My family have just taken ownership of two kittens from the Cats Protection League.

The male is 12 weeks and the female 9 weeks.

They have come from different litters, 5 in each.

When we first visited them the 'Male' litter was aged 9 weeks and the 'Female' litter 6 weeks.

We couldn't take either at that time because the female was too young (min 9 weeks) and the male and the rest of his litter had cat flu - so the vet had postponed their vacinations until it cleared up.

Now at the time I knew nothing of cat flu and the Cats Protection League described it as if it were nothing to worry about - would clear up in a few days.

So we agreed to take the 9 week male and the 6 week female - we couldn't physically take them for 3 weeks.

We picked them up last week. A few days before the CPL had told us that the reamins of the two litters had been put together and on the day of pick up we were told that the male had developed sneezes again.

On the day of pick up both had visited the vet, the male for an antibiotic shot and the female for here first vaccination. We were given some eye drops for the male.

Now my concerns

I've now been reading up on cat flu and find that far from the trivial way it was described it is actually quite nasty.

As I understand it, the male will continue to have this strain of cat flu, most dormant but can reoccur at times of stress. Furthermore he will always be a carrier.

I don't know what to do. Should I be worried?

I am shocked thet the CPL mixed infect kittens with uninfected and unvacinated ones. Potentially my female is at risk although she doesn't seem to be showing any signs.

The male is pretty happy and apart from the odd sneeze now and then you wouldn't suspect anything.

Is cat flu really as bad as I have read?

How often is the male likely to suffer?

Is the female likely to be infected?

Should I say something about the CPL mixing infected and clean cats?

Thanks for your help,

Nigel