Kitten breathing strange, very noisy?

Question

I adopted a kitten a week ago from a very nice Animal Shelter and it died the next day. They did a health check on her before we got her, how does this happen?
Could she have had a disease?

Kitten had:

-noisy breathing, when she breathed it sounded as if she were purring (both on inhaling and exhaling). It almost sounded as if she had mucous in her lungs.

-she had diarrhea, and vomitted once

=(

Anyone have an idea?

**also, she was meowing a whole lot

-She was a tabby cat

-She never touched her food and only drank water

Answer 1

Could have been a number of things, but respiratory infection is the first that comes to mind. The fact that she died, means either she had it for a while and was not treated, or it was something more serious. My cats all have a form of feline herpes (NOT THE SAME AS HUMANS!!!) and I lost many kittens, spent ALOT of money, and went to multiple vets before we finally diagnosed it properly. My adults are now doing very well (8 of them), only occasionally showing signs such as sneezing or stuffiness.

Do you have other cats??

Just a note-Feline distemper does not cause respiratory problems, so I doubt that is what it was. From the AVMA website:

The signs of FP are variable and can mimic other disorders. Many owners may even believe that their cat has been poisoned or has swallowed a foreign object.
The first signs an owner might notice are generalized depression, loss of appetite, high fever, lethargy, vomiting, severe diarrhea, dehydration or hanging over the water dish. Normally, the sickness may go on for three or four days after the first elevation of body temperature. Fever will fluctuate during the illness in some cats and abruptly fall to subnormal levels shortly before death.

I have also seen firsthand what FD/FP does. I worked as a vet tech for some time.

Answer 2

Form the details you give me there are two conclusions that i can come to. Either she had distemper which is virus that affects the breathing and gastrointestinal tract or she had an upper respiratory infection (URI) which is like a bad cold in kittens however they would have noticed this in the health check and given her antibiotics which cure URI's.

I would say that she most likely had distemper since she had trouble breathing and she had vomiting and diarrhea. This was not your fault don't worry. Once a kitten gets distemper it is very hard (and expensive) to cure them of it. It can hit very suddenly and seems often to come out of nowhere. It would have required round the clock vet care and admittance to an animal hospital. There would have been no bets at the end of this long and expensive process that you would have gotten a healthy cat back either. KIttens that get distemper are extreamly miserable, they often won't eat and are lethargic. Most of them die even with the most expensive and experienced vet care.

There is no test to determine if a kitten has distemper so the staff at the shelter likely didn't even know she had it. (although you should let them know so they can cheack on the rest of their cats) I'm very sorry you lost a kitten this way, but i hope that you will try agian soon, there are lots of other babies looking for loving homes.


***Believe me distemper causes breathing problems especially in the latter stages, this is why it is often mistaken for URI. A kitten will not die of a URI in only one day without much more sever signs of distress, the URI would be so noticible that the kitten would actually be leaking mucus from it's eyes and nose. Also there would be no vomiting and dirreriah with only a sever URI. The FP virus kills rapidly dividing body cells. This cell loss makes the cat more susceptible to other complications and bacterial infections. (AVMA.org) it is really the symptioms of bacterial infections that you witness not the distemper.****



***

Answer 3

She could have had an upper respiratory infection. Usually they check this though in the kitten before they leave. If not treated, it can be fatal. Especially to a little kitten. Sorry for your loss :(

Answer 4

Poor baby!

I would guess distemper or something similar. There used to be a bunch of half-tame feral cats that lived around my parents- until someone dropped off a sick cat there that ended up killing them all off. And the symptoms were very like that.

Answer 5

Can cats get kennel cough like dogs? I don't know the professional term for it but it sounds similar to what you experienced.

When we adopted our latest puppy from a shelter we were told he had no health problems. Got him home and he had worms. Who knows what they consider to be healthy.