Karabel’s Cattery Christine Arnold Sent me my kitten sick Ancaster.Ontario Ontario

My kitten arrived all stuffed up with large amounts of bloody mucus coming out of his nose when he sneezed. Which was often. The first day I thought maybe it was from the dry airplane air but the next day when it continued I emailed Christine and she said it was nothing- it's just a cat cold . The day after,  he was so sick I took him to the vet and he was put on antibiotics. They didn't help so we did a panel test which cost over $400. It came back that our kitten has calicivirus (FCV) which is a form of herpes. And it is not curable.

All his life he will be plagued with this, especially if he gets stressed. Also, he has Bordatella Bronchiseptica (Kennel Cough) which he is on new antibiotics for. Two different vets confirm he came with these illnesses, because of the time it takes for a cat to show symptoms. And the worst part is that if he had his vaccinations by the vet when he should have, he likely would have been fine.  A kitten should be vaccinated by a vet for FCV at 6-8 weeks of age, and then 4 weeks after.  Our kitten was not vaccinated by a vet until 5 months of age!!  And so, he only came to us with the one vaccine, still needing a booster, which we still can't give him because he is sick.

Christine says she did her own vaccinations but was very secretive about it.  When pressed,  she said she got the vaccines from the vet who vehemently denies it. Then she recanted when we confronted her with saying the vet denied it,  and so she then said she purchased them from the US. And, if she did give him his two vaccinations at the proper time, why would the vet give him his first vaccine at 5 months?  It make no sense at all.  We had numerous emails and conversations with Christine. In the end she  said we can send the cat back to her for a refund. This was after a lot of lies, evasiveness and abusive comments by her.

We have bonded with this little guy and the thought of putting him through another flight would be so stressful for him and would bring on his FCV and we just don't want to do that. And, what kind of breeder takes a sick cat in that will infect her other cats?....or are they all infected with this, I wonder?  And the way she has dealt with us makes us wonder if she would actually even refund us. She is a very strange lady. She sends very aggressive and unprofessional emails with  capitals and yellow highlights, no matter how polite we have remained.  

She has done this even before we got the cat. She insisted he be sent on a flight that would arrive in Vancouver in the middle of the night. We would have to get up at 2:30am to get to the airport to pick him up. We kindly asked if we could arrange another more reasonable flight. She sent her first of many aggressive messages back to us, accusing us of not being cat lovers. So we found another direct flight that came during the day and she didn't believe us until we proved it to her, so she agreed to send him. But boy, was she ever angry, just because we asked!  All we are asking for now  is half the money back for the cat to compensate for all the money and extra medical care our cat has needed and we will keep him and look after him for his whole life.

We have spent a fortune on vet bills and we've only had him for 4 weeks now. But she is ignoring my request.  This breeder needs to be stopped. We called the Cat Fanciers Association and the lady we spoke to's first comment was "Oh oh, what has Christine Arnold done now".  That says it all. We will pursue whatever we need to, to stop this lady from continuing to get away with this.