Ollie

"Hello all my wonderful friends. Sadly I have to tell you that I gained my 'wings' yesterday and I will be carrying out my security patrols and checking for squirrels over the Rainbow Bridge."
-- Ollie's terse obituary as it was announced May 6th on Facebook

The cat world was robbed of one of its brightest and most elegant stars on May 5th when Ollie, the former world famous resident feline of Manchester International Airport (MIA) in Ringway, was deliberately killed off by an unidentified veterinarian acting upon the orders of her present-day guardian. Although her age has not been publicly disclosed, the lovely yellow and white little girl must have been at least ten years old considering that she likely was at least two years old when she first strolled into MIA back in 2007.

In the end it really does not make any difference how old she was in that she had an inalienable right to have lived out her life to the bitter end and then, and only then, to have died a natural death. The precipitate actions of her guardian and the unscrupulous old sawbones who whacked her can therefore only be classified as cold-blooded, premeditated murder!

The news of Ollie's premature demise was announced on the world wide web by an insurance manager identified only by her first name as Jennifer from Northenden, 8.85 kilometers north of Ringway and 8.4 kilometers south of Manchester City, who had served as her caretaker for the past four years. "Hello all my wonderful friends," she, speaking for Ollie, began the May 6th posting on Olly (sic) the Airport Cat's Facebook page. "Sadly I have to tell you that I gained my 'wings' yesterday and I will be carrying out my security patrols and checking for squirrels over the Rainbow Bridge."

As is the case with her age, it is far from clear exactly what had been ailing Ollie. "The vet and my human have been doing their best to help me fight off a pneumonia-type infection over the past few weeks, but I just wasn't strong enough to beat it," the Facebook posting goes on to claim.

Press reports, on the other hand, state only that she had been battling a lung infection for "days." Although these types of infections can vary greatly in terms of severity, the appellations pneumonia, lung infections, and upper respiratory infections (URIs) are, broadly speaking, pretty much interchangeable, highfalutin jargon used to define head and chest colds.

Regardless of whatever they are called, that in no way alters the salient fact that all of them are are every bit as much treatable sicknesses in cats as they are in humans. Doing so successfully requires time, effort, and money and therein, as Shakespeare would say, lies the rub.

The evidence that Jennifer and her designated assassin were unwilling to make that commitment to Ollie is too overwhelming to be ignored. For example, the Manchester Evening News reported on May 6th that she had "slipped away at 10 p.m. on Tuesday (May 5th) during one last cuddle from her devoted owner." (See "Tributes Pour In for Olly (sic) the Airport Cat as She Says Last Farewell.")

"Slipped away" is, quite obviously, sugarcoated double talk for the administration of a fatal jab of sodium pentobarbital. Also, since absolutely no one except her executioner could have accurately predicted when she was going to die, the last cuddle that Jennifer gave Ollie was, in reality, the kiss of death.

"Murmurings of love on his lips, and murder in his damn black heart," is how Travis McGee once characterized serial killer Evan Lawrence's method of luring unsuspecting women into his web of intrigue in John D. MacDonald's 1982 novel, Cinnamon Sky, and Jennifer, doubtlessly, practiced the same modus operandi on defenseless Ollie. The mere fact that she may not have been aware of what was being done to her in no way makes Jennifer's crime any the less reprehensible; au contraire, that only serves to compound the offense.

There are additionally considerably less subtle indications that that was indeed the case. The most obvious of which was Jennifer's indulgence in that old, time-worn sottise about "wings" and the "Rainbow Bridge" as a means of obfuscating the foulness of her dirty deed.

In keeping with their absurd belief that the outrageous crimes of a lifetime can be absolved by simply asking their god for forgiveness, Christians likewise fervently believe that snuffing out the life of an innocent cat can be justified on the grounds that she is going to be better off in their make-believe paradise in the sky. Once the full extent of their turpitude, mendaciousness, dishonesty and, above all, total lack of taste is taken into consideration, it becomes abundantly clear just how amazing it is that any cat, animal, and even Mother Earth are still standing.

Ollie Outside Olympic House

Thankfully, there have been others, such as Henry David Thoreau, who have felt differently. "Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve life than destroy it," he once correctly observed.

The press's adamant refusal to disclose Jennifer's full name is another dead giveaway that all was not on the level. Furthermore, any halfway honest individual would have unequivocally stated from the outset whether Ollie had died of natural causes or had been deliberately killed off.

The final bit of evidence revolves around the petit fait that veterinarians are far better known for the large number of cats that they kill, either intentionally or through malpractice, than they are for those whose lives that they either extend or save. In addition to all of those atrocities, they knowingly condemn countless scores of impecunious cats to early graves through their steadfast refusal to treat them.

Even if Ollie had contracted pneumonia, she could have been treated with antibiotics such as Baytril and Amoxicillin as well as the diuretic furosemide. If she was experiencing breathing difficulties, oxygen could have been administered until she was well enough to have resumed breathing on her own.

Inexpensive home remedies such as using a vaporizer, a bulb syringe in order to drain mucus from her nasal passages, and chest percussion, or the rhythmic tapping on the chest in order to loosen accumulated liquid in the lungs ,could have been tried. If she had lost her appetite, she could have been forcibly fed and given intravenous fluids in order to have prevented her from becoming dehydrated.

She also needed to have been maintained in a stress-free environment and prevented from engaging in any strenuous activities. (See "An Introduction to Cat Pneumonia" at www.vetinfo.com.)

Sadly to say but there are not many owners who are willing to go to that expense and bother in order to save the life of any cat. As a result, they gladly fork over thirty pieces of silver to any quack veterinarian willing to do their dirty work for them by whacking their cats.

That is not only precisely what happened to Ollie but also to St. Andrews' world famous resident feline, Hamish McHamish, on September 11th of last year. In both cases, the international fame that they enjoyed proved to be not only insufficient in order to save them from the murderous urges of their owners but even to spark so much as a murmur of protest from their legions of fans around the world who, supposedly, loved them to bits. (See Cat Defender post of October 18, 2014 entitled "Hamish McHamish's Derelict Owner Reenters His Life after Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect Only to Have Him Killed Off after He Contracts a Preeminently Treatable Common Cold.")

Not satisfied with merely getting rid of Ollie, Jennifer could not resist the overpowering temptation to get up on a soapbox and to treat the world to a few familiar strains of the old refrain about how much she loved her cat. "She was such a character," she exclaimed to the Manchester Evening News in the article cited supra. "I'm devastated. I was with her at the end."

That is truly unfortunate because Ollie would have fared far better on her own in that she, just possibly, might have recovered and lived. Even if that had not been the case, dying certainly is easy enough for a cat, or any other creature for that matter, to do on its own; no outside interference is either needed or warranted.

Besides, a cat should be allowed to die not only in peace but while still breathing clean, unpolluted air. "Man soll nicht in Kirchen gehn, wenn man reine Luft atmen will," Friedrich Nietzsche counseled in Janseits von Gut und Böse.(Aphorismus dreißig.)

Ollie at Her Food Dish

Christians are such an uncharitable lot, however, that they seldom can be satisfied with merely bedeviling the everyday existences of cats but rather they feel compelled to continue their assaults and defamations right up until they are in their graves and, sometimes, even beyond that point. Brainwashed over the millenniums into believing the Jews' blatant lies about the inferiority of all animals, they thus are totally incapable of ever looking upon a cat as anything other than an object of exploitation.

Unwilling to leave bad enough alone, Jennifer had the shameless audacity to go on Ollie's Facebook page May 12th and to solicit donations in her memory for The Animal Sanctuary in Wilmslow, Cheshire, the Society for Abandoned Animals in Stretford, Manchester, and Cats Protection's branch in Stockport, Cheshire. Rather than financially supporting individuals like her and institutions that kill cats for any reason, a far better alternative would be for genuine lovers of the species to save their money in order to one day put it toward prolonging the lives of sick, injured, and elderly cats.

That would not only be a far more fitting way of remembering Ollie but it additionally would save lives in the process. In time it also just might serve as a catalyst for the abolition of the odious practice of whereby owners and veterinarians not only expeditiously get rid of unwanted cats by murdering them but line their pockets in the process.

Speaking more generally, it is the epitome of folly for individuals to give money to any animal protection group without first being intimately acquainted with what actually goes on inside their shelters and offices. Although PETA is infamous for stealing cats and dogs from owners as well as off the street and then summarily executing them, it is far from being the only so-called rescue group that pursues such a perverted agenda.

For example in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Humane Society of Atlantic County commits the same crimes with impunity. Plus, it goes out of its way in order to support, defend, and assist individuals who sic their dogs on kittens and cats. In spite of all of that, the contributions keep right on rolling in and the criminals remain unpunished instead of being locked up behind bars which is precisely what these cat stealing and murdering cretins deserve.

The ways in which even a conscientious owner can fail a cat are almost endless. First and foremost of these is the mistake of not recognizing cats for the exquisite beings that Leonardo da Vinci knew them to be when he once termed them as "nature's masterpiece."

Secondly, is the failure to spend as much time with them as is humanly possible. They never should be treated as merely superfluous additions to anyone's busy life; rather, they should be the centerpiece of it. "Le temps passé avec un chat n'est jamais perdu," Sidonie Gabrielle Colette once opined.

In addition to those oversights, there is the grievous error of failing to pay sufficient attention to a cat's health until it is too late. Closely associated with that is the terrible mistake of selecting the wrong veterinarian to treat it.

Then there is the problem of failing to protect it from the machinations of Animal Control officers, shelters, motorists, dogs, raccoons, coyotes, and a wide assortment of vile cat-haters. Even though it is extremely difficult for any guardian, no matter how conscientious, to anticipate all the dangers that lurk just around the corner, that in no way makes either the injuries that cats sustain or their premature deaths any easier to bear. Worst of all, there is never any end to the self-recriminations.

As totally unforgivable as all of those mistakes are, they are not in any way even remotely comparable to the deliberate crimes committed against the species by owners like Jennifer who betray their cat's trust by extinguishing its life. In Ollie's case, her tragic and unjust death is all the more lamentable not only due to all the hurdles that she had been forced to surmount during her brief stay upon this earth but also because she meant so much to so many people around the world.

No one seems to know either where she came from or how she spent her first few years. She simply turned up one day unannounced at MIA in early 2007 and nothing has been the same ever since at Old Blighty's third busiest airport.

Ollie Pauses to Grab Some Kip

Although it is entirely conceivable that she could have been born in the wild and simply wandered in on her own, that seems unlikely based upon how quickly she made friends with the staffers at the airport's administrative office located in Olympic House between Terminal One and Terminal Three.

A far more plausible explanation is that she at one time had a home but later was either dumped at the facility or became lost in transit. Airlines lose cats all the time but lie about both the number and what later becomes of them.

The one known glaring exception to that rule is John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, New York, which not only shouts its inveterate hatred of the species from the rooftops but also has its resident felines hounded down like convicted felons on the lam and killed. (See Cat Defender post of November 5, 2007 entitled "Port Authority Gives JFK's Long-Term Resident Felines the Boot and Rescue Groups Are Too Impotent to Save Them.")

Apparently her former guardian never made any attempt to reclaim her even after she had shot to international acclaim later in 2007. It is not even known how long that she was on her own but if her badly mangled left ear and scruffy-looking fur are any indication her days spent on the street where anything but hospitable.

Staffers at Olympic House immediately fell in love with her and named her in honor of the building in which they toil away their lives. They furthermore took it upon themselves to build her a sleeping box which they then appendaged to the side of the building.

They, along with vendors and others who work at the sprawling facility, fed and watered her as well as provided her with an unspecified level of veterinary care. "Air crews give him (sic) a feed early in the morning and staff from the airport and its service partners look after him (sic) throughout the day," Bob Molloy, a receptionist at Olympic House, explained in 2007. "He's (sic) a big talking point around here. Everybody likes him (sic)."

Retailer Jane Barber brought her biscuits on a regular basis and an unidentified delivery man supplied her with sandwiches. Some staffers even cared so much about her that they came in on their days off in order to make sure that she had enough to eat and drink.

It was not long before her newfound fame had spread far and beyond MIA and that was vouched for by the food parcels that started arriving from Paris, New York, Chicago, and elsewhere. A Facebook page was established in her honor and it quickly attracted fifteen-hundred followers.

"He's (sic) a very special cat and a lucky one, too," Molloy's co-worker, Hazel Williams, said back in those halcyon days. (See Cat Defender post of November 28, 2007 entitled "Lovable Ollie Finds a Home at Manchester International Airport After Workers and Vendors Come to His (sic) Aid.")

Ollie's caretakers at Olympic House received quite a jolt a year later when a routine visit to a veterinarian unexpectedly revealed that their beloved resident feline was actually a female. "We were completely shocked when we found out and just couldn't believe it," Molloy said at that time. "We've heard all the jokes from staff and some of them say we shouldn't be surprised as she's always been a bit of a diva."

Ollie and Bob Molloy Look Over Some Postcards Sent to Her

The staff at Olympic House attempted to correct their original faux pas by changing her name to Olivia but by then it was way too late and she would forever be known as Ollie, irrespective of the orthography. "The funniest thing is we actually think her character has altered since we found out," Molloy surmised. "She's much more loving and seems to be showing her maternal side more."

While that most likely existed only in his head, Ollie's ever-growing popularity certainly was undeniable in that the food and Christmas presents continued to pour in at regular intervals. "Every day we get people coming in to leave gifts for Olivia," Williams disclosed. "The other week someone had been fishing and brought in a whole mackerel; they had even cooked it for her."

At that high point in her once turbulent life it sure looked like that the good times were going to last forever. "It's incredible how well loved she is...." Williams added. (See Cat Defender post of November 8, 2009 entitled "Oops! Ollie Belatedly Gives Up a Closely Guarded Secret Much to the Chagrin of the Employees of Manchester International.")

Regrettably, nothing good ever last for very long in this miserable old world and if that holds true for men it is doubly true for cats. The dark clouds rolled in later that same year when the suits at Olympic House decided to flex their muscles by giving Ollie the bum's rush.

Hundreds of admirers from as far away as New Zealand and Kuwait rallied to her side by signing an online petition that demanded that the stuffed shirts rescind their eviction order. Caught off guard by all the bad publicity that they had brought down upon their fat heads, not to mention the airport itself, they relented and reluctantly decided to allow Ollie to remain.

That, however, was merely a tactical maneuver designed to allow public opposition to run its course. Much more importantly, it allowed the devious, cat-hating executives time in order to put their diseased gourds together and to come up with a foolproof stratagem that eventually would get rid of Ollie once and for all time.

After all, the elites can always be counted upon to, sooner or later, put the screws to one and all and that is precisely what those at Olympic House ended up doing to Ollie. For them, doing evil is not only profitable but fun as well and to this very day they likely are still laughing their fat, rotten asses off at their own cleverness.

Every bit as underhanded and devious as Old Nick himself, the high-muck-a-mucks at MIA decided that the best way to get rid of Ollie would be to renovate the reception area at Olympic House. "Olly's (sic) been here for several years and everyone enjoys having her around," an unidentified spokesman for the airport conceded to the Manchester Evening News on July 26, 2011 in a carefully choreographed prelude to lowering the boom on her. (See "Claws Come Out as Manchester Airport Chiefs Show Exit Door to Olly (sic) the Cat.")"But sadly, we'll have to move her soon because we're about to start major building work on the lower floors of Olympic House and the road outside (is) getting busier for summer. It's dangerous for Olly (sic) cat to remain."

While there cannot be any denying that a cat does not belong anywhere near a busy road, it is dishonest for the suits to pretend that it took them four years to arrive at that perfectly obvious conclusion. Besides, there was not any valid reason why staffers at Olympic House could not have confined her to a safe area of the building until the work was completed.

For example, when a perfectly adorable four-month-old black, brown, and white female with green eyes named Caloo turned up at Borough Hall in tiny Carlstadt, New Jersey, in August of 2008 Borough Administrator Jane Fontana not only saved her from the deadly clutches of Animal Control but later on September 4th the Borough Council voted unanimously to adopt her as "The Carlstadt Cat." Afterwards, she would divide her days between Fontana's office and roaming Council and caucus chambers; weekends were spent at Fontana's house.

