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
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