When my husband and I took our cat to the veterinarian at the beginning of last year, we expected them to tell us that we had nothing to worry about. Olive, a long -haired hosey kitten that had been the smallest of his litter, was quiet and scared by nature, prone to hide in cabinets and sleep behind the shower curtain. That is why it was difficult to know how it felt and sometimes find it.
But days before we had started asking if he was sick. Was it more reserved than normal? It was difficult to know, but we decided to ask his veterinarian to be safe. The veterinarian immediately realized that Olive had pale gums and accelerated heart. A rapid blood test revealed that it suffered a serious level of anemia, with a volume of blood cells so low that, according to the veterinarian, it was “incompatible with life.”
Thus began a Calvary of several months, with repeated visits to veterinary intensive care, more than a dozen blood transfusions and few accurate responses.
“The cats have been very little studied,” said Elinor Karlsson, a geneticist at the Chan Faculty of Medicine of the University of Massachusetts and the Broad Institute. “They will continue to be an enigma unless something changes in the field of research.”
Default dogs
In recent decades, veterinary medicine has had enormous advances, which has allowed pets As Olive receive very specialized care. But feline medicine has lagged behind the canine, and it is not always easy to offer cats backed by evidence. “It is still considered a niche interest,” said Karen Perry, Veterinary Orthopery Surgeon specialized in Feline Health at the State University of Mischigan.
Historically, many veterinarians have treated cats as if they were small dogs, taking evidence and treatments developed for canine patients in order to serve felines. Even in veterinary faculties, where students are formed in all kinds of specialties, dogs have long been the norm.
“My anatomy book was ‘The Anatomy of the Dog,'” explained Maggie pleasure, responsible for veterinary science programs in Event Health Foundation. “For cats, we had PowerPoint presentations and supplements.”
However, over time it has been clearer than what works for Firulais can be useless, or worse, for Garfield. For example, dogs and cats metabolize drugs in different ways, and some common dog medications are toxic in cats. “It is not reasonable to assume that everything that works in a dog will work in a cat,” said Bruce Kornreich, director of the Feline Health Center of the Cornell University. “We still have a lot to learn.”
In a way, the prolonged approach to dogs was practical. There are studies that show that pet owners take dogs to the veterinarian more frequently than cats.
Is it simply to the fact that society gives less value to the life of cats than to that of dogs? After all, cats are much less likely to be work animals and, in general, they are considered more independent and less sociable than dogs. “Maybe there are prejudices against cats,” Kornreich speculated.
Cats know how to mask their symptoms, which can also manifest differently from those of dogs, according to experts. Arthritic dogs often develop notable storms, which are easily detected in the walks, while many arthritic cats do not show obvious signs of limp, Perry explained. They may only jump to the couch less frequently or seem more irritable when they are manipulated.
“As cats sleep so many hours a day and the owners are usually close to them only a few of those hours, it is much easier not to realize that the cat is gradually changing over time,” Perry said.
In retrospect, Olive’s health seemed likely to have been silent for weeks.
In the end, the veterinarians concluded that their immune system was destroying their red blood cells. But they could not decipher what had caused him or find a medication to remedy him. Finally, as a last resort, an internist suggested that we consider the possibility of removing the huge spleen of Olive, which perhaps it was where his red blood cells were being destroyed.
I sent an email to another veterinarian to ask for a second opinion. “Splenectomy is not the worst option,” he replied, pointing out that it was a established treatment for human patients with similar conditions. “Only we have no data in veterinary medicine,” he added, “especially in cats.”
Feel curious about cats
Apparently, the situation is improving, although slowly, according to experts. Some veterinary faculties are investing more in feline health, and clinical doctors try to create practices that reduce stress and take felines into account. And more and more scientists investigate the genetic and environmental causes of feline diseases.
Karlsson is known for his investigations on the canine genome, but has always been a lover of cats. Last year, Darwin’s Cats presented, a scientific project for the international community whose objective is to better know the genetic foundations of feline health and behavior.
Focusing on cats requires making some settings on the DNA sampling process: unlike dogs, cats are usually very reluctant to donate saliva. Karlsson and his colleagues have been investigating whether the genome of a cat could be sequenced using only a few strands of hair collected with a comb. Until now, Karlsson detailed in an email that “the fur sequencing works wonderfully, and both the owners and cats certainly prefer it!” The resulting data could pave the way to better understand how the organism of the cats works and what to do when something goes wrong.
Karlsson had first -hand experience with the medical mysteries of cats. Almost a decade ago, he had a kitten that died after developing a rare autoimmune disease that caused anemia. Karlsson still has the kitten partner of the kitten, Lacey, who suffers serious environmental allergies.
“I have always wondered if both could have inherited a predisposition to immune disorders,” Karlsson said. “Veterinarians can’t deduce much because there is very little information.”
His story turned out to be disturbingly similar to ours. Olive also died a few months after getting sick. We never had the opportunity to weigh the pros and cons of an unproven operation. And we had no real explanation for Olive’s decline.
But we did have Olive’s litter partner, Juniper, who looked healthy and vigorous, although he also seemed to have environmental allergies. We take the opportunity to register it in Darwin’s Cats.
We also kept a piece of fur of Olive. A veterinarian had placed him in a glass boat after Olive died and had given us as a souvenir. At that time I didn’t know what to do with him or if he wanted to stay. But I was too emotionally exhausted to protest and kept it in a drawer.
Months later, I learned that Karlsson’s team tried to extract DNA from feline fur samples, and I knew where the bottle belonged. In October, I gave it to researchers. It was very possible that Olive’s fur did not contribute anything interesting or, perhaps, it was not even usable. But it was also possible that there were answers, if someone was looking for them.
Cats know how to mask their symptoms which affects recognizing their symptoms, experts stand out. (Free Press Photo: Shuttersock)