Plasma cell pododermatitis

Poor Taylor and his sore feet enjoyed minor celebrity status at the clinic today with all the students gathering round to see them.

He's got plasma cell pododermatitis, an unusual problem, which fortunately doesn't seem to be as painful as it looks and is relatively cheap to treat. The picture below gives some idea what it looks like (image freely available under GPL from the veterinary dermatitis site).

The pads of Taylor's hind feet are almost completely healed now, and the sore area of his left fore foot is better than it was, but his right forefoot still looks horrible, although some of the swelling has shrunk.
Update (11th January 2012)
Taylor's feet are looking pretty good; slightly puffy and with thinner, softer skin than a normal cat, but no bleeding or splitting. He's been off medication for several weeks with no deterioration so it looks as though his condition can be managed by keeping him in an environment where he's not running on anything hard or sharp and monitoring his feet for any inflammation that indicates he needs another course of steroids.

Poor little Samantha

Samantha was found as an injured stray having been hit by a car. She has a broken pelvis but with cage rest this should heal by itself. 

Unfortunately not long after she'd come in, her foster carer noticed she was becoming chubby round the tum. A scan revealed that she is pregnant with at least three kittens who are sufficiently well developed that it would be unethical to abort them - they're already showing signs of movement.

As it would probably be impossible for Samantha to give birth naturally because of her pelvic damage we've booked her in for a planned caesarian just before the expected time that she should be due to give birth.

Rather a lot of biscuit-related cats

Bourbon

Flapjack

More to come, unfortunately, when Janine has time to upload the pics.

If you would be interested in adopting a cat from the branch, or becoming a temporary fosterer, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

We also need to recruit more volunteer collectors for RSPCA week so that we can keep on raising the funds needed to care for these and all the other animals who need our help.

Even a couple of hours after work or at the weekend would be useful: please email volunteering@rspca-cambridge.org.uk if you can help.

McVitie

Hobnob

KitKat

PLEASE don't use DOG flea treatments on CATS

Yesterday I took another call from an owner who'd used over the counter spot-on dog flea treatment on her cat. The cat was having a seizure as a result and needed urgent treatment, for which the owner had no money. I authorised payment for emergency first aid, using some of the funding recently given to us by the national society.

This morning the vet called me to say that the cat had improved, but still needed inpatient treatment and the bill at that point was over £300 - only £200 of which would be covered by the maximum amount we can give, so the owner will still be left with a bill for at least £150. 

If the cat had been registered with our clinic she could have been seen by our veterinary service provider on the Sunday at a fraction of the cost and, of course, if she'd been registered at the clinic and had a suitable flea treatment product there none of this need have happened.

PLEASE DO NOT USE DOG FLEA TREATMENT ON CATS

The most effective treatments are those purchased via vets or via pet stores that are accredited to sell non-prescription medications. Always read the label.

Merlin

A wide-eyed Merlin checking in to have his external fixator removed

Merlin has now had his external fixator off and is looking good. He'll have to be kept indoors and not allowed to jump for another four weeks, but the x-rays show his broken leg is nicely healed. Once the four weeks is up he'll be ready for adoption.

An external fixator is effectively a splint that's actually attached to the bone through holes in the leg. It means that a limb that's broken in several places can be stabilised so that the ends hold together and new bone can grow to fill the gap between. Merlin's x-rays show this process is complete and healthy new bone has completely filled the break.

Animal emotions, citizen science and the promotion of welfare

There's a lot of interest in the cognition of dogs and whether they've evolved to be especially capable of recognising human signals and facial expressions. Cats have been rather left out of this, so it's interesting to find two projects which are almost mirror images of the dog ones — not how good cats are at reading human behaviour, but how well humans can interpret cats.

The tagpuss project at the University of Lincoln aims to investigate the feasibility of studying animal emotions using "citizen science".

Citizen science is a term that describes a partnership between ordinary citizens and scientists working together in real scientific studies. This partnership means we can create large research teams with networks of volunteers who have little training in the area of research to peform tasks such as observation, measurement and computation.

In the case of tagpuss, the volunteers are shown random images of cats and asked to add tags which describe the cats' emotions. Once the image is tagged the system reveals a word cloud showing which tags have been selected by other participants.

