Sad News

At approximately 4:45 PM Saturday, July 8, 2006, Chipper passed away quietly in his sleep.

Cause of Death

Dr. Zeitlin performed a necropsy and found a swollen abscess deep in Chipper’s brain. This abscess appeared to be the direct result of an injury to Chipper’s skull. The skull injury had quickly healed over. Because it had healed over, the abscess was able to fester and go unseen for three weeks.  Even though he seemed to recover from them, it is believed that the brain abscess had caused the seizures earlier in the week.

Cultures of the brain infection found that the antibiotics that were used to treat infections in other parts of his body would not kill the brain infection. Even if Dr. Z had known about the brain abscess, little could have been done. “Brain surgery” to remove the abscess would not have been an option for this already weakened baby.

We are still waiting on results from other tests to rule out any underlying causes that could have contributed to his death, but Dr. Z believes it was the abscess that caused his death. Chipper was negative for FIV and FeLV.

Chipper was well on his way to recovery from three orthopedic surgical procedures to repair the tiny fractured bones in both of his front legs.