Quaker sitting= accident

[surrealpink]

I need advice. Some friends of our household asked us to birdsit their Quaker for a few weeks. On the last day, the parrot flew from the living room to the kitchen, and then back again. Both times he flew extremely low to the ground over my male kittens head. The second time around, my cat didn't get up, but swatted at the bird and sliced his skin open. No internal damage. We took the bird to the vet, everything was fine except for needing stitches.

Question:
Are the owners partly responsible for entrusting their bird to a house with cats and a ferret, or are we completely liable for the stitches. Please note, we paid for just over half of the total bill, which was 409$

Any opinions welcome... please!

 

[Auggie's Dad]

This is a parrot site, not a law site. If you want to talk about what's best for the bird, how to care for him, or what the concerns of a cat scratch may be for a bird (there are many) then we can help. If you want to talk about financial liability you're in the wrong place.

As I see it you took responsibility to care for their pet, and while there may or may not be any legal liability I think it's pretty sickening that you would want to dodge responsibility for an injury to a member of their family.

If they were cat sitting for you and they dropped a kitchen knife on him and severely injured your cat how would you feel if they said "Well, you knew we had kitchen knives in the house, so its your fault for trusting your cat to us."

Frankly if your defense is "You should have known better than to trust someone like me with your pet" ... well, that pretty much says it - they should have known better than to trust someone like you.

 

[TexDot33]

Yep, not a legal site, no legal advice given here ... BUT IN MY PERSONAL OPINION you agreed to take responsibility of your friend's parrot, there by making you responsible for anything that happened to their pet while entrusted to you.

I will say this, if you offered to pay the half of the total amount for the care of the animal that was very kind of you! And for the record, I would NEVER, NEVER leave my parrots in a house (no matter how safe the owner felt about it) with a cat and/or a ferret ... this situation is a mortal disaster waiting to happen.

 

[surrealpink]

We did already pay half of the bill, and the owners are disappointed and want more. I completely understand why they would want more. I mean, if I left any of my pets in the care of osmeone else, and they ended up needed vet care, I would expect everything to be covered. On the other hand, I also know that, once more relaxed, I would appreciate the amount that was paid. Unluckily, I am not financially sound right now to pay the total amount for Buddy's stitches. I am glad that there was no other damage done. The vet told me that the cut was very clean and there were no other scratches anywhere. I am not trying to be selfish in my "defense" of not paying for the total bill, and its not worth losing friends over,herefore if need be, I will try and find the money.

And I am probably in the wrong for thinking this, but if my cat showed the slightest bit of aggression, I would also do everything I could to get the money for the total bill... in the last 4 or 5 days of the sitting, Buddy totally started making "friends" with the cats and flying over them multiple times. I wasn't worried, but would have never left them unsupervised.

 

[TexDot33]

The other problem here is that there is a bacteria in cats claws/saliva (and other ungodly places that we wont mention) that is lethal to parrots ... even though the cut was stitched back together the skin WAS broken, and the bacteria was probably introduced to the parrots system. If his system isn't strong enough to fight it off ... well, there could be even more vet care in the future ... I hate to say it but usually a cat scratch to a parrot has horrible outcomes ... wish we had better news for you.

 

[Auggie's Dad]

My first post may have come across harsh, and I do think paying half is a good offer and hopefully once they calm down from it they will realize that as well.

But I stand by my view that using the defense of "you should know not to trust me" is really a foolish way of putting it. Focusing on the fact that you were attentive and careful and despite best intentions and responsible care an accident happened would be much better.

 

[surrealpink]

Understandable, thanks very uch for the opinions.

Not sure if this would help clarify, but I never meant that I couldn't be trusted... I did everything I could. ANd I kept Buddy very close to me. But, since he could fly, which was much safer in my opinion, in case he did get ganged up on or whatever the case could have been, I think the only way this could have been avoided would have been to have left him in his cage the entire time. Thinking about it now, it should have been discussed how to deal with any issues arising from hiim stayign here with 2 caats and a ferret. Financially, I should have turned down the sitting job, for the birds health as well as the financial due diligence. I wish I could have offered to pay the entire bill, and it not be a big deal, but due to my own situation it's just not an option.

I am thankful to hear that buddy is doing fine, as it stands, the vet was impressed with how well the stitches took, and he is on 10 days of antibiotics, which I also covered, to help against the poison in cats claws and saliva. He will have his stitches out in 10 days, and hopefully everything goes well after that.

I am just hoping to make the best possible out of a horrible situation. Everything went so well for the 2 weeks having him here... it super sucks that Buddy got hurt. I feel so bad for him, I mean he was just trying to play...