asked lots of great questions, were very involved in Moe’s care, and wanted nothing but the best care for their beloved kitty. They were clients that we hadn’t seen in a long while.  You see we keep tabs on our paper files that identify when the last time we saw you was. It had been so long that we didn’t have their paper file anymore. We only had a computer print out of the prior transactions they had with us. The last date in the file was the mid 90’s. Today they had brought Moe to see me because he was unable to walk, not eating well, lethargic, and had a large area of excoriation (abrasion) on the side of his head just below the right ear. I began asking for a more elaborate description as to the sequence of events with the wound to his face. They went on to explain that they believed he had ear mites and to treat them they picked up an over the counter ear mite treatment. Upon further inquiry I asked if this cat had been outside. “No, they replied, not in about 10 years or more.” I also asked if he had been vaccinated. “No, not in quite a few years.” I explained to them,( like I do to many clients), that an indoor cat still needs a rabies shot, and still benefits greatly from an annual examination.  It is a very common oversight amongst many cat owners. Veterinary medicine is just starting to get the word out to our clients, that we have been neglecting cats for too long. I understood that they didn’t intend to withhold care, they were just never told that Moe needed it.

My questions to the Smitts didn’t seem to be making my list of Moe’s possible problems shorter, but longer. I tried to politely recommend that in the future the diagnosing and prescribing be left to the vets. I had no doubt that they meant well I was just pretty sure that Moe wasn’t itching because he had ear mites, and that the well intended medication had not made him better. I was fairly certain that his problem lay in his brain, not his ear.

The inner ear lives right next door to the brain. Actually it is not so much as a neighbor but more like the other side of a duplex. There is a thin wall of bone that separates the two chambers but a problem in one side of the home can look a lot like the problem resides in the other. Because Moe was so weak, and unable to walk, I thought that he should be admitted to the hospital for fluids and aggressive treatment. I also explained to them that I had to have rabies on my list of possible diseases. I remind my client’s everyday that even indoor cats can be exposed to rabies and that it is important to have them vaccinated to protect them from this fatal disease. I use the saying “rabies kills everyone it meets” often. I have seen many rabid animals, cats especially, and I hope I don’t ever see anymore ever again. It is especially heart wrenching having to tell a family, including those with young children that they have been exposed. It is hard enough to lose my patients I don’t want to lose a person. They understood my concerns and agreed to have him hospitalized.

After 24 hours of i.v. fluids and antibiotics Moe stopped eating and was unable to get up at all. I called the owners and expressed my concern for him. They were always calm and kind and involved with his care. They came to visit him everyday. They cried over him in his cage. They offered him affection, all sorts of appetizing wet canned food. But nothing got him eating or better. Through every single poke, probe, needle, exam, and medicine he purred and cuddled. He was always so sweet. And his owners never gave up on him. They wanted him to get well despite every bleak prognosis we gave them.

Moe died a few days after he was admitted to the hospital. He purred everytime he was approached by every person in the hospital. He was a sweet, and gentle loving boy until his last breathe.

I hope that the Smitt's adopt another kitty. I can't imagine them not having a cat to share their life with.

I know that Moe was very lucky to have such kind and gentle owners, and I know he was a reflection of them. There is a part of me that truly wishes every kitty was as nice and gentle as Moe, and every client was as concerned and caring as the Smith’s.

If you would like to learn more about rabies please visit the link below;

http://tinyurl.com/3c8nh4a

Midnight, My cat the hyperthyroid kitty

My first husband left me with a broken heart and a bitter taste in my mouth, but he did love cats. I always tell my clients that a man that likes a cat is a good guy. So I guess I have to stand by that one. Anyway, back to my point of this narrative, he came home one day to our little shabby apartment with a very small handful of black fur. She was pathetic in every sense of the word. She was barely big enough to be identifiable. You had to search for ears to put the label of feline on her. Otherwise she just looked like charred dryer fluff.

What could I possibly say to him? He had pulled into the gas station by our apartment and saw a little black mass hiding in the tires by the repair shop. He went over to her, started to play with her, picked her up and inquired with the attendant as to whether or not anyone claimed her as theirs. He told me that they knew she was there, but they had no idea how she had gotten there. Because she was playing so close to the busy road he knew he couldn’t leave her there to be run over by a car. So, I return to my original question. What could I possibly say to him? I just loved him for caring, and doing exactly the same thing I would have done. At the time it seemed so kismet.

So she stayed with us; and is with me still to this day. She is now 19 years old. She has seen me through a lot of challenges. 2 marriages, 1 divorce, college the second time around, vet school, 3 residences, and 10 other cats.

