Tommy Bag o' Cat Poop
Mission Not Accomplished....
Dr. Muraka did everything he could to save this kitten--CPR, mouth-to-mouth (the reason for intubation) and epinepherine injections to restart its heart (the empty syringe can be seen). It's difficult to tell from this photo, but the kitten was cyanotic when it was discovered--it's tongue should be pink but was quite bluish. A sure sign that it was not breathing and had suffered from oxygen deprivation.
A few minutes later another kitten from the same group was discovered in similar condition; it too could not be revived.
Dr. Muraka was visibly shaken by this and ordered a necropsy. This is unusual in shelter medicine, but it seemed that a particular person bringing cats to the Cube had a history of bringing sick cats, many of whom died when they should not have.
There is a history behind those cats, and it gets a bit complicated but the bottom line is that these were cats turned into one shelter and adopted out without proper health screening or care. They were then brought to us in a compromised condition--had they been left in the original shelter we would not be seeing these unexpected deaths. Some of them might have been too sick to save and would have been humanely euthanized, the rest would have been treated--none would have had to die like this.
The necropsy was inconclusive--we will never know why those kittens died. Dr. Budinich reported:
"They didn't find anything abnormal in the histopath samples (I only sent from one cat). I sent a piece of intestine and liver (incase of toxin). Should have probably sent lung too, but also didn't see anything abnormal. We have been seeing panleuk (despite negative test) and calicivirus in cats from ACCT, so wouldn't be surprised if they were sick with something underlying, and the anesthesia pushed them over the edge. Not sure what is going on."....
Mission Not Accomplished....
Dr. Muraka did everything he could to save this kitten--CPR, mouth-to-mouth (the reason for intubation) and epinepherine injections to restart its heart (the empty syringe can be seen). It's difficult to tell from this photo, but the kitten was cyanotic when it was discovered--it's tongue should be pink but was quite bluish. A sure sign that it was not breathing and had suffered from oxygen deprivation.
A few minutes later another kitten from the same group was discovered in similar condition; it too could not be revived.
Dr. Muraka was visibly shaken by this and ordered a necropsy. This is unusual in shelter medicine, but it seemed that a particular person bringing cats to the Cube had a history of bringing sick cats, many of whom died when they should not have.
There is a history behind those cats, and it gets a bit complicated but the bottom line is that these were cats turned into one shelter and adopted out without proper health screening or care. They were then brought to us in a compromised condition--had they been left in the original shelter we would not be seeing these unexpected deaths. Some of them might have been too sick to save and would have been humanely euthanized, the rest would have been treated--none would have had to die like this.
The necropsy was inconclusive--we will never know why those kittens died. Dr. Budinich reported:
"They didn't find anything abnormal in the histopath samples (I only sent from one cat). I sent a piece of intestine and liver (incase of toxin). Should have probably sent lung too, but also didn't see anything abnormal. We have been seeing panleuk (despite negative test) and calicivirus in cats from ACCT, so wouldn't be surprised if they were sick with something underlying, and the anesthesia pushed them over the edge. Not sure what is going on."....