Ollie Alongside One of the Many Christmas Presents Sent to Her

"It's very nice having her in the office because she comes and sits on the desk," Fontana related. "She loves to chase the mouse on the computer screen and watches paper being printed."(See Cat Defender post of September 22, 2008 entitled "New Jersey at Long Last Has at Least One Honest Public Servant and Her Name Is Caloo from Carlstadt.")

MIA accordingly did not have any halfway legitimate excuse for uprooting Ollie from the only home that she had known in recent memory. The suits simply wanted rid of her and that is perfectly clear from the extraordinary lengths that they went to in order to realize that objective.

In addition to rejecting out of hand any and all temporary accommodations that would have allowed her to have remained at Olympic House, the executives vetoed a plan to move her to Runway Visitor Park. Since that is such a rather large area that features, inter alia, tours of airplanes, shops, restaurants, a picnic area, and conference rooms, it is difficult to say if it would have been a good fit for Ollie. That would have depended not only upon just how busy the area is but also on where she would have made her home.

Once the option of relocating her elsewhere at MIA was disposed of that left her complete removal from the premises as the only option still left on the table. In other to facilitate matters, the suits then turned to the always reliable RSPCA and another unidentified animal sanctuary in order to not only remove Ollie but to provide the political backing for their shenanigans.

"The advise from several cat charities is to permanently relocate Olly (sic) to a home where she won't be disturbed again by airport development so we're working with the team that cares for her to find her a safe place to live," the airport's designated mouthpiece blowed long and hard to the Manchester Evening News in the July 26, 2011 article cited supra.

No sooner said than done, Ollie was spirited out of MIA under the cover of darkness in late July of 2011. "They moved her during the night when no one was about," a Facebook posting later disclosed.

There can be little doubt that the RSPCA and its cohorts were handsomely rewarded by the suits for helping them get rid of Ollie. That is because it is difficult to imagine that any of the grasping frauds who comprise ninety-nine per cent of the animal protection movement ever would so much as tap their gnarled toes and ingrown, yellowish toenails to any tune other than that made by the jingle-jangle of silver being dropped into their sticky palms.

Most of them are such horrible, sidewinding mercenaries that they do not have any regard for any cat or, for that matter, anyone else as well. Their mandate consists of primarily liquidating cats in return for a pocketful of money.

Every bit as revolting, apparently neither Molloy, Williams, Barber, nor any of Ollie's caretakers at Olympic House lifted so much as a lousy finger in order to save her and her home. Like fair weather friends, they were only too willing to throw her underneath the bus once her chips were down.

"We are very sorry to hear the news that Olly (sic) has died," is how a spokesman for the airport began his eulogy of her according to the May 6th edition of the Manchester Evening News cited supra. "She built up quite a loyal following and fan base during her time at the airport. We hope she enjoyed her last few years away from the airport."

Ollie on the Outside Looking In at Olympic House

From the tenor of those outrageously insincere sentiments it is quite obvious that the suits at Olympic House never have had so much as a clue as to either Ollie's intrinsic worth or her value to the airport itself. She was the best thing to ever happen to MIA but the executives were, and remain to this very day, too bloody stupid to have realized it.

When she arrived they caught lightning in a bottle but they blew it and now she is gone forever. They still have their noisy, dirty old airplanes to pollute the air and bushels of shekels in order to warm the cockles of their warped and diseased souls but theirs has been a Faustian bargain and MIA is every bit as soulless today as it was before Ollie's arrival.

Also conspicuously absent from all the obsequies posted online has been so much as a peep out of Molloy. Although in the past he has been singled out for assisting travelers in distress, he apparently drew the line when it came to sticking up for Ollie. (See the Manchester Evening News, October 8, 2010, "Unsung Airport Hero Bob Always Goes the Extra Mile to Help Passengers.")

The last eighteen months or so that Ollie spent at MIA were not all gloom and doom, however. For instance, in early 2010 she started receiving postcards from a secret admirer. "Just been visiting your relations here in Egypt," one of them that was addressed simply to "Ginger Cat" read. "The weather is lovely and sunny. I'm sure you wish you were here! Hope you can stay warm in all the snow."

In early January of 2011, she received a belated Christmas card that was postmarked in Venice. "They have definitely raised a few smiles," an airport spokesman told London's Metro on January 14, 2011. (See "Stray Cat Bombarded by Postcards from Admirer.")

As far as it is known, the airport never was able to determine who it was that was writing to Ollie. "It's a bit of a mystery as to who has been sending the postcards to Olly (sic)," the spokesman added to Metro. "We suspect it could be someone who has visited one of the companies with an office in Olympic House, although with nineteen-million passengers and about twenty-thousand people working on site, I doubt we'll ever find out."

It has not been disclosed whether the cards continued to arrive after she was evicted and, if so, what was done with them. Hopefully, they have been preserved because they certainly would make splendid additions should anyone either at or outside of MIA ever decide to honor her with a fitting public memorial.

Although she was long gone from MIA by then, British Midland International (Bmibaby) named one of its Boeing 737's as the Olly (sic) Cat Baby in late 2011. As far as it is known, that made Ollie the only cat in history to have had an airplane named in her honor.

Just like everything else in this world, that honor also proved to be fleeting because on September 9, 2012 Bmibaby went out of business. It therefore is highly doubtful that the Olly (sic) Cat Baby can still be seen either in the skies or taxiing down runways throughout England and Europe.

All the while that was occurring Ollie was kept completely in the dark. Exiled to Northenden, she spent her final four years living in obscurity.

The Boeing 737 Named in Ollie's Honor

The only news of what her life must have been like following her cruel and unjust banishment from MIA comes courtesy of a self-laudatory October 2011 notice posted by Jennifer on Facebook. "To all my friends, do not fear I am very well, living a life of luxury and undertaking some select security cat duties," the brief entry declares. "Have taken to indoor living like a duck to water. Enjoying sleeping on knees, sofas, chairs and the bed. Totally spoiled and I am loving it."

Even after she had so criminally initialed Ollie's death warrant, Jennifer was still parroting the same old familiar line. "I'm very privileged and honored to have been chosen to look after (her)," she eulogized Ollie to the Manchester Evening News on May 6th. "She made my home a brighter place."

There are other indications, however, that Ollie's post-MIA life was not all that rosy. "She loved her cuddles and she liked waking me up at silly times in the morning in line with the buses that used to bring staff into the airport for their shifts," Jennifer let slip to the Manchester Evening News on May 6th. "She was wired to get up for them because she'd get so many cuddles."

While it admittedly is a dicey proposition to gauge with any degree of accuracy exactly what any given cat is thinking and feeling, it nevertheless is pretty safe to assume that a highly sociable and loving one like Ollie who had become accustomed to being the center of attention at Olympic House would sorely miss all the loving and presents that were so generously lavished upon her. She doubtlessly also still craved the freedom that had been so cruelly taken away from her.

Along those same lines it would be interesting to know who exactly it was that attended to her at her new home. It quite obviously was not Jennifer in that, as a busy insurance manager, she was so seldom home.

There possibly could have been other members of the household who looked after her physical and emotional needs when Jennifer was off chasing shekels but even that is unknown. It accordingly is just as likely that she was left home alone all throughout the day to walk the floors and to stare at the four walls.

Furthermore, it seems highly improbable that an ambitious businesswoman like Jennifer would have taken all that kindly to being awakened in the small hours by a lonesome and heartbroken cat that was dying for attention. Consequently, all that Ollie likely received from her was to be either ignored or scolded.

The proper care of a cat involves considerably more than merely putting a roof over its head and bowl of kibble under its nose. Its emotional needs, natural instincts, and the habits formed over the course of a lifetime must also be addressed.

While it is not known what, if any, measures Jennifer undertook in order to satisfy those needs in Ollie, there can be little doubt that the sawed-off slugs who run the show at Olympic House along with the moral retards at the RSPCA looked upon and treated her as if she were nothing more than an old piece of furniture to be bandied about at their pleasure. At no time did any of them ever see her as a sentient being endowed with rights and needs that not only should have respected but, more importantly, fulfilled.

Instead, they were too busy looking down their long, dirty schnozes at her and exhausting their devious gourds in order to come up with new ways of mistreating her. All of that culminated in Jennifer's unwillingness to provide her with both the time and treatment that she so desperately needed for her strength to return so that she could get back on her feet and, most importantly, go on living.

Ollie as She Will Be Remembered

"It's nice to know she was loved as much as that," she declared to the Manchester Evening News on May 6th in response to the outpouring of condolences posted online. Sometimes loves is not enough and this certainly was one of those occasions.

"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it," Abraham Lincoln once observed. The same all-too-often is true of love and in Ollie's case the affection that was showered on her by Jennifer, Olympic House, and her thousands of admirers from afar was most definitely the wrong kind.

It has not been publicly disclosed what was done with her remains and that makes it more than likely that they either were burned or thrown out with the trash. Depriving her of a proper burial and a tombstone therefore makes it all the easier for everyone concerned to quickly forget that she ever graced the face of the earth.

It also is highly unlikely that the suits at Olympic House are planning to provide her with either a memorial service or so much as a plaque. That should not dissuade, however, any of the dozens of airlines that serve MIA from naming another plane after her.

Once all the posers and liars have been exposed there simply is not any way left in order to hide the ugly and shameful truth that, for most of her existence, Ollie was hideously abused and nakedly exploited. For starters, she was abandoned twice, once by her original owner and then by the suits at Olympic House.

Secondly, in between those abandonments she was forced to forge a mean existence on the street. Thirdly, once she became ill her new guardian did not hesitate to have her killed off instead of providing her with the top-notch veterinary care that she so desperately needed and so richly deserved.

If morality, a healthy respect for the sanctity of all feline life, and justice counted for anything in this world she would still be alive today and gracing the corridors and outside areas of Olympic House. That is not to be, however, because everyone who either walked in or out of her life over the years only exploited her for their own selfish ends and amusement.

The utterly reprehensible treatment doled out to Ollie also serves to demonstrate that genuine lovers of the species are about as rare as hens' teeth. The suits at MIA, Jennifer, the RSPCA, and the legions of fans who supposedly were devoted to her can lie their ugly little faces off until the cows come home but some things never change in this world and one of them is that actions always have and always will speak infinitely louder than the self-serving drivel mouthed by impostors. As Ollie's life and times have more than amply demonstrated, the evils inflicted upon cats by their sworn enemies pale in comparison with those perpetrated by individuals and groups who claim to love them the most.

Looking back over the course of Ollie’s all-too-brief existence it is heartbreaking to think of what her life could have been like if just one person had truly cared anything about her. There is first and foremost the happiness that she could have experienced as well as that which she surely would have brought to others.

Secondly, there are all the things that she might have accomplished and the places that she might have visited. She always was a tremendous ambassador for her species and provided with the right opportunities there is no telling what she could have accomplished of behalf of not only those cats who are already here but also for those that are coming.

No one really cared, however, and for her it all had to end so terribly premature with a deadly jab of sodium pentobarbital in some quack’s surgery. Even now that she is gone nobody seems to care that she was murdered or to be even remotely cognizant of the sheer enormity of what has been lost…and lost forever.

Photos: Manchester Evening News (Ollie) and Facebook (Olly (sic)Cat Baby).

Harry

"Two days later I saw Tony's poster and recognized the picture of the cat. I rang him to tell him that the police had killed his cat. I was gobsmacked that they hadn't already informed him."
-- Ali Nisar

Contrary to what an awful lot of addlebrained, unthinking individuals choose to believe with all their hearts, it is extremely rare for a cat to be accidentally killed by a motorist. Au contraire, just about all of those that end up as roadkill are the victims of malice aforethought.

That is because cats are not only terrified of loud noises and fast-moving objects but they additionally are fleet-footed. It therefore is not any surprise that the bodies of those that have been run down are usually found on either the sides or edges of streets and roads.

Their outstretched legs are yet still another inescapable indication that they were running at full speed for the safety of the other side, which often was only inches away, when they were deliberately cut down in mid-stride. It furthermore is spurious for detractors to argue that they were in the middle of the road when struck and thus thrown to the side upon impact because cats that have had their necks broken and heads smashed in die instantaneously on the spot where they were hit.

In addition to all of that, motorists who deliberately kill cats never slow down, brake, sound their horns, or even bother to so much as veer around them; rather, they shower down on the accelerator and even change lanes for the opportunity in order to mow them down. Most telling of all, none of the these serial hit-and-run artists ever stop unless it is to admire the fruits of their handiwork.

Not only have none of these cat-murdering devils ever been arrested and thus forced to answer for their heinous crimes in a court of law but it is almost unheard of for anyone to so much as question their right to kill cats and other animals with impunity. Like the beating to death of homeless men, using an automobile in order to kill a cat constitutes the perfect crime.

Perhaps even more unjust than all of that is the societal drumbeat which dishonestly blames both the victims and their caretakers for their deaths. As is the case with just about everything else in human affairs, first comes the crime followed closely at heel by an outrageous pack of lies concocted in order to obfuscate, justify and, finally, to dismiss it.

The killing of cats with automobiles has reached such epidemic proportions that it now rivals both cricket and baseball in popularity. Moreover, such patently immoral and criminal behavior is not only indulged in by private citizens but the police as well.

That was the harsh and shocking reality that recently was brought home to a family of four from the Normanton section of Derby after a pair of officers from the Derbyshire Police ran down and killed their beloved three-year-old ginger-colored cat, Harry. The timeline of events has not been spelled out in press reports but it nonetheless is believed that Harry disappeared from the house on Palmerston Street that he shared with forty-two-year-old restaurateur Tony Hunt, his thirty-year-old common law wife Zoe Price, and their two children, five-year-old Lily and one-year-old Thomas, sometime on Sunday, April 19th.

Unable to locate either hide or hair of him, Hunt spent the following two days looking high and low for him without so much as an inkling of success. Fortunately, he had had the bon sens to plaster his neighborhood with "Lost Cat" posters and that belatedly did the trick although the outcome that they produced was the absolute last thing in the world that he ever wanted.

"Two days later I saw Tony's poster and recognized the picture of the cat," his sixteen-year-old conscientious neighbor Ali Nisar told the Daily Mail on April 26th. (See "Family Furious after Pet Cat Harry Was Killed 'By a Police Car Before Officers Disposed of the Body Without Telling Them'.") "I rang him to tell him that the police had killed his cat. I was gobsmacked that they hadn't already informed him."

Nisar subsequently revealed that the police officers were speeding with their blue emergency lights flashing when they ran down and killed Harry at the intersection of Clarence and Livingstone roads. "The cat was in the middle of the road but the car went straight over it," Hunt, relying upon Nisar's eyewitness account of events, related to the Daily Mail. "They didn't seem to brake, but I don't know how they could not have seen it."

The police offices did stop, however, but it was neither to procure emergency veterinary treatment for Harry nor to locate and inform his guardian about what had occurred. Instead, one of the officers wasted precious time by putting the bite on an unidentified local resident for a black trash bag into which Harry was placed before being nonchalantly tossed into the boot of the cruiser. They then fled the scene of the crime like a pair of scalded hounds although it has not been revealed if they were still in the same haste as before and with their disco lights flashing.

Much more importantly, it has not been disclosed either if Harry was still alive at that point or even the extent of his injuries. It therefore is entirely conceivable that his life could have been saved if only the officers had acted differently.

This case bears a sickening and disturbing resemblance to the events that unfolded on November 11, 2011 on Settlers Lane in Harrisonburg, Virginia. On that god-awful occasion a cat of undisclosed pedigree, sex, and name was run down and severely injured by a hit-and-run motorist.

Its desperate plight was discovered by area resident Wayne Meadows who contacted the Harrisonburg Police Department which in turn dispatched twenty-five-year-old officer Jonathan N. Snoddy to the scene. Instead of procuring veterinary help for it, which was only thirty minutes away, he proceeded to bash out its brains against Meadows' porch as well as to play a sadistic game of rat-a-tat-tat against its head with his night stick.