It's evident that there's generally a fair degree of agreement, even if it's not perfect — it might be enlightening to compare agreement over tagging images of human emotions (for instance is this person terrified, angry, shocked? )

This can have practical implications for the way we view and look after cats. The extremely rich and subtle social and emotional signals they display help to dispel the idea that they are rather simple unsocial animals. Finding out more about our ability to interpret cats' emotional signals can also help to improve assessment of individual cats—as in the ASPCA "Is that cat feral" study which is intended to help shelters decide which cats are suitable for adoption as domestic pets and which would be happier if they were simply neutered and released back to their original location.

Cats! Help urgently needed

We have just been notified of the existence of a large colony of cats who may need to be moved because the site where they are living is due to be re-developed.

We'll have more details when we've had a change to speak in depth to the person who contacted us, but it's likely that we will need:

• Suitable sites (e.g. stables, barn, large garden) for pairs of neutered adult cats who have been used to living outside.
• Foster homes for kittens needing socialisation.
• Volunteers willing to help with trapping cats and transporting them to the vets for neutering.
• Help with funds to cover the costs.

Looking much more cheerful

Maisie looking much happier now her nose isn't so bunged up. The quick response to antibiotics makes it hopeful that her problem is just that the damage to her facial bone structure makes it prone to bacterial infections, which is much less of a worry than the possibility of a permanent viral infection that's always going to be there.

Snow in Cambridge

Mr Grumpy wondering whether a cat might be able to get a grant to retrain as a polar bear.

Volunteering with the branch

Maisie, one of our injured strays

Volunteering opportunities with our branch probably don't fit the ideal image most people have of "helping at the RSPCA". Most of the animals we have up for rehoming are boarded at a private kennels, so we can't allow volunteers to just drop in and help out with dog walking etc. because this would mean disruption to the kennel owners' work caring for the private boarders.

A typical rescue case for us generally manifests via a call to the branch emergency phone from a private vet who has just received an injured stray with a log number from the RSPCA National Control Centre. This log number guarantees that the RSPCA will pay for emergency first aid. The Control Centre (NCC) is staffed 24/7 and responds to emergency calls from members of the public (or vets who have received injured strays directly). Sometimes an inspector or animal welfare officer will be sent out to deal with the situation (e.g. if the injured animal is dangerous), but if the finder has transport and can handle the animal they are usually requested to take it direct to a vet so that treatment can begin as soon as possible.

The National RSPCA pays the first £60 + VAT to get first aid started and the vet will then contact their local branch to fund continuing treatment and (hopefully) to rehome the animal once he or she is fit again.

This inevitably means that our rescues start off scattered all over our branch area, and we need to move them to our clinic for further treatment; to foster homes for recuperation, or to kennels for rehoming. Inevitably everything is guaranteed to happen at the most inconvenient time possible.

This is why we don't have many opportunities for people to come in and help with caring for the animals, but we always desperately need more foster homes and volunteer drivers.

If you might be able to help with either of these, please email: rosemary@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

What a week!

Kicked off with Maisie, an unclaimed stray with a broken jaw. She was allegedly eating soft food following the operation to pin it, but spent the next six days resolutely refusing to swallow anything unless I syringed it into her mouth. She's now lapping feline AD (appetite diet), still a bit cautiously, and I think she simply doesn't like the feel of the metal that's holding her jaw in place until the bone mends. She's quite young and hopefully will be resilient enough to make a pretty full recovery although she probably won't get back normal vision in her left eye.

We then had a really frightening drama when Benny, a feral kitten one of our fosterers was taming, went completely off his back legs and couldn't stand. One possible diagnosis would have been toxoplasmosis, which is potentially transmissible to humans, and by Murphy's Law he was with one of our fosterers who has small children. Test results are now back and it's definitely not toxo, although the vets are not sure what the underlying trouble actually is and it seems to come and go.

Sadly one cat picked up after a traffic accident didn't make it through the night, and another very elderly stray had to be put to sleep after the vets found a huge bleeding tumour in his mouth. Another traffic accident had a happier result and the cat is being fostered by a volunteer who will probably adopt her. One of the very elderly cats was found dead in her pen first thing in the morning.

Finally our shop manager at 61 Burleigh st, went down with 'flu (probably partly reaction after all his hard work getting the shop up and running).

Update from our homing co-ordinator

Our cat numbers in kennels are now up to 21 and I've got various desperate messages from people wanting us to take cats and everywhere else seems full so it's quite a problem.

