Woman posts her gripe against a Canadian Maine Coon cat breeder on Reddit.com

This is a woman who has become thoroughly pissed off with a Maine coon cat breeder in Canada. Note: I have made the presumption that the complainant is female for the sake of convenience.

She decided to advertise to the world on Reddit.com, which is a highly viewed social media website, her discontent with this breeder. It is a long post (see below) but the basic gist of it is that she bought a red Maine Coon kitten at a distance, without visiting the cattery. I guess this is going to happen in Canada where you have to travel very long distances because of a very low population relative to the size of the country. 

But this story exposes the great dangers of doing that. She complains that her kitten was sick but their health is improving. She spent C$750 on a veterinary bill. The vet did diagnose a health problem from which it appears the cat is recovering. The complaining woman wants her money back. She was to return the kitten and her bill reimbursed.

Maine Coon kitten. THIS IS NOT THE KITTEN IN QUESTION. This picture is here to illustrate the page, no more. Image in public domain.

I think she's got herself into a complete tangle to be honest. She's developing a connection, I guess, with the kitten which means that she won't want to relinquish the cat anyway. She is having great difficulty in being reimbursed. The breeder appears to have created conditions for reimbursement which are difficult for her to comply with.

My reading of the post is that this breeder is not as bad as she makes out but I don't know sure. I am guessing and reading between the lines. I'm not saying that the complainant is wrong. I am saying though that she made a mistake in not visiting the breeder to check out the kittens. 

Although to be totally fair that may not have assisted in this instance because initially the kitten appeared to have been healthy. Is it wise to buy a kitten at a distance like this? When you buy remotely like this and the cattery is perhaps a thousand miles away it makes matters very difficult. There is a physical barrier between the purchaser and the seller. You can't visit the cattery and make your complaint in person.

This gives the cattery an upper hand which is very hard to overcome. This kind of difficulty needs to be avoided. It can be avoided if the cattery is nearby and if the contract is a good one. I would insist on a contract which provides the purchaser with the right to return a cat within the first month of ownership together with a full reimbursement of the purchase price. Something like that would avoid this sort of situation which is highly unfortunate. Does she have a contract? That is the key.

I have no right to make any suggestions but I would suggest that this woman moves on. I don't think it is a great idea to publicise a bad experience with a cat breeder on a social media website. You are in danger of defaming the person. You are in danger of being sued for defamation if you're not careful. From her point of view, she is speaking the truth but she paints a picture of a disreputable cat breeder in general when the matter may be simply about one cat that the breeder would say is a one-off unfortunate situation. 

She's is very angry. Be careful about posting on social media when you are angry. It can lead you down an unhelpful pathway.

The embedded Reddit.com post that I referred to is below. This will disappear in time almost certainly. I can guarantee it will because the woman concerned will eventually pull the post from Reddit.com and when that happens it will disappear on this page. I'm sorry if it has happened already. But the moral of the story still holds true about purchasing a kitten. Perhaps the overall moral is wider than that namely that people should adopt a cat from a rescue centre instead. You never get these sorts of problems when you do that, do you?