First of all let me sayI live in Covington, Louisana. The names except for my kitten’s name and breed have been changed as I have been told by my husband that you can not call out someone who does the stuff below by name legally even if what they are doing is not right. But I don’t want anyone else to get hurt the way I did. So please be careful and take heed of this cautionary tale.
Make sure everything is perfect before you buy a kitten. If your intuition starts trying to convince you somethings wrong then run, don’t walk to your nearest exit. I love my kitten but I sure wish I had listened when my intuition kicked in.
I love my Somali Kitten, but if I had to do it all over again I would have done a lot more research. Here’s why:
I went to the breeders site and saw the sire to my kitten before I decided to purchase one. He was magnificent and so I emailed her and she put me on her list to buy. I was so excited as anyone would be. My kitten was born on February 14, 2009. The breeder promised she would put pictures up on her website. I waited and waited and waited………I was going through some stressful times and I was also stressed that she wasn’t posting the pictures she promised and so my husband called her and begged her to send me one. She did and this is it:
As I am not a breeder, I did not notice the dark circles on the bridge of the nose. These are the beginning signs of ringworm. This is why her pictures were never posted on the site with any of the other kittens. Someone in the cat world would have noticed. I asked the breeder about this picture and others she took where the ringworm is evident and she told me she didn’t see anything. Here’s another:
This one was sent again after much begging. Notice the dark spot next to the eye and the red spot in the ear. I know this is going to sound silly but I thought the spot by her eye was a beauty mark, silly me. The breeder was treating the ringworm but not being honest to me that my kitty was sick.
On the day I went to pick her up she was dirty and she smelled very bad. The breeder told me that she knew I would understand that she didn’t want to bathe her because she was stressed by her last set of shots at the vet’s office. I’m writing this so that if this happens to you at this point you will ask for your money back and walk out the door and never look back….Before you get attached to the kitten.
I also want to tell you that half way through the kittens time with the breeder I drove to visit her. Guys I wanted this kitten so bad that I overlooked so much. I feel so stupid now, but you don’t have to. This is why I’m telling you all of this. I didn’t know the spots on the kitten were ringworm. The breeder took a picture with my camera. She had the same exact camera sitting on her desk in the house. This is how the picture turned out:
I wonder why…Hmmmmmmm.
Back to the day I pick Nikki up. The breeder also told me that the kitten had soft diahrrea because she was stressed. She also did not have any of the other kittens present. I wish I would have pressed to see them. I didn’t know any better so I signed the contract and took her home. Before we took the trip home we followed the breeder to her office where she was housing all of the other kittens because my daughter wanted to see the ragdolls, a cat she thought might be a nice addition to her household. The conditions were dangerous to say the least, one of the ragdolls looked very sick and most of the mother cats looked very thin. My daughter did not purchase a ragdoll that day. Also, the other kittens in Nikki’s litter were not present at the office. When we questioned her about it, she told us that they where back home waiting to be delivered to their new owners.
I took my cat home and she either threw up or made this liquidy number two mess that was yellow and smelly. I decided it was because of the three hour trip home and decided to keep an eye on her. The next day I was feeding her and she vomited and choked and had a hard time breathing. I called the breeder and she told me that it was normal and she was just stressed. Well Nikki (my kitty’s name) seemed to do a little better for awhile and then she started going downhill rapidly until one morning when I took her out of her cage (I was keeping her seperate from my other two cats at first) she went limp in my arms. She was moments away from death. I took her to the vet and he put her on an iv and they searched for answers. I called the breeder and she could give me no info and acted so suprised. She tried to trouble shoot the problem and was just amazed that this was happening.
My vet at that point told me that this was a breeder problem and it was about now that I should be asking the breeder to replace the kitten.
