Please help....

Last week my wife & I purchased two beautiful kittens from a local Maine Coon Cattery

We brought them home on July 7th & all was well. On the morning of July 9th, the we noticed that the male was having trouble standing, breathing, would not eat & had a runny nose & eye along with coughing & sneezing

We rushed him to the emergency vet & he was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection. He also had an extremely high white blood cell count - his WBC was 37.99 & his NEU was 31.73. The emergency room vet said that this was a very sick kitten & we would likely have problems with him for the rest of his life.

We immediately called the breeder & they accepted him back and agreed to follow the course of treatment & to follow up with their vet on July 13th.

On July 13th at approx 8PM I picked him up and was assured that their vet had checked him & he was healthy, so I happily took him home.

The following afternoon (July 14th), he began to exhibit similar symptoms, lethargy, vomiting, unable to eat or pass anything along with drooling. After several anxiety ridden hours, we rushed him to the emergency vet again. They rechecked his blood and along with the high white blood count, his red count was off - the vet explained that he was anemic & wanted to give him a transfusion. It was too expensive, so we agreed to give some antibiotics, some meds for anemia & we will take him to our vet Monday.

We are now out close to $1,000 in vet bills, plus the original $700 we paid for him. We were assured we would be getting a healthy kitten, but clearly we did not. When the breeder had him checked on the 13th, no CBC was done - this was the crucial missing piece that would have verified this.

We now have a beautiful Maine Coon that we have spent close to $2,000 on & the breeder refuses to take him back, putting the onus on us to either treat him or put him down. While they have offered a replacement if he is put down the issue for my wife & I is that ultimately we received a kitten that was not healthy & our contract clearly says we will receive a healthy kitten.

Although the breeder did not know at the time, this kitten has been sick for a while & would have only been visible through blood tests

My wife & I lost a cat back in March & this was supposed to be a happy time for us, but has become an expensive, painful process that the breeder refuses to help us with.

What do we do? I want to be fair, but our emotions are so raw we are confused

I'm so sorry you and your wife are experience this with your new little family member just as you're trying to recover from the pain of losing your precious little one in March. Bless you for hanging in there for your beautiful little Maine Coon who is having such a rough start in life. One of our members more experienced with breeding practices and ethics will be along shortly and will be so happy to help guide you in this matter.

Thanks so much

He is now eating - we decided to feed him some raw food (turkey & chicken liver) and he seems to be eating it. If he continues to eat, we'll have to get some Instincts TC - hopefully we can get it locally in Toronto.

He was eating raw at the breeder - could all of this be a result of the food change? If so, I wish someone would have told me....

Frustrated

If the food change was sudden then he would have diarrhea and throw up, upset stomach and stuff. It wouldn't have anything to do with a respiraory infection and most of the other things you mentioned I don't think.

Bless you for going through so much to keep the little one as healthy as possible.
It has to be possible to force your breeder to do something about it though. If you were promised a healthy kitten you should have received a healthy kitten. Since you have a contract could you take the breeder to court?
I found a link on anemia which suggests that anemia can have many causes including FIV so maybe you should get it tested for as many of the main anemia causing diseases as you can.
http://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/anemia.html
If something else is wrong then maybe that will force the breeder to take responsibility and pay for the treatment.
I wish you the best of luck and hope that everything works out ok.

First of all, I hope your kitten pulls through, all the expenses aside, I'm sure you're already attached to him.
I think your breeder made a bad mistake, giving you the kitten back after 5 days of treatment, considering the condition you have described him being in.
It takes several weeks to be assured a kitten has fully recovered from the symptoms you described. All the switching of surroundings for the kitten doesn't aid in his recovery either, as stress is a major contributor to URI's.
I of course don't know the full and complete story, but from what I've read, it would seem that the course of action the breeder should take is this:

A: Offer to take the kitten back and refund the money you paid for the kitten.
B: Offer to take the kitten back and provide you with another healthy kitten.
C: Refund the money you paid for the kitten to offset your vet bills to get him healthy again.

I think option C, would be in the best interests of the kitten. He doesn't need to be uprooted again and subjected to more stress. With your kittens age, it is of paramount importance that he continue to eat....and eat alot. Any lapse in food intake will only make him more ill.

I wish you the best of luck with the kitten and your breeder.

The breeder finally responded & was genuinely upset. They seem very concerned that we are assigning blame to them by telling them that this kitten was not healthy.

I have absolutlely no interest in assigning blame - they really are a great breeder that produce friendly, healthy, great looking cats. It just happens that we have a problematic kitten. These things happen.

I am more concerned with how they deal with the problem, not assigning blame.

I dont even really care about the money any more. It would be nice if they helped us with our expenses - If I was running a business thats what I would do.

All I want is the breeder to say that if he needs to be put down over over the next year due to this he will be replaced. It would also be nice for them to ackknowledge that he is an unhealthy kitten - we have now had three vets tell us that.

Ultimately all we want is to care for him & love him for as long as he is healthy.

I am sure you could take this breeder to court and get your money back for the kitten and vet expenses but this is something you have to decide if you want to do. Me personally I would want the breeder to refund the kitten purchase price and I would keep kitten and pay the vet bills myself and not deal with court. I would do court if the breeder refused to do anything at all. This is a shame you have to deal with this.

