I actually did that 14 years ago. I was looking for a kitten. I wanted to get one at the Humane Society, but I hadn't gotten there yet. My husband, kids and I were driving around town doing some shopping. The pet store was right next to the office store we had just been in. My girls begged us to please go in so they could see the animals. We ended up going in. We looked at every single animal, fish, rodent, etc. that was in the store upon the girls insistence. The last thing we looked at was this tiny little orange and white kitten. It was the only kitten in the store. They said they had a litter of kittens that someone had dropped off there that they found on the side of the road. I know you all probably think I'm naive, but I did and still do believe this story. This happens a lot around here. It's how we got our last cat too.
My oldest daughter found a litter of kittens on the side of the road on a foggy night. They didn't have the heart to leave them there. But, anyway, this little kitten was the only one left. We bought everything we needed for our kitty and went home. We were all in love with him right away. Two days later, he was crying and could barely walk. My husband picked him up and felt that his belly was hanging down. We knew something wasn't right so we brought him to the vet right away. The vet examined him and found his insides were coming out through a hole in his belly. The vet said he was born that way. We have no idea how we didn't notice this right away. He had a $600 surgery to save his life. The next day, we called the pet shop to tell them what happened. We told them we wanted some kind of compensation for this since it was a birth defect which they should have known about before putting him for sale. They refused to do anything. We fought this for a few weeks before giving up. We weren't surprised when 2 weeks after that, they had an Out of Business sign on the window.
We still have this cat. He's been through 3 surgeries. The last two were for urinary stones. He nearly died on us last Christmas time. We still don't exactly know what happened. He was vomiting and losing weight. The tests didn't show anything. The vet gave him a few syringes of fluid under his skin and he was better a few days after that. That cat sure is a fighter!
