Cats and FIV

[glishara]

So, I will post more about my awesome job of continuing joy in the next few days, but for right now, I have a question for my very knowledgeable and slightly cat-crazy friends list.

So, we have decided to adopt a cat. Decided enough that we've already bought most of our non-food supplies (I'll list them at the end of the post, and people can tell me what I'm missing).

We're going to adopt from a shelter, and we are currently considering whether we would be willing to adopt a cat with FIV. I've been reading up on it a lot, and the basic sense I'm getting is that it requires more expensive diet, more vet visits, and careful attention to when the cat gets sick so you can get them promptly to the vet.

We're willing to take on a cat that needs more attention or money than most, but I'm a little concerned that my info is coming mostly from websites that are basically "FIV cats are totally awesome" propaganda to convince people to adopt, which may be underplaying the downsides.

Does anyone have any firsthand (or secondhand) experience with FIV? If I'm not really confident about it, we won't undertake it, but a lot of the shelters around here have a 50-70% FIV-positive adoptable populations, and I know those cats have a harder time finding homes.

So, the list of stuff I've bought so far:
* Litter box
* Food bowl
* Water fountain
* Scratching post
* Cat bed
* Toys

We still need a carrier, but I didn't like any of the ones which were there. We also need some of the bitter spray to use on our computer wires, and a pair of cat nail trimmers. And a collar, which I don't want to get until we've chosen a cat.

Anything else I'm missing?

Comments

[sahiya]

Get a top-load carrier. My cat is easy to put in a carrier but many regard it as a fate only slightly less dreadful than the vacuum cleaner, and being able to lower the cat in from above rather than trying to stuff it in face first is a God-send.

When I was a kid, we had an FIV+ cat. He was in remission as long as we had him (he eventually disappeared), and I don't think he was more expensive than our other cats. He was certainly less expensive than Caz, who was billed as totally healthy (grrrr!) when I adopted him. But I was pretty young, so I'm not what I would call an expert on it.

Yay! I totally support kitty adoptions! I know you'll make some lucky feline an awesome forever home.

ETA: Most cats I know LOVE to look out the window. In my old apartment, I had a short cat tree (I called it the cat throne) that was just the right height for Caz to lie on and look out the kitchen window, but in the new place, I had to buy a window perch (basically a padded perch that glues onto the window sill).

ETA2: The type of cat litter is crucial. I use a mix of Arm and Hammer and the corn-based Best Cat Litter in the World (no really, that's the name). The Arm and Hammer aides in clumping and the Best Cat Litter aides in odor control.