Healthy pets suddenly dying(Vanity)

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/*/index ^ | 4/29/2008 | petitfour

[petitfour]

Five weeks ago, we adopted a healthy 6 month old cat from our local PetSmart. He had been in foster care since he and his kitty siblings were found when they were six to eight weeks old. He was in fine condition, and we met his foster mom who seemed honest and sincere in trying to find the right home for a kitty she clearly loved. Anywho, the cat developed a cold within a few days of coming to live with us. I think he was shaking the cold when he started having much worse troubles. He stopped eating, and we took him to the vet. The vet put him on antibiotics, but the cat never recovered. He died about four weeks after we adopted him. We had never had a cat die on us. And we've owned quite a few. We've had a dog die from poisoning by a neighbor child. But this was very strange. It happened a little over a week ago.

Meanwhile, a friend of ours who lives miles away told me that her dog was very lethargic all of the sudden. The dog, a Rottweiler, was a healthy, happy pup around six to eight months old. (I can't remember when they bought her, but it was in the late Fall of last year.) Anywho, the dog died today, and her symptoms were so very similar to our cat's symptoms that we have begun to wonder if there's still something wrong with the pet food we fed our animals.

Another meanwhile, the friend mentioned above said her son came home from baseball practice yesterday, and he told her about one of his teammates whose dog died yesterday. The teammate's parents were assuming their dog was poisoned by someone in their neighborhood who didn't like their dog barking. It's always possible because we live in crazy times, and people do some shocking things.

I know that it's possible this is all a coincidence. However, I'm still curious to know if others have had similar pet deaths in the recent months.

[CH3CN]

Distemper?

[TexasCajun]

So, do you think someone poisoned your cat because it was barking and annoying the neighors?

Lord forgive me for that one. :)

[GovernmentShrinker]

I think pet food is an unlikely explanation, since it’s being watched so closely these days. This really sounds like unrelated incidents, but if you want to dig into it, try to get the vets who treated these animals to communicate with each other — especially the ones who treated the kitten and the puppy (the other dog really sounds like there’s no reason to suspect a connection). They may be able to look at some blood tests and say for sure it wasn’t the same thing. Or they might see similarities and start checking with other vets in online professional forums. Possibly some virus that tends to take hold in very young animals whose immune systems aren’t fully developed yet. But unless extensive blood work and other diagnostics were done on both the puppy and kitten, it’s unlikely that there will be any way to determine whether there was a connection.

[GladesGuru]

“So, do you think someone poisoned your cat because it was barking and annoying the neighors?

Lord forgive me for that one. :)”

The Lord will, but Ingrid Newkirk is not amused.

Pity.

[dawn53]

Our 2 year old Weim was lethargic and running a fever over the weekend, so we took him to the vet on Monday. He couldn’t find anything wrong other than the fever, so he put him on antibiotics and the fever appears to be subsiding, yet he’s still a little lethargic. In the meantime, our 6 year old Weim started getting the same symptoms. I was thinking it’s just some sort of virus.

Probably all coincidence, but it sure gives one pause after the pet food scare. We feed ours Nature’s Balance kibble, but sometimes use a small bit of canned Pedigree to mix in. They’re both large dogs (75 lbs and 90 lbs)...so if it was contamination, it would take more of the stuff to make them ill than a smaller dog. I think during the last pet food fiasco, it was the smaller dogs and cats who were being more affected.

[A CA Guy]

Cat could have been poisoned by lawn treatments or some neighbor might have used rat bait and either could have somehow gotten to the kitty.

You never know, but it is sad news.

[petitfour]

The friend’s dog had no contact with other animals. He started showing signs of illness four or five days ago. They opened a new bag of dog food nine days ago.

Cats do not get canine distemper. We considered that he could have contracted something from the other cats who were being adopted via PetSmart on the day we adopted him. However, I contacted the man who runs the shelter, and he said that to his knowledge, none of the other cats were having any problems. I’ve also considered that the cat could have eaten something in our house, but we don’t keep poisons around our house because we have young children. No one fed the cat any pain killers. (that was one of the first things the vet mentioned because a lot of people think pets can take Tylenol or Advil or whatever. Those meds kill pets, and we sure didn’t medicate the kitty.)