When I told the breeder she informed me that none of the other kittens had gotten ill. She also said to keep her posted because she wanted to know in case she had to call the other kitten’s owners. I bought her concern hook, line and sinker. Just in time my vet made the diagnosis. He said she had a parasite called giardia. He put her on two antibiotics and we treat her and after many sleepless nights she began to get better. We put her on A/D and she gained a whole pound in one month. It wasn’t until later that the breeder told me that my kitten had come in contact with another Somali she had in her home that she was evaluating as a breeder. She said this cat’s diahrrea was whitish. She even had a dignosis although I can’t remember exactly what it was. I wish she had told me this while my kitten lay dying on the Vet’s table. Never once did she offer to pay vet bills or replace the cat, yet when I finally confronted her after having put up with enough of the lies and deceit she told me that she had made the offer and I had said no. Folks, I’m not crazy. I’m not going to put out 800 dollars for a cat and then turn down the breeders offer to pay the vet bills especially when the breeder sold me a sick kitten.
A couple of weeks later my family went on vacation to Orange Beach. I boarded the kitten with my vet because I was horrified at the prospect at her getting sick again. I called midweek to check on her and my doctor tells me she has ringworm. She had always had missing fur on her face but the doc and I both thought it was because of the sticky antibiotic i had given her. My 24 year old daughter who brought the kitten home with me also had ringworm on her shoulder and I contracted it as well. When I picked Nikki up from the vet, I smelled a familiar smell. Dip. This is why the breeder had not bathed her. I hadn’t been informed and I had bathed her during the first week that I got her, so viola, the ringworm was allowed to run rampant as its treatment had been terminated. I called the breeder and asked her if she had Nikki dipped and she told me no. She said that they were treated for fleas I want to say weeks before, but she told me out and out that Nikki had not been dipped at the last visit. And guess what? I believed her. I know, I know, but you have to understand I wanted so desperately to believe the breeder. The breeder had bragged on this kitten and said she was show quality and that if I wanted to show her she would be there for me. I bought in. But all you have to do is look at the pictures to see where it all started. When they say pictures speak a thousand words man they arent kidding. Those spots you see in the pictures the breeder took were now huge and when I got her back from the vet she had large chunks of hair that had fallen out all over her body. I didn’t take pictures because I didn’t want pictures of her like that, but my vet has everything in her charts. He called me a sap in the way that all vets do when they feel you’ve been taken advantage of and told me again that I should return her to the breeder, but I loved her and she was mine for better or worse.
But how did I make the breeder’s enemy list. Well, for one my cat got better and I took the breeder up on her offer to come to a show. She had told me that she had a policy to never enter a cat in the same event as a customer’s cat, but she did anyway which was good because it’s the only way to win points for you cat. In other words there were only two Somali kittens and one has to beat the other one in order to score points. There are 12 rounds and my kitten took 6. I was so excited. Saturday morning I had discussed the possibility of breeding my kitten when she was old enough which is apparently a faux paux. She hadn’t been spayed before hand per contract before the show as she was too small. Instead of just telling me no, she said she was open to it and even said that if she was to mate it would probably be with the kitten she was competing against. When I thank her for the show on Monday by email and tell her we are excited at the prospect of eventually breeding Nikki she sends me this:
“As for breeding Nikki that is another subject. I know you love her a great deal, and she was adopted as a pet. I gave you show alter rights, so you could bring her to the show and enjoy the fun and experience, which I am glad that you are having a great time. My average show / breeder cats that I have adopted in the past costed me $2,500 to $3,000 plus shipping and expenses. The adoption fee for show/breeders is very different than the cost of a pet. For instance, Janice that you met at the show adopted Jello Shot for $2,500. It would not be right for me to now change authority in TICA for breeding rights for one person under other terms. It is very expensive to adopt show/breeder cats and then to campaign them. This is why hobbyist don’t make money off of the kittens. Look through some of the sites to begin understanding. If you are serious about becoming a breeder, then you have a great deal to learn about genetics, dna, etc.. etc… and sleepless nights. You can call me one night to discuss what it is like to really be a breeder. I really had a great time with you and everyone this weekend. Thanks for your help showing Tujaques and I am proud of Nikki, The Breeder ”
Well, at that point the deceit had hit the forefront of my brain and I emailed her pretty much everything I just wrote here for you to read. It was not the fact that she was saying no to breeding. It was the fact that she had led me along by the nose the whole time. It was like somebody slapped me in the face and I was now wide awake.
