Adopt An FIV Cat!

FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus) is a cat disease.  It is often confused with Felv (Feline Leukemia Virus).  However, they are quite different.  FIV cannot be spread to humans or dogs.  Cats can live normal, healthy lives by doing for them what a good pet owner would do with their other feline companions.  They need high quality food, L-lysine supplements (used by humans for fever blister control) , indoor only homes and yearly vet visits.FIV is spread by deep bite wounds when cats fight, most often unfixed, outside, free roaming cats. Cats once fixed, tend not to fight and their personalities become much calmer.

There was not a test developed for FIV until the mid-1980’s.  Up to that point, many FIV cats were placed in homes with the disease, unknown to pet owners.  FIV cats get terribly short changed because most people do not even know what FIV is or how it is spread.

St. Louis Pet Rescue fosters and adopts out FIV positive cats. In most cases they are housed with non-FIV cats and co-exist wonderfully.  There is a lot of information regarding FIV and veterinarians that feel FIV and non-FIV cats can live together. See below for resources:

http://www.fivcats.com/FIV/fiv_mixed_households.html

http://www.vetstreet.com/our-pet-experts/why-this-vet-thinks-fiv-positive-cats-make-great-adoptees

http://metrowesthumanesociety.org/fiv.html

https://www.humanesociety.org/news/fiv-positive-cats