[brytlea]

But truthfully, is Ingrid ever amused? By anything?
susie

[enough_idiocy]

I heard bad things recently about petsmart from HSUS and related organizations. In fact, I think there was a recent video or some other expose (workers) who complained about conditions there.

I did a quick search online and couldn’t find any details to corraborate my memory, but I found the following
http://www.petsmartcruelty.com/
http://www.petsmartcruelty.com/investigation_manchester.asp

I may have been thinking about petsmart in the UK
“Please urge everyone you know to boycott Petsmart throughout its
entire network in the UK and abroad. Tonight a report on the BBC
“Watchdog” programme showed how Petsmart encourages its employees to
abuse animals. There is text of the programme at...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/stories/wwpetsmart.shtml
http://groups.google.com.my/group/rec.pets.cats.health+behav/browse_thread/thread/549ed3fe238d7c04

In sum, I would see if Petsmart is the common denominator, if not, then see if food is, or some other exposure. You haven’t cited anything in common yet, besides deaths.

[stlnative]

I have heard there is a new animal virus floating around.
I don’t recall the name of it but you might try googling new animal virus or new pet virus, etc.

[petitfour]

That should have read that we didn’t medicate our kitty with human meds nonprescribed by our vet. We did give him meds when the vet prescribed them.

[skinkinthegrass]

Distemper?.....yhea...sounds like it.

[enough_idiocy]

“since it’s being watched so closely these days” how exactly is it being watched? by whom, not the gov’t. the human food supply isn’t being watched. USDA is grossly understaffed and incapable of “watching” the food supply.

[petitfour]

We are holding onto the bag of food we were feeding the kitty just in case someone wants to test it at a later date. And we’re wondering if there is a pet virus going around. We’re also not ruling out coincidence.

Our cat food is a completely different brand than what our friend’s dog was eating. As for the third dog, I don’t know how old the dog was nor anything about the family who owned the animal. I’m hoping our friend will find out more about the third dog tonight.

I’m not so sure about the “being watched so closely” regarding pet food these days. But I’m trying to keep an open mind . . .

[petitfour]

Thanks. No PetSmart connection between animals. And the cat we adopted was only in PetSmart for a few hours. The girl who had been keeping our kitty was very sad to see him go. I think she would have kept him forever rather than let him be housed at PetSmart even for a day.

[GovernmentShrinker]

It’s being watched a lot more closely by both US and Chinese regulators than it was before the big melamine contamination run. And pet food manufacturers in the US have plenty of incentive to be more watchful than they were in the past. And Chinese business people in related industries are certainly being more careful. Punishment is real over there — at least one senior manager was executed for his role in the melamine contamination.

But perhaps more importantly, it’s being watched by the veterinary profession. Most vets stay connected with what’s going on in their field all over the country via online groups. They report unusual cases or unusual numbers of similar cases, and compare notes. Now that there’s been one epidemic of serious illnesses and deaths caused by contaminated pet food, it’s definitely higher on the vest’ watch list than it used to be. If another round of dangerous pet food contamination occurs, it will be caught much earlier than the last one.

[dawn53]

Well I took your suggestion, and never let it be said that you don’t learn something new everyday. Did you know there’s a music group called Pet Virus? Who’d a “thunk” it, LOL.

[Question_Assumptions]

We had a cat who died at 8 after he stopped eating. What I learned during that process is that cats are pretty delicate in certain ways and their internal organs are all tied together. If the cat stops eating, it can't make a substance that helps it convert fat into energy so it scavenges muscle tissue. The breakdown of the muscle tissue produces a substance that damages the kidneys (a big problem for cats). The damaged kidneys trigger anemia in the bone marrow. And so on. If a cat stops eating, you need to get it to eat as quickly as possible, even if that means a feeding tube. It could be almost anything that triggers the cascade (our cat had a digestive tract irritation that was at least part of it).

[GladesGuru]

Large contributions reputedly bring a feral grin to such as she.

Jan