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Did I make the right decision? (long)
Hello, everyone! We're going away for a few days, and we decided to board
Alex (my 16-year-old early CRF kitty) mostly because he no longer uses the litterbox (behavioral, not medical -- we've had it checked out), and we can't ask the woman who will be feeding our other cats to come to our house 5 or 6 times a day to change the puppy training pad (which is what Alex has been using in lieu of his litterbox). (I'm just grateful he's willing to consistently use a puppy training pad rather than using the living room carpeting). I provide really good care for my kitties in terms of checkups, any required medical procedures, medications, the best food, lots of attention, subcu fluids and potassium and omega-3 supplements (in the case of Alex) etc. So, I don't think it could be argued that I'm a negligent cat slave, but I do try to avoid vaccinations as much as possible because my cats are strictly indoors and never get out (the last "escape" was in 2001), and vaccinations can have some nasty complications. It is the policy of the vet hospital that all cats who are boarded must be vaccinated against distemper, so I resigned myself to the fact that I would need to have Alex vaccinated (okay, not the end of the world). I think I should mention that we had been taking all of our cats (and our dog) to this vet hospital for over 15 years. It's a huge office with many veterinarians and lots of staff and a director whom we don't particularly care for. The first vet we had there resigned and went to a smaller practice which was quite a distance away. Our most recent vet recently resigned also "for personal reasons." We are in the process of transferring the care of our animals to a smaller office with a veterinarian we really like albeit (unfortunately) still under the auspices of the mother corporation. To make a long story short, when my husband brought Alex in to be boarded, he (my husband) told the staff that we were willing for the cat to have the distemper vaccination but that we did not want him to have another examination since he had been examined twice in the last six months at that office. The receptionist told my husband that this would be the decision of the doctor to make since they don't like to vaccinate cats without an examination. To make a long story short, the director of the vet hospital phoned us and explained to us that our cat was "very, very, very, very, very old" and that it wouldn't be a big deal to vaccinate a younger cat without doing an exam first, but that he didn't feel comfortable vaccinating a "very, very, very, very, very old" cat without an examination (funny, he had tried to push us into letting him do a dental on our 15-year-old dog who ending up dying two months later). When we continued to refuse the exam, he suggested a "mini-exam." I asked how much would that cost? He said "$36." (What a bargain! The "regular" exam costs $42.) When I reiterated that the cat had actually been examined three times in the last six months, the third time being by Dr. H. (at the other practice), he wanted to know why the cat had seen Dr. H. I told him it was because we were transferring the care of all of our cats to the other practice, ever since Dr. A. resigned. (Cat who ate the canary look on my face). Finally, he announced that he just didn't feel comfortable vaccinating the cat without the exam, and so we would need to skip the vaccination (I think this was supposed to be a scare tactic/manipulation on his part, little did he know that we never wanted the vaccination in the first place). He told us that we were putting our cat at risk for an upper respiratory infection. I asked him weren't all the other boarded cats vaccinated? He agreed that they were, but that our cat was still at risk. We declined the vaccination (and the exam). Did I do the right thing? Besides early CRF, Alex has stable cardiomyopathy (since age 2) and diabetes in remission. Is Alex really at a big risk for an upper respiratory infection at the boarding facility (where the other cats are all ostensibly vaccinated)? Is the risk greater than the risk of vaccination? Was this really just about money on the part of the director of the vet hospital? Opinions please. Thanks in advance. ---Cindy S. |
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