Being told to pay vet bill

[majesticallycurvy]

Long story short, we accidentally hit a cat through no fault of ours and the cat unfortunately passed away. We offered our condolences to the owners and are sorry for their loss, but they are hounding us to pay their vet bill.

It's a no from us but we're being slandered over it...

Wwyd?

Surely it would make a lot more sense to scrawl a note with the word 'CAT' in big letters and a brief description of what happened and attach it to a lamp-post?

That way, the owners who are looking for their pet will see it, without having to disturb other people with little likelihood of them being or knowing the owner.

You have every right to your opinion, but you could find yourself in very hot water if you ever officially assert that somebody 'caused the death of X' when there is no evidence or certainty that they were to blame.

Do people routinely carry waterproof paper, pens and tape in their cars?

They don't need to know the owner. People looking for their cats make it known.

If you own a cat, it is your responsibility to insure it and pay for its care if you dont have insurance.
This includes in the event of an accident.

Also if the OP saw a cat that she thought she had hit run off, there is no way of knowing for sure that it is the same cat that she's being accused of killing. (?)

This.

I'm sure most people have a pen or two knocking around in their car/handbag/pocket and likely a scrap of paper too. Probably not waterproof, but if the owners are worried about their cat, I'm sure they won't leave it a long time before they go out and look for it.

Alternatively, if you're local, I suppose you could go home and grab the bits for a sign there and return and stick it up, if you're so inclined.

Most people driving in cars are doing so because they need to be somewhere - often with time restraints - but you're assuming that they have time to stop, look for somewhere safe to park and then call vets and go knocking on doors.

Also bearing in mind that, if you only hear a bump when a small animal jumps into your wheels, you've no way of knowing that it's somebody's pet at all - it could be a wild animal with no owner to contact/care about/miss it, a loose stone/pothole or just a piece of litter.

Again, it's expecting an awful lot of a stranger to take more interest in your roaming cat than you apparently do.

Yeah, plenty of people don't bother to stop at all when they hit an animal. People's time is just too important. It's clearly entitled to expect someone to give a fuck about an animal they injured. Fuck the animals.

Incidentally, I genuinely can't believe that there wouldn't be some kind of tracker for cats on the market in these high-tech days. Just a small gadget with a 5G SIM inside that you can clip to its collar, so you could use an app on your phone to track where your cat is at all times.

If this already exists, what possible excuse can any even moderately-caring owner have for not getting one? And if not, I might need to get on to Dragons' Den!

This is all presuming, of course, that allowing your cat to roam freely is for the cat's benefit and not just because you aren't really that bothered about your pet's welfare?

Things attached to collars are strangulation hazards for cats. It's why it is recommended that cats wear collars with easy-release catches on them so they don't get stuck.

@SirAlfredSpatchcock The tech has only just (last 10 years) come down in size to be practical for dogs.

Cats unfortunately take collars off all the time, particularly a collar with something weighty or unwieldy hanging off it.

Whilst Airtags can be put on collars these rely on the cat being near other people's devices (and again, not ditched and they're still in the upper size range of collar tag that you'd put on a dog collar).

They do exist, you can buy them, but they are not really reliable enough to be useful and they still wouldn't stop your cat being run over.

You're twisting my words again.

I never said that people shouldn't stop if they suspect that they might have collided with a cat (that almost certainly injured itself by deciding to run in front of a car).

A lot of people on here seem not to realise that other people have busy lives and the world doesn't stop for their pet. Of course, that's not to say that people shouldn't or don't care, but having a free-roaming cat is letting it effectively act like a wild animal - you can't expect people to treat wild animals with kid gloves.

It's not a child - in fact, if it were and it roamed freely from your house with your knowledge and ran in front of a car, you too would be facing serious punishment.

Fair enough if tracker devices aren't suitable to be attached to a collar (for cats at least), but surely a tiny implant isn't beyond the realms of possibility - maybe done at the same time as the microchip?

Indeed, it wouldn't prevent a cat being killed by colliding with a car, but the only way to prevent that is to not allow the cat to roam free - and most owners tend to choose a more pleasant but riskier life for their pets rather than a more boring but safer one.

The big issue that most owners seem to worry about is in not knowing when their cat has been injured or killed and where they are. If you can click on an app and see exactly where your cat is - and especially if you notice that it hasn't moved for a while - it would be so simple to go to that place and find a cat that is hopefully asleep; but otherwise, if it is bad news, at least you can be aware and take control of the situation, without ever having to rely on the goodwill of a stranger.

I don't agree with outdoor cats either, but it's not so black and white that you can claim all people with outdoor cats don't love them. That's a ridiculous assumption

And FWIW only a cruel person would leave behind an animal they hit without trying to help them / contact owners where possible. That's the very very bare minimum for being a decent person
Not helping a hurt animal because they're worried someone will be rude to them says everything there is to know about them

To be fair, it does partially depend on what 'being rude to them' actually involves. If it's an upset person verbally reacting sharply and not saying thanks for letting them know, that's one thing; but if they're likely to take to SM and post your photo and call you nasty names, which could then lead to others turning on you - the kind of thing that has already been reported at least twice in this thread - then can you blame them?

The cat is already dead, so it will neither know nor care how people react or what happens to it; the courtesy you would be paying is to the owners, and if they will seek to slander/threaten/slur you to everybody, are they the kind of people who really deserve any courtesy?

What kinds of reactions have people who have needed to report a fatal collision to the cat's owners experienced? Is it common to be thanked for letting them know or do a lot react angrily and accuse and blame you for it?

Well, I was grateful to the driver who came to me. I dont know anyone who has been rude in that situation. I have seen plenty of people be annoyed about hit and runs, though. I think it's understandable to be upset at the thought of someone leaving an animal to die. It's better to know your cat is dead than to find it dead later and imagining it had been lying suffering alone somewhere first.

There is a neighbour from the street behind me came looking for his cats collar as it had like an apple tag thing attached to its collar . It had snapped off as he tried to crawl through fence . It did track all his movements .. he showed me in his phone

We've got a GPS tracker for our dog. Not that he's allowed to roam freely! But we've had a couple of episodes of him chasing after a rabbit and disappearing into the forest, so now we can track him if necessary.

Our cats don't wear collars - we've tried but they always manage to get them off. They are rescue cats so didn't grow up with collars.

Batteries need changing on tracker’s frequently so don’t think an implant would work. But yes for cats that keep their collars on they’re a great idea.