'"Ransoming" my friend's cat': Cat owner leaves his feline at friend's house for months without warning, causing the cat to get sick from stress, refuses to pay for the vet bill, then demands the cat back and fumes when he's refused

Being a cat owner is a full-time responsibility. You don't get to drop your cat on a friend for months, disappear, then come back as if nothing happened.

We always tell people that they should adopt cats if they want to. But we say this with a caveat. We tell them that they need to understand that cats, even though they are known as "easier" pets, are not actually easy. Once you have a cat, you are actually responsible for it. It is not a toy. You have to take your cat to the vet, you have to deal with your cat's weird food preferences, you have to learn your cat's habits and routines to know if something changes that you should be noticing. And if you fall on hard times, then your cat has to be a priority in how you handle things. Because your cat is family.

We have all the sympathy in the world for the man in this story, because we understand that hard times happen to the best of us. What we cannot accept is the way that he treated his cat and his friend throughout all of this. His mistreatment of the cat actually caused the cat to become sick.

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"[am I wrong] for 'ransoming' my friend's cat?"

via Unsplash / Kelsey James - livelovekelsey

Picture of a concerned orange cat with brown eyes.
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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It's not them asking for the cat back that bothers us, it's the way that they went about the whole thing. It's them ignoring your calls, it's them not coming to comfort the cat when the cat was hurting, it's them not offering to pay for the vet and food bills, even if it's not now but later. Red flags all over. This just seems like a person who is not in the right place to have any pets right now, let alone take one back who still has medical issues to care for.
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via Unsplash / Sam Chang - answer603

Picture of a cute orange cat with brown eyes.
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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We understand that you did not sign up for a cat, and as much as it pains us, because it truly does sound like you would be a great cat owner, we would understand if you wanted to rehome. Just promise us that if you do give that man his cat back, you will check in every once in a while and make sure that he's still okay.
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via Unsplash / Oren Elbaz - orenlbz

Picture of an orange kitting sitting on the back of a couch in front of a window.
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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via Unsplash / Charan S

Picture of a cute orange cat sleeping.
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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