Well it looks like lessons will be back to normal tomorrow, where you will all be riding fresh horses while snow falls off the roof. I need to come up with an easy lesson plan...I will post it tomorrow.

On a sad note, poor Milo is ill. He gave me a scare last Tuesday night when I could not find him. He always comes down to play with the hay bales as I feed...chasing the baling twine is fun apparently, so when he did not come, I went looking and could not find or hear him anywhere in the barn, so Rob came out and helped me look in the barn and out in the cold. I was scared he snuck into the truck that took Coda and Chris home. The next day I found him curled up in a dark corner upstairs. He hadn't touched any food since the afternoon before. He licked the soft food I brought him, but didn't eat, so I booked him in at the vet for Thursday. We spent 1.5 hours there! I guess I was lucky it was a slow day so they were thorough. Palpation revealed a lump in his belly, so thinking impaction (I was imagining a rolled up thread of baling twine), x-rays showed a shadow, but nothing clear, which supported the rolled up thread, but initial blood work added some confusion; it showed an odd mix of elevated globulin and some red and white blood counts were elevated, but ones showing long term infection and not something like an impaction. I mentioned his chronic ear infections, which the vet thought were also odd as cats tend to get mites, not infections, and hoped that is what was causing the blood to show it was fighting something.

Of course as soon as I got Milo home (we decided to move him into the house to keep a closer eye on him), he immediately went for the cat food!

We decided to send blood off to test for Feline Leukemia to be safe, but didn't get the results back until today. He does not have Feline Leukemia...he has Feline Aids. The shadows in the X-ray are likely a disease that can go with Aids where their internal organs start to stick together. Aids also explains why he gets so many ear infections.

Feline Aids is spread through direct contact with infected blood and saliva. It is possible he was born with it, or got it in a cat fight. Feline Aids is rare, and cannot be transmitted or carried by dogs, horses or humans, only cat to cat. Rob and I will have to decide if we want to test our other cats.

Maybe this explains why Kit Kat hates him so much?

Tomorrow I will pick up a facts sheet from our vet, as well as some medication for Milo. I will post the fact sheet in the barn for anyone who is interested.

Milo will be staying in the house at least until his current infection is cleared, and then we will decided where he is best off. Our neighbours don't have cats to risk infecting. Although he seems to like sleeping on the bed, he is restless in the house.

Karen