Raising Orphan Kittens

Dr. Michael Kent speaks with Dr. Karen Vernau about the Orphan Kitten Project, and everything you might need to know about raising kittens. 

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Vetrospective S01 E11 – Raising Orphan Kittens

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Dr. Karen Vernau: It's a condition that they're born with. I think it's just been under-recognized because we aren't, in our profession, we're not looking at a bunch of kittens that little and looking at them that carefully. And when you do, you see it.

Dr. Michael Kent: Hello, and welcome to The Vetrospective. This is your host, Dr. Michael Kent, and today we'll be talking about kittens. What do you think of when you think of a kitten? A small ball of furry fun? Soft and cuddly? Well, you'd be right. But they're also a bit fragile compared to their older selves and have special needs. They also face medical problems that are more common than in full-grown cats. And we're going to talk about this and maybe why kittens are different than puppies a little. And we need specialized care and equipment to care for them. While we do not have pediatric experts per se in veterinary medicine, our guest today is about as close as you can get to one. I wanted to welcome Dr. Karen Vernau to join us today to talk about kittens. Dr. Verneau is a clinical professor of neurology and neurosurgery and is a member of the Access to Care service at UC Davis. She graduated from veterinary school from the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph in Canada. And she did her residency in neurology here at UC Davis, where she then stayed on as faculty. She has an interest in feline neonatal medicine and strives to improve the health and welfare of kittens. Thank you, Dr. Vernau, for joining us today.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Thank you for having me, Dr. Kent. It's nice to be here.

Dr. Michael Kent: Thanks. So my first question for you is one that I pretty much ask everyone. So, what got you interested in veterinary medicine?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Veterinary medicine. I grew up in a household with a single mom and my sister, and she just had a lot on her plate, so we could never have pets. So, I was kind of drawn to my friends' and family's pets, and I loved them. So, I loved them and wanted to have them and wanted to help them in life. So that's kind of what got me started. And my grandmother always wanted to be a veterinarian, but at that time, women couldn't go to veterinary school. So, I think she really inspired me to to do that and to try and make a difference.

Dr. Michael Kent: That's really cool. And then you've obviously become a neurologist. And why neurology? Like I always ask, I'm always interested to know why someone chooses a particular area of veterinary medicine.

Dr. Karen Vernau: I am one of those weirdos that really liked it at school. You know, I went to school at OVC and our professor was French. So, we sort of learned neurology in half French. It was just really fun.

Dr. Michael Kent: The Ontario Veterinary College, right?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, it's in Guelph, in Ontario.

Dr. Michael Kent: Ontario.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, so English speaking, but she's, she was French.

Dr. Michael Kent: But she was French speaking.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, she was hilarious. So, it was really fun and I loved all the puzzles and putting it all together. And it's nice liking something that other people don't like. Right? You must feel that.

Dr. Michael Kent: No, I mean, I'm an oncologist and people think that's odd sometimes. So, but for me, it's my passion in my life, right?

Dr. Karen Vernau: And it's a lot of physics probably for you.

Dr. Michael Kent: There's a lot of physics in radiation oncology and I actually have always liked math. I've liked physics and, you know, it allows me to bring in my 2 backgrounds in a sense, my love of medicine and my more, you know, physics, mechanical type side too.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah.

Dr. Michael Kent: So I know you've been fostering kittens yourself for more than 10 years, probably a lot longer now. And is this what sparked your interest in feline pediatrics and neonatal medicine? What drew you to that?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, my kids were in middle school and they decided that we should foster kittens, which I thought would be easy, right? Because I'm a veterinarian, so I should know how to do these things. But quickly learned that there were a lot of things that were outside of what I knew, so I had to learn. So, I had to look and see what is known about, you know, upper respiratory disease and kittens and realized there wasn't a lot, you know, that people don't, there's not a lot of clinical research done on kittens, so there was a lot of anecdotes. So that just kind of pushed me to figure out, you know, how best to do things for kittens. And I think kids keep you honest.

Dr. Michael Kent: Kids keep you honest. They're going to ask you the questions, and if your answer's not there, you know, why, mom, right?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Our first round of foster kittens went to get spayed and neutered, and I'd I'd screwed up and said that one of the kittens was male when it was female. So, they've never let me forget that. But it's a, it's a learning curve, right?