So needless to say, she sent email after email one worse that the other calling me a liar and telling me that I had mental issues. She also would not stop emailing even after I asked her to because it was important for her to get the last word. And here it was:
“Mary, please let this email serve as notice to stop all contact with me. If you continue, I will consider it harassment and will take legal action. I don’t have time for your contradicting statements and falsehood. You or anyone else in your family are in no way allowed to email me, call me, send mail to me or any other type of contact. ” The Breeder
But as for having the last word, as Christina says in the last line of “Mommie Dearest,” Did She? Did She?
Update: There was a question as to whether I took her to the vet as you do when you bring home a new kitten and the answer is yes I did, the morning after I purchased her. At that time she was not perky or happy but she was not throwing up in the vet’s office. Structurally the vet called her a winner, but as she was not throwing up or having diahrrea in his office he was not able to diagnose her as such. I can’t say with accuracy if the spots were there on her face when he examined her, but we weren’t looking for ringworm as we weren’t informed that it was a possibility.
Also, I wanted to journal this because it puzzles me and I just wanted to write it down to keep record of it. At one time when I spoke to the breeder on the phone, she told me that her daughter had her eye on my kitten, so if she mentioned anything about switching kittens that I should just ignore it, that it wasn’t true. At the show when I told her daughter that I understood why she had liked my kitten so much, she didn’t have the first idea of what I was talking about. I’m not making anything of that because it has me totally confused, but I wanted to write it down because it kind of sent of warning signals when it happened…..
Just Let Me Drive 
If you have purchased an expensive pedigree cat or kitten from a *registered pedigreed cat breeder & you are not satisfied with your purchase & the registered cat breeder refuses to want to deal with you. You have emailed them, called them, the breeder will not answer you whatsoever. But they were quick to take your money that is for sure. You have come to the right site.
If you’ve been defrauded by *registered pedigree cat breeders, please know that you are not alone. You can reach out to others who’ve been taken advantage of, just like you have. Together we are no longer victims, but we certainly are VICTORS, we can heal one another through this experience.
We are CACB.INFO, the survivors network of those taken advantage of by *registered pedigree cat breeders, & were sold inferior pedigree cats whom had compromised health issues before it left the breeders cattery. Due to the impaired health of these cats, we were then were ripped off financially & emotionally by the entire experience.
We are the nation’s only, victor support group for women and men taken advantage of by mainly CFA registered cat breeders. These breeders mainly make a living in their homes as cat breeders & some are serious exhibitors campaigning their show cats all around the world, & some are just hobbist. We are an independent and confidential network, with no connections with the world of pedigree cat breeders registries or governing bodies whatsoever. And we are here to help.
We also provide a safe and productive outlet for the passion many victors feel toward preventing future abuse.
Our web site exists to provide support and knowledge to all trusting, protential cat buyers [who have been taken advantage of & was sold either a sickly cat or kitten], & to help educate the public. We want the word to get out on how disreputable registered pedigreed cat breeders do business in our market place worldwide.
Welcome! Reach out! Get help!
“Well, well, wellie, well, well…” (A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess)
Here’s a few anecdotes to sneak up behind you and yank on your hair…
“In a case of defamation, the best defense is the truth” If this so called breeder is peddling animals that are unhealthy, in turn, causing the buyer to incur additional costs to make said animal healthy again; And said animal causes physical harm to the buyer and/or others, then buyer should have a solid cause of action against the breeder for a defective animal and the resulting damages. Closely review the contract for any clause that would cover or bar that action.
As far as breeding, you’re lucky to have had the falling out with this buffalo chip. To put your kitty back in the claws of a breeder whose “cattery” is full of parasites and disease for breeding purposes would be questionable. As the revered Judge Judy Sheindlin would say, “Do I look like I have STUPID written on my face?”
IMHO, she’s lucky you haven’t filed suit for damages. As an experienced cat breeder that is so great she belongs on the cover of CAT FANCY magazine, certainly she would have seen the ringworm and notice that the diarrhea was a intestinal parasite. Wouldn’t she? Uh…
“Yes, me Droogies… Tis; a sad tale I have to tell about yours truly”. (Burgess)
At the risk of repeating myself… “In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king”. Now poke her eye out… LOL!
