Shelley Belly

As Shelley approaches her one year anniversary in Chez JMG in just a couple of months, I've been thinking more about getting her a companion. Logic seems to indicate that a second cat would also have to be FIV+, but that raises questions about the cats possibly giving each other infections. I've read some online about the issue, but remain unclear on how possible that may be.

There is an FIV vaccine out there, but it doesn't protect against all the known strains of the virus and appears controversial. What's the scoop, vets? If I can determine that Shelley has one of the strains that the vaccine guards against, how effective would it be to get an uninfected cat and have it vaccinated? An ugly facet of the vaccine is that it makes the animal test FIV+, meaning if it's caught outside the home it might be put to sleep. Not that I'd let that happen.

In other Shelley news, she's been spending her days on high-alert that the two elderly Labs that live across the alley don't figure out how to climb the fire escape ladder into her window. They are under 24-7 surveillance.