I have had a bad year. My two twin silver tabby brothers both passed away this year who were the light of my life, granted they were 17yo but I was not ready for the story to end. I also lost a 3yo feral who had lived outdoors since he was a kitten in a shelter I had built for him, who I took in and domesticated last winter (he was very sick) who required months of convalescence, then intensive cage training before incorporating him into my cat family. All together 3 cat deaths in the house in pretty rapid succession.
Remaining, I have a 1 1/2yo silver tabby male (who has lived here for exactly one year) and I am in essence starting over with him as my third generation of cats, some 35+ years of cat keeping. The 1yo is named Kinney who has also had a hard year watching the others get sick and disappear before his eyes. I wanted very much to make it up to him and get him a companion of the same age. Kinney has been a very good sport about living with geriatric cats who were "played out" and the feral who was initially vicious and chased him constantly.
I have Kinney's geneology back four generations and so I located the kennels in his ancestry and wrote to each of them asking if any similarly aged companions might be available. Mostly, I got "NO" responses, but one breeder claimed to have two twin 1yo brothers (silver tabbies) available for placement, either singly or together. The pictures of them were very cute, but they were in Atlanta and I am in the Philadelphia area.
I have never done long distance adoption before, but my parents have acquired dogs in this way and have had no problems mailing away a check, then picking up the dog from the airport shortly thereafter - so I decided to give this a try and agreed to take both brothers rather than split them up. So far, so good...
The breeder sent me a contract by e-mail for me to sign with verbiage stating that I was forbidden from ever tranferring ownership to anyone else without the kennel's consent; that I was to contact them immediately should either of them have so much as a sniffle; the kennel was to be notified of their deaths whenever that occured however far into the future; and that I should include instructions for their care in my will. These seemed like fairly harsh terms to me, but maybe indicated the kennel's sincere concern for their offspring, so...
I did sign the contract and mailed away a check for an amount supposedly equal to the cost of the two cats + their airfare + the cost of two carriers. I also volunteered my phone number many times in the e-mails going back and forth so that we could talk candidly and discuss details of my credibility as a potential owner, personalities of the two perspective adoptees, and plans for shipment.
No return phone call was ever received back from the breeder and in fact even after leaving several voicemails on their answering machine, I have to this date never gotten a call back. She seemed to prefer doing business in this anonymous way via e-mails rather than by phone, like it was some eBay purchase or something. The breeder cashed my check and although it was by now getting close to the Christmas holidays, I had still expected that they would find some time to take the kitties to the Atlanta airport for their trip up to Philadelphia after the holiday festivities were over.
First, there was the excuse that she did not have the carriers to send them and so we waited around for 4-5 days for that supposed delay. I had previously asked if I might return the carriers back to her for a refund (my parents have done this) and she agreed to that. That lead me to believe that she had carriers "at the ready", perhaps used for this purpose - so it surprised me that we should have to wait around for carriers. Maybe she didn't want to be bothered with this chore during her holidays or something, so I didn't push it.
Next, a shipment date was proposed (always by e-mail) which I agreed to, which was then suddenly cancelled several hours later due to a supposed snowstorm in Atlanta expected on the shipment date which would cause all kinds of problems. I looked up the weather forecast for Atlanta on that date and it said 55 and sunny. I was pretty steamed and so simply sent her a screenprint of the forecast from the weather service. Next thing, the shipment was on again.
Just now, on the night before they were due to arrive, I receive another (e-mail) excuse stating that the two kitties were discovered to have bacterial ear infections upon their examination for their health certificates and can not travel for 14 days due to their illnesses. Did I want my money back or did I want to wait for them?
I am beyond disappointed due to the delays, and am now having suspicions of having been swindled by a cattery of all things.
COMMENTS PLEASE!!!
Remaining, I have a 1 1/2yo silver tabby male (who has lived here for exactly one year) and I am in essence starting over with him as my third generation of cats, some 35+ years of cat keeping. The 1yo is named Kinney who has also had a hard year watching the others get sick and disappear before his eyes. I wanted very much to make it up to him and get him a companion of the same age. Kinney has been a very good sport about living with geriatric cats who were "played out" and the feral who was initially vicious and chased him constantly.
I have Kinney's geneology back four generations and so I located the kennels in his ancestry and wrote to each of them asking if any similarly aged companions might be available. Mostly, I got "NO" responses, but one breeder claimed to have two twin 1yo brothers (silver tabbies) available for placement, either singly or together. The pictures of them were very cute, but they were in Atlanta and I am in the Philadelphia area.
I have never done long distance adoption before, but my parents have acquired dogs in this way and have had no problems mailing away a check, then picking up the dog from the airport shortly thereafter - so I decided to give this a try and agreed to take both brothers rather than split them up. So far, so good...
The breeder sent me a contract by e-mail for me to sign with verbiage stating that I was forbidden from ever tranferring ownership to anyone else without the kennel's consent; that I was to contact them immediately should either of them have so much as a sniffle; the kennel was to be notified of their deaths whenever that occured however far into the future; and that I should include instructions for their care in my will. These seemed like fairly harsh terms to me, but maybe indicated the kennel's sincere concern for their offspring, so...
I did sign the contract and mailed away a check for an amount supposedly equal to the cost of the two cats + their airfare + the cost of two carriers. I also volunteered my phone number many times in the e-mails going back and forth so that we could talk candidly and discuss details of my credibility as a potential owner, personalities of the two perspective adoptees, and plans for shipment.
No return phone call was ever received back from the breeder and in fact even after leaving several voicemails on their answering machine, I have to this date never gotten a call back. She seemed to prefer doing business in this anonymous way via e-mails rather than by phone, like it was some eBay purchase or something. The breeder cashed my check and although it was by now getting close to the Christmas holidays, I had still expected that they would find some time to take the kitties to the Atlanta airport for their trip up to Philadelphia after the holiday festivities were over.
First, there was the excuse that she did not have the carriers to send them and so we waited around for 4-5 days for that supposed delay. I had previously asked if I might return the carriers back to her for a refund (my parents have done this) and she agreed to that. That lead me to believe that she had carriers "at the ready", perhaps used for this purpose - so it surprised me that we should have to wait around for carriers. Maybe she didn't want to be bothered with this chore during her holidays or something, so I didn't push it.
Next, a shipment date was proposed (always by e-mail) which I agreed to, which was then suddenly cancelled several hours later due to a supposed snowstorm in Atlanta expected on the shipment date which would cause all kinds of problems. I looked up the weather forecast for Atlanta on that date and it said 55 and sunny. I was pretty steamed and so simply sent her a screenprint of the forecast from the weather service. Next thing, the shipment was on again.
Just now, on the night before they were due to arrive, I receive another (e-mail) excuse stating that the two kitties were discovered to have bacterial ear infections upon their examination for their health certificates and can not travel for 14 days due to their illnesses. Did I want my money back or did I want to wait for them?
I am beyond disappointed due to the delays, and am now having suspicions of having been swindled by a cattery of all things.
COMMENTS PLEASE!!!
