Dear Spanky,
This is all over the news, but it case you missed it, there Plague is affecting cats all over Northern Cal. You're supposed to keep you cats indoors, but many people can't do that because they have outdoor cats, like you. Still - watch for signs of the Plague.
story here
Excerpt...State health officials warned cat owners Wednesday to keep their pets away from wild rodents, citing the detection of the plague in four house cats since late May.
"People who handle or have close contact with an infected cat risk getting plague," said Dr. Howard Backer, the state's interim public health officer. "The most important step pet owners can take to protect their cats and themselves from getting plague is to prevent their cats from hunting wild rodents."
"The motivation for us putting out this was, we routinely have one or two cases in cats each year," said Curtis Fritz, an epidemiologist with the infectious-diseases branch of the state Department of Health Services. "This year, we have already had four cases."
Plague is a highly infectious bacterial disease that is spread by fleas carried by squirrels and other wild rodents. Cats can become infected by hunting or consuming an animal that carries plague.
Although it is rare for humans to contact plague through exposure to cats, state health officials say 23 human plague cases in the United States have been associated with infected house cats since 1977, and four of them were in California.
Two California victims died: an El Dorado County resident in 1980 and a Kern County resident in 1984. The most recent California case was in August 1997, and that victim survived.
Health experts say house cats should be kept indoors if possible and should be supervised or, if possible, leashed (hahahahahaha, a leashed cat) when allowed outside.
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