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah.

Dr. Karen Vernau: So I loved doing it and realized I didn't know a lot about it. So, I had to learn more.

Dr. Michael Kent: And like you said, there, it isn't an official specialty at this point and we don't necessarily have all the knowledge we need to tackle the particular problems of kittens. So, it was the identifying the problems and then going back and saying we had to learn more.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, it was like individual, like, what's the best way to do this? Well, there's no evidence to help me make these decisions. And then I, you know, we work at UC Davis where we have a large kitten caseload with the students, with their rescue, the orphan kitten project, and it just kind of grew from that.

Dr. Michael Kent: So why aren't kittens just small cats? Like what makes them different? Why are they not just cats?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Gosh, that is a loaded question. 

Dr. Michael Kent: It is.

Dr. Karen Vernau: I mean, there's a few things. They, most of the kittens we're dealing with are born outside to feral animals. So they're not vaccinated. They're exposed to the elements. They may not have ideal, you know, nutrition. Gosh knows what they're eating, exposed to lots of infectious disease. So, they're kind of in a tough state. So that's different than what we're used to with our inside cats. I mean, they're young animals, so their immune system is not mature. So, I think there's a lot of reasons why they're different.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah, and then I know you're acting as faculty advisor and help with several access to care initiatives here at UC Davis, including the Orphan Kitten Project and our fracture program. Can you tell me a little bit about what the Orphan Kitten Project is and what it hopes to achieve? a little more on that.

Dr. Karen Vernau: I love the Orphan Kitten Project. So, I kind of got roped into that as being their faculty advisor, gosh, more than 10 years ago, which I didn't want to do because I felt I was too busy. But it was, it's probably one of the best things I've done as a faculty member. They're a group of students at UC Davis, so they're veterinary students who run their own nonprofit. So they're a 501C3. It was started in the 80s by Julie Levy, who's kind of a famous. 

Dr. Michael Kent: Shelter vet, right? 

Dr. Karen Vernau: Shelter vet now. And Florida, so she's. 

Dr. Michael Kent: University of Florida. 

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, she started when she was a vet student and it's been going, gosh, I can't, what's my math like, more than 35 years. How's that?

Dr. Michael Kent: Fair.

Dr. Karen Vernau: So, they aim to improve the lives of kittens, but their emphasis is kittens with medical needs. So neonatal kittens and kittens that have medical issues because they're vet students. So, they foster them or they foster them one-on-one with a community member. Try and sort things out, get them healthy, fully vetted, of course, spayed and neutered, and then they go up for adoption.

Dr. Michael Kent: Great. And then how many kittens a year is OKP or the Orphan Kitten Program kind of helping each year? I know it's an incredible number, but I want to hear more about that.

Dr. Karen Vernau: It's going to vary a little bit from year to year, but it's over 600 for this year, which is a lot of kittens, especially those that have medical issues.

Dr. Michael Kent: That's huge, because those kittens otherwise would probably die.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, they take a lot from the community and our local shelters. So, they, do that. They do a lot of work with community members, like in with, children in the community and their groups working with the community. So, I think they do a lot of the work with kittens, but also with community members too.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, if a vet student takes one of these kittens in, what kind of commitment are they making to get this kitten through its earliest weeks sometimes.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, sometimes, as a newborn, it may mean that it means, 12 or 16 weeks of care, getting them through, all the early husbandry and feeding stuff, getting up every two hours to bottle feed them, through weaning period, all their vaccines and deworming, spay, neuter, microchip, all of that stuff, and then finding a good home for them.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, I know you said your kids keep you honest. And one of the things we have to do is, really, we try to do evidence-based medicine, right? And you said there's not a lot there. So, what about for husbandry? What do we know about that? Have you done research in this area? It's a leading question because I know you have. So, can you tell us what you've found about how to ideally raise a kitten, a neonatal kitten?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, we did some early work, which I'm embarrassed to say is not yet published, looking at an incubator, trying to see if, keeping them in different temperatures in the incubator would reduce the amount of feeding or volume that they needed.