Jester
Another great line from Judge Judy is “Don’t Pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” Yep, if I took the case to court I would most definately want her as the judge because I have been one peed on puppy.
The reason I chose not to sue was that at this point I don’t want to give my cat up and the other reason is that my family has been through quite enough through all of this. My daughter and husband would testify and it would be a nasty thing that would take away from the raising of our child, which I really don’t want to do right now. In an email, she tried to say that she offered to pay the vet bills and I said no, which is not true, because she never offered. As much as she would like to say it’s rain, that is an admission of guilt, pure and simple. I would post her name and cattery in a heartbeat to protect otheres if it weren’t for the fact that I know she would involve me in a lawsuit and again the raising of my child comes first.
You are so right about the breeding thing, and it really helped me that you said that. I also thought of the possibility that after all she has been through she may not be breedable. Although she is ringworm free now, if it is a chronic type, it may reappear the next time her immune system is depressed. This may be why the breeder became uncomfortable with me about the possibility of breeding her. So keeping her healthy is of the utmost importance and sending her back there or placing her in contact with one of the breeder’s cats may, as you say, not be the wisest of decisions.
Thank you so much for your comments, you really made my brain go places it hadn’t searched before and it brought up some important points that I had completely missed.
Finally… Someone who knows what their talking about, glad I stopped in. Nice blog BTW! You can be sure I’ll add it to my browse list. Keep up the good work!
What is Ringworm?
I see you still have nothing better to do than sit behind your computer and start drama. We tried to be reasonable with you but you wanted to extort breeding rights and money from us. We have healthy cats & kittens, and for anyone that wants proof of claims then they can feel free to talk to us. We have nothing to hide but the person who writes this blog is the liar. i still have all the emails from her and I think maybe I should post them online for everyone to see how she truly is.
First of all, this blog post is TWO years old. Next up is the fact that I never asked you for money, all I wanted was my papers so that I had proof my cat was worth the 850 I paid for her. I had my cat fixed and so I you can post as many emails as you like. I provided you with proof that I had my cat spayed and you told me that I forged those documents. You also told me you were not going to give me my papers because you were afraid that I was going to breed which was ridiculous because you could have made sure that the papers said that she was not for breeding purposes. TICA told me it was done on a regular basis by breeders who did not want their cats bred. My doctor waited for you to call so that he could verify that she was indeed spayed. You never called. I followed all the rules, you did not. YOU caused this drama not me.
I know what a good breeder is because I bought my australian shepherd from one. When I filed for my paperwork it said, not for breeding purposes, right on the paper. When you pay 850.00 for an animal, you want the papers to prove that that animal is the one it is purported to be.
Bottom line is, You sold me a sick cat, and from what I’m reading, other people have had the same luck and then you tried to make me out to be the bad guy.
Again, anyone who knows me and reads these posts knows that I have 1 cat, 1 dog, and that’s it. I’m not in the business of breeding and I never will be. At one time I may have played with the idea and asked about it, but that’s all it was, was a question. It gave you the fuel to attack me though, and I am sorry I ever asked you about it because I truly did not realize that you would use it to build this huge story about me being a big mean savage beastie woman who was trying to extort breeding rights from you. Where that story fails is that you can’t breed a spayed cat and I had proof that my cat was indeed spayed. Proof which you tossed aside because it did not mesh with the storyline you had written in your own head.
So do what you want, because even if I were to take this page down, which I will not, you can not erase what you have done from God’s eyes. God was watching and He knows what really happened. When I stand in front of Him in this matter, I do so with a clear conscience. When I write this, I know He stands with me.
So rant and rave all you want, but at the end of the day, that is all it is and how people will see it, as ranting and raving. And since God already knows what went down, as they say, “It’s all good.” It’s been two years and I’m over it…But I won’t be bullied…because God is bigger.
