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!

But a picture of a dead cat doesn't prove that a cat bit it..... and blood on the kitten just shows that it has been in contact with blood, could be it's own blood for all you know. Nothing would come of them 'taking her to court'. They sound like they just want 80 quid, which is what unpaid at a rescue for my common black short hair Tom cat.

Another one doubting the story - I've known cats that absolutely hated each other and seen some very impressive cat fights, but a six month old kitten killing another cat? Don't think so.

I agree with others saying that unless there are kittens about and it's the Mother Cat doing the attacking, Cats don't kill each other.

I don't know what their game could be but tell them to gtf.

if she doesn’t pay they’re going to take her to court

She needs to tell them she wants to see a post mortem report from the vet and results of dna samples that would be on their cats neck that match her kittens dna before she pays or else she will happily see what the courts say.

However, she should not have let her kitten go to someone else’s home to be looked after, does she know they have all their vaccinations? if the kitten is used to being an only cat it would have hated to be penned in with 10 other territorial cats poor thing.

Has your sister actually spoken to her friend?
Sounds like friend’s boyfriend is the one mouthing off here.

Your sister was mad to give her cat to anyone who has ten cats.

never heard of house trained cats killing other cats

also 80 is not alot for a pure breeed

Did your sister pay the woman to look after the cat at all? or was it a freebie?

Sorry like everyone else has said - I call bullshit! There is no way a 6 month old kitten would kill another unless they were a lion.

Utter Bollocks and I suggest your sister ends her friendship with this deviants.

1. it’s ridiculous to let someone with 10 existing cats look after an unknown cat. All cat owners know cats are territorial.
2. in my 20 years as a cat owner I’ve never known a cat kill another cat. Scrapping yes, hissing yes, pouncing yes, biting yes, killing never. A scrap is enough to sort the pecking order.
3. 10 cats in a normal household is a massive amount of cats to live together. Are they breeding from them?

They're bullshitting.

First off, my rare breed cats were £400+

Moggies are about £20-80

Secondly cats don't just kill other cats.

There's an answer to this and it's "See you in court".

I doubt the kitten killed the cat. Plus if they have pet insurance the insurer should cover what they paid for the dead cat.

£80 is the price you pay to rehome a moggie, not an expensive cat at all In fact I've paid more than that to rehome a bog standard moggie. You're looking at about £500 plus for a purebred (at least that is what I have seen for British Shorthairs)

What kind of an idiot leaves a kitten with a bunch of cats? Tell her to sue and your sister will challenge that she put the kitten at risk. What a nonsense. Nobody should have 10 cats unless they live on a massive farm anyway, cats need a lot of territory.

My ex-cat got a jugular wound one time that had to be glued back together. Another time he got pancreatitis from scratches. An ex-neighbour's kitten had a fatal head wound that the vet said was from a fox, but even that is very unusual.

Cat could have died from anything and your sister’s cat only made the wound post death. It seems highly unlikely a 6 month old cat would kill another. I’m not a 10+ cats type cat person, but even I know it’s bloody stupid to just drop one new cat in amount others and leave them, so I don’t think your sister’s friend is very clued up on what may or may not have happened.

I don’t think your sister is obliged to pay but this should be a lesson learned - it is outright cruel to put a cat in a new environment with so many other cats. Cats are very territorial, it would have been a very stressful and frightening experience for the cat. Next time she should get a cat sitter or use a cattery, or ask a friend who doesn’t have pets of their own.

Boyfriend is trying to rob £80 from your sister because he thinks she's a soft touch. Is she?

Bullshit.

My family has had some large, raggedy, borderline psychopathic cats. They never did serious harm to any other cats, because cats don't kill other cats. Even if your sister's idiot friend locked them in a room together, they would end up sitting as far apart as possible, spitting and swearing, with a few nose scratches and at worst a torn ear. I second the advice to ask for a vet's certificate confirming that their cat (assuming it exists) was killed by another cat. They will not be able to provide this.

Moggies in the local pet shop are £260 and a pedigree is the thick end of £6-800.

What is the £80 for ?

This reeks of bullshit.

If your sister is daft enough to pay, then she should at the very least pay the £80 to a registered breeder and get a replacement cat, rather than handing the money to the friend.

I strongly suspect the friend made up the story to get some money. Is she broke ?

£80 is about normal for a mog, definitely not an expensive breed. One of my pedigrees was £500 - just to put it in perspective.

I wouldn’t pay this, your sister is not at fault at all. If friend owns several cats she would know that cats are very territorial and that putting another cat in with no intro is a recipe for disaster

I call bullshit on this too.

There could have been blood transferred onto the kitten by it having a nosey at the already dead cat.

Absolutely no way on this Earth a six month old kitten killed a full grown cat on its own turf.

No contact with actual friend, she’s not replying to messages. Her partner is the one demanding money etc.

She wasn’t paying for her friend to loomagye the kitten - she was talking about needing to find a cat sitter and friend offered to have him.

My sister and “friend” have only recently reconnected after falling out over something else. Between not wanting to fall out again and hating confrontation, I think my sister is thinking she needs to pay just to avoid the drama!

Good advice about getting confirmation from the vet that it was another cat that killed theirs - according to what partner hey took the cat the vet when they found it so should be easy enough to confirm?