Dr. Michael Kent: So not every two hours, maybe you can go to every four hours. Yeah, and maybe you could sleep through the night.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Maybe the foster could sleep through the night. Yeah, and it does, having a warm environment for them to be did make a difference in their food conversion. So that was a good.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, what's like a good temperature to keep a kitten at? Like should they just be, if you keep your house temp, like our heats often at 65, is that too cold?

Dr. Karen Vernau: 65, that is cold. Usually about 85 to 90 for neonatal kittens. They can't thermoregulate, so they they need warmth. And it doesn't have to be an incubator.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah, if they're neonatal, they don't have their mom there, probably. If you're taking care of them, it's because they don't have a mom.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Exactly. Yeah. Usually we're taking, you know, orphaned kittens or whatever. They're kittens without mom. So yeah, they need warmth and they can't make that.

Dr. Michael Kent: They can't cuddle up to mom and they can't make the heat themselves. So that's why they need to be so much more warm than we might keep our houses.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Right. Unless you want to carry them around on your chest underneath your jacket.

Dr. Michael Kent: I might want to do that. It might interfere with work sometimes too. So it's hard. It's a lot of commitment for anyone in the OKP project to raise these 600 cats. About how many, what percent are usually neonatal versus, you know, when they're a little bit more, you know, independent?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, I would say it's going to vary every year, depending on, you know, the fosters who sign up, you know. Neonatal kittens are hard for vet students to have because they have class and they have lab. So those take up a lot of time. But with community members, they have about 20% are, bottle babies, which may not be newborn kittens that may be, they're two weeks old. So, they may need to be fed less frequently.

Dr. Michael Kent: And when do they go to solid food?

Dr. Karen Vernau: About three-ish weeks, three to four weeks. It's a process. They don't instantly start eating magically. They've got to learn how to eat. So that is a really important time to making sure that they're eating and they're not just slurping their food and pretend eating.

Dr. Michael Kent: And I cut you off a little bit. I'm sorry. You know, because I got excited with the next question. You know, so what else have you learned about raising neonatal kittens that surprised you or otherwise we didn't know about and you found out through some of the research you've done?

Dr. Karen Vernau: You know, I think, let's see, how do I answer that? I think husbandry and nutrition are really important. And I knew that, but we can see a lot of issues with kittens, especially sick kittens when they're cold or they're just not eating enough. So I think those kind of strategies with husbandry weighing them every day, weighing them in grams, and all those things are really important for observation.

Dr. Michael Kent: And why weighing in grams? I have a pretty good idea, but why are you weighing in grams and not just popping them on your bathroom scale?

Dr. Karen Vernau: I mean, your bathroom scale could be in grams, but it's just sensitive for you or me, not something that's, you know, weighing very little. So, you've got to use an appropriate size scale so that it's sensitive enough. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Kent: So if I was 80 kilos, that's not going to work the same when you've got 

Dr. Karen Vernau: 80 grams. 

Dr. Michael Kent: 80 grams.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah.

Dr. Michael Kent: And so a kitchen scale would work better.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Kitchen scale, yep. And as they get bigger, we use baby scales, but the little kitchen scales with a little warm bowl. it's good so they're not going in your house. It sounds like it's a 60 degree bowl. You're going to put your kitten into that. It's like a kitten ice cube. So warm bowl.

Dr. Michael Kent: Its not that cold. I wear sweaters. So, but what else have you found? So the nutrition, the husbandry, and I know you've looked at more some specific diseases. What are some of the specific diseases that we find in cats? For kittens, I should say.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Really, we've looked at a few really common things that drive us all crazy. So upper respiratory tract infections in kittens.

Dr. Michael Kent: That's huge in kittens and cats. Why is it a bigger problem for kittens?

Dr. Karen Vernau: They, you know, they have lots of issues they're dealing with. As we talked about, poor husbandry. So, they might not, they may be cold, they may not have the immunity they might have received from their mom if she's vaccinated, and they may not have adequate nutrition and they're immature. Their immune system may be immature. So, they're predisposed to infections like herpes virus. Infection is really common. And that can make kittens really, really ill.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, what do you see in a cat like that? I know there's respiratory signs, but there's other signs as well too, right?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, they often have signs involving their eyes. So, they may have conjunctivitis, so, you know, red, itchy, watery eyes, and they may get ulcers on their corneas, which can be really painful. And they may get an eye infection in the eye, just secondary to that.