At the ripe old age of 19 she has certainly got her own little quirks. Her favorite toy still remains the hand knitted hand-made wool mice stuffed with catnip. You will occasionally hear a muffled but high pitched meow echoing from the third floor. If you don’t know it’s her you will think a cat is warning you of an impending fire. It is alarming and almost unrecognizable. It makes me so happy to think that at 19 she still loves her toys. She started out very small and she grew into still very small. She was delivered to me in the palm of a hand and is still transportable by one hand only. She never did weigh more than 6 pounds, even in her glory years.

At age 16 she developed hyperthyroidism. It is one of the 2 big old cat diseases. The other is kidney disease. And just for any of you out there reminding me that I am missing another big old pet disease I say whole heartedly YES! The third is cancer, but I was being species specific. Cancer has no species preference. We vets use the saying quite frequently, “cancer does whatever it wants.” It isn’t what an inquiring, probing, unsure client wants to hear from you when you are trying to read the tea leaves for their pet with cancer.

The classic hyperthyroid cat presents to us as; “Hey Doc I think my cat has worms”. Ok, I recognize the bait, and yes, I bite. “Why would you think that Mrs. Jones?” “Because Doc, she eats and eats and still she keeps losing weight.” “Oh, well maybe we should check into that” I reply. It is important to remember that the acceptance of any diagnosis is always easier if every member of the team is a willing and active participant. A client is always more likely to help treat if you can help them diagnose.

 It is a more difficult task to assess an individual’s behavior if you are also watching 7 others concurrently. (Yes I do have 8 cats. No giggling please.) This is the dilemma of inquiring about a patients’ behaviors, actions, etc., in a multiple pet household. So I had to ask myself the same questions I ask my clients. Was I sure that she was polyphagic (increased hunger/eating)? Umm.., no, not really. But was I sure her small body was shrinking? Yep! Definitely. A blood test later my suspicion was confirmed, and thus began our greatest challenge. The twice daily oral pill administration. OMG, did she fight me. And OMG was I determined to have my own patient treated. it took along time before she understood that i wasn't trying to suffocate her, and after months of practice she now willingly sits, and swallows her pill quickly and easily. this is often hard to convince owners of. Patience and practice are the cornerstones of pilling a cat effectively. Please don't give up after your first attempt doesn't go easily. Always ask your vet to help you. We will show you as many times as you need us to. And you can do it, I promise you can.

A lot of interesting things have happened to veterinary medicine over the last decade. Two of the greatest achievements we have made are; One, the advent of flea and tick prevention, (no I don’t know what we did before them). And two, almost all feline products are going topical. Easy to do? Hell Yes! As effective? Hell No! (usually). But I appreciate and applaud the efforts, and the marketing strategy. Offer a client a topical at twice the price of the original pill and guess what they will choose 9 times out of ten, Yep, they are great money makers. Many of my clients now use a topical hyperthyroid gel instead of pilling. i would say it works 60% of the time. 

So it has been a few years of medicating the disease that’s eats away at her. I send the sentinel down her throat twice a day and the weight is holding steady. She still can be heard prancing around the third floor with a stuffed catnip mouse in her mouth. And me, well, I have a wonderful sweet longtime friend. And I guess I still stand by my thoughts on the “good guys” qualities.

If you would like to learn more about a hyperthyroidism in cats please see the link below;
http://tinyurl.com/3f6web4

Jitterbug Decides

I, like I am sure many of you, feel that I have always had a sort of magnetic attraction to animals. I, in my own modesty, feel as if it is mutual, of course. In retrospect I now understand that they aren’t really attracted to me, moreover, I am always looking out for them. I drive down the road scanning the horizon for deer, groundhogs, and yes, to be perfectly honest, even toads in the road during the summer. I take every opportunity that presents itself to me to try to save every apparently injured, or in need, homeless animal. Its borderline compulsion and I am working on it. At least that’s the mantra I provide my husband.

Jitterbug, is one of the cats that found his way to my house. I live in an old stone farm house in York Co, Pa, where everything is considered “living in the country”. Seems like the cats like it out here. I have 2 cats a year show up. You can almost set your clock by it. I think I know where the source is, but in the country cats are sort of a kin to mice. They are part of the landscape and most people let them just try to keep each others populations in check. I will admit I am not of this school of thought. A cat is a domesticated species. Mankind bred them, and they don’t exist in the wild. They were a species developed by us, and thus I see them as our responsibility. This means that when a cat shows up at my house it is fed, vaccinated, and spayed or neutered. 