Snoddy was belatedly indicted on animal cruelty charges and stood in the dock twice but ultimately was exonerated. Needless to say, the authorities never even bothered to so much as look for the motorist. (See Cat Defender posts of March 22, 2012, April 26, 2012, and August 23, 2012 entitled, respectively, "In Another Outrageous Miscarriage of Justice, Rogue Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Is Let Off with a $50 Fine for Savagely Bludgeoning to Death an Injured Cat,""Virginia's Disreputable Legal and Political Establishment Is All Set to Acquit Jonathan N. Snoddy at His Retrial for Brutally Beating to Death an Injured Cat," and "Cat-Killing Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Struts Out of Court as Free as a Bird Thanks to a Carefully Choreographed Charade Concocted by Virginia's Despicable and Dishonest Legal System.")

Tony Hunt

Acting upon what Nisar had confided to him, Hunt telephoned the Derbyshire Police but if he was expecting either compassion or an apology he was barking up the wrong tree. "I called 101 straightaway and eventually spoke to a desk sergeant who confirmed Harry had been hit and said he had been disposed of," he told the Daily Mail. "There was no compassion whatsoever."

Instead of instigating a civil lawsuit against the police for not only killing Harry but for stealing and disposing of his remains as well, Hunt appears to be content with venting his spleen. "He just died without any dignity at all and I am appalled by the attitude of the officers concerned," he fumed to the Derby Telegraph on April 25th. (See "'Police Car Killed Our Cat and Officers Just Dumped His Body in a Bag'.")"I want them to give my daughter an apology. That's the least they can do."

Although the police's Professional Standards Department did open an internal investigation into the matter, it has not been publicly revealed either what conclusions it reached or if Hunt ever received an apology. Based upon the force's initial reaction to Harry's killing, however, it seems unlikely that Hunt and his family have received so much as an iota of satisfaction on either count.

"We can confirm that we are investigating a complaint about two officers, who were in a police car that allegedly collided with a cat, and the officers' subsequent actions. The investigation is at an early stage. We have spoken to Mr. Hunt and we will be speaking to him again next week," an unidentified spokesman for the police told the Derby Telegraph. "We're in the process of trying to identify the officers who are allegedly involved to get their account of what happened. We're aware of how distressed the family is and we're eager to get the matter resolved as soon as possible."

Whenever police misconduct is uncovered it is always the same auld lang syne whether the location is Harrisonburg, Derby, or elsewhere. First of all, internal investigations rarely if ever lead to lawbreaking officers being so much as disciplined let alone either fired or indicted.

Plus, the findings of these inquiries almost always remain private. Although it may not be visible to the naked eye, the blue wall of silence is every bit as real as the Great Wall of China.

Secondly, all police officers are notorious liars. For example, in this particular instance the Derbyshire Police lied when their spokesman claimed not to know the identities of the officers who killed Harry.

The department most assuredly knew which officers were on duty that day and the general vicinity in which they were stationed. It also would be highly unusual in this day and age if all of their cruisers were not equipped with both tracking devices and monitors that record their speed, location, and other pertinent data.

It therefore seems perfectly obvious that the police could have cleared up this matter almost immediately if they ran anything even remotely approaching an honest and aboveboard constabulary. Above all, the offending offices should have been promptly identified and forced to answer for their actions in at least civil proceedings as well as in the court of public opinion.

It also never has been explained what emergency they were responding to in such haste. It likewise is peculiar that they so quickly forget all about the supposed emergency in order to stop and collect Harry's body.

Although there cannot be any doubt that they were in a hurry to get somewhere, they could have been engaged in private as opposed to police business. For instance, they could have been either joyriding or attempting to see how much speed they could get out of their cruiser.

They also could have been on a food run in that it is not uncommon for cops as well as ambulance drivers and firemen to run down and kill not only cats but pedestrians all for the sake of a bowl of chop suey. Many cops even travel outside of their jurisdictions in order to satisfy their palates.

Since one of the officers involved was a WPC, it is conceivable they they were racing lickety-split to some seedy motel for a bit of good old-fashioned slap and tickle. It is doubtful that they were on their way to church, especially in such a hellfire hurry. After all, the salvation of the soul can wait for another day but it is an entirely different matter with those desires that burn red-hot in the loins.

Regardless of whatever the officers were up to there is no mistaking the readily discernible pattern of lawlessness exhibited by both them and their commanders. First of all, if the officers were not responding to a legitimate emergency they are guilty of both speeding and reckless driving. They also could be charged with vehicular homicide for killing Harry but since English society, to its eternal discredit, cares so little about the sanctity of feline life that is not about to happen in a million years.

Secondly, they are guilty of not only destroying evidence and orchestrating a cover-up but also of stealing and liquidating private property. Thirdly, the brass is as guilty as sin of deliberately lying to the public, obfuscating the truth, and stonewalling.

"Harry was a huge part of our lives and now a big chunk has been taken out of it (sic)," Hunt moaned to the Derby Telegraph. Whereas there is not any reason to question his fidelity, his conduct throughout this tragedy nevertheless leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Piper Recuperating at Home

Most egregious of all was his abject failure to protect Harry from the machinations of motorists. Only a minute percentage of those cats that are killed by hit-and-run motorists ever make the news but even those that do is more than sufficient to paint a rather grim picture of the way that things stand. (See Cat Defender posts of November 21, 2012, January 30, 2010, and August 17, 2006 entitled, respectively, "Officials at Plymouth College of Art Should Be Charged with Gross Negligence and Animal Cruelty in the Tragic Death of the School's Longtime Resident Feline, PCAT,""Casper Is Run Down and Killed by a Hit-and-Run Taxi Driver While Crossing the Street in Order to Get to the Bus Stop," and "Brave Little Fred the Undercover Cat Has His Short, Tragic Life Snuffed Out by a Hit-and-Run Driver in Queens.")

Even those cats fortunate enough to somehow survive these types of assaults often face months of recuperation and even then end up maimed for life. (See Cat Defender posts of November 10, 2014, May 2, 2012, January 5, 2011, April 29, 2010, September 12, 2009, August 20, 2009, and March 5, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Freya, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Resident Feline, Cheats Death Once Again When She Survives Being Run Down and Injured by a Motorist but Her Good Luck Cannot Last for Much Longer,""Pregnant, Abandoned, and Then Deliberately Almost Killed by a Hit-and-Run Driver, Sugar Crawls Back to Her Subterranean Abode in Order to Feed Her Kittens,""Gunned Down by an Assassin and Then Mowed Down by a Hit-and-Run Driver, Big Bob Loses a Leg but Survives and Now Is Looking for a Home,""Long Suffering River Finally Finds a Home after Having Been Run Over by a Motorist and Nearly Drowned,""Luzie Sustains a Broken Hip and a Bloody Mouth Before She Is Successfully Rescued from the Busy Elbtunnel,""Combine Operator Severs Howard's Front Paws and Leaves Him in a Ditch to Die but He Is Saved at the Last Minute by a Pair of Compassionate Lads," and "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Cat Named Roo is Saved by a Caring Woman.")

Without knowing just how busy the streets in Normanton are, it is difficult to speculate if Harry should have been allowed to venture beyond the safety of Hunt's yard. Perhaps he simply was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the police officers in question chose to indulge themselves in their criminal conduct. Regardless of conditions in the neighborhood, it is Hunt who is going to have to live with Harry's death and only he known if he did all that was within his power in order to safeguard his fragile existence.

It is beyond question, however, that Hunt erred grievously by relying upon an implanted microchip as opposed to equipping Harry with a more conventional collar. "He was not wearing a collar because his old one had broken just the day before and we were in the process of getting a new one," he disclosed to the Derby Telegraph. "But Harry was microchipped so it would not have been difficult for them to have found out who the owner was."

First of all, neither a microchip, collar, nor a tattoo offer any cat the least bit of protection against the machinations of motorists and other ailurophobes and it is utter folly for anyone to think otherwise. (See Cat Defender post of May 25, 2006 entitled " Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats.")

Secondly, private citizens normally do not have access to the scanners that are required in order to decipher microchips and it is almost unheard of for rescue groups and shelters, which have them, to scan dead cats for the purpose of returning their remains to their owners. Furthermore, it is utterly laughable for anyone to believe that a cop who has just killed a cat is about to incriminate either himself or herself by scanning it for the purpose of returning its body to its rightful owner.

In the case of a cat outfitted with a collar there is always the possibility that a concerned citizen will utilize the information contained on it in order to return its body to its owner. That is not very likely, however, unless the individual just happens to be acquainted with the aggrieved caretaker.

There also seems to be a certain amount of ambiguity in Hunt's mind as to just what he would have done with Harry's remains even if they had been returned to him. "If they (the police) had just placed him at the side of the road I am sure we would have found him and been able to have him cremated," he declared to the Derby Telegraph.

When he first spoke on the telephone to the Derbyshire Police, however, he neglected to express any desire whatsoever to have Harry's remains returned to him. "He (the desk sergeant) didn't go into details as to how Harry had been disposed of and I didn't want to know, to be honest," he confessed to the Daily Mail. "For all I know, they could have tossed him straight in the bin."

Although opinions vary widely on this sensitive subject, it nevertheless is believed that anyone who genuinely loved a cat not only would want its remains returned so that they could be properly buried in a grave with a tombstone on top. Besides, burning a cat's corpse to smithereens is not necessarily a moral upgrade over whatever the cops ultimately did with Harry's remains.

Hunt additionally is guilty of taking way too much for granted when he declares that he is confident that he would have discovered Harry's corpse if the police had left it untouched at the side of the road. That is because garbagemen and private citizens routinely collect dead cats and toss their corpses into the trash without so much as a second thought as to the feelings of their grieving owners.

Wild animals also drag them off to parts unknown for later consumption and on top of all of that they decompose extremely rapidly during hot weather. Generally speaking, unless a cat is cut down during a deep freeze its remains do not last for very long.

Finally, since Harry was not wearing a collar there is always the remote possibility that Hunt would have been incapable of even accurately identifying his remains. Cats of the same size, color, and length of fur coupled with similar facial features are easily confounded, especially if their heads and faces have been caved in by a motorist.

For instance in the spring of 2013, forty-eight-year-old Karen Jones of Mardol Road in Ashford, Kent, scooped up from the street the lifeless body of what she believed to be her beloved two-year-old cat, Norman. Following an hourlong memorial service the next day, she interred his remains in her garden and placed a black porcelain cat on top as a grave marker.

Imagine then her shock the following morning when Norman turned up for breakfast. "At first I thought he had been resurrected from the dead but he didn't know what all the fuss was about," she later revealed. "Then I realized we must have had the wrong cat."

Nothing is ever either simple or easy when it comes to cats and that in turn makes it extremely risky to take anything for granted. (See Cat Defender post of June 12, 2013 entitled "Pronounced Dead, Eulogized, and Then Relegated to the Underworld, Norman Astounds His Guardian by Turning Up Hungry and Grumpy for Breakfast the Very Next Morning.")

Pompey II, Luis Ramos, Limerick, and Laurene Bove

The cruel set of circumstances that befell Harry and his guardian also make it clear that locating a dead cat is every bit as daunting a task as reclaiming a live one. "If it hadn't been for my neighbor witnessing what happened, we'd still be searching for him now," Hunt declared to the Daily Mail.

Although there is some truth in that assumption, it also is possible that if Nisar had not witnessed what the cops had done they very well in all likelihood would have kept on going without stopping to steal Harry's body. That is because no motorist, whether he be either a cop or a civilian, ever pulls over in order to collect the body of a cat that he has killed unless he has an especially good reason for doing so.

Lastly, Hunt intentionally lied to Lily when he told her that Harry had died and gone to heaven. He additionally failed to inform her that it was precisely the police who had killed her beloved companion.

At the end of the day there really is not any point of lying to children. Sooner or later they are going to learn for themselves just how mean, immoral, and deadly most people are and that dire assessment of the human condition most definitely includes the police.

It does not count for very much in a world where small groups, usually organized along ethnic lines, with money and guns to burn lord it all over creation but there nevertheless is a certain amount of power to be gained through the accumulation of wisdom. "Remember that now you can have confidence in yourself always," Hercule Poirot counseled Norma Restarick in Dame Agatha's 1966 novel, The Third Girl. "To have known, at close quarters, what absolute evil means is to be armoured against what life can do to you."

Harry's death at the hands of the Derbyshire Police is the first such known incident to have occurred in England in recent memory. In the United States, for example, it is quite another story altogether.

Specifically, cops routinely not only run down and kill cats with impunity but quite often execute them on the street with their revolvers and then toss their ensanguinated bodies bodies into the nearest trash can. That is precisely what they have done to Elmo, Tobey, Haze, and Larry in recent memory. (See Cat Defender posts of March 31, 2008, September 16, 2009, and September 22, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Cecil, Pennsylvania, Police Officer Summarily Executes Family's Beloved Ten-Year-Old Persian Elmo,""Acting Solely Upon the Lies of a Cat-Hater, Raymore Police Pump Two Shotgun Blasts into the Head of Nineteen-Year-Old Declawed and Deaf Tobey," and "Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop," plus the Norfolk Daily News, February 8, 2014, "Bloomfield Officer Disciplined for Killing Cat.")

Whenever a cat, such as Clark, walks away from one of their murderous assaults with his life it is nothing short of a miracle. (See Cat Defender post of September 27, 2014 entitled "Falsely Branded as Being Rabid by a Cat-Hater, an Animal Control Officer, and the Gorham Police Department, Clark Is Hounded Down and Blasted with a Shotgun.")

Considering the large number of cats that they either kill or maim in their official capacity as police officers, it is not the least bit surprising that they do likewise at their leisure. (See Cat Defender post of July 8, 2010 entitled "North Carolina State Trooper Who Illegally Trapped and Shot His Next-Door Neighbor's Cat, Rowdy, Is Now Crying for His Job Back" plus the Daily Mail, May 24, 2013, "Off-Duty Texas Police Officer Arrested after Shooting Neighbor's Cat with Arrow" and the Houston Press, June 6, 2013, "Lance DeLeon: Cop Fired after Shooting Neighbor's Cat with Arrow.")

Some forces, such as the Alaskan State Police, are so antagonistic toward cats that they go to gargantuan lengths in order to deter their owners from securing life-saving veterinary treatment for for them. (See Cat Defender post of February 15, 2014 entitled "Indefatigable Young Alaskan Woman Overcomes a Lack of Money, Jailing by the Police, and a Series of Avalanches in Order to Save Ninja's Life.")

Even on those rare occasions when American police officers can be prevailed upon to come to the aid of cats and kittens in extremis it is almost always for reasons totally unrelated to their safety and well-being. For instance, when officers Mark Hauenstein and Robert Barrett of the Columbus Division of Police interceded in order to save the life of a four-month-old gray and black kitten subsequently named J.R. that had been left stranded on the median of Ohio State Road 315 near Henderson Road on April 1st it was only due to concerns that his presence might precipitate an accident.

"If an animal ends up on a freeway, it's never a good thing, and it doesn't end well," Barrett later told The Columbus Dispatch on April 7th. (See "Cops Knew They Had to Help Kitten on Route 315.")"Some good-hearted Samaritans could have put themselves at risk trying to rescue it."

While it is undeniable that many individuals have been injured while rescuing cats and other animals left stranded in traffic, that is neither their fault nor that of the cats; rather, the blame lies squarely upon the shoulders of the police for failing to rigorously maintain both order and safety on all public thoroughfares. (See Cat Defender post of August 10, 2009 entitled "Georgia Woman Is Struck and Nearly Killed by a Motorist while Attempting to Rescue Kittens Dumped in the Middle of a Busy Road.")

J.R. was treated afterwards at Ohio State University's veterinary hospital for unspecified head injuries and a severe case of road rash before being fobbed off onto the Capital Area Humane Society in Hilliard, twenty-two kilometers outside of Columbus. Although he was wearing a collar, no one immediately came forward to reclaim him.

