Who should pay the bill?  

The president of our group is negotiating with the store and I suspect we'll end up splitting the bill. She's not happy about it though as we were pressured to take the cat in to begin with and then when it turned up sick the store people were really nasty to us. They threatened to euthanize all our other cats if we didn't come evacuate them, and with almost no notice.

It sounds to me like this was a no-win scenario. They would have been pissed if you didn't agree to take the cat, too.

Yeah it is somewhat a no win situation, which is why I suspect we'll end up splitting the bill.

SO did you go back for the others? What will you do with them? I wish I could take a kitty but we are at our limits for our area for furries (we have 2 dogs, 3 cats and a rabbit)other wise the kitty we found last week would never have gone to the SPCA.

A bunch of people went and evacuated the cats. The next day they went in again and bleached out all the cages and everything in them. The following Saturday the adoption center was up and running again.

I am so glad it is working out. I have wanted to volunteer at our local SPCA but I am a stay at home who home schools my kids. I have offered for me and the girls to come down and help but we have some legal kinks to work out with insurances and stuff first.

This group takes younger volunteers. Actually that's how I started. My daughter was in 6th grade and had to do some community service. After she did it, we both wanted to continue.

My oldest is ok as she is 10, and they are sorta ok with the 8 yr old. It's the 4 yr. old they have an issue with. I told them she would be happy just to hold the food bucket when they go around to the cages or even stack cans, which the woman who runs the center is ok with it's the higher ups who have "concerns". When we are there she is all over taking care of the Barn yard critters and I believe she may have talked my husband into a set of chicken (based on if we can have them in our neighborhood). As you may be able to tell we are in a rural area so our SPCA has everything from Lizards the college kids do not want anymore to horses and cows.

We do have people who bring younger children in when they come, but then we don't have barnyard animals, only cats.

What a great way to teach life sciences in a homeschool setting. I hope it all works out.

Not only a good way to teach about life but about different animals too, and how to care for them. The higher ups are worried about someone getting bit since a lot of the animals that are brought in are found in woods or fields and are feral. The only reason they put down is for illness and unfortunately rabies is found all to often in the feral cats especially, the dogs too.

and to get them away from video games and such things...

Not only underhanded, but they were very, very rude. Not only when the cat got sick, but when the first pushed up to take it in.

Nope it doesn't. Probably to keep good will with the store, there will be some agreement to split the bill.

I agree, but in the interest of peace with the store mgmt., I wouldn't be surprised if the bill gets split.

At least a split is a compromise, better than them totally refusing to own up.

Yeah, of course I don't know if the store is even willing to do that. But they ought to.

We do allow animals to be returned and in this case the adopter returned the cat. The adopter didn't take the cat to the vet and authorize the treatment.

The owner returned the cat and the store authorized the bill. Parvo isn't something that is routinely tested for btw.

Oh I misunderstood....it should be the responsibility of the store since they are the ones to do the test without permission of your group. Yes I know that unfortunately parvo isn't something that can be tested routinely, I was actually talking about the FLV/FIV tests but since the owner returned the cat that would then put the responsibility on the store since they authorized the tests.

I'm pretty sure the store is responsible, legally at least...

I wonder if the nice pet store manager agrees with that. :-)

Yeah, although I have actually done that, didn't know the owner, paid the bill myself.

I think the store was somewhat stuck in a bad position (partly of their own making) too, because the person who adopted the cat gave it back. Also it was late and by the time they did get hold of us, it was almost closing time for the vet. So, I'm thinking they authorized the payment because of the time deadline and not knowing what else to do and on the assumption that our group would pay for it. But they still should have cleared it with us if they didn't intend to pay the bill.

Yep. Although in my mind, the store was responsible for the bill the second that they authorized the treatment, in the interest of good relations we should split it. Although the store does have the upper hand a bit here as they can evict any rescue group that doesn't meet their "standards"...