I would really like to avoid court - my wife & I have had a tough year with phyisicans in general. I keep hoping the breeder will extend a financial olive branch to help offset our costs.

I'm also really pissed at all the vets who saw him & never once suggested de-worming as a first & inexpensive step. If this turns out to be the problem I may be making some phone calls to the BBB

Originally Posted by darincm

I'm also really pissed at all the vets who saw him & never once suggested de-worming as a first & inexpensive step. If this turns out to be the problem I may be making some phone calls to the BBB

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Your description of the kittens symptoms doesn't sound like worms. And to be fair to the vets, there would be no point in de-worming, if a fecal float wasn't done to check for worms. Fecal floats are inexpensive and uncomplicated, so if any of your vets suspected worms, I'm sure they would have done the test.
Your kitten symptoms point to a severe URI with possible other secondary problems. Worms won't cause the URI, although they could be a contributing factor to the overall poor health of your kitten.

Quick Update: His anemia is gone (could be the Prednisone), but he still has a URI. The breeder's vet said this kitten was likely sick for some time.

At this point we have over $1,000 in vet bills, I think it would be more than fair for the breeder to simply refund the $700 we paid for him.

Thoughts?

This breeder should, morally, be refunding you and paying the vet costs... but that's obviously not happening.

I'm glad to hear that the anemia is all better! Hopefully your little ones will recover fully and someday you'll just look back on this the way mothers look at their healthy children after a difficult pregnancy.

Get the word out about this breeder-- not on TCS as of course they'd probably sue and whatnot-- but report them to animal welfare or the breeder's registry, tell your friends and anyone you hear thinking about getting a Maine Coon, etc.

Those of us moggy collectors take a chance with every cat, but paying through the nose for a purebred is supposed to greatly lessen the chances of this kind of stuff. Obviously something went wrong that the breeder should have noticed before selling the kitten.

I know this is totally off topic, but do you have a picture of the little one? I'd dearly love to see one...

Originally Posted by darincm

All I want is the breeder to say that if he needs to be put down over over the next year due to this he will be replaced. It would also be nice for them to ackknowledge that he is an unhealthy kitten - we have now had three vets tell us that.
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I dont know the full detail of all of this. But you should have had to sign a contract, and the contract should have a statement of Health Guarentee in it. I know my contracts all have the health guarentee plainly stated in them. For my kittens myself, and those i have purchased.

There is a health guarantee in the contract. The problem is that the breeder's husband refuses to believe that there is anything wrong with him - he thinks it's something in our environment. I know that is total nonsense but he was quite rude on the phone & actually told my wife that we "don't even dare to bring that kitten back" We have had a total of four different vets who have said that this kitten is not healthy & will likely be sick his entire life.

I sent an email to the breeder today and basically offered her a settlement - give us a refund on the kitten or we will take them to court for the cost of kitten ($700), Vet Bills ($1,000), & punitive damages for a total of around $3500. $700 seems more than fair to me.

Izzy is sick again - brought him to the vet today but is there is not much they can do & he threw up blood when we got home.

PS - Will try to get pics up soon - cant figure out how to do it
One more thing: is there a breeder's association in Canada who can help me? I sent an email to the CCA (i think) & they said they dont get involved

you did the right thing by standing your ground. It isnt your fault that they refuse to check with a vet before giving your kitten back. a CBC is the bases for most medical testing. thats a must...and with your complaints thats what should have been done asap, and they must not be wise or have a lazy vet if there was no lab drawn. a URI is easy for cats and kittens to get, mike just got over one after being at the vet for only 10 hours after his "fixing" surgery. Most times anitbiotics isnt needed since it wont due much, but when dealing with little kittens its important since secondary infections can occur.
its the breeders fault here.

refund you for the kitten and give you a new kitten. that would be my deal. although a URI is highly contagious and most likely the other kittens might be carries and show no signs.

these people are jerks. Im sorry your dealing with this. its hard both emotionaly and financially when something like this happens. Your kittens in my prayers and I hope this gets settled without anyone haveing to be nasty.
best of luck.

I don't want this to get nasty either. I think they have really nice Maine Coons & overalll a nice Cattery. What will define them for me is how they handle this. If they handle this fairly I will continue to recomend them.

Originally Posted by darincm

I don't want this to get nasty either. I think they have really nice Maine Coons & overalll a nice Cattery. What will define them for me is how they handle this. If they handle this fairly I will continue to recomend them.

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thats right. a good breeder isnt all about when things go right its also about how things are handled with things go wrong as well.

I love mainecoons...my favorite cat! had two mixes and I love them to death, have the best personality out of any type of cat Ive owned.

Quick Update:
He saw the vet yesterday & she thinks all of his symptoms are consistent with FIP. After much reading I tend to agree. Most of what I have read indicates that the kittens usually get the infection at around 4-6 weeks & show signs around 3 months - right when we picked him up.

The breeder has still not responded to our email. I am extermely disapointed in them. I think I will be talking to our local MPP to discuss legislation that is in place & how to make it more effective.