by Cathy Davis
www.houltonanimalshelter.com
One of the things I love about living in a small town is that everybody knows everybody and everybody cares about everybody. I love that every single weekend there is some kind of benefit going on to support a local nonprofit organization or to help a family in distress. I love that we can count on each other when there is a crisis, and that neighbors helping neighbors is something we just “do”. In bigger cities, you don’t even know your neighbors, they could drive by your house for 10 years and not even know your name, but in a small town, they don’t just know your name, they know your kids, where you work, what you do for fun, and how many times a week you go out to eat.
One of the things that can be discouraging about living in a small town is that everybody knows everybody and everybody gossips about everybody. Small town living means that we care about each other, and “people watching” becomes our full-time hobby. But, we have to be careful about repeating what we hear about our neighbors because being “interested” and “gossiping” are not the same thing and gossip can hurt people.
Let me give you an example. When I was 23 years old I had a tumor. I also had a 3-year-old son. I had to have surgery and I was going to be in the hospital for 10 days and then at least another couple of weeks in recovery. My mother came up from New Jersey, took my son back with her for three weeks so that I could have my surgery, get out of the hospital, and have a couple of weeks of recovery as I was not supposed to lift or do any chores. Back in those days of the old Madigan Hospital there were two beds in every room. The lady in the other bed was older, didn’t know me from Adam, but by the time I got out of the hospital, she had started a rumor that my mother had “taken” my son from me and that I had had a nervous breakdown.
I thought this was pretty funny, nothing could have been farther from the truth and I had no idea how a story could get so twisted so fast. This rumor didn’t hurt me, people who knew me knew it wasn’t true and people who didn’t know me didn’t care anyway!
But today there is a rumor going around that I do want to address, because I’ve heard it now at three different town meetings, which means this is a rumor that is all over the place and it does affect the reputation of an organization about which I am passionate. There is a rumor that we have “AIDS cats” at the shelter. Feline AIDS is a viral infection that affects the immune system of a cat. We do not have any AIDS cats at the shelter. There are rescue organizations that will take AIDS cats so if there is one identified, which is rare, the cat is placed in rescue. We do not hold them, adopt them out, nor do we euthanize them. These cats can live very long happy lives without any signs whatsoever that they even have AIDS. We do not test for AIDS because the tests can be very inconclusive. False positive tests can be followed by a negative test a month later.
It is estimated that approximately 14 percent of the entire feline population may have AIDS. I’m talking about the entire nation, not one particular facility. My research indicates that experts believe most of the AIDS is spread by unaltered free-roaming males. They spread this through fighting, or breeding, and then the mother spreads it to her babies.
There is now an FIV vaccine which will protect your cats against AIDS. If you choose not to take advantage of this vaccine, then the next best protection is to keep your cats indoors. If you have an unaltered free-roaming male, we urge you to provide this vital protection and we beg you to have him neutered.
So let’s lay this rumor to rest, and let’s work hard to protect our animals from this and other preventable diseases. Thank you!