You say you haven’t caused drama but you put us on ripoff report and scam informer. And I still have the emails of how great the cat was when you brought it home. The cat was not sick but you trying to spin this around to make look like you’re the victim. Now that is sick and God does know and he is bigger and you are not being bullied. I am not aware of any other problems with sick cats from my cattery. The house is clean, they get the best foods and are tested before leaving to go to their new homes. We have top award winning cats you think we have them as you put in a “dangerous conditions”?Don’t think so. We have sent kittens all over the world and the US. We have to go through the USDA for that and follow strict guidelines. I will say that this blog is shameful and full of lies to which I have emails to discredit most of it. The kitten didn’t get rigworm from house and it didn’t have fleas. None of my cats have fleas and still don’t. Unlike you we keep records of everything from shot records to any kind of health issues if any and we take pictures of every single kitten that leaves our house. We do follow a code of ethics and I thought you was going to bring us to court. Oh, that’s right, you need a creditable case to go there. Like you said though God knows, and there will be judgement for all sins. Including lying. And dont worry about rip off report that soon will be taken off. Now have a good day.
How about the lady who bought two sick kittens from you who also tried to get you to speak with her vet? She says that not only did you refuse the medicine these cats were on to make them better when she returned them to you, sick as they were, you released them back into your general populace. And then, after she posted what happened to her, She writes that you threatened to sue her.
When I read that report, I felt like wow, I’m not the only one who spoke up and then just recently, someone else posted about how they bought a sick cat from you. And now there is a third. How many people are going to have to speak up, before you understand that what you did to us was wrong?
In what kind of reality are we not the victims? In what kind of reality are these cats and kittens not the victims?
Let’s talk about the truth, because it is really important here. The truth is that I do have medical records supporting everything I have said here. Is my vet lying too? How many people are lying here and what is their motive?
How many comments are you going to post here and how many people will you call liars until you can’t keep the truth from invading into your reality anymore?
I wanted no money, I always said I wasn’t going to court over this, and I spayed my cat and still never received the papers I was promised. There go all my motives. My motive for telling the truth however is two-fold. The first reason is that no one deserves to go through the heartache of watching their kitten die. Mine was minutes away before the IV was placed. If I can help people not have to go through that, I have an obligation. The first rule is “do no harm.” The second is, “Stop harm from being done.”
The second is that no kitten should ever go through what mine went through. And I’m concerned that since you place blame on your customers and not your cattery, that you aren’t addressing any of our concerns.
I honestly don’t understand you. And I wonder how God felt when you talked about how he punishes lying. If you don’t even respect Him enough, to know that He is not going to let that go, then I don’t stand a chance of getting you to come clean about what is really going on here. In a sense, I did take it to the highest court there is, and I leave it in his hands. You are in my prayers, that your heart is changed and that you see things for the way they really are. I’ve forgiven you and moved on, but the fact that you have come to attack a two year old post no one but you or I reads means that you, in your heart of hearts feel really bad for what you’ve done, and you think this is how you can fix it. But placing blame on others only makes you feel worse, but you don’t know what else to do.
I’m here to tell you, that you can always stand up, right where you are, and decide you are going to start doing the right thing, right now. God is good all the time, and His smile is so bright that doing the right thing becomes as natural as breathing after awhile. That’s what I really want for you. I think you carry around a lot of pain and heartache and I do think that you are as much of a victim when you sell a sick cat to someone as either the cat or the buyer, because God didn’t create you to do harm, He created you to do good. Every time that you call people liars, when you know they are telling the truth, it harms you as much as it harms them. I don’t wish what you are feeling on anyone, because it must be awful. There are no winners here. Not me, not you, not anyone.
The only thing I can do is keep praying, and to let you know I forgive you and to beg you to come clean with yourself and with God and to never ever sell a sick kitten again or allow them to become sick in the first place. Maybe you feel like admitting the situation is too much for you, but the reality is that when it does eventually catch up with you, as it always does, for everyone in life, you will have lost the chance to choose and the result will be that you also will have gained all of the consequences.
that come with the choices we make in life.
So the choice is yours, and I sincerely hope you make the right one. I sincerely hope that things work out for you.
I go to Women’s Christian luncheons and at one of them I heard an inspirational speaker say something that I carry with me that helps in times of adversity:
When you find that life has brought you to your knees, while your down there, you might as well pray.”
I hope you find what you need. I truly do.