To tell my sister not to pay for a dead cat?

[Pecano]

My sister went away and her friend offered to look after her kitten for the weekend (my sister didn’t ask, the friend offered). The kitten is very friendly, puts up with her kids wanting to play all the time etc, and the friend has several cats (like over 10!) herself so said it wasn’t any trouble for her to look after an extra one for a few days.

On the first day, her friends partner stopped my sisters ex in the playground when collecting the DC from school and gave him the cat, stating that it had to go back as it had killed one of their cats. He said their cat was a very expensive breed and she now owed them £80.

My sisters cat has never been vicious or anything, but presumably being around lots of new cats could have led to some fighting over territory etc -apparently the friend/her partner took my sisters cat home and then promptly left for the day, returning at the end of day to find her own cat dead with a neck wound, and my sisters cat with some blood on the fur near his mouth.

Surely if introducing a new cat, you’d supervise them for a while first, or keep them in separate roles to avoid this sort of thing? Obviously they should have arranged some visits or something beforehand but it was a bit last minute and my sister assumed someone who owned several cats would know how to handle this.

AIBU in telling my sister not to pay? She doesn’t have a spare £80 and I think that if you have an expensive cat then you must have insurance surely?? I appreciate that they have lost a beloved pet but it’s not as if it was intentional!

Haha trying it on or what!

Says it all doesn't it how the harassment has now stopped once your sister agreed to go to court

Hopefully that's the end of it for your sister and that "friendship"

WTF? Nothing to do with her? Then who was going to get the £80?

Good outcome. They were obviously just trying it on then.

@Pecano

1. People who BUY expensive cats are scumbags for starters.
2. Secondly, you don't just throw solitary animals together and expect them to get on. That idea was a mistake on everyone's part.
3. If you want someone to look after your cat you get a HOUSE SITTER or pet feeder. Don't mix it with someone else's!
4. Its extremely rare for cats to kill each other, they're either seriously confined and unsupervised, one of them is unusually vicious, or someone is telling a massive lie.

The people who were 'looking after' her cat are to blame for not keeping them separated and supervised. She should not pay.

But in future she should understand you don't move cats if you can help it and you DON'T mix them with other cats.

I’ve never known cats to kill one another. I agree with a PP that cats should be kept in their own home where possible, it’s better to have someone pop in daily to feed them/clear litter and sit with them for a bit than to ferry them off to a random place especially one filled with lots of other cats. Cats are incredibly territorial and will fight to maintain their own territory. Having said that, it’s usually just a noisy quick scrap... A six month old kitten shouldn’t go as far as killing another cat, sounds weird and I think the ‘friends’ may be chancers.

Kittens hide from danger. They don't launch suicidal death or glory attacks. What a dick.

If there had generally been a vicious fight to the death between a kitten and a territorial adult cat, I'm telling you now that the kitten would not have been the winner.

Unusually vicious cats who kill other cats do exist, but unless your sister's cat is actually a six month old lynx kitten, her cat had nothing to do with it.

*had genuinely been a fight

Interesting the friends argument is now that it's nothing to do with her as she wasn't there. Is she saying the DP was? I thought they'd originally said they both went out all day? If they did then surely by that logic it's nothing to do with him either as he also wasn't there!

If he was there, my money's in him kicking or throwing the cat in temper and killing it, then staging the photos.

Either way, not really the actions of responsible, loving cat owners. You would think the friend would be saying it was to do with her, as it was supposedly her beloved cat.

Y is ur cat getting the blame.... could have been one of the others ?

I admit, not RTFT, but I agree bullshit. We have 9 cats (and 3 dogs) and they're all still alive.
Some of the cats pick on the some of the others and sometimes it sounds like they are killing each other, but they rarely even draw blood. If you've ever seen a cat fight, most of it is howling, growling and hissing at a distance of 6 ft. If they do get into it, there may be a lot of fur around, but no kitten would get close enough to an adult cat to bite through the jugular.
I would add that we would NEVER EVER offer to look after another cat in our house. That would be the height of stupidity.

That's bollocks and probably a way of getting money for nothing.
My tomcat had been neutered late in his life and he kept much of cattiness. He's been in wars, went on crusades, fought bravely but he never killed a cat or has been so totally severely injured as to die of it. And he's been bitten on his neck, belly, ears, near his eyes and whatever else (and I know because it was me washing the bloody puss from his wounds with hot salty water and bringing him to the vets for his antibiotics).
So I call this a lie. Especially a cat with a blood around their mouths? First thing he did after every fight was to wash himself thoroughly.

Oh, and my tom is over 13 pounds - he was half that size when he was 1.5yrs old which was when I adopted him.
He could eat a 6 months old kitten for breakfast and still be hungry. No way your kitten did this.

The so-called friend chose to leave the kitten on its own to deal with 10 cats in their territory, and is now leaving your sister to defend herself against this ludicrous accusation from her partner.

She offered to look after the kitten and was responsible for looking after it.

Glad to read your sister called her “friend” out on this. Definitely a scam. What nasty people.

There is always the possibility that your sister's friend is in a dangerously abusive relationship....

Even if your sister's kitten had attacked and injured the so-called cfb of a 'friend', a cat is still legally classed as a wild animal and therefore it's behaviour is not expected to be within your sister's ability to control. Unfortunately this also means that if a cat gets killed by a car the driver is under no obligation to report it, unlike with dogs. I'm going from old knowledge here mind, I don't think the law has changed much in any animal's favour but there may have been a legal precedent set in the courts since then.
Anyway it seems I'm belabouring a moot point since it's sorted now. I'd be tempted to report "cat lady" to the rspca for some guidance at the very least...!