Dr. Michael Kent: Does that have long-term consequences?

Dr. Karen Vernau: It certainly can. I mean, they may lose their vision in that eye and may need to have an eye removed if they have access to a veterinarian, or they may be so sick just from the infection, they may pass away. So, if they're, it's full of pus and they're feeling sick, they may not eat. and that can be life-altering for a kitten.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah. And I know my center's funded some of this work, but what have you done to try to combat this ocular problem with the eyes? I know you've worked with our ophtho group some. Can you explain a little bit about the research you've done and what you've found?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah.

Dr. Michael Kent: Do we have treatments for this now?

Dr. Karen Vernau: We do. We did a big study collaboratively, so with myself and the ophthalmology group and then the community surgery group, actually during COVID, which was a very interesting time.

Dr. Michael Kent: A tough time to do research.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Tough time, but important because none of the shelters were open. So, we worked together to provide, to do the study, but we also had to provide regular care for these kittens. So it was a, it's a time I won't forget, let's say that. So we looked at more than 400 kittens.

Dr. Michael Kent: That's a pretty good number, especially by veterinary study standards.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, I thought so. And was triple masked? You don't say blinded when you're dealing with an ophthalmology study. I learned that.

Dr. Michael Kent: You don't want to blind the kittens.

Dr. Karen Vernau: No, so it's a masked study.

Dr. Michael Kent: Masked study, okay.

Dr. Karen Vernau: And we looked at the involvement.

Dr. Michael Kent: Appropriate for the pandemic times. Yeah.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Absolutely. And we looked at the effect of a standard of care, which is an antibiotic named doxycycline, as well as topical eye antibiotic and an antiviral, famciclovir.

Dr. Michael Kent: So famciclovir is a drug that's actually specifically made to interact with herpes virus, right? And it's not a cat drug right off. So, you're taking, you know, something and repurposing.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, I mean, there's been some work using it in ophthalmology for, because herpes virus infection is really common, but no one has really looked at it in a population of young kittens. We were looking at kittens from birth to 12 weeks of age.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah.

Dr. Karen Vernau: So, and 400, 400 kittens.

Dr. Michael Kent: And then what did you find?

Dr. Karen Vernau: We found that most of the kittens did really well, whether they received famciclovir or not. And so I think that told us that husbandry is really important, but kittens that had famciclovir had a shorter time to being cured than those that did not get it.

Dr. Michael Kent: And then, something that we've been talking about also is, I'm jumping us back. Sorry, I jump around a little bit sometimes as our listeners know. 

Dr. Karen Vernau: I can follow your train of thought.

Dr. Michael Kent: Husbandry. So now I. It's a term that I know and a term that you know but can you kind of explain what husbandry means? Because you're almost taking herd health terms and applying them to companion animals, to kittens, not something we usually do. Normally, husbandry, I think of cattle.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, I can see why you think that. So, husbandry, just how they're cared for. So, in this study, we trained fosters to make sure that we were, they had a warm environment, they were being fed every so often, being weighed the same way. So, they had the same kind of supportive care, I think is what you could consider it.

Dr. Michael Kent: So that's your husbandry term is what are we providing as a baseline care, you know, not medicine per se, but things in their upbringing.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Right. So ideal supportive care for these kittens. You know they weren't in a shelter, they were in a foster home being cared for as individuals or a small group. So, making sure that everybody was doing it the same thing in the same way in all groups.

Dr. Michael Kent: Okay, and then when we're thinking about this with whether we're using famciclovir in addition to the antibiotics, were there cases where the famciclovir was needed? For sure, or how do you?

Dr. Karen Vernau: I mean, it was so in this group, everybody was randomized, so we didn't make that decision. And so I can't answer that. But the group that had famciclovir had a cure rate that was faster. So, and those kittens that were removed from the study, like we had to remove some because they got worse. Those kittens were not receiving famciclovir.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, it's probably something that's helpful is what you found.

