Cats Cradle will now be open for adoptions this Saturday from 12-5 p.m. at our shelter location, 9-Ninth St. So., Fargo. We will also still be showing our kittens at Natural Pet Center, 3037 13th St. So., Fargo from 12-5 p.m. every Saturday in January. We are thankful to be able to re-open to the public on a limited basis and would like to explain the reasons for our recent decision to temporarily quarantine our cats.
We made a decision to close our doors to open house events on December 27th. The reason is really two-fold…..in the weeks leading up to closing we were hit with a very tough strain of Upper Respiratory Infection, one that hit hard and fast with a contagion factor unlike anything we have experienced in the past, we had many sick cats coming in. Very few of our resident cats were able to dodge this one and they all underwent isolation and medications, often times for weeks on end. During this time, while their immune systems were at a disadvantage, we discovered that one of the cats we had rescued had a lesion consistent with ringworm. We decided to test all the cats in that room and found that one of them was positive with no symptoms. This cat may be what is called a “carrier”. There is no way to identify a carrier on regular exam, and unfortunately, we believe he exposed the other cats in his room.
Many cats are exposed every year to ringworm and never actually develop ringworm. We were not willing to adopt our babies out when there may be a risk of passing this on to family members or resident pets. We have been dipping 14 of our cats, residing in 3 different rooms in the back of the shelter since that time. The other 4 rooms have been cleared and did not ever present with it.
In order to determine if a cat is positive for ringworm a culture is taken and that culture is allowed to grow at a Diagnostic Lab for 14 days. We have been culturing this entire time, and twice weekly we deep clean those rooms and submit the cats to a lime sulfur bath. Not pleasant for any involved. Today we were Blessed with 12 of 14 negative cultures (the two positives are in the same room)and while not out of the woods-we have made amazing progress in a very short time, thanks to the hard work by our dedicated and compassionate volunteer family. Cats Cradle is now open again, however, we still have the two positive cats quarantined, and are waiting for double negatives on those 12 cats, so rooms 5, 6 & 7 are still closed to the public.
This has been a tedious and very expensive undertaking and it has taken this long to determine how widespread this was (remember 14 day cultures) Thank you for your patience, understanding and for being a friend to Cats Cradle, and welcome back!!!