Back on May 3rd, Newport Beach police officer Dallas Lopez was credited with saving the life of an eleven-year-old orange cat named Piper from the jaws of ravenous coyote. All he did, however, was to flash his Christmas lights which startled the predator into dropping its prey and hightailing it elsewhere.

In all probability, Lopez was only indulging in crass voyeurism and saving Piper's life was the last thing on his mind. Nevertheless, he and fellow officer Travis Cooks are to be commended for transporting Piper to the Central Orange County Emergency Animal Hospital in Newport Beach.

Anthony Raspa

He later was treated for a broken jaw, several fractured ribs, a punctured abdominal cavity, and internal bleeding at the AAA Animal Hospital in Huntington Beach. At last word he had been reunited with owner Kelsey Whitmer and was expected to live despite his massive injuries. (See KCAL-TV of Los Angeles, May 6, 20155, "Cat Escapes Death a Second Time When Police Officer Saves Him from Coyote.")

Although in the aftermath of her cat's close encounter with death Whitmer was quick to profess her abiding love for him to the high heavens, her irresponsible guardianship of him tells an entirely different story. Mainly, since coyotes are known to routinely roam through many communities in southern California she should be publicly dipped in hot oil for allowing Piper to stay out all night by his lonesome under such perilous conditions.

For example on the evening of November 15, 2007, a ten-year-old black cat named Cosmo was spared a sure and certain death in Thousand Oaks, one-hundred-thirty-two kilometers to the north of Newport Beach, when Jennifer Foster intervened in order to save him from the jaws of another coyote.

Even as things eventually turned out, he sustained puncture wounds to both his neck and lungs and his veterinary bill cost his owners, Jackie York and Bob Gerace, $5,000. (See Cat Defender post of December 4, 2007 entitled "Grieving Widow Risks Her Life in Order to Save Cosmo from the Jaws of a Hungry Coyote in Thousand Oaks.")

Not all cops hate cats but at the same time they do almost nothing in order to protect the lives of even those that they care for, let alone to enforce the animal cruelty statutes. (See Cat Defender posts of March 18, 2009 and May 29, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Eco, Who for Years Was a Mainstay at a Small Massachusetts Police Department, Is Run Down and Killed by a Motorist" and "Corporal Cuffs, Beloved Station House Mascot, Is Abducted Right Under Cops' Noses.")

Just as the outrageous lies of many a cat-hater have led to the on-the-spot liquidations of innumerable cats, any dog that so much as barks at a cop is placing its life in mortal danger. (See Cat Defender posts of July 18, 2012 and September 7, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Bloodthirsty and Lawless Harrisonburg Police Follow Up Their Bludgeoning to Death of an Injured Cat by Gunning Down a Collie Named Sadie" and "Peripatetic Helvin Rides to the Rescue of Harrisonburg Police Sergeant Russell Metcalf and in Doing So Puts the Judicial Stamp of Approval on His Gunning Down of Sadie," plus the Daily News Record of Harrisonburg, January 10, 2013, "Ex-City Officer Fined.")

All of that is in addition to the large number of police dogs that die in either the line of duty or as the result of cancers contracted while being deployed as cadaver dogs at Ground Zero and elsewhere. Others fall victim to the ravages of secondhand smoke as the result of being irresponsibly cooped up all day inside squad cars with officers who insist upon polluting the very air that they have no choice but to breathe.

In addition to New York City's simply abhorrent naked exploitation and abuse of carriage horses, it also exposes the trusty steeds who serve in its antiquated mounted patrols to all sorts of dangers. For example on April 22nd, a black horse named Pompey II ridden by Luis Ramos was bitten in the chest and on the leg by a pit bull in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

Ramos' fellow officer, Laurene Bove, galloped to the scene aboard Limerick and was able to chase the dog into a nearby yard. Pompey II later was treated for cuts and punctures and was expected to make a full recovery. (See the print edition of the New York Daily News, April 23, 2015, "Horse Survives the 'Pits'.")

The law enforcement community's exploitation of both dogs and horses exposes it as not only still living in the Dark Ages but to be lazy and cowardly as well. That is because it is precisely man who has created and knowingly continues to perpetuate the myriad of ills that plague modern societies and as such it is his responsibility, not that of the animal kingdom, to remedy them.

Not all is lost however in that some jurisdictions, such as Milford, Connecticut, and the remote Japanese island of Iriomote, are fighting back by erecting Cat Crossing signs. (See Cat Defender posts of January 26, 2007 and November 27, 2006 entitled, respectively, "Cat Activists Succeed in Getting Connecticut Town to Erect a Cat Crossing Sign" and "After Surviving on Its Own for at Least Two Million Years, Rare Japanese Wildcat Faces Its Toughest Battle Yet.")

Several residential communities in both Angleterre and Deutschland have successfully agitated for reduced speed limits as a way of better protecting their cats and other animals. Cats nevertheless remain second-class citizens under the former's Road Traffic Act of 1988 which exempts them, but not dogs, sheep, cows, and horses, from the list of animals that motorists are required to report to the authorities after striking.

Underpasses also have been constructed in California and elsewhere in order to protect wildlife from the evil designs of motorists. Roadside memorials erected by aggrieved cat owners are, unfortunately, still illegal in certain locales. (See Cat Defender post of October 9, 2010 entitled "Feline Traffic Fatalities Are Unworthy of Commemoration According to a Möhnesee Bureaucrat Who Orders the Destruction of a Roadside Memorial to Jule.")

Although all of those measures are steps in the right direction, none of them go nearly far enough in order to make any real difference. The best and most humane solution would be to enact and stringently enforce laws that make it illegal for motorists to harm any animal. Since that quite obviously is not about to happen, one alternative would be to erect fences and walls around all busy thoroughfares so as to foreclose the possibility of animals gaining access to them.

It is pretty much an impossible task, however, to even begin to convince both the elites and the hoi polloi that the lives of animals are worth protecting when it is strictly verboten, at least in the United States, to even speak up on their behalves. That is what Leslie Anderson, a law clerk for Judge Travis Francis in New Brunswick, New Jersey, recently found out to her detriment when she dared to so much as express sympathy for the family of a deer struck down by twenty-four-year-old New Jersey State Trooper Anthony Raspa and his partner, twenty-nine-year-old Gene Hong, shortly before 1 a.m. on May 30th on I-195 in Upper Freehold Township in Monmouth County.

After striking the deer, the troopers' Ford Crown Victoria careened off the right-hand side of the road and crashed into a tree. Raspa later was pronounced dead at CentraState Hospital in Freehold while Hong was treated for lacerations and a neck injury at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in Hamilton. (See The New York Times, May 30, 2015, "New Jersey State Trooper Killed after Patrol Car Hits Deer" and NJ.com, June 4, 2015, "Thousands Say Goodbye to State Trooper Anthony Raspa.")

"Not that sad, and certainly not tragic. (The) troopers were probably traveling at a dangerously high speed as per usual," Anderson wrote shortly thereafter on the Facebook page of News-12 of Edison. (See the Daily Mail, June 3, 2015, "'Not That Sad, and Certainly Not Tragic': New Jersey Law Clerk Suspended after Comments Made Following Trooper's Death Aged Twenty-Four in Car Crash.")"Totally preventable. At least they didn't take any of the citizens they were sworn to serve and protect with them."

She was more than justified in making those comments in that New Jersey State troopers have been involved in not only several high-profile traffic fatalities but of even organizing drag races down the Garden State Parkway. In addition to all of that, their totally reprehensible and unlawful conduct has been augmented by that of local cops from both the Garden State and neighboring New York who have been responsible for numerous traffic mishaps where they have killed not only themselves but others as well after, quite often, boozing away the small hours in jiggle joints.

It was however the compassion that Anderson dared to express for the deer that doomed her. "Nonetheless, I agree that it is sad and heart-wrenching for the family members left to suffer the consequences of the trooper's recklessness, especially for the deer family who lost a mommy or daddy or baby deer," she added according to the account in the Daily Mail.

Since no good deed ever goes unpunished, especially in totally lawless and immoral America, the retribution came swift and furious. "My impression is that this person has a hatred for us and what we do," Chris Burgos, president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association, blathered to the Daily Mail. "If she says they (the comments) were made in a private capacity on Facebook that doesn't cut it anymore, especially from someone entrusted to work for the law. This brings up ethical and conduct issues."

Leslie Anderson

The bully then went on to declare that he would not be satisfied with anything less than Anderson's pretty blond scalp hanging from the rearview mirror of his official car. "I will follow this through because it's not enough," he added. "I won't let this happen on my watch."

The lynch mob formed by Burgos was quickly buttressed by the addition of Patrick Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Policemen's Benevolent Association, who dashed off an angry letter to Francis wherein he labeled Anderson's remarks as being "beyond reprehensible" and as a "shock to the moral conscience." (See the Cliffview Pilot, June 3, 2015, "New Jersey State Police Benevolent Association President Insists Law Clerk Be Held Accountable for 'Reprehensible' Comments about State Trooper's Death.")

He did not stop there, however, but went on to avail himself of the golden opportunity presented to him in order to rewrite the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in order to suit his own interests. He began his sortie into reducing the right to free speech to nothingness by, quite calculatingly, professing his steadfastness to "never waver in defending it."

No sooner had those lofty sentiments escaped from his pie hole than he did an abrupt about-face by declaring that the protections afforded by that amendment do not apply to governmental employees. "This was not an ordinary citizen with an absolute right to freedom of speech," he lectured Francis. "This is a well-educated graduate of law school that should have understood and respected the limitations of her position and the trust our citizens must have in the judiciary."

C'est-à-dire, if an individual works in government, no matter how corrupt and tyrannical it may be, she must not only keep her trap closed tighter than a virgin's crack but also go along with and cover up the crimes perpetrated by her colleagues. His comments also make it abundantly clear that the only value he sees in a college education is the all-too-common tendency of such institutionalized brainwashing to churn out morally-numb, unthinking apologists for the establishment.

Much more importantly, Colligan is either an inveterate liar, a complete moron, or likely both when it comes to his ludicrous interpretation of the First Amendment. That amendment clearly states that "Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech" and since its ratification in 1791 the United States Supreme Court has extended its strictures to the states through their selective incorporation into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Ergo, its protections apply equally against New Jersey just as they do against the federal government in Washington.

Every bit as importantly, the amendment does not make, as Colligan claims, a distinction between the utterances of private and public employees. It accordingly is beyond dispute that Anderson's comments were constitutionally protected.

Old lamebrained and spineless Francis fell hook, line, and sinker for Colligan's outrageous lies however when he upgraded his earlier two-week suspension of Anderson and fired her outright. (See News-12, June 3, 2015, "Law Clerk Resigns Following Controversial Online Comments.")

In doing so he vividly demonstrated that as far as public employment in New Jersey is concerned anyone with so much as an ounce of honesty, integrity, compassion for animals, and half a mind of her own need not apply. Rather, the state's highly-paid sinecures are reserved as the private fiefdoms of fops, sycophants, criminals and, above all, animal killers.

None of that in any way alters he fact that instead of losing her job and being pilloried by both the capitalist media and the public alike, Anderson richly deserves a medal for not only standing up for deer and other animals but also the right of pedestrians and private motorists to safely navigate the roads in New Jersey without the fear of being struck down and killed by speeding, drunken cops. Like Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning before her, she is not only a very courageous individual but a hero as well.

Unfortunately, it is not going to be easy for her to resurrect her law career, especially in a state as notoriously corrupt and unforgiving as New Jersey. (See Cat Defender posts of September 22, 2008 and April 26, 2014 entitled, respectively, "New Jersey at Long Last Has at Least One Honest Public Servant and Her Name Is Caloo from Carlstadt" and "The Opportunistic Old Hacks Who Run the Show in New Jersey Are All Set to Unjustly Condemn Rocky to a Lifetime Behind Bars for, Basically, Daring to So Much as Breathe.")

The good news is that there is a whole other world waiting for someone like her with compassion, courage, and honesty outside of both the law and the Garden State. If she should choose to remain in the United States she needs to be always mindful, however, that even though Americans may profess to fervently believe in the rule of law, equality, democracy, morality, free speech, free press, and all the other correct and noble things that this world has to offer, deep down in their heart of hearts they abhor all of those ideals and, as she has just recently discovered, woe be it to anyone who dares to so much as even attempt to avail herself of any of those rights and privileges.

Just how ingrained and pervasive this loathing of all things true and just has become is nowhere better illustrated than in the petit fait that, as far as it could be determined, neither a solitary free speech advocacy group nor an animal rights organization has so far been able to muster the prerequisite gumption in order to come to Anderson's defense. There used to be a time in this country when even those individuals and groups that vehemently disagreed with various viewpoints nevertheless could be counted upon to stand up for the First Amendment but those days, sadly, have gone the way of the horse and buggy.

"For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more," Gore Vidal once pointed out. It is even doubtful that most of them are any longer capable of differentiating between the self-serving hogwash that they are fed on a daily basis by the establishment and the truth.

Going after Anderson and her job also has excused the New Jersey State Police from explaining exactly what happened on I-195 on that fateful morning last month. First of all, they have yet to publicly disclose either the extent of Raspa's injuries or what precisely killed him. Although press reports claim that he was at the wheel, his mortal injuries coupled with Hong's rather minor scrapes and bruises would be more consistent with him having been in the passenger's seat.

Secondly, it has not been confirmed if the troopers were on official police business or merely horsing around at the time of the accident. Thirdly, it is not known either how fast they were traveling or if drugs and alcohol were involved.

Fourthly, it has not been revealed if Raspa either was texting or gassing on his mobile phone. It is not even known if he was wearing a seat belt which is mandatory under New Jersey state law.

Most glaring of all, no one has seen fit to comment upon just how rare it is for a private citizen, let alone a seasoned trooper, to be killed while running down a deer. If he were driving, Raspa had the protection of his vehicle, the steering wheel and, perhaps, his seat belt. His cruiser's braking system and the deer also would have cushioned the impact with the tree.

It accordingly is difficult to comprehend how that a sober and alert officer who was following the posted speed limit could have killed himself by hitting a deer. Those are just a few of the questions that concerned citizens should be demanding of the state police but that is not about to happen anymore than they are about to insist that they respect the laws of the road and operate their vehicles in a safe and responsible manner.

"We are naturally held to a higher standard and we both understand and respect the restrictions imposed on us," Colligan vacuously gassed to his buddy Francis in the letter cited supra. His and Burgos' actions however point to the inescapable conclusion that what they and their fellow officers truly believe is that they are above not only the law and all morality but even public criticism as well.

Finally, the public demonization of Anderson and her outrageous firing by Francis are eclipsed only by the glaring omission of any concern voiced by either the capitalist media or the political establishment for the fate of the deer so callously attacked by Raspa. If it did not die on the spot, it likely has been crippled for life.

So long as such a perverted morality continues to hold sway, cats like Harry, the deer run down by Raspa, and all other animals stand considerably less than a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving. The only thing that seemingly matters anymore is that the likes of the Derbyshire Police, the New Jersey State Police, and private citizens alike be allowed to continue to get their cheap thrills by racing their souped-up jalopies down the streets and roads irrespective of how many animals and pedestrians that they kill and maim in the process.

Photos: Tony Hunt (Harry), Derby Telegraph (Hunt), KCAL-TV (Piper), New York City (Pompey II), New Jersey State Police (Raspa), and LinkedIn (Anderson).

Lovable and Friendly Kayden

"It has sickened us that someone could be so barbaric. At the end of the day, no animal deserves to die like that."
-- Hannah MacDonald

As if any further proof were needed that motorists run down and kill cats intentionally, the events that unfolded shortly after midnight on April 28th of last year at the corner of Dunley Drive and Brockham Crescent in the New Addington neighborhood of the borough of Croydon surely constitute the clincher. Moreover, they graphically demonstrate the extraordinary lengths that some of these diabolical monsters are prepared to go to in order to kill cats.

