Adopting a stray

[yallamamma]

Hi there,

I am in the process of adopting a stray - she's been in our garden for months, but only just convinced DH on adopting her as ours.She is a beauty, very friendly too and happy to be petted.

I've just dropped her at the vets, no microchip, she's only about 8 months old they think. They've told me she needs:

Tricat vaccinations
De worming, and something in the neck for fleas
Spaying - which we want to do
Nails clipping

Is there anything else we should be having done? I'm overseas and haven't had a cat before. The vet seemed good but I'm just wondering what the standard procedure would be in the UK?

My main concern is that my dad was bitten by an apparently vaccinated house cat (Norwegian Forest breed), and ended up very ill in hospital with a major infection that required surgery. My dad insists he was told by the doctors that the cat had some kind of virus in its blood. The vet I have just seen says that the cat can't have been vaccinated.

I have two young children and can't risk anything like that happening - are there extra blood tests we should be doing?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I don't know of any viruses that can be passed on like that to a human...

Cat bites are bad for getting infected though, but it's just a case of making sure if one happened you are scrupulous about cleaning it and if it's at all deep go to the doctors straight away.

Okay thank you - that's what the vet implied. Perhaps my dad just left the wound untreated and it got nasty.

Is there anything else we need to get done by the vet? Any tips on when we should first allow her into the house?

Their just clipping her claws, not actually removing the whole claw under anaesthetic?.

Does the vaccination cover FIV and cat flu? Do you live in a country where rabies is present? Are you likely to move from the country you're living in to another? If so, get her a pet passport. She will have to have the vaccination for rabies in order to get a passport, anyway.

As Fluffy says, just have her nails clipped and not removed, as this is a very cruel practice, (not suggesting that you will), and will prevent her from keeping her balance at height and keeping herself safe against other animals, etc.

I got a nasty bite from my neighbours cat and I went to A&E to get it cleaned and a tetanus shot and it was fine after that. It was my own fault, as I tried to push her back out of my cat flap and she wasn't having any of it!

Hope you have lots of fun with her.

Absolutely just clipping them, yes!

Nonsense about virus in the blood causing infection in a human wound. Cats' teeth (and indeed human teeth) have a lot of bacteria which can cause infected wounds. Any major bite will need careful monitoring and possibly antibiotics. However the risk of infection from such a bite is roughly similar whatever the cat involved is, and really severe bites are quite rare.

Don't clip the claws. Cats need them to defend themselves and to climb trees etc in order to escape danger. That's why they are programmed to keep them sharp. There is no benefit to clipping and a lot of risks.

Rabies would be the obvious one depending what country you are in.
Would be surprised if claws really needed clipping, given she is a stray I would expect them to be worn down naturally

Thanks everyone.

She is now safely back from the vets and recovering well from her spaying. We're trying to introduce her to the idea of coming indoors, have bought a litter tray etc.... (separate topic on that started!)

In the UK most cats are microchipped, a small chip inserted in the neck which is unique to your cat and can be traced back to you. all vets in the UK have hand held scanners which they scan stray or lost cats with.

we only ever clipped our last cats claws when she got very old and was not going outside much, it was amazing how fast they grew and made me realise how much being outside a lot had kept them short. I would not clip for a cat which was regularly going outside.

cat bites can be nasty and do get infected, you just need to be aware of them and seek medical attention as required, cat bites on other cats often get infected and can lead to abscesses which are not nice if they burst!