Clare (Inspector) phoned me about a 18 month old pomeranian that she got signed over as owner wasn't coping. It sounds as though it's destructive but I dont know much else. It should be very rehomable being small and a "breed" unless it has bad behavioural issues.

I agreed to take a rabbit from a home in Newmarket, again owners seriously not coping.

I had a call from someone who had 2 cats from us some time ago. One has since died and she adopted another from a different rescue. She has had an awful time. Her husband's been ill a while with a brain tumour so can't work and is now in a care home. They had to sell up their home to pay debts and now have to leave their rented accomodation as the landlord's moving into it having lost his main residence. She and the two kids are having to go to a hostel temporarily, which won't allow cats. She really didn't want to give them up but cant afford to pay boarding costs for ages. Bearing in mind that if they were given up for rehoming we would be obliged to at least take Ronnie back and we would possibly be stuck with him ages (he was a long stayer before she adopted him) I have agreed to have them with a view to her having them back when she gets a permanent home. Could be quite some time though!

Its a shame really as I was intending to take on a couple of oldies from the kennels but this will bung me up again!

Maggots! (Fly Strike)

These two videos from Vetstoria.com explain exactly what flystrike (maggot infestation) is. Warning: some upsetting pictures.

Rabbits are the animals most likely to be at risk, but it is possible for ANY animal, including cats and dogs, to be attacked if he/she has open wounds, soiling round the anus, or has difficulty in grooming all parts of his/her body (for example due to old age or obesity). We had a request for help with treatment for a cat suffering from fly strike at our branch this weekend.

There are veterinary preparations which can be used to reduce the danger of fly attack, so if you keep rabbits, this is something you should discuss with your vet. Be aware that sensible diet is an important method of reducing risk: rabbits should have hay and grass as their main source of calories with vegetables and commercial pellets only as a treat, not their main meal. It is also important to keep cages and litter trays scrupulously clean to avoid attracting flies and prevent them from breeding. Avoid leaving uneaten cat or dog food anywhere where flies can get at it to lay eggs.

Any animal with conditions causing soiling of their anal area needs to be checked for fly eggs at least twice daily during warm weather when flies are active. If eggs or maggots are found this is an emergency and you need to contact your vet immediately. Wounds or sores are also attractive to flies and should be checked as well.

Excellent news about Katie

Katie is a youngish cat who we took in a few weeks ago and took up for investigation at the University Vet School because the vet we use at the kennels found a very large lump in her abdomen when checking her fitness to be spayed. The most common reason for this in a cat would be lymphoma, which is an invasive cancer with very bad prospects.

However, the Vet School did an exploratory operation on her tum on Monday and the "lump" seems to have been a very large internal abscess, which they've removed surgically. They're doing culture of the pus to check which antibiotics are best to use, but say provided the wound doesn't break down (some danger of this because it was actually attached to her gut wall) she's got a good chance of full recovery. They waited until today to phone me in case she went downhill after the op.

Pregnant cat

I thought this was going to be simple; her owner phoned first thing asking for financial help because she was unsteady and didn't seem to be able to lift her tail. This is commonly the result of an infected bite near the base of the tail, which usually responds well to antibiotics, so I authorised £50 for first aid at the closest private vet, with the owner to transfer her to the RSPCA clinic tomorrow morning if further treatment was needed.

Turns out she's almost certainly been hit by a car, and she's currently not able to work the muscles that should expel urine from her bladder, so she needs inpatient treatment with periodic manual emptying of the bladder. The second problem is that she's very heavily pregnant and near term. More or less the same set of abdominal muscles are responsible for pushing out kittens... so she'll have to have a caesarian. The muscle problems may or may not clear up with time - there's nothing the vets can do other than supportive treatment as it depends on whether the nerves which control the muscle have been destroyed beyond recovery or just damaged and capable of regrowth. If she doesn't get back enough function to control her own bladder there's really no option other than euthanasia, as it will eventually damage her kidneys.

When all this was explained to her owner, his immediate reaction was to ask for her to be put down straight away. The nurses didn't want to do this and persuaded him to sign the cat over. One of the vets has kindly offered to do the caesarian in her own time (to keep costs for us as low as possible) and the nurses will then take it in turns to foster her together with the kittens to give them all at least a fighting chance.