Dr. Karen Vernau: I think so. But for some, you know, because the kittens. overall did very well. If there was a situation where the, people couldn't give famciclovir, it's probably okay. But famciclovir does seem to help kittens get better faster and to have less.

Dr. Michael Kent: Which has value, right?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Especially when we're talking about, you know, as we talked about with OKP, they have 600 kittens a year. If those 600 kittens all have this condition, that's a lot of kittens to get, you know, healthy and adopted faster. So, for one kitten, maybe not a big difference, but in a in a herd…

Dr. Michael Kent: In a herd of kittens. 

Dr. Karen Vernau: Or a lot of kittens, it makes a difference when we think about them that way.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah, So that's pretty impactful then. And, it provides evidence that this works and evidence that there's benefit, which is important. What about nutrition? So, you know, obviously you can't just open a can of cat food for them. What's best to feed them and what have you looked at?

Dr. Karen Vernau: So, we haven't looked at nutrition per se, but we've been lucky to have industry support so that we're feeding, you know, AAFCO approved kitten diets. So canned and dry food, Purina is what we have, what we fed them during the study. So, they all had an AAFCO approved diet.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah, in general though, what do we, that's great. And what do we, actually have, one of our episodes is, what should we feed our cat with Dr. Larson. So which people can listen to. But what about kitten nutrition in general? What do you know about that? Not in relation to this study.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Let's see. So I don't know. I'm not a nutritionist, so I don't know that I can answer that. But I think using, you know, using regular approved diets are important for kittens. kitten formula is another story in that it's not really regulated.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah.

Dr. Karen Vernau: So, I think you just have to, you have to choose a kitten formula that seems to work in your population. And, for us, as soon as we can wean a kitten, we try to. So, we don't keep them on formula forever. Mother's milk is best in kittens, but if it's not available,

Dr. Michael Kent: it's not available most of the time with these cases.

Dr. Karen Vernau: It's a reputable formula.

Dr. Michael Kent: Okay. And there are specific kitten formulas that you can purchase commercially.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yep, absolutely. So, following the recommendations, making sure it doesn't sit in the fridge for 10 days, like my fridge looks like sometimes, is important.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah, obviously if the food's gone bad, if their main source of nutrition's got bad, you could injure the kitten.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Absolutely, make them really sick. So yeah.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, I know you've also been looking at hypothyroidism in kitten. kittens. Why is this important in kittens as maybe opposed to cats or does it have more effects on them?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the pluses about looking at in that famcyclovir study that CCAH funded, we looked at so many kittens as the primary source. You see other things come out, you know, and as we're looking at kittens' growth in that study with it being a weight every day, we noticed that some kittens weren't growing. So that was just something that came about because we wondered what was happening with them. Why weren't they growing? Did they have a liver or kidney or thyroid problem? So, I think it's, in our literature, it's reported in kittens six weeks of age and older, yet it's a condition that they're born with. I think it's just been under-recognized because we aren't, in our profession, we're not looking at a bunch of kittens that little and looking at them that carefully. And when you do, you see it. Like it's...

Dr. Michael Kent: So if a cat is hypothyroid, could you explain it to me? What is going to be the effect on them long-term and particularly for a kitten?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, right, in a kitten, sometimes they pass away because their thyroid hormone is needed for every single cell in your body to grow. And they can be... really get into trouble. So those that live, they're very small and unfortunately they're really cute looking. But they look like young kittens. They have blue eyes, their ears are bent down, they have short, stocky legs, and they can have trouble with constipation. And they're mentally dull. You know, they're not bright and alert and playing. And…

Dr. Michael Kent: So they don't grow and thrive if they don't have enough thyroid hormone. Exactly. So they're hypo, meaning too little thyroid hormone.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yep, and I think a lot of the little guys pass away before we recognize it.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, what are you doing to answer more questions about this or find out what the effect of treating it is? I mean, where are we going with this now that you've identified this problem by looking at a large number of cats and weighing them daily? Good husbandry.

Dr. Karen Vernau: The first thing we had to do is look at what is normal thyroid. Like we have normal, what is a normal T4 in a kitten?

