We chose to buy Ruby back from her previous owners and the plan was that we wanted to find a new forever home for her to live in. Unfortunately Ruby wasn't allowed to stay with us for long:-( You can read here why:
I was told several times by Ruby's previous owners that she had "a bit of a cold from time to time", which meant that she was withdrawn from at least 2 shows. Apart from not going to shows, there were several periods when she was not let out into the run because she was sick. We were under the impression that she was seen by the owners' vet several times, but all communication was by phone of when I saw her owner at shows; I hardly ever got any information in writing.
Her owners mentioned on several occasions that Ruby is very small and I suggested to them to take her to the vet and have a full examination performed, for instance have a full blood work done to see if there was anything functionel wring with Ruby. If the blood sample didn't show anything, they could ask the vet if a more extended examination of Ruby would be the way to go. But every time her former owners chose to not do anything but to wait. Even though there are differences in the size of the kittens in any given litter, Ruby is the only kitten out of 7 who is small. 11 month old Ruby weighs barely 2 kg and in comparison her brothers and sisters all weigh 4 - 5 kg. In the 8 month Ruby is with her former owners she only gained about 900 grams.
Her former owners then send a letter saying that they would like to sell Ruby back to us and we chose to offer to pay them the full price, but this is when we are NOT aware about the fact that Ruby HASN'T received proper veterinary care while living with her former owners, a fact that played a vital role when we later decided NOT to pay the full amount for Ruby after all.
When Ruby became ill in our home we immediately made contact with our vet, with the following results:
On Monday June 18th 2007 Carli observes that Ruby is breathing differently from usual. She calls the veterinarian that is on call and describes Ruby's symptoms and based on that description he asks us to keep her under observation until the next morning where he suggests that she should make contact with our usual vet if her condition becomes worse. The day after I (Carli) call the vet again and get an appointment at 10 am with our regular vet. When I get Ruby out of the carrier he asks what her story is, and I explain that she a kitten from our own breeding we have bought back because she hasn't become big enough to be used for breeding after all. He then asks me why we have bought her back and I tell him that it was easier for us to buy her back rather than discuss with her former owner, this is due to the way the cat fancy works. When he's looking at Ruby he tells me that he already has a theory as to why she's so smalt, but an x-ray will probably tell me the full story better.
Once the X-ray has been developed he tells me that it looks like she has had a chronic infection in her lungs, and that it has been there for more than the 2 months she's been living with us. And that I "must have a lot of emails telling you that she has been sick?", which I can confirm with the reservation that some of the information regarding her illness has been given to me orally, either by phone or on shows. My vet suspects that it's due to the chronic infection in her lungs that she hasn't grown properly. When hearing this I become partly shocked, partly disappointed to hear that Ruby apparently haven't gotten sufficient veterinarian care, even though I was led to believe so. I ask him if I should have had Ruby checked when she came home and he answers that "if there are no symptoms how would you know that she's sick?". He gives Ruby some antibiotics and pills that he want me to give her every day and that I should bring her back 3 days after because we need to see if the infection can be taken down by the pills or not.
He also explains to me that what likely has happened is that the infection was taken down to a level where it was not gone but still thriving in her lungs. And had her former owner taken her in for an X-ray it would have showed that the antibiotics wasn't efficient enough and thus the vet could have given her a longer or more strong antibiotics and that way the infection could have been cured.
Wednesday morning I call the vet again because Ruby has taken a turn to the worse and I get an appointment for later that day, but from the time I called the vet and the hours from there, Ruby improves and I call and cancel the appointment. Both on Tuesday and Wednesday Ruby is eating, sleeping and use the litter trays, but besides seeming a bit more tired than usual, she's looking better. She's not hiding from us but is lying at her usual favourite places.
Thursday morning I (Carli) call the vet because Ruby has a rapid, superficial respiration and I can't get in contact with her at all. Unfortunately my vet can't give me an appointment before 2 pm and I assess that it is better to take her to the vet that has seen her from the beginning, rather than talking to a new vet and start all over again, so I accept the 2 o'clock appointment. All morning I am sitting with Ruby on the couch, in my arms, and at 11 am she passes away, quietly. My feelings regarding her death are hard to describe. I felt that I had let her down on so many levels, first when selling her to an uncaring owner, and thus not giving her the full and painless life she so deserved, but also that had I taken her to the vet when we first got her, I might have prevented her from dying.
