FELINE INFECTIOUS PERITONITIS (FIP) DISEASE
There is no widespread outbreak

 The Animal Welfare Society has provided services for abandoned, homeless and neglected domestic pets for over 56 years.  We are as concerned for the safety and medical care of those animals in our charge as anyone else. Therefore, we were surprised and saddened to read a story in The Journal published June 13, 2008 that headlined “Woman fearful of lethal feline disease outbreak”.  The woman alleges that cats, which she adopted from the Animal Welfare Society of Jefferson County (AWS), were infected by Feline Infections Peritonitis (FIP) disease at while residents of the shelter. 

 We believe very strongly the cats in question did not contract FIP at the AWS shelter. First, the cats in question were adopted from AWS over four months ago. Symptoms of the disease usually first appear in about 2 weeks after exposure, very rarely do they appear more than two months after exposure.  Therefore, it is most likely that the cats became infected after they left AWS.  Second, the cats in question were part of a litter whose littermates were adopted by another individual.  AWS has contacted that individual and those cats show no signs of the disease. AWS has not received any other contacts from adopters indicating their cat or kitten is infected.

 AWS does test incoming felines for Feline Leukemia and AIDS. However, there is no reasonably effective vaccination for FIP and it is not a widespread disease. Because, it is somewhat more prone to develop in large populations such as animal shelters, the AWS staff disinfects every cat kennel at least once a day and litter boxes are cleaned twice a day. These are the keys to preventing FIP. 

Last year over 500 dogs, puppies, kittens and cats were received by our shelter – a 30% increase from the previous year.  As a “no kill” animal shelter, AWS works extremely diligently to place these animals into loving forever homes.  We did all that on a budget of roughly $160,000 – unheard of in these days of the high-cost of shelter operations.  That amount is a fraction of what other shelters have as fiscal resources for handling the same level of animals coming through their doors. 

We simply cannot guarantee the health of every animal adopted from our shelter since we often do not know their history.  However, every step reasonably possible is taken to ensure animals are healthy.  Our adoption contract clearly states that the adopter accepts all responsibility for any future medical needs. FIP simply isn’t something that we can test for and then guarantee that it will not occur in cats after they leave our shelter. Cats that are allowed to run outdoors are much more prone to develop FIP. 

Every member of the Board of AWS has one or more pets.  Many of us have adopted our pets from the AWS shelter. We dearly love our animals and we have all grieved when a pet dies. Therefore, on behalf of the Board of AWS, we extend our sympathy to both the owner and to her cats.

 To learn more about the FIP disease, please read the information available on the left pane of this page. 

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 The Animal Welfare Society of Jefferson has provided services to homeless, abused and neglected domestic pets since 1952.  Animals are provided with shelter, compassionate care, food, water, medical treatment and placed for adoption to the public after being vaccinated and spayed or neutered.   We provide a discount spay-neuter program to residents of Jefferson County with financial need and conduct low-cost rabies vaccination clinics twice each year. AWS operates an animal shelter on Old Leetown Road in Kearneysville, WV. AWS is recognized under IRS 501c3 as a non-profit charitable organization and is supported by the generosity of local community through donations.