Greetings, FeLVie fans!

We hope you are enjoying heading out of winter as much as the cats are! As spring peeks its head around the corner, there’s a lot of news this month, so let’s dive right in.

Batty is becoming braver by the day. She’ll often jump down from the cubbyholes to say hello when you enter her suite, and she’ll even venture into the Quinn’s Corner lobby when it’s her suite’s turn to have the run of the lobby.

Puff has significant tartar on her teeth and was noted to have bad breath. But our vet team believes she is not a good candidate for anesthesia (which would be required for a dental cleaning), so we’ll watch her and re-think the situation if she seems uncomfortable. She wasn’t eating as much as we’d have liked, so she’s now on an appetite stimulant that appears to be helping.

To our surprise, Hoopla Green and Mr. Man have become friends over the past few weeks; note the photo of the two relaxing together in the solarium. Unhappily, we are very concerned about Mr. Man. During a routine dental, his blood work showed a low white blood cell count, low platelets, and low hematocrit numbers (hematocrit is the percentage of red blood cells in blood, which is important because the red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body). These results suggest that the feline leukemia virus has entered his bone marrow. He was put on a round of antibiotics and steroids, and we are monitoring him very closely. His blood work numbers have not improved significantly, but his weight is up slightly, and he seems comfortable. Please hold a good thought for this wonderful boy!

We are very happy to report that Sweet Pea, Regina, and Pisa have all had an uneventful month. Sweet Pea continues her love affair with nylon crinkle tubes and really enjoys pouncing on toys thrown into the tubes. She and Regina are not best friends, but they tolerate one another in close proximity and will carefully sniff each other in passing.

Pisa continues to recover from her ear surgery. In the last few weeks, she has discovered the solarium, but we aren’t quite certain how she’s getting there. Usually, a staffer or volunteer will see the cat door being used by the feline in question, but that hasn’t been the case here. It’s entirely possible that she’s careful to use the door only when humans aren’t around, however.

Turning to the double-positive suite, there’s good news about Luke, who has made great progress in adjusting to his life here. He’s still timid around people, but he’ll now come out to explore the Quinn’s Corner lobby on the days when his suite has access. He clearly adores Trifecta (the line forms to the left, Luke), but so far, Trifecta has been indifferent to Luke’s demonstrations of friendship. Click here to see a video of Luke trying his best.

Speaking of Trifecta, he and Dewie both had their insulin levels adjusted over the past couple of weeks, and both will be rechecked in three months. Dewie is now being crated at mealtimes, because we discovered that he was pushing other cats out of their food and eating all of it before they could finish. Since Dewie behaves better around people than around other felines and loves human attention, he has joined our Aged to Purrfection crew, visiting local nursing care centers.

Abacus had some blood work done, and we found that he had a low neutrophil count (among white blood cells, neutrophils are typically the first to respond to an infection, so a low neutrophil count is not a positive sign). As a result, Abacus was given a dose of a fast-acting antibiotic, and we’ll do more blood work in two weeks.

That’s quite enough news for one update! Spring is almost here, and we can’t wait to see our FeLVie crew enjoying the sunshine and warmer temperatures in their various solaria. You and your generous heart make that possible. It’s only because of you that we can provide these beautiful felines with the care and love they deserve. Thank you!

Your correspondent,
Stephanie