It started with one cat: runny nose, weepy eyes, sneezing. Soon three more cats were drippy and lethargic. The cats-only boarding facility had an outbreak!
I’ve been working at the boarding facility since last December (how time flies) and this is the first time I’ve seen anything like this. The first cat — patient zero — usually has runny eyes and a sniffly nose. He’s a Himalayan, and like other flat-faced breeds, they can be susceptible to upper respiratory problems. Other Himalayans who come in to stay with us tend to have very runny eyes, too.
So when patient zero showed up with gooey eyes and occasional sneezing, we didn’t think it was cause for alarm. We did call his owner to check on the sneezing, but she said he does sneeze more than the average cat. She didn’t think we were describing anything out of the ordinary.
But as it turns out, we had something out of the ordinary on our hands. The cats in the two nearest condos started sneezing, too. One guy two cages down had a very runny nose and was very lethargic.
Patient zero and one of his neighbors went home before we could do much — or have them seen on the vet side of the building. The other two sick cats got moved into an isolation ward and made a visit to the vet. We kept them out of the main boarding room until their sniffles were cleared up.
Thankfully, we didn’t have a dangerous upper respiratory virus on our hands. That’s one reason why we require that our guests be up to date on their FVRCP vaccine — it protects them against some of the worst upper respiratory diseases in cats. But as we saw, even a mild cold can move pretty quickly through the population.