Baby Blue Eyes Ragdolls review: cat breeder 4

Run away! Trust me. This is going to be a long review but read the whole thing and read all the other negative reviews before you put down a deposit because then you will already be 10 steps ahead of me when I started this process. I am writing this review, not because I want to, but for the person who may get scammed in the future. I hope you read this before you are tricked by a cute kitten picture like I was.
I put a deposit on an adorable bicolor kitten last month. At the time I was speaking to several breeders in the area, but jeanine had kittens available immediately (with the other breeders I would have had to wait several months) so I jumped at the opportunity and put down the deposit without doing my research. Shame on me!

The first red flag was jeanine has no application process. None. I literally asked her for her application questions and she said "I don't have any just don't declaw". She does not care who gets her kittens, no reputable breeder does that. I guess it's just about the money for her, but I was in love with the photo of the kitten and ignoring my instincts. Again, shame on me!

In the beginning jeanine was very responsive, but as soon as she had my deposit she became extremely incommunicative. I put down the deposit 6 weeks before our kitten would be old enough to come home, and asked if we could get weekly photos. I was told (rather abruptly) that she takes pictures every two weeks. Funnily enough she seems to take many photos of her unreserved cats for facebook. One might think that for $1400 per kitten she would send pictures more than every two weeks. She does not seem to care much about the already trapped customer.

At our two week mark I had to text and ask for photos. She then mentioned via text that our kitten wasn't gaining enough weight. She didn't contact me mind you, she merely mentioned this as an after thought when I asked for photos. She told me the kitten may "fail to thrive" and asked if I would like to see other kittens. Our conversation was extremely bizarre and sent me into a panic as she seemed entirely too calm about the fact that our cat may or may not be dying. She truly didn't seem to care and I wasn't sure how serious the situation was based on her ‘whatever, we'll wait and see' attitude.

Eventually jeanine backtracked and told me that everything was fine. It was too early too tell if anything was wrong and not to worry. I asked for more regular updates and she texted me pictures of the kitten 1 day later telling me she was"doing great and eating like a horse!"... Well 2 days later she texted me that the kitten had died.

1) how cruel of her to backtrack and say everything was fine when the kitten was sick and 2) why was she sick?! I asked how the kitten died and jeanine said "fading kitten syndrome" and urged me to google it. Well, I did google it and it seems to me that jeanine was entirely at fault. The kitten was 8.5 weeks old which is older than an animal is typically affected by fading kitten syndrome, so the kitten was likely suffering (and fighting to live!) for quite a while. Also if they are affected they should be brought to a vet immediately. Obviously the kitten was suffering for days, possibly weeks and was not brought to a vet and thus abused. According to google (which jeanine suggested I reference in regard to fading kitten syndrome) the kitten would likely have lived if brought to a vet. A reputable breeder should have known better.

My family is complexly traumatized. We may get another kitten in the future or not, but the entire experience of working with a breeder has been tainted for us. Something is wrong here. I don't know if the kittens are really dying or if there were never kittens to begin with. If every reviewer who jeanine told their kitten died that means she's lost 4-5 kittens in the last year alone. That's animal abuse.

She seems to have many many litters of kittens per season, more than any other professional breeder would ever condone, which means she cannot possibly be sure of the parentage. That's animal abuse and means the kittens will be likely to have diseases and birth defects.

What seems more likely to me is that there is some sort of scam going on. Promising the same kitten to multiple people or maybe she's just collecting deposits to rob peter to pay paul. Whatever the cause, please don't fall victim to a cute photo and go elsewhere.

At best this is a scam, or worse this woman is abusing cats