Dr. Michael Kent: And the T4 measuring…

Dr. Karen Vernau: Just the baseline thyroid hormone and then some of the central thyroid stimulating hormone, the TSH. So. we didn't have normals for kittens. And it may be that, you know, a cat isn't growing, so it may have different levels than a kitten.

Dr. Michael Kent: What'd you find?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yep. Surprise. Kittens have a higher basal thyroid hormone. So we needed to know that.

Dr. Michael Kent: Because they need to grow.

Dr. Karen Vernau: They're growing. So, we had to figure that out that first. So that took a little bit to figure out what was normal in kittens of certain ages. So, thank you for that. And then just trying to figure out what, you know, what formulation and what dose of the thyroid hormone do we give kittens? And what, Kittens need a much higher dose of of the hormone, which is called levothyroxine or T4 to give them than, dogs or adult cats do.

Dr. Michael Kent: Interesting. And so have you kind of, your goal is to then obviously publish this stuff so other people can take that information, right? I mean, this is still pretty new. 

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yes

Dr. Michael Kent: Is it published yet?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Not published. You sound like the rest of my crew. It's, the manuscript is in the works.

Dr. Michael Kent: Excellent. But this is important information. So, it's groundbreaking information basically in order to make sure that these kittens who are a hypothyroid. How common a problem is this? Did you find?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, I don't know how common it is, but in our group we have 33 kittens.

Dr. Michael Kent: 33 of 400.

Dr. Karen Vernau: And not in our study group, but we noticed it during the study. So that was in 2020.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yes.

Dr. Karen Vernau: And since that time, we have diagnosed and treated 33 kittens.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, still fairly substantial. It's not 10% of the population by any means, 

Dr. Karen Vernau: Nope.

Dr. Michael Kent: but it's still enough that this really affects not only the kittens, but even the people who are raising them if they they're not thriving, that's obviously really hard on the kitten raisers too.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Right. It's like a dream where you can diagnose a condition and give them a pill and treat them. You know, there's some things we have to do. They're growing, so you've got to increase their dose as they're growing. And then there's some things to note as they get older. But yeah, it's, I love it. It's just, it is a dream in veterinary medicine.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, what else have you been looking at or what else are you trying to figure out in kittens like that you see as these particular problems that face kittens?

Dr. Karen Vernau: There's so many things, Michael. It's like my desk is littered with things that I want to figure out. One of the things we noticed.

Dr. Michael Kent: Like me with cancer questions.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Right? Yeah. In the, you know, in the famcyclovir study, we noticed that some kittens had a condition called eyelid agenesis, where their eyelids don't form normally. And in the past, our ophthalmology group has had to do a big reconstructive surgery, which is okay for some kittens and some owners, but maybe out of reach for… 

Dr. Michael Kent: It’s expensive, 

Dr. Karen Vernau: Very expensive, and some of them they needed revision.

Dr. Michael Kent: So to repeat the surgery.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Repeat the surgery or, you know, maybe have their eye removed, which is not also accessible for everybody, or worst case, be euthanized because they have a painful ocular condition. So, one of the ophthalmologists, Dr. Charnock, does some work with laser treatment. And that's something we're looking at right now is to do a little bit of surgery and some laser on the eyelids.

Dr. Michael Kent: So laser to remove part of the eyelid or stimulate growth. What is it?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, stimulate healing once it's been removed so that the, you know, the eye is a normal shape and the eye, the eyelashes aren't, you know, digging into the cornea, which hurts.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah, so the surface of the eye.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, surface of the eye, exactly. So that's something we're looking at. as a non-invasive way to treat these guys and save their eyes and vision and their lives potentially.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, it's something you notice and something they're trying and it looks promising. So now you take it to a clinical trial to actually prove it.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Exactly, Yep.

Dr. Michael Kent: Excellent. And what else? Anything else there?

Dr. Karen Vernau: So many other things. You know, wondering about the genetics of eyelidogenesis. We notice it in some other wild cats like snow leopards. So trying to look at, you know, we noticed that Some of these kittens with eyelid agenesis when they're male, they may have a retained testicle. So, wondering about the connection there. And if we can figure out the genetics of that in snow leopards, you know, maybe it's something that we can help both populations moving forward.