On that tragic occasion, a sweet as pie two-year-old brown and white tom named Kayden was crossing the street when he was run down, not once, but three times in succession by the driver of a white delivery van. Not about to stick around and face the music, the cowardly brute immediately fled the scene and it is unlikely that the world ever would have known exactly what had transpired if an unidentified member of the public had not witnessed the premeditated attack and promptly reported it to the RSPCA.

"The description given was that a white van was seen deliberately running over the tabby and white cat three times," a spokesman for the charity later confirmed to the Croydon Advertiser on May 2, 2014. (See "New Addington Cat Owner's Fury after Beloved Pet Is Run Over Three Times by Van Driver.")

The gory details have not been made public but after initially knocking Kayden to the pavement the driver presumably stopped, backed up, and then took two additional runs at him. Whereas Kayden conceivably might have weathered one such attack, he never stood a chance when pitted against such a determined adversary.

"When we arrived sadly the cat was lying in the middle of the road and had already died," the spokesman added to the Croydon Advertiser."We took it into our care and have passed on details of the incident to the police."

Kayden's owner, twenty-one-year-old Hannah MacDonald of Dunley Drive, learned of his cruel fate secondhand from her mother, Debbie. "My mother was at home and the (RSPCA) inspector knocked on the door and asked were we missing a cat," she confided to the Croydon Advertiser. "My mum said yes, and the inspector said: 'I am so sorry. We have got him in the van'."

The nature of Kayden's injuries has not been made public but it is difficult to imagine that his body could have been anything other than mangled almost beyond recognition. "I would like to know that he died straightaway," MacDonald wistfully told the Croydon Advertiser. "It would be hard to think of him in pain."

Although the eyewitness telephoned to the RSPCA at 12:10 a.m., it is not known when it arrived on the scene. It therefore is impossible to know exactly when Kayden was attacked and how long he was forced to suffer.

Hannah MacDonald Holds Up a Digital Photo of Kayden

Nevertheless, there simply is not any way of getting around the horrible reality that the initial blow delivered by the driver must have inflicted unbearable pain upon him. Additional excruciating discomfort undoubtedly followed as his attacker continued to get his perverted jollies right up until Kayden's tiny little heart finally gave out on him and ceased to beat.

"My family are (sic) absolutely devastated, as Kaydon was not only a cat to us, but a member of the family," is how MacDonald eulogized him to the Croydon Advertiser."He was such a lovely, friendly cat. He should not have been a cat: he should have been a kid or something."

Regardless of either their personalities or social status, cats are seldom able to come out on top in this ailurophobic world. For example, wary, homeless ones are systematically rounded up and exterminated en masse by wildlife biologists, ornithologists, and so-called rescue groups whereas their opposites are, more often than not, done in by the treachery of their owners as well as their own sociability.

In Kayden's case, he was far too trusting of humans for his own good. "He used to wait on the corner and then as soon as he saw someone, even if he had no idea who they were, he would follow them onto the street," MacDonald disclosed to the Croydon Advertiser. "He would even miaow at them."

In addition to inexcusably allowing him to roam the perilous streets of south London at all hours of the night without the benefit of a chaperon, MacDonald is guilty of turning a blind eye to the telltale signs of the myriad of dangers that she was exposing him to on a daily basis. For instance, it was only three weeks prior to his horrific murder that an abscess had developed on his head as the result his having been tortured by an unidentified cretin armed with a burning cigarette.

"He was always in trouble," she candidly admitted to the Croydon Advertiser. Yet, she inexplicably did little or nothing in order to shield him from the terrible abuses that those who hate cats inflict upon members of the species.

"It has sickened us that someone could be so barbaric," she told the Croydon Advertiser in reference to the criminal conduct of the driver of the van. "At the end of the day, no animal deserves to die like that."

Although the RSPCA initially pledged to investigate Kayden's death, it seems to have limited its response to making its customary appeal to the general public to do its job for it. It likewise is extremely unlikely that the Metropolitan Police Service has stirred so much as a muscle in order to bring Kayden's killer to the altar of justice.

Sox Relaxes with Logan and Ava Donoghue

No one knows where or how it all began for Kayden. MacDonald acquired custody of him when he was only five weeks old after he had been rescued by an  old boyfriend of hers from a car park in the Surrey Quays area of Rotherhithe in the adjoining borough of Southwark, twenty-one kilometers removed from New Addington.

From all outward indications, she and her mother cared deeply about him and it is beyond dispute that he grew into a loving and trusting cat. None of that in any way compensates for either the brevity of his life or his violent death.

He therefore is destined to always be remembered as a sad and tragic figure and absolutely nothing can alter that scenario at this terribly late date. If there is anything positive to be gained from his life and death it lies in the belated realization that owners like MacDonald simply must do a far better job in the future of safeguarding the fragile lives of cats like him.

Fifty-six-year-old grandmother Denise Donoghue of Charles Street in Carlisle, Cumbria, is well-acquainted with the heartbreak felt by MacDonald. That is because her black cat Sox was run down by a hit-and-run motorist at the intersection of Grey Street and London Road on Bastille Day back in 2013.

Although Sox sustained substantial injuries to both his face and one of his legs, he survived. Even in doing so he was facing the prospect of either being crippled for life or of losing the leg altogether.

His ordeal has been difficult not only on Donoghue but also on her thirty-four-year-old daughter, Alicia, and her two grandchildren, eight-year-old Logan and six-year-old Ava. "My daughter heard the cat screaming outside," she told the News and Star of Carlisle on July 17, 2013. (See "Anger after Driver Left Injured Cat to Die on Carlisle Road.")"They were going to operate and my daughter was distraught."

She additionally knows only too well the anger felt by MacDonald and so many others at motorists who make a sport out of killing defenseless, unsuspecting cats. "This person cannot have a conscience; they (sic) must have thought it was nothing," Donoghue added to the News and Star. "It would be nice if they could have come forward and said sorry."

If she genuinely expects an apology from Sox's assailant, Donoghue is living in a dream world. Far from feeling so much as a twinge of remorse, motorists who kill cats not only get an adrenalin rush out of perpetrating such vile crimes but they actually feel proud of their devilry.

Delilah Survived a Simply Heinous Act of Animal Cruelty

Merely running down cats with automobiles is, unfortunately, not always sufficient as far as some motorists are concerned; instead, they like to use the busy roads and highways as convenient sites in order to dump both cats and kittens. For example on August 20, 2013, a brown and black female subsequently named Delilah was tossed from a red hatchback on Cairngorm Drive in Kincorth, a suburb south of Aberdeen.

As if that were not horrific enough in its own right, the motorist traveling behind the hatchback then ran over Delilah without even attempting to either brake or veer around her. She was thrown to the side of the road upon impact but, amazingly, had both the prerequisite strength and presence of mind in order to scamper into a nearby garden before finally securing sanctuary on a window ledge.

"Understandably, Delilah was absolutely petrified when I came to collect her," Karen Hogg of the Scottish SPCA told the BBC on August 21, 2013. (See "Cat Thrown from Car in Aberdeen and Then Run Over.")"Delilah has used up at least two of her nine lives in what appears to have been an incredibly cruel act."

She was taken to the charity's shelter in Drumoak, twenty-two kilometers south of Aberdeen, where she was treated for only a minor scrape on her nose and unspecified damage done to the pads on her feet. That was the very last that ever was heard of her although the good news is that she was expected to have made a complete recovery. Although the charity did issue an appeal for information regarding the identity of the perpetrator of this unconscionable crime, it is extremely doubtful that such a half-hearted effort produced the desired result.

Nevertheless, Delilah owes her life to not only the Scottish SPCA but also to having had the good fortune to have been born in a civilized country. If, for instance, she had been born in the United States her fate could have been entirely different.

In an almost identical case, a pretty five-week-old forever nameless orange and white kitten was thrown from a black, four-door car at around noon on July 8, 2010 on I-24 in Chattanooga. It then bounced off a retaining wall and was struck, like Delilah, by another motorist.

It was spared an almost immediate and horrific death when David Livesay stopped and scooped it out of harm's way. He then spent the next four hours unsuccessfully attempting to procure life-saving emergency veterinary care for it but was stiffed by every veterinarian that he contacted.

"It's a life! It's a life!" he pleaded in vain. "Anything alive is worth saving."

The Ill-Fated Chattanooga Kitten

He eventually gave up and surrendered it to a notorious feline extermination factory that falsely bills itself as the McKamey Animal Care and Adoption Center where whatever residue of life that remained in its tiny body was quickly snuffed out. (See Cat Defender post of July 16, 2010 entitled "Tossed Out the Window of a Car Like an Empty Beer Can, Injured Chattanooga Kitten Is Left to Die after at Least Two Veterinarians Refused to Treat It.")

In retrospect, Livesay should have known better than to have asked his fellow Americans for assistance in that the only things that they care about are their respective tribal groups, money, killing, mindless self-indulgence, and the putting on of an endless charade designed to convince a skeptical outside world that they are the direct opposites of what they are in reality. Seldom, if ever, do they allow any other considerations to penetrate their exceedingly thick craniums.

There are at least three common threads that run throughout each of these cats' stories. First and most prominently, is the senseless waste of feline lives and the ruinous injuries inflicted upon even those cats lucky enough to survive the lawless machinations of motorists.

Secondly, whenever a cat is run down there are always significantly wider ramifications. For instance, there is the pain and anger that is inflicted upon not only owners like MacDonald and the Donoghues but also upon those kindhearted individuals like Hogg and Livesay who come to the assistance of those that have been abandoned and are now homeless.

Thirdly, none of those individuals involved in the commission of these dastardly crimes ever has been apprehended. Even more disturbingly, there is not a scintilla of evidence in the public record to even suggest that either the police or any animal protection group has ever lifted so much as a finger in order to even look for their assailants.

These types of assaults most definitely not only could be stopped but their perpetrators located and jailed as well if only the will to do so existed. Since that quite obviously is not the case, the only sensible recourse left open to owners is for them to do their utmost in order to keep their cats out of the street.

Despite their best intentions, however, even vigilant caretakers cannot always be there for their cats. For example, their beloved companions sometimes inexplicably escape from houses, fenced-in yards, and even pet carriers.

Others are cruelly abandoned either near or, worst still, on busy thoroughfares. Topping all of those concerns is the safety of those cats that are altogether homeless as well as those that belong to managed TNR colonies.

Accordingly, merely restricting the liberties of cats does not go nearly far enough. Rather, it is imperative that the roads and streets be made safe for both them and all other animals alike and the only way to achieve that lofty goal is for the authorities to not only arrest and jail all motorists who refuse to stop for them but to permanently revoke their licenses as well.

Photos: Croydon Advertiser (Kayden, MacDonald), News and Star (Sox), Scottish SPCA (Delilah), and WTVC-TV of Chattanooga (kitten).

McGuire After Having Been Savaged by a Police Dog

"It's had a huge toll on my whole family, but my main concern is why the police are training dogs in a dense residential neighborhood."
-- Aidan Moreau-MacLeod

As if cops killing cats were not reprehensible enough in its own right, the police in Toronto now have allowed one of their canine partners to join in on the free-for-all. That was the deadly frightening reality brought home firsthand to a black and brown eighteen-year-old tom named McGuire when he was run to the ground and savaged by an unidentified K-9 police dog in an alley behind his house at the intersection of Defferin and West Dundas streets.

Although the brutal assault occurred sometime during the morning hours of June 4th, McGuire was forced to suffer all alone throughout the remainder of the day and well into the evening hours until his desperate plight finally was discovered. "It's unbelievable," his twenty-five-year-old owner Aidan Moreau-MacLeod told the Toronto Star on June 9th. (See "Toronto Police Dog Savages Pet Cat.")"My father came home to find McGuire critically injured."

Considering that McGuire was not admitted to the Yonge-Davenport Pet Hospital until 10 p.m., it likely was well past 9 p.m. before he was found by the elder Moreau-MacLeod. That in turn makes its highly probable that he was forced to endure simply horrendous pain for up to as many as twelve hours.

Under such hellish circumstances it is nothing short of a minor miracle that he did not succumb to the large puncture wounds that the dog left in his back. In particular, he very easily could have either bled to death or died from an infection during the course of the day.

On June 7th he was relocated to an unnamed animal hospital in Scarborough but he now is believed to be back at home. "The injuries are bad but, thankfully, not fatal," was all that Moreau-MacLeod was willing to divulge to the Star.

At first neither Moreau-MacLeod nor his father had any earthly idea about what had happened to McGuire. On the following day, however, the members of an unidentified landscaping crew who had been working in the neighborhood the previous day and thus had witnessed the attack came forward of their own volition and courageously informed him what had transpired.

Whereas most white-collar workers are severely deficient when it comes to standing up for what is right and wrong, there is an awful lot that can be said for the honesty, simple decency, and compassion of blue-collar workers. (See Cat Defender post of March 25, 2011 entitled "Compassionate Construction Workers Interrupt Their Busy Day in Order to Rescue Chabot-Matrix from a Stream in Maine.")

When contacted by Moreau-MacLeod the Toronto Police belatedly came clean and admitted that it was indeed one of their dogs that had nearly killed McGuire. The attacker, as it turns out, was being trained in a vacant schoolyard across the alley from Moreau-MacLeod's house when it either broke free from its leash or was intentionally released by its unidentified handler.

Since all police officers are not only inveterate liars but involved up to their eyeballs in all sorts of unprofessional and, quite often, totally illegal behavior, it is naïve for anyone to take anything that they say at face value. In this particular instance, for example, it is quite conceivable that the officer used McGuire as a guinea pig in order to teach his dog how to apprehend a suspect.

He additionally could have been operating under the erroneous impression that McGuire was a homeless alley cat and that absolutely no one would miss him if he disappeared. Since various types of individuals, including police officers, commit a litany of wholesale offenses against the species, any attack upon a cat should be regarded not only as suspicious but as premeditated as well.

To their credit, the police readily consented to pay McGuire's emergency veterinary bill of C$2,000 plus the cost of his recuperation and rehabilitation but that in no way has laid this matter to rest. "It's had a huge toll on my whole family, but my main concern is why the police are training dogs in a dense residential neighborhood," Moreau-MacLeod complained to the Star.

McGuire Before the Attack

Sergeant James Hung of Police Dog Services quickly responded by arguing that it is necessary to train dogs in the same areas that they are likely to be deployed once they are on the job. "Dogs will potentially be searching residential areas for suspects or missing people," he pointed out to the Star.

That explanation did little or nothing to convince Moreau-MacLeod. "Once a dog enters a residential area like ours, it should already be perfectly trained," he told the CBC on June 11th. (See "Cat Recovering after Brutal Attack by Police Dog.")

By contrast, McGuire's attacker was only about halfway through its fifteen-week training program. Furthermore, cats are not the only potential victims of police dogs that are allowed to roam freely.

"I live near a park, a community center and a daycare center. We live right next to a family with two young kids, and a good friend of mine nearby has a toddler," Moreau-MacLeod pointed out to the Star."That's really the problem. The police were incredibly lucky this was a cat and not a small child."

Although Hung failed to adequately address Moreau-MacLeod's criticism concerning the level of training his dogs receive before being introduced into residential neighborhoods, he was more than prepared to answer his last salvo. "The first characteristic we look for in a dog is that it's sociable with people. Our dogs are trained to apprehend, not attack," he told the Star. "Our dogs go out all the time to school events where millions (sic) of kids are petting them."

He did candidly admit, however, that it was an entirely different matter as far as cats are concerned. "Unfortunately, it's like the saying goes, they will fight like cats and dogs with animals," is how he nonchalantly shrugged off the attack on McGuire. "They still have certain instincts where they see cats and raccoons as the enemy or prey."

In addition to exhibiting absolutely no regard whatsoever for either the safety of cats or the feelings and interests of their owners, it is totally inexcusable for Hung and the Toronto Police not to train their dogs to lay off of cats and other animals. That certainly is not the way that reputable shelters operate in that they meticulously screen both cats and dogs for aggression toward other animals and children before selling them back to the public for a handsome profit.