Jitterbug was about 6 months old when he started stealing food off of my cats back porch. I saw a little tiger-tabby darting on and off to eat as much as he could as fast as he could for about 2 weeks before I made any attempts to talk to him. My cats were split down the middle by his arrival. Half cared to the point of hissing, yelling, screaming and then attacking, and half had naps to catch up on. I always knew when he arrived. Fearing he would begin to retaliate the hostility I decided it was probably best to try to make friends, see if I could find his “real home”, and then send him back there. Inside we all know he left because the pickin’s were easier at my house. After another two weeks I set a have a heart cat trap for him and within 30 minutes he was caught.

For the first time in a month I could see him in his entirety. He was a beautiful white and black tabby with big green eyes, and he was petrified. I put the cage with him still in it in the garage so he would stay warm and dry. I put a towel over his cage, because every animal feels safer in a dark quiet small box. And I said goodnight.

The next morning he took a ride with me to the clinic. The first thing we always do with a found pet is scan for a microchip. Every pet at my clinic is offered a microchip for free. We provide them for free because we know firsthand how many pets it saves. Did you know that less than 13% of pets find their way home if they get lost? He didn’t have a microchip, it wasn’t a big surprise. He was young unneutered, full of fleas, and not tame. I called every local authority to report him as found, placed him in quarantine, and gave him a FeLV/FIV test. He was clear of both of these deadly infections and he was placed away from all of the other pets for his two week quarantine period. I also started his vaccines, gave him a flea and tick preventative and a formal introduction. Two quiet weeks passed. No one called for him and he didn’t ask for anyone either. He hated being caged, refused to interact in any way shape or form, and his solitary confinement period was ended by his last set of vaccines, a neuter, a microchip and a name. I tried to put him into the general cat population here at the hospital but he still refused to interact in any way. He would lash out at anyone trying to befriend him and I knew his misery was only being matched by the danger he was presenting to the staff

It was at that point that I had to make a decision. There aren’t many options for an unfriendly wild cat. I had to decide whether I would euthanize him or bring him back to my house and release him. I fundamentally was apposed to euthanizing a healthy animal. It wsnt his fault no one ever took the time to give him any time or attention. There is a key period of time that a kitten can be socialized. If you can start touching and socializing and exposing a kitten to human beings before about 3 weeks old they will make a great housecat. The later you wait to do it after that the less likely your chances of success will be. After about 6 months a wild cat stays pretty close to a wild cat. This is part of the reason I love cats. They are their own individual. These no wooing a cat. You have to be determined, patient, and lucky. Dogs, well, dogs are just easier to win over. I like a challenge of a cat, and the pay off of being patient and kind. You earn a cat’s affection, you can buy a dogs.  (ok, I really, really, do love dogs, I just identify with cats). So of course, without telling my husband I took Jitterbug home. I let him free by the back porch hoping he would remember these once familiar surroundings and not run away from fear or resentment. The second I opened the trap he ran like a refugee for freedom. I really wasn’t sure I would ever see him again. The next night there were the familiar cat calls from the back porch. He was back. I was happy to see him.

It has been about a year since then. He now spends every night on the bed next to me and Jekyll and he waits for me everyday I come home from work. I would love to have him inside full time, for his safety, but he is always right by the house, and always comes when I call him, so I will continue to be patient until the day the winter starts to wrap its frigid fingers around us, then he will move in for the winter. He is usually in my arms upside down purring away, 0r playing with the puppies in the front yard.  I may indentify with the cats better, but he thinks he is a dog.

For more information on FeLV or FIV please see the attached link below:

www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/infectious-parasitic/c_ct_feline_leukemia

www.petmd.com/cat/.../c_ct_feline_immunodeficiency_virus_infection

A New Lease on Life, Kiki's Story. Nasopharyngeal Polyps in Felines.

He arrived as they all do; in a small cat carrier. He was hidden from view in a dark enclosed plastic box. Designed to be light weight, these carriers are like a little treasure chest to a veterinarian. You really never know what you are going to find inside. Sometimes the smell gives you a big hint, but I’ll get to that later.

Every vet has learned to peek inside the box before you open the door or even dare to stick your hand in. There are sometimes ferocious little lions hidden beneath a puff of orange fluff.

This is Kiki's story. Kiki is a part of the over 700 cats living in the Animal Rescue Farm just along the Pa-Md border, in a little town called New Freedom, Pa. They are the most devoted bunch of amazing, inspiring, compassionate people I have ever met.

