Perhaps that was a real reflection of actuality. Our canine recurrently romped via Prospect Park in Brooklyn, swapped germs with playmates and scarfed down rogue hen bones, whereas our cats lived cosseted, indoor lives.
Now I believe that we could have missed indicators of sickness in our cats. I had apprehensive that we had been overreacting after we took Olive to the vet for seeming perhaps, barely, type of not herself. In actual fact, she was critically sick.
Certainly, cats are proficient at masking their signs, which can additionally current in another way from these in canine, specialists advised me. Arthritic canine usually develop noticeable limps, that are simply noticed on walks, whereas many arthritic cats present no apparent indicators of lameness, Dr. Perry mentioned. They could simply leap onto the sofa much less usually or appear crankier when being dealt with.
“Provided that cats are sleeping so many hours a day, and homeowners are usually solely round them for just a few of these hours, it’s a lot simpler to not notice that your cat is progressively altering over time,” Dr. Perry mentioned.
On reflection, it appeared doubtless that Olive had been quietly declining for weeks.
Ultimately, vets concluded that her immune system was destroying her purple blood cells. However they couldn’t say what had triggered it or discover a remedy that helped. Lastly, as one thing of a final resort, an internist urged that we may take into account eradicating Olive’s huge spleen, which was most likely the place her purple blood cells had been being destroyed.
I emailed one other veterinarian for a second opinion. “Splenectomy will not be the worst choice,” she wrote again, noting that it was a longtime remedy for human sufferers with comparable situations. “We simply don’t have information in vet med,” she added, “particularly in cats.”
