Posted on 11/30/2016 6:56:04 AM PST by Gamecock
But, as one woman found out, scammers are trying to sell people fake hairless sphynx kittens by cruelly shaving regular kittens and pulling out their whiskers. JoAnna Dyck, from Alberta, Canada, bought what she thought was a sphynx online.
She paid £560 for the cat, which was delivered to her home after the breeder refused to let her come and pick him up.
‘He was like a little tiny kitten, no more than eight weeks old, and he was naked. Completely hairless,’ she tells CBC. Vlad, as he was then named, ‘looked like a sphynx because he was very, very skinny and his face was really angular’. However, JoAnne says that the kitten couldn’t get along with her other cat, so soon after buying him online, she turned to a Facebook buy and sell group to find a new owner for Vlad.
He was bought by Shaniya Yung, who noticed when she got the kitten home that he was covered in little cuts and had a large gash on his tail.
The kitten also failed to settle there, and he didn’t like being touched or cuddled – which is unusual for regular sphynx cats, as they like to keep warm.
Shaniya says that the little cat just sat on the floor with his tail tucked under him, trembling. She took him to the vet to see if they could find out what was wrong – and was stunned to be told Vlad was likely not a hairless cat, and that the cuts and wounds were probably caused when the dealers removed the cat’s fur, either by shaving it or with a hair removal cream.
‘The vet said the cat had cuts on his skin, and that they were most likely caused by razor burn or Nair or something like that,’ JoAnna says. ‘I thought he was crying for his mum, but he was probably in pain.’ The cuts on his tail had become so infected that the vet debated amputating it. Shaniya took Vlad home with some medication and the cat started showing signs of recovery – and she noticed hair beginning to sprout out of his ears and feet. A week later, Vlad had grown a full ginger coat.
Fortunately for Vlad, he is now happy and healthy, still living with the woman who bought him from JoAnna. For her part, JoAnna recommends that anyone looking for a pedigree should go to the breeder’s house and ‘if they won’t let you come to their house, their residence, it’s a probably a bad sign’.
If you’re thinking about buying cats you’ve found on an internet site, the RSPCA has the following advice: ‘We advise prospective buyers to see the kitten with its mother, ask lots of questions, check paperwork and documentation, and to visit more than once. ‘This is practically impossible to do if buying a kitten abroad or over the internet so, for that reason, we would advise buyers to be very careful.’
I see a cat fight in her future....
First there was fake news. Now it’s fake hairless cats.
I guess things are getting back to normal.
I’m glad to see the kitty’s whiskers grew back. That’s how they ‘feel.’
Anyone shaving a cat for non-medical purposes deserves to have their balls clawed.
That’s a lot to pay for a future item on the Chinese Restaurant Menu.
Agree. It breaks my heart when I read about animal cruelty. So happy about the whiskers too. ;D
I understand that hairless cats are always licking themselves to produce oil to protect their skin, and that oil gets on the furniture, etc. And a woman who had a hairless cat on a show I watched said the cat smelled like old cheese... ewww.
I thought I bought a hairless cat, but it was just a shaved...
That’s a lot to pay for a future item on the Chinese Restaurant Menu.
POST OF THE DAY!
___________________________
Almost skinned!
Hey! Are you the boys that shaved mah cat?
Uh... huh... uhhhhhh... huh-huh that was... uh... other kids?
A fool and her money will soon be parted . . . .
Poor kitty. Anyone who pays 8 hundred bucks for a cat has it coming.
Horrible. It’s a very lucky thing the poor baby’s eyes weren’t damaged, too, if they used Nair.
Barbaric!!!
So she should shut up and love this cat as well.
LOL - seriously!
Yeah, the poor thing is going to need a lot of love from now on. Shame.
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