Under no circumstances would any of them knowingly allow an individual with cats to adopt an aggressive dog that would prey upon them. Such behavior not only would place the cats' lives in grave jeopardy but it possibly might even subject the shelter to legal action.

The Toronto Police, like all such forces around the world, have pretty much unlimited resources in a post-nine-eleven world and as such easily could afford to train their dogs not to attack cats. The reason that they do not do so is, doubtlessly, attributable to their ingrained contempt for the species and, most likely, their owners as well.

That point is nowhere better illustrated than in Hong's steadfast refusal to introduce such training into the regimen that the attacker and its canine colleagues are currently undergoing. As a result, future attacks on other cats are a distinct possibility.

Secondly, American cops, and presumably those north of the border as well, have a long and checkered history of gunning down cats even remotely suspected of being rabid. Once that petit fait has been grasped, it no longer seems all that farfetched that an officer of the law would deliberately sic his dog on a cat. (See Cat Defender posts of March 31, 2008, September 16, 2009, September 22, 2011, and September 27, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Cecil, Pennsylvania, Police Officer Summarily Executes Family's Beloved Ten-Year-Old Persian, Elmo,""Acting Solely Upon the Lies of a Cat-Hater, Raymore Police Pump Two Shotgun Blasts into the Head of Nineteen-Year-Old Declawed and Deaf Tobey,""Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop," and "Falsely Branded as Being Rabid by a Cat-Hater, an Animal Control Officer, and the Gorham Police Department, Clark Is Hounded Down and Blasted with a Shotgun.")

Dorian Barton and Some of His Injuries

The totally shameful, irresponsible, and unprofessional behavior exhibited by the Toronto Police in the aftermath of the attack on McGuire tends to lend support to the suspicion that it was intentional. First of all, neither the officer in question nor any of his colleagues apparently did anything at all in order to protect McGuire.

Specifically, any halfway decent officer of the law would have run after the dog and immediately pulled it off of McGuire. Based upon the severity of his injuries, however, that quite obviously was not the case.

That in turn left the senior citizen of the feline world to fend off the much larger and stronger canine all by his lonesome. It is not known how that he pulled off that stupendous feat, but perhaps he was able to dig his claws into the dog long and deep enough in order to force it to relinquish its hold on his back.

He then perhaps was able to flee into his house, up a tree, or underneath some nearby object. Either way, there cannot be any denying that he had an extremely narrow escape.

That in turn raises the distinct possibility that the officer and his colleagues stood idly by laughing off their rotten asses all the while that McGuire was being mauled to within an inch of his life. That supposition is further bolstered by the alarming fact that the police never made any attempt whatsoever to either procure life-saving veterinary intervention for McGuire or to contact his owner.

To put the matter succinctly, they behaved exactly like common criminals who had just committed a dastardly offense. Every bit as disgusting, they would have gotten away scot-free with their criminality if it had not been for the forthrightness of the conscientious landscapers.

Like police forces everywhere, the one in Toronto certainly is not adverse to trampling all over the law and civil liberties that it is sworn to uphold. Most notably, its officers engaged in widespread brutality and illegal arrests at the G20 summit back in 2010.

For example, when Dorian Barton stopped in Queen's Park on June 26th in order to photograph the mounted police, a Toronto police officer came up behind him and knocked him to the ground with his riot shield. The officer then proceeded to pummel the peaceful bystander more than five times in the head and shoulders with his night stick.

As a result, Barton suffered a broken arm, a black eye, and an assortment of bruises. Hospital worker Andrew Wallace not only witnessed the unprovoked attack but captured several images of Barton's attacker on his mobile telephone.

Ontario's Special Investigations Unit looked into the matter twice but was unable to convince any of the four-hundred police officer that had been bivouacked in downtown Toronto for the capitalists' powwow to even come forward and identify the clearly recognizable face of the officer in Wallace's photographs. Unlike their buttlicking, lying counterparts in the United States, the Toronto Star and the CBC however refused to sweep the matter underneath the rug.

Glenn Weddell

As a result, forty-nine-year-old police officer Glenn Weddell eventually was identified and charged on June 20, 2011 with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. (See the CBC, June 10, 2011, "Special Investigations Unit Charges Officer in Dorian Barton G20 Case.")

As things eventually turned out, that was destined to be just about all the justice that Barton was ever to receive from the courts. That is because when the case finally was adjudicated on May 31, 2013 Ontario Superior Court Justice M. Gregory Ellies chose, in the face of all evidence and logic to the contrary, to believe Weddell's selective amnesia at the expense of Wallace's eyewitness testimony. The hooligan thus walked out of court as free as a bird and likely is still on the job committing additional assaults against innocent members of the public.

Weddell obviously not only was as guilty as sin but had perjured himself as well and that assessment is further supported by the fact that his employer, the City of Toronto, earlier had settled a civil suit brought against it by Barton for an undisclosed amount. (See the Toronto Star, May 31, 2013, "Toronto Police Officer Glenn Weddell Acquitted of G20 Assault on Dorian Barton.")

The case also convincingly demonstrated that it is virtually impossible for there to be anything even remotely approaching an honest cop. Some of them may very well be decent enough individuals in their own right when they are left to their own devices but once they start to not only turn blind eyes to the criminal conduct of their colleagues but to protect them by perjuring themselves that is the end of their integrity. All of them are required to take oaths to uphold the law and lying is the very antithesis of honesty.

Officers of the law additionally should be compelled to observe the laws that they enforce against the remainder of society. That is no longer the case, however, in that they and their supporters have so perverted matters they they now operate above and beyond all political constraint.

For example, the unprovoked attack upon McGuire came, ironically, on the very same day that Toronto announced a citywide crackdown on owners who allow their dogs to roam off-leash. In particular, all dogs must now be leashed except when they are either on their owners' properties or in any of the city's fifty-seven leash-free parks.

Violators are subject to a C$360 fine and that most assuredly should include the Toronto Police for allowing McGuire's attacker to run free. (See the Toronto Star, June 4, 2015, "Toronto Cracking Down on Off-Leash Dogs.")

Regardless of how egregious the offense, there apparently is not any statute that makes it illegal for a dog to attack a cat. Therefore, the only recourse available to Moreau-MacLeod would be for him to instigate a civil suit for damages against the city. If such an undertaking accomplished nothing else, it would force the police into publicly identifying not only the officer who allowed the dog to get away but also the name of the officer who was in charge of the training session. It also might prompt the force to disclose Hong's whereabouts at the time of the attack.

There additionally exists the outside possibility that the force ultimately would be instructed by either the courts or the politicians to significantly alter the way that it trains both its dogs and the officers who handle them. Like dirty laundry that has been sitting in the corner and stinking up the house for way too long, all of these issues need a good public airing.

The Toronto Police's utterly inexcusable mistreatment of McGuire fits into an all-too-familiar pattern of feline abuse that can be seen throughout the worldwide law enforcement community. For example on April 19th, two unidentified constables with the Derbyshire Police ran down and killed a two-year-old ginger and white cat named Harry that was owned by restaurateur Tony Hunt and his family.

Instead of promptly owning up their heinous crime, the officers stole and disposed of his corpse. Worst still, if Hunt's sixteen-year-old neighbor, Ali Nisar, had not witnessed their criminal conduct no one ever would have known what had become of Harry. (See Cat Defender post of June 18, 2015 entitled "Harry Is Run Down and Killed by a Pair of Derbyshire Police Officers Who Then Steal and Dispose of His Body in an Amateurish Attempt to Cover Up Their Heinous Crime.")

Babycakes

Just as McGuire's mauling has exposed multiple problems within Toronto's Police Dog Services, it also has raised eyebrows concerning Moreau-MacLeod guardianship of him. The most alarming of which is his unforgivable habit of abandoning him for such terribly long periods of time.

Although it is conceivable that his dereliction of duty on June 4th was a one-time occurrence, it is every bit as likely that it constitutes the norm. If the latter scenario is true, he is indeed fortunate that McGuire was able to steer clear of disaster for so long.

That likely is attributable to the fact that he, according to the CBC, only rarely ventures out of doors. Nevertheless as his recent misadventures have painfully demonstrated, disaster can strike within the twinkling of an eye and from so many unanticipated sources. Above all, whenever Moreau-MacLeod is away there is not anyone to either come to his defense or even to transport him to a veterinarian should he be either attacked or suddenly become ill.

If he and the remainder of his family are gong to be away from home for such terribly long intervals, he needs to confine McGuire either indoors or inside a fenced-off yard. Contrary to what an awful lot of derelict owners choose to believe, cats require almost constant supervision. Even those that are cooped up indoors by themselves can unwittingly fall prey to all sorts of unforeseen dangers.

Secondly, it is disturbing to read that Moreau-MacLeod seems to be of the decided opinion that the life of a cat is somehow worth considerably less than that of a child. Whereas some owners undoubtedly would agree with him, there are others who most surely would vociferously disagree.

Although it is impossible to determine what role such an ingrained prejudice plays in his proclivity to abandon McGuire, such behavior clearly demonstrates an utterly appalling lack of concern not only for his well-being but his happiness as well. Much more importantly, McGuire is getting on and if Moreau-MacLeod truly cares about him he would dearly want to spend as much time as is humanly possible with him.

While it is well documented that police officers have little or no regard for cats, their estimation of dogs is not all that much more positive. For instance, in this particular case the dog that was allowed to get loose and savage McGuire easily could have been either injured itself or lost forever.

Speaking more generally, police departments all over the world are guilty of inveigling unsuspecting dogs into doing the dirty and dangerous jobs that they are too cowardly and lazy to do themselves. This in turn has led to countless numbers of the these faithful public servants being shot to death by criminals, run down by motorists, and dying from the inhalation of toxic substances.

Others develop cancers as the result of being confined in squad cars with officers who selfishly insist upon smoking in their presence. The naked abuse and myriad of dangers that they are subjected to make it therefore imperative that their employment in the law enforcement field by outlawed. The same is even more so the case for those canines that are shanghaied into sacrificing their lives for imperialist war machines.

Given their naked exploitation of their K-9 partners, it is not the least bit surprising that police officers have so little regard for those dogs that are owned by members of the general public. For example on April 3, 2012, Sergeant Russell Metcalf of the Harrisonburg Police Department shot to death Bryan Ware's eight-month-old collie-mix Sadie when she wandered out into the road as he was pedaling his bicycle through the Clover Hill section of town. (See Cat Defender posts of July 18, 2012 and September 7, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Bloodthirsty and Lawless Harrisonburg Police Follow Up Their Bludgeoning to Death of an Injured Cat by Gunning Down a Collie Named Sadie" and "Peripathetic Helvin Rides to the Rescue of Harrisonburg Police Sergeant Russell Metcalf and in Doing So Puts the Judicial Stamp of Approval on His Gunning Down of Sadie," plus the Daily News-Record of Harrisonburg, January 10, 2013, "Ex-City Officer Fined.")

Millie

On January 31st of this year, Detroit police officer Darrell Dawson pumped two shots into the chest of a French Mastiff named Babycakes even though the dog was secured to a ten-foot steel cable and could not have possibly harmed him in any way. The dog was owned by Darryl Lindsay of the 11000 block of Strathmoor and even though the police searched his yard and interrogated him,he never was charged with any infraction.

On June 18th, he justifiably filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the police in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. "Indeed defendant Dawson calmly, carefully and cowardly shot and killed Babycakes from a position just beyond the reach of Babycakes' leash," his attorney, Christopher Olson, told the Detroit Free Press on June 19th. (See "Lawsuit: Cop Killed Dog 'Babycakes,' for 'No Reason'.")"Defendant Killed plaintiff's dog for no reason."

On May 24th, an unidentified Detroit police officer shot a six-year-old black and white cattle-mix named Millie in the face after she barked at him while she was off her leash at the site of old Tiger Stadium at Michigan and Trumbull avenues in the Corktown section of the Motor City. The bullet went through the right side of her mouth and lodged in the other side of her jaw.

Along the way it tore out the palate in the roof of her mouth as well as several of her teeth. Rushed into surgery at a local veterinary clinic, she survived but at last word was still experiencing difficulty breathing.

Millie is well-known around Detroit in that she often appears on stage with her owner, Alison Lewis, and her band, String of Ponies. On those occasions she either howls along with Lewis or simply lies down on stage.

"It's not just what happened to my dog. The way I see it, (we) were in a public place in daylight. This is how we are handling it? It's like a concern for the community," Lewis complained to the Detroit Free Press on May 27th. (See "Why Did Detroit Police Shot Millie the Dog in Corktown?")"It's completely out of control. Someone who is that afraid in that situation should not have the power of a gun. I want this guy, at least his gun taken away."

She plans on filing an official complaint with the city and has retained Bill Goodman to explore the possibility of instigating a civil lawsuit. "The willingness and readiness to resort to deadly force is not only regrettable, it's dangerous," he added to the Free Press.

Although under Detroit law all dogs must be leashed while they are in public areas, the unprovoked killing of Babycakes has more than amply demonstrated that neither a leash nor a chain is sufficient in order to protect them from the murderous rages of police officers. There used to be a time when officers of the law first attempted to resolve disputes peaceably before only reluctantly resorting to the use of violence but nowadays they will shoot any cat, dog, or human being that so much as dares to look cross-eyed at them.

Letter carriers, delivery personnel, and all sorts of other individuals are barked at every hour of the day by dogs but absolutely none of them resort to the use of deadly force. Moreover, if private citizens were allowed to shoot every dog that barked at them there never would be an end to the carnage.

Whether the locale is Toronto, Derbyshire, Harrisonburg, Detroit, or elsewhere, the behavior of police officers toward both animals and individuals alike exposes the terrible truth that most supposedly civilized forces in the western world have devolved into the types of death squads that are so prevalent in Latin America and other backwaters around the globe. With that descent into darkness and death, respect for the sanctity of life has all but evaporated.

Most alarming of all, not many people seem to really care until either they or their cat or dog has fallen victim to police lawlessness and by that time it is way too late to put the evil genies back into their bottles where they belong. In this latest round of police violence directed at cats, dogs, and individuals, McGuire, Millie, and Barton miraculously survived but all of them possibly could be plagued with lingering health issues for the remainder of their days. Harry, Sadie, and Babycakes are, sadly, pushing up daisies while their ruthless killers are not only still strutting around like lords of the universe but undoubtedly as pleased as punch with all the evil that they have inflicted upon their totally innocent victims.

Photos: Aidan Moreau-MacLeod (McGuire), National Post (Barton), Rene Johnston of the Toronto Star (Weddell), Fox-2 Detroit (Babycakes), and Alison Lewis (Millie).

The Ill-Fated Regi in Happier Days

"The attack went on for about six-and-a-half minutes and she just stood idly by and watched. It was horrendous, it didn't happen quickly. It happened very, very slowly. Clearly she got a lot of enjoyment out of it, she was laughing."
-- Lesley-Anne Brocklehurst

In addition to having almost unlimited amounts of money, the law enforcement community nowadays also has such technological advances as DNA testing, wiretaps, mobile telephone data, and closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) at its disposal in order to help it identify and apprehend suspects. Malheureusement, when it comes to combating cruelty to cats all of those pricey and newfangled developments are virtually useless because of the moribund thinking of those individuals, groups, and institutions that are charged with enforcing the anti-cruelty statutes.

To put the matter succinctly, not even a mountain of incontrovertible forensic evidence is sufficient in order to convince jurists who have either little or no regard for the sanctity of feline life to punish their abusers and killers. That long-standing and utterly deplorable tenet of jurisprudence was affirmed once again in graphic fashion on April 30th when twenty-four-year-old Stephanie Curwen of Walter Avenue in St. Annes, Lancashire, was let off scot-free by Blackpool Magistrates' Court for intentionally sicking her Staffordshire Bull Terrier-type dog, Duke, on a six-month-old black Bengal kitten named Regi.