I went to the vet at 2 pm and asked him to do a post mortem; because that is the only way we can know for sure why she died. At the post mortem he finds that she died from FIP and I ask him if it was due to the chronicle infection in her lungs, that weakened her immune system and that made it easier for the corona virus to mutate and develop into FIP? The vet agreed with me in this.
Since no one knows where Ruby got the chronic infection in her lungs or the corona virus that developed into FIP, but it looks like she wasn't given sufficient medical or veterinarian care in her former home, we feel that we are NOT obliged to pay the full amount for Ruby to her former owners.
When Ruby got sick and died we didn't inform her former owners right away and that was due to the fact that we first wanted to know why she got sick and subsequently why she died. After she died we weren't sure that we could handle to talk to them without bringing a lot of emotions about the subject from our part. We didn't send them an email either, because in our opinion such news is better told in person or on the phone. When Carli called them they told her that they were of on vacation and we felt that it would be better to call them after their vacation and not spoil that for them. At that time we were sure that we would also have the result from the pm but unfortunately that came much later. When Carli calls them after their vacation the only reaction we get is an email, half an hour after the conversation was finished(!), stating that they are still demanding the FULL money refunded for Ruby? While Ruby has been living with us they have shown no interest her at all other than to get their money back.
When we decide to refuse to pay them all of the money back her former owners send a complaint about Carli to Felis Danica's board of complaint. When the board decision finally arrives we are shocked to read under Ruby's former owner's statement that despite the information given to us prior to her coming to live with us again, Ruby has NOT been seen by a vet more than once! This makes it even more evident for us that we are not to blame for her lack of size or her subsequent death. shocked
Time will show what Felis Danica's board of complaint will decide is the right decision in this situation, although we haven't got high hopes.
01.29.08
We finally got the decision from the board and unfortunately they chose to play it safe, meaning that they have only looked at the fact that we have signed a paper stating that we will pay the full amount back to Ruby's former owners. They do mention that she has been sick while living with her former owners but that's all, they don't take that into consideration at all nor do they condemn that she was only taken to a vet once, despite the fact that her owners do admit that she has been a bit sick from time to time afterwards.
So what have we learned from this experience? If a breeder in the future buy a kitten from us and then wants us to take it back, we will not sign any papers until our own vet has given it a thorough check-up before we decide whether or not we will take the kitten back and at what price. We have never demanded this before but we haven't before dealt with owners who DIDN'T take the kitten/cat to a vet when need be. Looking back we can see that we should have refused to sign the papers when Ruby's owner brought her to us, at least until our own vet had had a look at her. Even though we feel appalled about the board's decision it's nothing compared to how we feel knowing that Ruby must have suffered horribly all those months when she was sick and she wasn't taken to a vet and given proper medical care. It's a small comfort that she's no longer living with people who obviously were not able to care for her the right way.
05.20.08
We chose to send an appeal to Felis Danica's executive committee but we suspected that they would just approve the decision the board of complaint had issued, because this is usually they way the appeals go. Apparently the executive committee agrees with the board that it is only the law they have to take into consideration, not if the cat has suffered in any way. How utterly sad that only the law counts. We have since the final decision thought a lot about where we want to go from here and the first step was taken by Carli, when she decided to withdraw her membership from Racekatten, because we still don't want to award money to people who can't treat their animals accordingly. Allan will stay as a member of Racekatten for now, while Carli takes a pause from the cat fancy and rethink whether or not she wants to breed cats anymore and if so in which organisation, because none of the existing organisations are "perfect", far from it actually.
According to the law about registration in Denmark we are not allowed to disclose Ruby's former owners on our homepage. And according to the laws regarding animals in Denmark we can't ask the police to investigate Ruby's case because once an animal dies you can no longer investigate if it was submitted to cruelty or not.
Best regards,
Carli & Allan
12.20.10
We have had the opinion for a long time, that the Board of Complaint under Felis Danica was incompetent and couldn't make the decisions and work they were suppose to and FINALLY Felis Danica has acknowledge this fact and has desided to decommision the Board in Fall 2010. Unfortunately any decision, wrong or right, which the Board has made in the time it has "worked" will not be able to be overturned.