Dr. Michael Kent: That's cool. So almost our kittens could be a model for some larger endangered cats.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Potentially, and just working, you know, trying to work collaboratively and together. You know, I'm a clinician, so I'm not doing bench type research, but we can be pretty helpful when we all work together on a problem, bringing something different to the table.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, I know you've recently been involved with the start of a pediatric fellowship here that's been started. And can you tell me why that's important? And do you think we need pediatric medicine to be a new veterinary specialty?

Dr. Karen Vernau: I mean, I do.

Dr. Michael Kent: Softball question, I know.

Dr. Karen Vernau: I’m slightly biased about that.

Dr. Michael Kent: Of course you're biased about it because you're passionate about it. So no, but why is it important and do we need it?

Dr. Karen Vernau: I think we do need it. We need people who are expert in dealing, you know, dealing with day-to-day stuff, taking blood on a kitten. How do we feed them? How do we manage them? And trying to look at their, how do we do better for them with their medical and surgical needs and their outcome? And I think it can help cats, you know, kittens become cats and other, you know, maybe it helps puppies and we have a project on the go with the medical school, and we're working together to help kittens and babies. So that's really cool too.

Dr. Michael Kent: Looking at what?

Dr. Karen Vernau: Looking at kittens with hydrocephalus and obstructive hydrocephalus. So we're...

Dr. Michael Kent: Can you explain what hydrocephalus is? Yeah.

Dr. Karen Vernau: So they've got too much water on their brain, and if it's obstructive, the water's not moving out from their brain.

Dr. Michael Kent: So it doesn't allow normal brain tissue because it's fluid there instead and it's against the skull.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Exactly. So, it's putting pressure on the brain. And so in the past, those kittens, at least in my hands, have all passed away. But this is an exciting treatment to kind of shunt the fluid from from being basically in a traffic jam to go around the traffic jam so they don't need to have like a shunt from their brain into their abdomen.

Dr. Michael Kent: So basically, it will help remove it from the brain and make it more normal and allow the brain to develop.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yep and save their life if it works. And maybe for humans, for human pediatric neurosurgeons, a kitten's pretty darn small and sometimes they struggle doing these kinds of procedures on small babies. So, helping make it ideal for a kitten may help apply it to a baby.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah, that's pretty cool. So, what would you tell, what advice would you give to someone new who wanted to foster a kitten or someone who found or adopted a kitten? What would be the take-home message for them?

Dr. Karen Vernau: So, for a new foster, I would hope that they'd be working with a rescue group, like the students with the Orphan Kitten Project, where they have a lot of support in trying to make sure things are optimized for their kitten.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, all the husbandry things we talked about.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Husbandry is really, really important. And you know, the students are great mentors for each other and trying to work through that and then they have faculty mentorship as well. But fostering is great because you get mentored through that whole process.

Dr. Michael Kent: Yeah. And I know you have a website for the OKP project and the like, or at least some links, right, for information availability.

Dr. Karen Vernau: I think they do have a website, yes.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, I think what we'll do, if it's okay with you, is we'll post that with the podcast episode if people are interested in finding out more.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Yeah, that sounds great.

Dr. Michael Kent: So, is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't yet or anything you want to ask me? Yeah.

Dr. Karen Vernau: I don't think so, but I think, for a long time we've done research on clinical research in dogs and cats have kind of, lost out on some of that. 

Dr. Michael Kent: Why?

Dr. Karen Vernau: I don't know why, but I think, kittens, kittens need some clinical research to be done. So we know how best to do things. I think time is coming for kittens. We're going to be in that realm.

Dr. Michael Kent: And with that, time is coming for kittens. So, I really wanted to thank you, Dr. Vernau, for joining me today and talking about kittens, all we need to know. And I so greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Dr. Karen Vernau: Thanks for having me.

Dr. Michael Kent: Of course. 

The Vetrospective, as with life, takes a village. I want to thank those who suggested I start this project and everyone who has encouraged and supported me along the way. Particularly, I want to thank our producer and director, Danae Blythe Unti. Nancy Bei, who is our program coordinator, our sound mixer, Andy Cowett, and theme music was composed and produced by Tim Gahagan. Thank you all, and we'll see you next time.