[lawrie]

I'd like to hear your opinions on this and hopefully help you protect your cats from a similar tragedy.

The tragedy: I am living in Cairo (lecturing in politics) and feeding the cats in my street. The problem is that the local authorities are poisoning the cats in my neighborhood in order to keep their streets 'clean'.

Two weeks ago I adopted a beautiful and sweet two-year-old grey Persian cat that I fed for three months in the streets and called Dani. I quarantined him in a friend's apartment - before he could come to live with me and my five other cats - and fed him and spent my nights there.

I really never had such a lovable cat: never!

Four days ago I got him vaccinated: Felocell and rabies. The vet persuaded me to get him micro-chipped too. The cat was so gentle but struggled a little. The vet sedated him. Dani never recovered.

I got him home. He collapsed on the floor, panting and whimpering. That didn't stop until he died.

I called the vet. He claimed that Dani was too sensitive to the anesthetic. He injected an 'antidote'; and 36 hours after the sedation I had to drag Dani dead from under the bed. I couldn't believe he was dead: it took me an hour to see it.

In all that time the vet didn't examine him once: neither before the anesthetic - no blood test, no physical examination - nor before he died.

The worst of it all is: 1. the vet's wife is the local exterminator and she has killed countless street-cats that I have fed, 2. Dani is one of the 20 street-cats that I have saved from her in the last four years, and 3. the vet recommended the microchip; he made a profit from an operation that should have been postponed to minimize the risk of complications; and he murdered Dani: my dream cat!

It's like they are running two businesses: the wife poisons the streets cats; the husband murders the survivors!

The vet claims that Dani had an underlying problem and that we didn't have access to his 'history': so why didn't he blood-test dani and examine him before the operation or give him less anesthetic?

Question: is the vet to blame?

What kind of a vet gives a gentle cat a fatal dose of anesthetic to insert a microchip?

Warning: make sure the vet blood-tests and examines your cat before he sedates or kills him or her.

I blame myself for not protecting my cat from the vet! I will never ever take a risk like this again: dying because of a microchip you won't ever need

I blame myself too because I tried to make a refuge for Dani - surrounded as we are in this world of sold-out psychopaths - and I couldn't save him in spite of all my love and planning