'Bobcat Fever': Green Country Veterinarians Warn Of Tick Disease Deadly To House Cats

Green Country veterinarians are warning people who live in rural areas about a tick disease that can end up killing their cats.

Vets say your cat can die less than a week after getting sick with “Bobcat Fever.”

Vets say the best thing you can do is keep your cat inside and give it tick prevention medicine.

If your cat goes outside, and especially if you live in the country, you need to check them for ticks.

Dr. Paul Welch, Medical Director and Veterinarian at the Forest Trails Animal Hospital in Tulsa, says the disease comes from ticks that bite bobcats first, and then the tick bites a cat.

"Most of the situations that we run into with the cats are on the outskirts,” said Welch. “Western Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, Locust Grove area, like the lakes, are a big deal. Sapulpa, Sand Springs, places where the cats are outside."

He says “Bobcat Fever” is a hard disease to diagnose, because sometimes it doesn’t even show up on the first lab test.

Often, cats don’t show symptoms like being lethargic or not eating, until the disease has taken hold.

"The problem is, is once they develop the disease, it takes about two weeks of what they call incubation period, and then at that point, they get sick and they're usually dead within the week,” said Welch.

There are some treatments for the disease- but they only work around half the time.

That’s only if the vet catches it early.

"When they arrive to the clinic, they have high fevers, sometimes they are dehydrated, and a lot of the times it's a little bit too late for the antiprotozoal treatment to work,” said Dr. Ruth Scimeca, an Assistant Professor in the Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine.

Scimeca hopes more cat owners who live in rural areas will learn about this disease, since many people only find out about it when it’s too late.

"A lot of the time, we kind of find out after the cat's become sick,” said Scimeca. “It's because someone, their cat died, and that's when it's, 'oh my cat died because of the bobcat fever,' and that's how this is passed along."

Welch says if you take your cat to the vet because you think it had a tick bite that contains bobcat fever, make sure to tell the vet you suspect a tick bite.

"If you have been pulling off ticks or something, and the cat starts getting very lethargic, starts running a fever, let the veterinarian know that you've been pulling ticks off the cat, and that gives us a little bit of a heads up,” said Welch.

Both Welch and Scimeca say this disease is more common in the summer months because more ticks are out.