Madness in the House of Cat Flu

The Road to Recovery. You can see DD eating her food. DD will only eat wetted can food and dry food.It is not often you see three cats together.

Du Du on Sat, looking very sad.

But this does not stop her from finding comfortable place to take her beauty sleep. In fact, Du was sleeping beside me yesterday replacing Sweetie or DD.

And Poor DD is 'forced' to sleep at the other side of the bed, using a soft toy as her pillow.

Today, someone volunteered to be foster mummy for da xiao bao for two weeks. Sister had asked Vincent to help to transport the cats to their new foster mummy today. Vincent had taught us how to pop medicine into KK and Du's mouth using a pill popper.

It is real bad news...All our cats including Sweetie and KK are infected with flu.

Here is the update on their outbreak:

10 April 2007 (Tues): Xiami, DD, DuDu are all down with flu. We fed all of them vibervet.. Only xiami is the cooperative cat, she is usually to eat food mix with her medicine. For DD and Dudu, it is a time consuming effort trying to chase them and make them swallow their medicine.

13 April 2007 (Fri): sweetie, xiao sweetie, KK are down with flu too. Ya, xiao sweetie is still with me, i had planned to keep her despite mum's protests. I know i am notty really but xiao sweetie is a nice sweetheart... :). All three of them refused medicine. But i had figured out how to force them to swallow. I just needed to pull their head outward to face me, then i put the medicine in their mouth and inject inside the mouth, use my hand to close their mouth and feel them swallow their medicien before i released them.


I had come to understand a bit about Cat Flu:

1) When the cats drip saliva, they will usually rejected food and water for one day. It is normal for the cat to drip saliva but we need to be careful that we are keeping the cat locked up in the cage as their saliva are full of flu virus. One drop of virus is enough to spread flu to another cat. It is ok without food but not without water. So i had to pump water with glucolin using a syringe inside their mouth.

2) The next day after one day without food, the cats should be better and well enough to eat food.

3) wetted canned food is the best food for flu cats. I had bought 5 cans of tuna for all of them on sat. I had done a research that tuna is good for them as it is smelly enough to get them to eat.

4)Xiao sweetie had lose her meow before she started sneezing. I think xiao sweetie lose her meow on wed. But the flu symptoms only appeared on Friday. After three to four days of medication, her meow had returned today. In fact, xiao sweetie had meowed at me to feed her today. I am not sure if i should give xiao sweetie another name, sometimes when i called xiao sweetie, our first big sweetie will stared at me too... i think both cats are confused.

5) I had locked sweetie whom got flu on fri in a cage. She had sneezed a lot yesterday and had refused food and water. Today, she is much better. Mum had scolded sister for causing mum's beloved sweetie to be sick too.

6) always touch their body to ensure they do not have fever. I think some cats like du have a slight fever but du is much better too. This morning, she is a little black monkey climbing over mum's selves

7) A hot bath where the cat is put in the bathroom with hot stream can help the cat to clear his congestion. I had not tried this method. Mum had told me to put a pail of hot water near the cats.

Update on conditions:

1) sweetie: sneezed a lot on sat, today - not as often but still sneezed with lot of saliva on the floor so it is back to the cage.

2) DD: sneezed a bit but not as often. I think she should be recovering soon as long as we take care to wipe the saliva with Dettol.

3) Dudu: she was lethargic on friday but was a bit normal on sat. She is hiding under the sofa now after vincent had forced a pill inside her mouth. I just found her just now(15 mins later),making herself comfortable on my bed while DD is nowwhere to be seen. I think DD is behind my bed. DD alway hide when there is visitors.

4) KK: monster cat with outbreak flu. I had difficulty feeding him the medicine but so far, i had managed to do it after some time. He is much better too thought he is still sneezing.

5) Xiami: He is very cooperative in taking his medicine but he is still sneezing very often. I do not know why too but he should recovered well as long as he swallow her medicine. I kept confusing xiami for a 'HE' when in fact xiami is a 'SHE'.

6) Xiao sweetie: very fierce cat when we want to feed her medicine. Hiss at our hand. Yesterday, she was dripping saliva but today, she is better and meowed for her food. Her sneeze is still quite frequent.

So far, i think our cats are more or less on the road to recovery. I just hope that their health will have no side effect.I read that sometimes, a cat can never recovered from cat flu. The cat may have recovered but somehow, the flu will always returned. I just prayed that it did not happened to my cats.