In July of 2014, Regi was sitting atop a fence that surrounded the house that he shared with Lesley-Anne Brocklehurst, her husband, three children, two dogs, and another cat on Baron Road in the South Shore section of Blackpool, six kilometers removed from St. Annes, when Curwen and Duke came upon him. Exactly what they were doling in that neighborhood never has been satisfactorily explained by the press.

Upon spying Regi, Duke immediately started jumping up and yapping at him. He soon tired of that game, however, and fell in behind his mistress as they continued on down the street.

Curwen's perverse tastes could only be slaked with the spilling of feline blood, however, and for that reason she stopped, turned back around, and pointed out Regi to Duke and, like the obedient dog that he is, he immediately resumed his hostilities. Exactly what transpired next is not exactly clear.

Stephanie Curwen

For its part, The Blackpool Gazette reported on May 1st that Regi fell from the fence of his own accord and then was devoured by Duke after Curwen had unleashed him. (See "Video: Cat Death Woman Walks Free.") A video posted on YouTube, however, clearly shows Duke jumping up on the fence and dragging Regi off of it and down to the sidewalk.

The black cat then can clearly be seen scurrying down the street with Curwen and Duke in hot pursuit. It is not possible to determine what happened next because the camera's view is obscured by the fence.

Apparently Regi never realized what he was up against until it was way too late otherwise he could have retreated into the safety of his own garden where several other cats can be seen in the YouTube video sitting on chaises longues. Even after he had been dragged from the safety of his perch he still might have been able to have gotten away if only the opportunistic and devilish Curwen had not seized the golden opportunity presented to her by promptly unleashing Duke. Provided thus with a free-of-charge ringside seat, she then stood idly by laughing off her ugly little face as Duke tore into Regi.

Since apparently the Brocklehursts were either away or if they were at home they were unaware of what was taking place outside their front door, and that left matters to their neighbor, forty-five-year-old Craig Hargreaves, who courageously intervened and pulled Duke off of Regi. "I managed to pull the dog away from the cat using one finger," he later told The Blackpool Gazette."It was as vicious as a playful puppy."

Whereas Hargreaves' extremely charitable description of Duke's attitude toward him may or may not have been accurate, there can be no denying that his behavior toward Regi was an altogether different affair and that is nowhere more vividly demonstrated than in the end result of events. "He (Hargreaves) felt two heartbeats from the cat and then nothing and the cat appeared to be dead," Jonathan Fail, who prosecuted the case for the RSPCA, told The Blackpool Gazette.

Regi Sitting on a Fence as Curwen and Duke Stroll Past

Once again The Blackpool Gazette leaves it to its readers' imagination to fathom what occurred next. In particular, it has not even been disclosed if Regi was rushed to a veterinarian or simply written off on the spot as being dead.

Regardless of whether he died then and there or sometime later, his all-too-brief stay upon this earth not only appeared to have come to an abrupt end on that god-awful day but it did in fact do so and for all time to come. A necropsy later performed by a local veterinarian revealed that Duke had bitten him twice and that one of the bites had fatally ruptured a lung.

It is not known whether the initial investigation was handed by either the RSPCA or the local police but at its conclusion Curwen was charged with one count of causing an animal to fight and another count of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. Although she ultimately pled guilty to both counts, her lawyer ludicrously maintained at her trial that the killing of Regi had been both unintentional and accidental.

"Clearly this is a very sad and tragic case which couldn't (sic) and shouldn't have happened," David Charnley told the magistrates according to the account rendered in The Blackpool Gazette. "The defendant has learned a very salutary lesson. She said she didn't expect to happen what did happen."

Whereas there is only a very minute chance that she could have been telling the truth when she stated that she did not expect Duke to have been able to have caught Regi, it is beyond dispute that by unleashing and egging him on she made that a distinct possibility. It likewise is beyond contention that once Duke had caught Regi that she reveled in what he did to him.

Curwen Sics Duke on Regi

"Throughout the whole of the attack, the female made no attempt to stop it," Fail told The Blackpool Gazette. "In effect she seemed to be encouraging the whole incident."

Hargreaves wholeheartedly endorsed those sentiments. "What makes us the most upset is that she just laughed throughout," he told The Blackpool Gazette."She didn't have an ounce of respect for that poor animal."

Curwen afterwards informed Hargreaves that the attack had occurred in a "split-second" and that she therefore did not have an opportunity to stop it. Dubious as to the veracity of her claim, Brocklehurst reviewed CCTV footage of the attack taken by a camera on Hargreaves' property and what she saw confirmed her worst suspicions.

"The attack went on for about six-and-a-half minutes and she just stood idly by and watched. It was horrendous, it didn't happen quickly. It happened very, very slowly," she averred to The Blackpool Gazette. "Clearly she got a lot of enjoyment out of it, she was laughing."

In spite of all the evidence being heavily stacked against her, the court chose not to throw the book at her but rather to let her off with a twenty-four-week suspended jail sentence coupled with a ten-year ban on the owning of all animals. Furthermore, the entire sorry affair ended up costing her only £200 in court costs plus a victim's surcharge of £80.

Stephanie Curwen Hides Her Guilty Face as She Leaves Court

Although it is not known how much weight that the magistrates assigned to the fact that Curwen has three young children at home, that should not have been a consideration at all. To put the matter rather bluntly, cat killers should not be excused by the courts simply because they have dependents at home. (See Cat Defender posts of March 13, 2012 and August 17, 2011 entitled, respectively, "The Sick Wife Defense Works Like a Charm for Cunning Patrick Doyle after He Traps a Cat and Then Shoots It with an Air Rifle While Still in Its Cage" and "Ernst K. Walks Away Smelling Like a Rose as Both the Prosecutor and Judge Turn His Trial for Killing Rocco into a Lovefest for a Sadistic Cat Killer.")

Either she, the taxpayers, or someone else had to pony up for Charnley's services and perhaps she was forced to miss a day or two of work but that was the extent of her punishment. Her reputation may have suffered somewhat as the result of all the bad publicity that she has received but it is doubtful that the damage will be permanent in that cruelty to cats is seldom taken seriously anywhere on the planet.

She might even have succeeded in achieving something akin to cult status within the crowd that she runs with through her cold-blooded, premeditated murder of Regi. That is exactly how ornithologists and wildlife biologists treated James Munn Stevenson in the wake of his unmasking for having gunned down hundreds of cats. (See Cat Defender post of August 7, 2008 entitled "Crime Pays! Having Made Fools Out of Galveston Prosecutors, Serial Cat Killer James Munn Stevenson Is Now a Hero and Laughing All the Way to the Bank.")

Not surprisingly, Brocklehurst's reaction to the court's utterly insane verdict was apoplectic. "I'm happy about the ban but she should have gone to prison for what she did," she declared to The Blackpool Gazette."Hopefully then it might sink in what she did, and how cruel it was."

She also was denied the justice that she had so desperately wanted for Regi. "It's not about us, it's about our cat," she continued. "I just want justice for him, and sadly I don't feel we've got that."

Freeman

Curwen's total lack of remorse likewise did not sit well with her. "There has been no attempt at an apology," she related to The Blackpool Gazette on May 4th. (See "'I Don't Want an Apology from Killer Dog Owner'.")"I would not accept any apology now."

The one thing that she is thankful for however is the cameras. "She's probably remorseful for the fact that she chose to walk down a road with cameras all over it. Had we not have had the cameras she would have got away with it," Brocklehurst explained to The Blackpool Gazette in the May 1st article cited supra."I'm glad that we had the cameras and I'm hoping it will make people think twice about what they are doing."

She nevertheless fears that Curwen possibly could be, like the diabolical monster Stevenson, a serial cat abuser. "She seemed to be getting a lot of pleasure out of it (the killing of Regi) so maybe it's not the first time she's done something like this," she theorized to The Blackpool Gazette on May 1st.

Although it was Duke who killed Regi, Hargreaves is of the opinion that the responsibility for the attack rests solely upon Curwen's shoulders. "It wasn't interested in the cat, it would have carried on down the street and got home without any problem," he declared to The Blackpool Gazette on May 1st.

Fail is, apparently, of the same opinion. "There was no growling or suggestion of aggression and he (Hargreaves) indicated to the woman that she should put the dog on a lead," he related to The Blackpool Gazette on May 1st.

Fred After Having Been Mauled

Like sheep to the slaughter, even Brocklehurst has proven not to be immune to the siren call to completely exonerate Duke. "It was quite clear that it was only doing what it was told to do," she added to The Blackpool Gazette on May 1st.

Au contraire, all three of them are in error because Duke not only started jumping at Regi apparently of his own volition but he went after him with malice aforethought as soon as Curwen unleashed him. Although both her encouragement and unleashing of him doubtlessly contributed mightily to the outcome of events, there cannot be any getting around the fact that he wanted a piece of Regi from the very first moment that he laid eyes upon him.

It accordingly constitutes the epitome of dishonesty for Hargreaves, Fail, and Brocklehurst to attribute to Duke a magnanimity and benevolence that he never for one moment harbored in his bosom for Regi. It was an entirely different matter back in August of 2009 when a pet python refused to devour a kitten offered to it by twenty-eight-year-old Jeremy Tuffly of Mesa, Arizona.

Not about to be deterred in his evil designs, Tuffly then kicked the defenseless kitten to death. "Congratulations, Phoenix! We have the one guy on the planet who was outclassed by a snake," is how James King of the Phoenix New Times so eloquently summed up the situation. "Hopefully, he can look on the bright side: if he doesn't like jail, at least he has Hell to look forward to." (See Cat Defender post of November 7, 2009 entitled "Jeremy Tuffly Feeds a Kitten to a Pet Python but When It Demurs He Does the Foul Deed Himself by Kicking It to Death.")

Hargreaves' judgment also is called into question because of his rather underdeveloped sense of justice. "I'm glad the whole thing has been sorted and she's (Curwen) been punished for her actions," he mindlessly caroled to The Blackpool Gazette on May 1st.

Curwen therefore was not the only one to escape justice but Duke also was spared retribution unless being uprooted and rehomed is factored into that equation. Presumably, he was not placed in a home with cats but even so that in no way ensures the safety of others who reside in the same neighborhood with him.

Hamish McHamish Is Treed by a Pair of Dogs

He quite obviously picked up some bad habits from Curwen and it would have been preferable if he had undergone both temperament and behavioral testing and treatment before being allowed back out into society. Every bit as importantly, it is imperative that he was placed not only with a responsible owner but a watchful one as well.

Nevertheless, Brocklehurst was satisfied with that outcome. "I have never wanted the dog to be destroyed," she told The Blackpool Gazette on May 1st.

So, in the end, things turned out as they most always do in cases of this sort. The killers, Curwen and Duke, escaped unscathed and that is just peachy keen with the RSPCA, the courts, Hargreaves, and even Brocklehurst to a certain extent. The only one who came out on the short end of the stick was Regi and he lost it all, including his irreplaceable life.

Regardless of whatever else may be said about this matter, that was not fair and it certainly does not constitute justice in any shape, form, or fashion. Absolutely no one really seems to have much of a problem with that, however, and that in turn speaks volumes for just how little most people value the life of a cat.

An elderly, longhaired black cat named Freeman with only three legs was victimized under almost identical circumstances during the last week of March. Like Regi, he was sitting in his own garden in Tarring, West Sussex, when he was attacked by two large dogs.

They then dragged him into neighbor Terry Rickards' garden where they mauled him to death in a ninety-second attack that was captured on CCTV. Unlike with Regi, however, Freeman never stood a ghost of a chance owing to his handicap. Also since Rickards was away, there was not anyone to intervene on his behalf.

Mayor Stubbs and His Horrific Injuries

After the attack, an unidentified woman was seen on camera driving up in a blue car, calling over the attackers, believed to have been Dobermans, and then casually driving off with them. In doing so, she never gave the mortally injured Freeman so much as a sideways' glance.

"To find out he had been savaged by the dogs and the owners (sic) had done nothing is just completely callous," Freeman's forty-four-year-old owner, Tracy Lynch, exclaimed to the Daily Mail on April 3rd. (See "Shocking Moment Three-Legged Cat Was Mauled to Death by Two Passing Dogs as It Lay in Its Front Garden.")"That's what's most distressing for us that they didn't do anything to check on the cat."

Rickards was in total agreement with that assessment of events. "It amazes and sickens me that no attempt was made either at the time the dogs were recovered, or at a later stage, to check on the state of the cat," he added to the Daily Mail. "As far as I am aware, no attempt has been made since by the dog's owners (sic) to seek the owners of the cat. It's a pretty horrific attack really."

The killing of Freeman, whom Lynch had adopted from an RSPCA shelter way back in 2004, has had a traumatic effect upon her three children who had grown up with him as their constant companion and loyal friend. "My youngest son was completely distraught," she confided to the Daily Mail."This is the first family pet he's lost and he was in floods of tears."

Over the years Freeman had become well-known in the neighborhood and for that reason his death more than likely has been felt outside the Lynch family. "He would go around the neighborhood and everyone knew him," she told the Daily Mail."He was a real character. I think the neighbors will miss him out and about."

As best it could be determined, no additional information has appeared online regarding the killing of Freeman and that makes it therefore impossible to know if an arrest ever was made in the case. It would seem likely however that the woman had dropped off the dogs at the house of an acquaintance before later returning to collect them and the fact that she knew exactly where to find them lends credence to that supposition.

Bailey Will Be for ever Seven Months Old

Therefore, either the local police or the RSPCA should have been able to easily identify and arrest her. If that has not occurred, they simply have not been exercising the due diligence that is required of them under the anti-cruelty statutes.

On July 8th of last year, another unleashed Staffordshire Bull Terrier bit into the head of a two-year-old brown and white cat named Fred on Marston Lane in Frome, Somerset, and refused to let go. That surely would have been the end of him if a group of public-spirited construction workers had not courageously intervened at their own peril and forcibly pried open the dog's jaws.

He also was aided immeasurably by an unidentified couple who stayed with him and did what they could for him until help arrived. Even then it was a terribly close call for Fred.

Specifically, staples were required in order to close puncture wounds in his head. He also had to be treated for both a dented skull and shock.

"Fred was at death's door when we got him but he is now on the mend, thank goodness," his owner, identified only by her first name as Ali, told the Frome Standard on July 12, 2014. (See "Cat's Lucky Escape from Dog's Savage Jaws of Death.")"It is so awful what happened but what scares me even more is that it could have been a child in its jaws."

Inexplicably, the woman who owned the dog was allowed to get away without even producing so much as identification, let alone being charged by the authorities. Ali later notified both the police and the local dog catcher but by then it was way too late for either of them to act.

Joshua Varey

"He (Fred) is such a big part of our family. The whole situation is very concerning," Ali added to the Frome Standard."I just hope the owner does something about the dog's aggression before it is too late."

That is not about to happen and wishing for the best is not going to save feline lives. The woman quite obviously belongs in jail and her dog in obedience training and with a responsible new guardian.

In January of 2014, St. Andrews' world famous resident feline, Hamish McHamish, was chased up a tree by a pair of unleashed dogs. Thankfully, he managed to escape injury and was brought down to safety by employees of Dynamic Hair and local students.

Hamish's close brush with disaster prompted Jim Leishman, provost of Fife and Dunfermline, to call upon all dog owners to do a far better job of minding their pets. "We've got to protect the old boy. He's getting on," he said of Hamish on that occasion. "I would ask dog owners to please keep their animals under control and on a leash when around Hamish McHamish." (See Cat Defender post of June 20, 2014 entitled "St. Andrews Honors Hamish McHamish with a Bronze Statue but Does Not Have the Decency, Love, and Compassion in Order to Provide Him with a Warm, Secure, and Permanent Home.")

Shuan Mullens

As things ironically turned out, Hamish had far more to fear from his owner, Marianne Baird, than the did from dogs in that she wasted no time in having him killed off by a mercenary veterinarian later in the summer when he came down with a common cold. (See Cat Defender post of October 18, 2014 entitled "Hamish McHamish's Derelict Owner Reenters His Life after Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect Only to Have Him Killed Off after He Contracts a Preeminently Treatable Common Cold.")

