Is it typical for the Humane Society to adopt out sick kitties?

I adopted a 10 week old kitten over the weekend through our local Humane Society. She has been tested for FIV and Leukemia (both negative) and has received her first round of shots. However, when I went to pick her up from her foster mother, she was sneezy with weepy eyes and a snotty nose. I asked the foster mom about it, and she said that she "didn't like to put kittens that young on antibiotics." She has only gotten worse since Saturday and is having a hard time breathing out of her nose. I've tried L-Lysine, the humidifier, steam ... everything. I'm pretty sure that she has an Upper Respiratory Infection. I'm taking her to the vet Wednesday, but I'm miffed because I paid an $85 adoption fee for what was supposed to be a healthy kitten. Not only that, but I spent $200 for everything else she needed. Now it looks like I will have to spend another $150 at the vet. Is it typical of the Humane Society to adopt out sick kitties? Should the Humane Society pay this vet bill? Just trying to figure out what to make of this whole thing. Poor baby, none of it is her fault.

Up until my current 3 cats, every cat l've ever had was either from a shelter or from the street, and l would say about 90% of the kitties that came from a shelter had these symptoms. ln our case, the shelter would either send us home with meds or would do the vetting for free after.

l hope your poor wee kitten feels better soon. 

Quick question about this kitten. How much of this L-Lysine do you give? Can you get it from a pet store or just Rx? I'm going through something like this myself.

I bought it off of Amazon. I give half a scoop twice daily. 

Unfortunately, the shelter is not the most sterile place. They take in surrenders that may be sick, they take in animals off the streets, and there's no guarantee the other animals won't catch anything. One of the rescues I was in talks with advised me that many of the cats they pull from shelters, whether they are kill shelters or no-kill humane societies where the animal isn't thriving, have some common symptoms of "shelter colds" like runny or gunky eyes or URIs. The rescues treat it - I think I would be more miffed with the foster parent, especially if she wasn't following through with a vet's orders knowing the kitten had something.

Some rescues offer six weeks of pet insurance or coverage from what I've seen, but not sure about humane societies since they vary so much. I suggest calling the humane society and letting the staff know she has these symptoms along with what the foster mother told you. If they did prescribe something and the foster mother refused to do it, or she didn't report that the kitten was ill, someone will have to fess.

URI is common for cats coming from shelter, they come with it there from streets, being exposed to outdoors and other cats. We have to give all the treatment necessary after adopting the pet.

It's one of the life's assumptions, and one of ours vets believe this too, that you get a healthy cat from a shelter, because it was attended by a vet there.

No longer the case, from my experience and the others. If you do the search for adopted from shelter and heat murmur, there were at least 5 cases then they didn't told about this condition, that most of the people juct can't afford. Or gave a diabetic cat in need of daily injections to a blind person, who can't do that for obvious reason. Maybe they got some directive to do this (just an assumption) to increase rate of adoptions, and adopting forms were simplified, reducing requirements to adopters and resident cats in a household.

URI, unless this is a herpes, is not that bad, but it needs treatment. With our second cat we had to make 3 visits in one week to a vet just to solve problem with stubborn conjunctivitis.

I would say your foster mom knows nothing about treating upper respiratory infections and the kitten should have been on antibiotics. There is no such thing as too young!   Upper respiratory disease is common in rescue but we don't usually adopt out kittens who actively HAVE it, and the rescue I foster for (not my own) which IS a humane society will provide follow up treatment if the kitten comes down with something in the first couple of weeks because we KNOW they get exposed to it, so even if they leave healthy, they could be incubating it.  If they are already treated and through with it, they should not get it.  We do provide antibiotics to take home if one of our new adoptions gets sick.  We would not let one go untreated if it were sick either, we would ask the adopter to wait for us to treat the kitten, or else give the adopter medications to take with the kitten.  Every group is different, so you can't judge one by the other.  Ours even provides 2nd and 3rd vaccines if the kittens have not yet had more than the first -- all you have to do is bring the kitten back to us at the appropriate times and we will do the vaccines.