To begin, Kiki is a boy. I know it’s confusing. I can’t really explain why, but that’s a lot of cats they have to manage so some of those cats get some pretty funky, or down right mis-appropriated, names. We have learned to just accept them and go with it. But he is whom he is, Kiki. He sat in his little plastic cat carrier box, hidden quietly in the back. I opened the door. He didn’t lift his head, he didn’t move, he didn’t care about me, or where he was, nor did his internal survival drive tell him to even care about pretty much anything anymore. I could see and hear his rattle and crackle of the all to common ailment of rescue cats “chronic upper respiratory disesase”. How many of these rescues cats do I see? A LOT! You put too many of anything together, and you know what you get? A lot of flu. Send your kids back to school and then grab the tissues, because you’ll need them soon. He had yellow-green snot just caking his nose. Some of it had dried leaving a crust but more was coming down the chute, like a slow flow of yellow-green lava. He could barely breathe, and when you can barely breathe you barely move. I lifted his lifeless thin black body out of the carrier. He didn’t fight, or protest, or struggle even a little. I weighed him. 5 pounds, (that’s at least 2 pounds less then he should have weighed). When you only weigh 5 pounds, those 2 pounds really count. That’s 40% of your weight, OMG almost half! We quickly made up a treatment a very basic treatment plan for him. The good ole basic stand-by treatment plan, fluids, food, and antibiotics. Feed him any damned thing he wanted, try to make it as smelly as possible. When you have a whole nasal cavity full of snot it takes a smelly-smelly morsel to convince you to open your mouth and eat.

We also started him on the antibiotic I call “the big guns”. “The big guns” are the expensive guns. Funny how life always works that way? I was going to hit him hard and keep him on them for at least a month. I was going to make sure that the previous attempts that the rescue had made were either not the strong enough meds, or they weren’t used long enough. I was covering my bases and stacking the deck. We put him in a cage with my treatment plan in place and I moved onto the next little plastic chest of mysterious disease. I didn’t really need 12 years of college for this guy, I thought to myself and I moved onto the next carrier in line.

Over the next few weeks we cleaned more slung snot from the walls, the doors, and the ceiling than anyone could imagine a 5 pound creature could produce. He sneezed, spit, and re-painted our walls. In case any of you are ever thinking of working at a vets office, and need to start at the bottom, (aka kennel), be prepared to not only pick up poop, scoop litter, but oh, yes, scrape snot off of walls is also in the job description. After 4 weeks of “the big guns” he still looked puny and miserable. So I called the rescue director and confessed that my hopes had fallen far short for poor Kiki. I asked if I could put him under general anesthesia, look in the mouth, flush the nose, take head x-rays, pretty much make any stab in the dark that was listed in the text book under ”chronic upper respiratory disease” from my old vet school days. I heard the pause in her voice, (that little jab of falling short of expectations, I get used to it, sigh), and a reluctant “ok”.

The next day, I said hello to Kiki, said a little quiet prayer, crossed my fingers and put him under general anesthesia. His head x-rays showed the damage to the very fine bony turbinates, years of snot eating your nasal passages, but no tumor, score 1 for Kiki. We flushed his nasal passages, until the snot ran a clear saline, and I thought “aahh, now maybe you will be able to breathe, well, at least for a little while”. And then we looked behind his soft palate. This is the area where the hard bony roof of your mouth transitions to the soft part then heads down into your larynx. And there it was an enormous irregular cluster of grape like tissue the size of your thumb. I was never so happy to see such a hideous structure. The veterinary treatment for a big wad of tissue growing in the back of your throat? grab, yank, and pull. And, oh yeah, hope it doesn’t grow back. It was the center stage curiosity of every staff member in the building. We were all happy to see the culprit.

Kiki woke up without any complications and since then he has put on 4 pounds and become the most extraverted, playful, and rambunctious kitty you have ever seen. He decides when you are done playing, when it is time to start playing, and he will slap you if you walk away without his permission. He has become one of our resident cats. And he reminds me everyday why I do what I do.

Here are a few video's of our JVC cats having their polyps removed; 

Here is more information on Nasopharyngeal Polyps. 

Kiki is one of the many reminders of why we work so hard on even the most difficult and chronic cases. Kiki was adopted by one of the vets of the clinic and has a family who sees him as the perfect soul he always was.

If you have a pet with this condition and would like to learn more about it (or any other pet related condition) please ask the amazing people at Pawbly.com. It is free for everyone to use. 

If you would like to learn more about us at Jarrettsville Vet Center please find us here at our website, or like our Facebook page.

I am also on YouTube and Twitter @FreePetAdvice.

If you would like more information on this topic; Nasopharyngeal polyps, then please follow the link below:

www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/respiratory/c_dg_nasal_polyps