Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com.

Dear Prudence,

This question may be more of a moral or ethical sort, but my behavior is being called into question, and I'd like it if you could answer this for me. A friend asked me to watch his cat while he was abroad for two weeks. I came by every day and noticed that the cat was looking a little under the weather. I wasn't concerned, though, and thought the cat was just missing his owner. (I'm not much of a cat person.) The situation got rapidly worse, and one day when I came to the house the cat was obviously very, very sick. It could barely walk. I called the owner in Europe and explained the situation and asked if I should take Kitty to the vet. He said, "No." I explained again that the cat looked to be at death's door. The owner said he'd take care of it when he got home (in three days).

After I got off the phone I just couldn't leave the pathetic animal there to suffer, so I took Kitty to an animal hospital where he was treated for a deadly cat stomach problem. I saved the cat's life. And paid a couple thousand dollars to do so. The owner is refusing to reimburse me and is saying that I shouldn't have gone against his wishes. I feel like I did the right thing. Of course I've written off this friendship, but am I within the limits of proper behavior to demand reimbursement for Kitty's operation? Or did I, as the owner says, intrude into an area where I didn't belong?

--Thank you,

ZM

Dear Z.,

How unfortunate that you wound up looking after a pet whose owner decreed it was a Christian Science cat. ("Let's wait three days," indeed.) Your experience, alas, is a perfect example of the old saying, "No good deed goes unpunished."

Prudie is on your side, however, and the side of Kitty. There are animal cruelty statutes (which are criminal), which differ from state to state, but Prudie thinks your best avenue is a civil suit, probably in small claims court. The vet's records should attest to the cat's precarious condition. You did the only humane thing. One wonders what the outcome would have been had The Traveler been in residence when his pet's condition was moving toward ... well, catatonic. In any case, Prudie hopes you prevail in court and that Kitty's remaining eight lives will be uneventful.

--Prudie, litigiously