The cat’s owner, Jamie Maietta, says that the commercial pet groomer skinned her cat alive when all he was in for was to remove some matting in his fur.
When Jamie saw her cat she started to cry because of the state his was in. However her description of being skinned alive was a slight exaggeration to say the very least. The skin has been cut and irritated.
I can’t show the pic here because of advertisers. Please click on the link below to see it.
Badly groomed cat (Luther). The photo is by Jamie Maietta.
It was a bad and crude job of work it seems to me. The groomer, Kelly Weymouth, in her defence says that Luther was in poor condition when she received him and his matts were tightly knotted.
Weymouth says that she warned Jamie that the grooming would irritate the skin. She also claimed that Luther’s age caused the skin to be less robust which meant that it was impossible to remove the matts without causing some irritation of the skin.
“His skin though is that a 90-year-old person….and to take mats off from that is impossible without causing some type of irritation.”
However, the argument put forward by Luther’s owner, Jamie, is sound I believe (except for the exaggeration). She said that Kelly should not have groomed her cat if she had known that it would cause this sort of skin irritation and damage.
I would have thought that a good cat groomer would have told the owner that it would take longer and be more expensive than usual to groom the cat and therefore charged more. That would have allowed her more time to do an extremely careful job. It may have been wise to have the owner in attendance during the grooming at least initially. That would have got the owner “on board” and aware of what was going on. Or, alternatively the groomer should have refused and advised the owner to take her cat to the veterinarian.
My guess is that Kelly was going to fast and too roughly for financial reasons.
Jamie is complaining to the police. This is not a criminal matter in my opinion. It is not cat abuse in a criminal sense. It is bad grooming and therefore a civil matter, potentially a breach of contract. Calling the police will make matters worse.
Although it does not affect the contract between cat owner and groomer because the groomer accepted the work, the cat’s owner has arguably been negligent in letting her cat become so badly matted.
Looks like just a bit more than “skin irritation” to me. There are marks where the clippers dug into the skin. I hope Jamie wins a law suit!
Thank’s Cat’s Meow.
I just found out the groomer is suing this poor woman for defamation of charachter. Im a friend and her cat Luther passed away just 3 weeks after being groomed. Its so tragic.
Thank you Katarina for that information. I will research this and perhaps write another article on this.
Tis why I will never leave the groomers when my cat is being groomed,I trust none of them and I have worked for 3 groomers and all abused the pets in their care,instead of the groomer being $ hungry the groomer should have turned down the job and referred Jamie to her vet so he could be put under then groomed.
We do sanitary trims on Mercy our only fluffy cat with a scissors and great care. I used to body clip horses for winter riding and show and was warned not to use my regular clippers on a cat as they have very thin and flexible skin. Even in civil court they might only recover the cost of the trim and any vet bills. We continue to struggle to give animals real rights across the board. The quickest fix is to pass legislation allowing pet owners to recover on pets calling them living property. I call it kicking a hole in the wall to get things rolling.
Absolutely no excuse to have sliced and diced this poor old cat’s skin to the point of bleeding cuts. I can only assume that this groomer did as she has always done with any cat despite the owner informing her of Luther’s age. The groomer must have been poorly trained to not have considered Luther’s skin to be as tissue paper. Therefore, I believe that the commercial business, as well as the groomer, are liable for damages and pain/suffering.
All reasonable points, Michael. A groomer has the serious responsibility to be careful especially considering a job like this. I’ve shaved cats before and not only did I do it without any nicks whatsoever, the cats LIKED it. I just have a different attitude than most people I think. It goes back to my high school days; I’d always rather turn a project in late but well done, than on time and half-a$$ed. There’s no excuse for hurting this cat, or continuing to hurt him once she saw it was too difficult for her skill set. I think it’s actionable in civil court but she should be shamed appropriately. Lastly, I think you took a little liberty with the title of the article, Michael. When you say skinned alive, I expect you mean it. You scared me!