Rehoming Gallery

Just to flag up that we've now switched our rehoming pictures entirely over to the blogger format, which looks nicer and is probably easier for most people to read. You should be able to use the labels on the right to select particular classes of animals to view—for example clicking the "cats" label will show just cats available for adoption. We're still experimenting with tags, so any comments on what you find most helpful would be appreciated.

Cat population

Two interesting science articles about regulation of the domestic cat population size, tip Saving Pets.

"Each cat-owning household kept 1.3 cats on average, with the majority keeping one (75.8% households) or two (18.7%). For the 260 cats, the mean age was 7.1 years, the median 6 years, with a range of 3 months to 22 years. There were significantly more female (143; 55%) than male cats (117; 45%). Only seven cats (2.7%) were sexually entire, and these were all ≤6 years. Crossbred cats outnumbered pedigree cats by a ratio of 3.3:1." (Demographics and husbandry of pet cats living in Sydney, Australia: results of cross-sectional survey of pet ownership doi:10.1016/j.jfms.2008.06.010 )

"Recently, neutering of domestic cats has been encouraged by veterinary surgeons and rescue organisations as a means of population control for both the pet and feral populations. This is likely to have profound effects on cat population dynamics (and population genetics). In an attempt to quantify this, we have carried out population studies, by means of door-to-door surveys in Southampton and the surrounding area. The aims were to quantify levels of neutering, and investigate the recent reproductive status of the cat population.

The most comprehensive of these surveys was carried out in a 50 ha area in the Shirley area of Southampton (UK). Householders were interviewed from 949 (80.8%) of the 1175 residences in the area. This revealed a population of 315 cats, of which 21 were pedigrees (and were excluded from further analysis) and 294 were mongrels. Overall neutering rates were very high: 96.8% of adult males and 98.7% of adult females were neutered. The oldest cats in the survey had been born 18 years previously, so it was possible to examine trends in neutering over this time period. However, many females were allowed to reproduce before being neutered, so a more informative analysis came from relating lifetime fecundity (mediated by neutering) to year of birth. Mean lifetime fecundity could be calculated for each cohort where all the females had ultimately been neutered. The regression (Fig. 1) shows a dramatic decline in the mean number of litters born per female, from over 0.6 in 1978 to 0.12 in 1991–1992. With a measured median litter size of 4, 0.5 litters/female are needed to keep the population size constant; increasing neutering has meant that the cats in the Shirley survey area fell below this level of fecundity in the early 1980s. In 1994, owned cats in the area could only produce sufficient kittens to maintain the population at approximately 25% of its present level."

(Feral cats: their role in the population dynamics of Felis catus doi:10.1016/S0168-1591(99)00086-6)

So, a combination of education and help with costs where needed can prevent pet over-population and the need to put down healthy animals.

Cat with broken jaw

She was picked up as an injured stray over the weekend and taken to Vet24 for first aid. They established that she'd got a broken jaw and probable nerve damage or crack in one front leg, so they gave her pain relief and fluids and asked me to arrange for Nicola to take her to the RSPCA clinic in the morning.

Got it all sorted, then later that evening they phoned to say an owner had turned up and would do the transfer herself as she was already registered with the clinic. Next day, at lunch-time, Vicki phoned asking if the cat was still expected as it was past closing time and they wanted to go. Phoned Vet24 and they confirmed the cat had been collected together with her notes. Where is she?! 

They'd noted down a mobile number for the owner, so I phoned that. 

Weird conversation with the owner who was clearly now completely spaced out and unaware that her cat had basically just had pain relief; she might seem "fine" now, but she wouldn't be once it had worn off, and anyway she wouldn't be able to eat with her jaw flopping loose.

Phoned the NCC and asked for one of the local inspectors to visit and check what was going on. Upshot is that the kitty is now back at Vet24 and hopefully will be transferred (by us) to the clinic for her surgery on Thursday.

Statistics for January

During January we rehomed five dogs and six cats, neutered fourteen dogs, thirteen cats and thirteen rabbits and provided veterinary treatment for 219 dogs, 124 cats, 9 rabbits and 11 miscellaneous small animals.

Update on Nicholas

As you can see from the photos, his confidence has come on by leaps and bounds. He's still slightly nervous of my own cats (can be beaten up by little Fern who must weigh about a quarter of what he does), but he's stopped hiding.

Once the weather improves I'm thinking of moving him down to the cattery to see how he behaves there as its much easier to rehome from somewhere where people can have a choice of cats to view.