Feline Care Guides

Feline Distemper and Rabies

Feline distemper is the common name for the feline panleukopenia virus (FPV), which is sometimes called feline parvovirus. Despite the name feline distemper virus, infection with this virus does not affect a cat’s temperament. Rather, FPV causes serious disease in infected cats and can be fatal.

Rabies is a dangerous virus that infects animals and humans worldwide. The virus is generally fatal in all species, and any warmblooded animal can become infected. Foxes, skunks, coyotes, and certain rodents are implicated in many cases of exposure. Surprisingly, cats are more commonly involved in transmission of rabies than dogs. In fact, cats are the number-one domestic animal carrier of rabies in the United States.

Feline Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a disease of the heart muscle. The exact way the disease occurs in cats is unknown, but the result is that the heart muscle becomes extremely thickened with normal and abnormal cells. The thickened muscle can’t relax and contract normally, so HCM decreases the amount of blood that the heart can handle. Heart failure results because there is so little room for blood to collect and be pumped out to the rest of the body.

Feline Hypervocalization

Most cat owners appreciate some vocalization—meowing, purring, etc.—from their cats. The many sounds that cats make help us communicate with them by telling us what they like, dislike, want, and need. However, some cats vocalize excessively, which can become annoying to owners. Excessive vocalization is called hypervocalization.

Feline Immunodeficiency Virus

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is contagious among cats. Although FIV is not contagious to humans, FIV has some similarities to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and has been used to help researchers better understand HIV.

Feline Leukemia Virus

Feline leukemia virus (FeLV) is contagious among cats. Unlike many other viruses that enter specific cells in the body and destroy them, FeLV enters certain cells in a cat’s body and changes the cells’ genetic characteristics. This permits FeLV to continue reproducing within the cat each time infected cells divide. This allows FeLV to become dormant (inactive) in some cats, making disease transmission and prognosis (outlook) difficult to predict.