As the title says this maybe a familair story to many of you, but its new to me. When i was younger (long time ago now) we allways had cats as pets and i was brought up with allways at least one and usually more cats in the house. Well, recent,y my wife and i decided to get a kitten and we started looking around, we ventually got a persian/maine coon mixed male kitten off a lady in Bradford. He was allways a bit thin, but the vet didnt seem overly worried when he had his innoculations. Well a few days ago he was looking not so well and i thpugh he had worms, he got worse and we took him to the vets. The next day he died of what the vet said was probably a virus caught off his mother, im asuming it was feline leukemia although the vet didnt test to see what it was. Well the cat was bough off a cat 'breeder' who at the time was selling 8 kittens, presumably all of which would be diseased.

Well, oliver as he was called was honestly the nicest cat i have ever lived with, not an ounce of aggresion and liked nothing more than sitting on or next to his humans and was absoultely 100% trusting of us, he never ran away when we picked him up and never ever got grumpy or grouchy and loved following us all round the house, just a lovely cat all round and he is well missed.

What i am disgusted at is that a 'breeder' can be breeding of diseased cats. What i would like to know is who, if anybody, this can be reported to?

you could try the rspca.... but....... don't hold your breath.

I know you call this person a "breeder" but really they are not a proper breeder as the kitten you bought was a cross, which means they don't belong to any proper registration body.... so you can't expect these type of breeders to uphold any kind of standards. In fact I hate even calling them breeders, they are nothing more than people who put 2 fertile cats together and hope to sell the kittens as soon as they can for as much money as they can.

Really sorry that you lost your kitten. He sounds like he was a darling and of course it's not his fault that someone who didn't really care brought him up.

I would go back to the breeder - I have no idea whether the law would bring you any recourse. I would try anyway. Hope you find a new kitty

P

I obviously don't know MarkA's whole story.... but generally speaking this kind of all too common story could be avoided completely if only kitten buyers would do their homework BEFORE they handed over money for kittens. Often ALL the warning signs are there if people woulld just learn beforehand what to look for and what to avoid. There are backyardbreeders and proper responsible ethical breeders and the gap between the two types is massive. If the kitten buying public just learned this, and stopped buying from dodgy backyardbreeders then the hideous tales like MarkA's wouldn't be half as common as they are.

Actually i think breeders should be licensed and all breeding cats certified disease free in advance by a vet as a prerequisite of obtaining and keeping a breeding license. That way it is actually feasible for a 'once in a lifetime' kitten buyer to have some degree of trust in the breeder.

It seems unreasonable to expect a one off buyer to spot a dodgy breeder, even if the signs are blatantly obvious to more experienced people. In fact we visited what we now know by reputation is a much more responsible breeder and the setup was really very similar.

I'm not personally a massive fan of many pure cat breeds as i regard them as genetically weak and in some cases disfigured by inbreeding, so the necessity of having show winners and full pedigrees is not for me a priority. Although, In fact our new kitten is a pedigree, as my wife wanted, likely complete with some of the weaknesses expected of the breed.

I think some simple licensing laws should be the way to go.

oh it sure would definitely help a lot ... but it's simply not about to happen amytime soon (anytime in my lifetime I would hazard a bet at).

The UK simply isn't that far forward (or that interested in) legislation for cats.

I don't know if it is unreasonable (in this day and age of savvy consumers) to expect prospective owners to do some simple homework before purchasing a kitten. OK I know about kittens, but I know jackshit about cars, so when I buy a 2nd hand car, I either take a car-knowledgeable friend along, or I pay for a check & a report from a reputable garage.

I can understand you might prefer cross breeds to pure peds… but getting a cross breed does not mean you don’t get the genetic problems that go with both breeds!! And it also does mean that you are far more likely to be dealing with unscrupulous breeders.

IMO I can safely buy either a pedigree Persian or a pedigree Maine Coon and know with as much certainty as medical science allows at this moment that they are free from genetic problems.

I can never do this with a cross breed as I have NEVER met a single breeder (backyard breeder) of crosses who do all the appropriate health testing. So I think you would be more likely, on many fronts, to encounter a problem with a cross of these two breeds than you would be with either a good MC or a good Persian from reputable breeders.

oh and another thing you would have to consider with a licensing system...

how do we define breeders?

what if my 6 month old unneutered moggy accidentally gets out, gets pregnant and has litter of kittens, am I a breeder or not?

and also don't forget... there are already registration bodies in the UK like GCCF and TICA, and they do hold their members to some kind of standards. But so many people still go to backyardbreeders to buy, mainly because less questions are asked, less demands or restrictions are placed on buyers, and prices are cheaper.

IMO No amount of forced licensing systems will remove backyardbreeders as long as Joe Public still hands over cash to dodgy byb breeders. Where there is a market, and where money can be earned, the dodgy or backyard or unlicensed breeders (if that happened) would still churn out kittens.

Reputable breeders are registered with governing body. BYB/moggie 'breeders' are not, and it was your choice to purchase a kitten from such a breeder Whilst it is very sad your kitten died, I can't help thinking what more did you expect? You buy from a back yard breeder, unvacc'd kitten, I'm kind of bewildered about what your expectations are?


I wasn't an experienced 'buyer' when I purchased my first kitten (pedigree, I don't do backyard breeders), yet I did my research into the breed and the breeders first.


I simply cannot see how licensing can apply to people who breed moggies Who can police this??

What you don't say, Mark, is how long you had had the kitten when it died - obviously you had it long enough to have the vaccinations, that has to be at least three weeks. That seriously limits the number of possibilities as far as a virus is concerned. It's a pity you didn't ask the vet which virus it was, though I would imaginbe it would be impossible to say for sure without testing anyway.

For any chance of any comeback, you'd need to be able to prove to the satisfaction of a County Court that the cat acquired this virus at the breeders place, that's your difficulty.

As for the rest, I agree with the others who have posted so far. It is true that moggies have hybrid vigour but this does not at all mean that any moggy you could buy is more healthy than any pedigree. When you start dealing with the sort of breeders who are deliberately producing "designer crossbreeds" as a cash crop, you are getting into dangerous territory.

Liz

Hi Mark,

I am sorry for your loss, the loss of any Pet is not easy.

There are many Reputable breeders and Rescue centres who like you would welcome a licensed approach to breeding, the trouble is it would be incredibly hard to Police and enforce and it would be incredibly expensive to run. which leaves the question where do the costs for this come from the Tax Payer, those that do not have Pets might be opposed to this, especially with Tax rising.

The other alternative would be to charge for licenses, but many feel this would just encourage more back yard breeding pratices.And it would be unlikely to raise enough to run such a practice, which would leave it relying on charitable donations.

However you have a choice, and people like you can make the change, either go to a reputable breeder, who follows standards outlined by a Governing body, has the Kittens health checked by a Vet prior to going to their new homes and has their Kittens Vaccinated,whos Breeding Cats are screened for genetic faults and disease.
Or go to a Rescue Centre for one of the many Healthy Rescue Cats and Kittens they have in their Care.

If people like yourself say no I am not going to buy a kitten that is so young, not vaccinated,not health checked, then this would force the Bad breeders to do one of two things give up, or take breeding a little more serious and start doing health checks etc, as if they didnt they would not sell their kittens.

Hopefully if you decide to purchase another after you have got over this loss, you will make the change, tell as many people as you can of your bad experience, and hopefully a percentage of them will take it on board, and not buy from Back yard breeders

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