Coping With Feline Herpesvirus

Ditto first showed up at my door step almost 3 years ago. He was a skinny malnourished founding who was very sick. When I was first able to pick him up, he couldnt see because his eyes were glued shut from infection. He had thick yellow discharge out of his little nose. He was so sick and so hungry that he would have allowed anything to touch him on that day.

Since I have raised many orphaned kittens and have cared for an nurtured many strays at my door, what was one more?

That morning I took him to the vet for a check up and neutering. He was such a trooper! The vet’s staff fell in love with this little black and white tuxedo kitty. He was estimated to be approximately 1 year old. After 2 weeks of good food and regular antibiotics, Ditto was full of vim and vigor. He was named “Ditto” because he was the third black and white cat to call my ranch “home”.

Over time, we have discovered that Ditto has Feline Herpies. He has break outs when winter sets in and when we have periods of cold and blustery weather. These break outs always lead to severe secondary upper respiratory infections. To help his little body build up resistance to breakouts, he receives 500mg of L-Lysine in his food every day. This has reduced his needing antibiotics from every 6 weeks to 2 times a year.

He starts out with the snuffles and sneezes a bit, then if left untreated, he will develop what I call the yellow snots. At that point he is given his antibiotics.

Other than that, he is a very active and healthy cat. I would say he is a 4 month old kitten trapped in a 4 year old cat body. He enjoys teasing his buddy George (an orange tabby that adopted us at 4 months of age) by pouncing on him in the tall grass, playing with his ball in a ring toy and anything else that looks like fun. He is the practicle joker of the outdoor kitties.

Living with Feline Herpies is managable, and not a death sentence. All one needs to do is manage their environment, suppliment them with Lysine and give them lots of love. Works for Ditto.