The British Open has returned to the Old Course this week after its customary four-year hiatus but it is doubtful that very many of the thousands of golfing enthusiasts who are on hand for the event either will realize or even care for that matter that the auld grey toon has lost its noblest soul and most iconic resident. All that those coarse souls care about is idolizing a legion of grotesquely overpaid and utterly worthless bums as they whack little white balls down fairways and greens saturated with enough pesticides and herbicides to gag a Brontosaurus. Hamish's statue is still on display of course but it is a rather paltry substitute for the life and blood genuine article.

Not even those cats that hold important public offices are immune from being savaged by dogs that are allowed by their owners to run free. For instance on August 31, 2013, Mayor Stubbs came within an eyelash of being killed when he was severely mauled by a dog on the streets of Talkeetna in Alaska.

In particular, he suffered a long, deep gash in his side that required twelve stitches to close as well as a punctured lung, a fractured sternum, a bruised hip, and several broken ribs. He mercifully lived but was forced to retire from public life. (See Cat Defender posts of October 28, 2013 and September 25, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Slow to Recuperate from Life-Threatening Injuries Sustained in a Savage Mauling by an Unleashed Dog, Stubbs Announces His Intention to Step Down as Mayor of Talkeetna" and "Talkeetna Has Profited Handsomely from Mayor Stubbs' Enlightened Leadership but the Lure of Higher Office Soon Could Be Beckoning Him to Change His Address.")

As was the case with Hamish, it is not known if the attack on Stubbs was a deliberate act on the part of the dog's owner or happenstance. What is known is that either he or she fled the scene and never was arrested.

The scope of the problem is by no means limited to the criminal behavior of private individuals but rather it extends to officers of the law as well. For example on June 4th, the Toronto Police either carelessly or intentionally allowed one of their dogs to maul nearly to death Aidan Moreau-MacLeod's eighteeen-year-old cat, McGuire.

R.J.

Even more appalling, they imitated the cowardly and utterly repulsive behavior of Curwen and the unidentified owners of the canines that mauled Freeman, Fred, Hamish, and Stubbs by leaving him all alone to lick his sounds and without either taking him to a veterinarian or contacting Moreau-MacLeod. (See Cat Defender post of July 2, 2015 entitled "After Allowing One of Their Dogs to Maul McGuire to Within an Inch of His Life, the Toronto Police Do Not Have Even the Common Decency to Summon Veterinary Help for Him.")

Whereas it sometimes is difficult to determine if individual owners purposefully sic their dogs on cats, the point is essentially moot in that they are responsible under the law for their companions' behavior and accordingly are every bit as guilty regardless of the circumstances. No such nuances enter into the equation, however, when it comes to gangs who purposefully target cats.

That is precisely what occurred on Carlton Drive in Strabane, County Tyrone, on February 22, 2010 when a group of ten teenagers got their hands on a seven-month-old black kitten named Bailey and subsequently fed him to a black greyhound. Left with multiple broken bones and lacerations, she succumbed to her injuries en route to a veterinarian.

"I just don't know how these young people can sleep at night after doing something like this," Bailey's distraught owner said afterwards. "They are nothing but scum!"

As best it could be determined, no arrest ever was made in the case. (See Cat Defender post of March 24, 2010 entitled "Seven-Month-Old Bailey Is Fed to a Lurcher by a Group of Sadistic Teens in Search of Cheap Thrills in Northern Ireland.")

Sylvester

Later on August 28th of that same year, a gang of men sicced a dark-brown Staffordshire Bull Terrier-Greyhound-mix on a ginger-colored cat on Kirkgate Street in the Burnley Wood section of Burnley in Lancashire. Under such hellish circumstances, the forever nameless feline never stood a chance of holding its own against such a formidable and bloodthirsty foe.

In the fortnight leading up to the attack, the bodies of four additional cats were found in the backyards of derelict houses on Branch Road. "These are serious offenses which have caused unnecessary harm and distress to animals and their owners," Louise Blackey of the local constabulary told the Lancashire Telegraph on September 8, 2010. (See "Cats Savaged in Burnley.")

Besides reiterating the painfully obvious and prevailing upon the public for assistance, it is doubtful that the authorities in Burnley did very much to apprehend those individuals responsible for these despicable attacks. The story was somewhat different in July of last year when the RSPCA apprehended and prosecuted forty-nine-year-old Paul Ashworth of Hawley Street in Colne, Lancashire, for shaking a cat out of a tree so that the dogs of his accomplices could attack it.

Disgracefully, the boobs who sit on Burnley Magistrates' Court let him off with a minuscule sentence of seventy-six days in jail plus a five-year ban on owning animals. That was in spite of the fact that he is a career criminal who already had two prior convictions for animal cruelty.

Although the RSPCA is to be commended for finally getting off the schneid and going after him, it was actually his and his cohorts egos and hubris that actually sealed their fates. In particular, they committed to mistake of filming their crimes on their mobile phones which later were seized in raids and subsequently used against them in court.

Bobbi

One of his accomplices, twenty-four-year-old Joshua Varey of Duke Street in Colne can clearly be heard on one of the videos laughing as the cat is shaken from the tree. He was not convicted for that offense, however, but rather for siccing his dogs on a badger.

Even then all that he received was one-hundred-twenty-six days in jail plus a ten-year ban on owning animals. His partner in the attack on the badger, twenty-two-year-old Shuan Mullens of Leach Street in Colne, was given a one-hundred-fourteen day jail term plus also a ten-year ban on owning animals.

The magistrates let the duo off with light taps on the wrists in spite of the fact that Varey has a long history of breeding and selling fighting dogs whereas Mullens previously had been convicted for poaching rabbits. In the end, the RSPCA did not have an awful lot to show for the £24,000 that it spent prosecuting the trio.

Worst of all, the rescue group never was able to determine the fate of either the cat or the badger. "The case is probably just the tip of the iceberg," Carroll Lamport of the charity told the Lancashire Telegraph on July 12, 2014. (See "East Lancashire Gang Who Filmed Dogs Attacking Badger and Cat Jailed.")"These men are responsible for a vicious, deliberate and vindictive level of animal cruelty."

In addition to training their dogs on cats, some individuals even go so far as to steal domesticated ones right out from underneath the noses of their owners in order to abuse them for sport. For example, a quartet of cats that were destined to be fed to Greyhounds were abandoned outside the Bleakholt Animal Sanctuary in Ramsbotton, Lancashire, sometime during the Christmas holidays of 2010.

Pippi

A note attached to their carriers read: "Please help these poor cats. I am a student at Liverpool University. These poor cats were destined to be bait for greyhounds. Live Bait! On Morecombe Beach (in Lancaster City)."

Subsequently dubbed Holly Berry, Snowflake, Tinsel, and Tiny Tim, all of them were not only in good shape but obviously had been well cared for before they were stolen. Bleakholt attempted to reunite them with their rightful owners but it is not known how successful it was in that endeavor.

"There are people out there who consider it to be good sport to set animals on each other for their sick amusement," the shelter's Neil Martin told the Bury Times of Bolton in Greater Manchester on January 1, 2011. (See "Cats Destined to Be Used as 'Live Bait' for Greyhounds.")"I find this kind of behavior to be horrific. We are supposed to be a nation of animal lovers."

Like people everywhere, the English are a good deal less than what they pretend to be. As Michael Crichton demonstrated in his 1975 historical novel, The Great Train Robbery, breeding vicious dogs to attack each other, cats, and other animals is every bit as English as tea and crumpets.

Consequently, this type of simply abhorrent animal abuse continues to flourish throughout the country. For example, an unspecified number of domesticated cats were believed to have been stolen from Aspatria in Cumbria during September and October of 2012 in order to be fed to hunting dogs.

Bubba Is Trying to Recover from an Horrific Mauling

"There are cats that have been going missing around the area," thirty-one-year-old Alex Christie of Spring Kell Street who lost his one-year-old cat, Oscar, told the News and Star of Workington on October 9, 2012. (See "Fears Cats Being Stolen in Cumbria to Be Used as Hunting Dogs Bait.")"I've heard there are people with dogs and they have been setting their dogs on the cats."

In an extremely rare victory for the proponents of animal welfare, five individuals were arrested and six Greyhounds and a pair of Labrador Retrievers seized a few weeks later on November 7th in raids conducted by the Durham County Constabulary and the RSPCA in the Firthmoor section of Darlington. The arrests came in response to complaints from the public of cats and other animals being chased by dogs in an apparently organized and systematic fashion. (See The Guardian, November 7, 2012, "Five Arrested over Suspected Cat Hunts.")

As horrific a toll as dogs take on domesticated cats, that pales in comparison with the carnage that they inflict upon those that are homeless. Most disconcerting of all is the destruction that they inflict upon those that belong to managed TNR colonies.

Confined as they are to one geographic location, these cats often are caught off guard when either feeding or reposing in their winterized shelters and as such they make easy pickings for dogs that attack them either of their own volition or at the behest of their supremely evil owners. For instance, between the middle of October and November 13th of last year, a group of vicious dogs killed at least seventeen cats in the Collinwood neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland.

The lion's share of the victims belonged to the Euclid Beach Feral Cat Project at 15 Washington Boulevard and the Waterloo Alley Cat Project located, it is believed, somewhere in the business district of the same name. Among the victims from Waterloo were a brown and white cat named R.J., a black and white one named Sylvester, a tortoiseshell named Bobbi, and a tuxedo named Pippi. Five others are still missing and presumed to be dead.

Two of the Alleged Killers, Presumably Now Dead Themselves

The only cat from either colony known to have survived one of these attacks is an orange cat named Bubba who not only received several severe bite wounds but also lost his tail. He was forced to undergo five surgeries that cost a total of $700 but, at last word, was expected to recover.

"He greets everyone with a meow, hoping to be fussed over," his owner, Laurie Banks, who resides at the Euclid Mobile Home Park, told The Plain Dealer on December 18th. (See "Cat-Killings Cease after Cleveland Man Surrenders His Dogs.")

As things turned out, Bubba owes his salvation neither to Banks nor to Cleveland Animal Control which failed miserably to do its job, but rather to courageous area resident, fifty-two-year-old Katie Nolan. "I heard dogs barking at 7:50 Wednesday (November 12th) morning and ran outside in my pajamas," she related to The Plain Dealer on November 13th. (See "Bubba Is the Sole Survivor of the Cleveland Dog-Pack Attacks on Cats.")"I saw the dogs in my backyard, grabbed a board off my porch and ran up to them shaking my two-by-four and yelling."

The information contained in press reports is rather sketchy but all of the victims were not homeless. For instance, a cat owned by Monica Doyle was killed by the dogs and Andy Kessler lost his cat, Spike, to them while his other cat, Freebie, was maimed.

The derelicts and nincompoops who comprise the ranks of Animal Control set out humane traps in a supposedly serious effort designed to catch the dogs but that was primarily a carefully choreographed public relations charade designed to hoodwink the public into falsely believing that they were doing their jobs. Meanwhile, the slaughter of cats continued unabated.

Finally, on November 13th a group of concerned citizens at an unidentified sausage shop spotted the dogs and telephoned Animal Control which subsequently was able to capture a pair of black Labrador Retrievers on East One-Hundred-Fifty-Six Street near Interstate 90. Four more dogs and nine, two-week-old puppies later were seized from the residence of sixty-eight-year-old Ralph Williams of Darwin Avenue.

Prior to that, four dogs, including a pair of Rottweilers, a Doberman, and a Lab-mix had been photographed chasing cats on a surveillance camera located on Trafalgar Avenue. Press reports have not delved into this discrepancy but, as far as it is known, the attacks ceased with the seizure of Williams' dogs.

He eventually was charged with allowing his dogs to run free and for failing to purchase licenses for them but Animal Control was all too willing to overlook the carnage that they had inflicted upon the cats and their owners and caretakers. "None of the witnesses to the attacks on the cats were able to positively identify the dogs we impounded," is how Chief Animal Control Officer Ed Jamison excused his utterly reprehensible dereliction of duty to The Plain Dealer on December 18th. "I am confident that they were the dogs killing the cats, as I saw firsthand the areas they were able to cover. But that isn't enough to issue charges in the cats' deaths."

Tess Enjoys a Mug of Her Favorite Tipple

That is pure baloney in that Jamison had surveillance footage of the dogs chasing the cats and that made positive eyewitness identification of them superfluous. Additionally, it likely would have been possible to have collected incriminating DNA from the dogs. All sorts of men and women have been sent to the gas chamber on circumstantial evidence far less compelling that what his agency had assembled against Williams and his dogs.

The point is temporarily moot, however, in that Williams failed to show up in Cleveland Municipal Court on December 18th for a hearing on the charges. Most likely he simply was too cheap in order to pay the minuscule $150 fines that he was liable for under each count lodged against him.

A warrant was issued for his arrest but if the authorities have not apprehended him by now they likely never will bring him to justice. By contrast, if his dogs had mauled, let alone killed, a single individual there would have been a police manhunt for him that would have rivaled the one that the authorities in New York State staged last month for David Sweat and Richard Matt. Since his victims were only cats, however, none of the authorities in the "mistake by the lake" care enough to be bothered with even arresting him.

The abject failure of Animal Control to have apprehended him weeks earlier is all the more inexcusable in that Williams was well-known to them for keeping large vicious dogs that he allowed to run free. Besides, the agency was informed from the very outset that the attackers were domesticated canines and not a pack of homeless mongrels.

"They do not look like mangy dogs. They look like they're well-fed, like they are cared for," Brian Licht of the Euclid Beach Feral Cat Project told Fox-8 of Cleveland on November 1st. (See "Pack of Roaming Dogs Reportedly Targeting Cats in Cleveland Neighborhoods.")"The dogs are not interested in food, they are only interested in killing cats."

Although it is not known what Williams was doing with so many vicious, unsocialized dogs, the strong suspicion is that he was breeding them for sport. "I don't know if they are fighting dogs," Licht added to Fox-8. "It almost seems like they've been trained to kill."

As far as it is known, Williams only turned the dogs loose at night but whether he did so in order to have them protect his property or to intentionally kill cats is not known. It strains credulity however that he did not know what they were doing and yet he did absolutely nothing in order to stop them.

That is one more reason why the authorities should have thrown the book at him. He also cared almost nothing about the dogs' safety in that they easily could have been either run down by motorists or shot by a disgruntled homeowner.

Peter and Tamara

New homes were found for thirteen of Williams' dogs but two of them, presumably the pair captured on November 13th, were killed off by either Animal Control or the Cleveland Protective League. The latter action was both unnecessary and grossly unfair in that the killers could have been either rehabilitated or sent to a sanctuary where, at worst, they could have lived out their lives inside a fenced-in compound if necessary. After all, Williams was the one who was responsible for their killing spree and therefore richly deserves to be punished the most severely.

In the aftermath of the killings, the Waterloo Alley Cat Project announced plans to raise $2,000 in order to install a fence around its cats and to purchase sturdier winter shelters for them. "This incident with the dogs was the worst experience we have ever had...and hopefully ever will," the charity's Deborah Gulyes told The Plain Dealer in the December 18th article cited supra.

Whereas both of those initiatives are welcome developments, they do not go nearly far enough. Located as they are in such bad neighborhoods, both TNR colonies also need to add surveillance cameras and, above all, nighttime attendants. If at all possible, it would be better if they were relocated to private properties under the legal control of their caretakers.

The senseless and totally preventable killing of these twenty-two wonderful and long-suffering cats has not only exposed the Achilles heel of all TNR projects but provided the despicable cat-killing scumbags at PETA with enough ammunition to keep their TNR defamation project going full tilt for the next twenty years. Even more reprehensibly, the managers of both colonies have the cats' blood all over their hands and faces.

Specifically, as soon as they learned that the cats were under assault the volunteers should have immediately inaugurated all-night patrols. Armed with flashlights, noisemakers, and sticks, they should have been able to not only have driven off the intruders but also to have captured photographs of them on their mobile phones which they then could have shared with the authorities.

If they had been willing to have done that, not only could the cats have been saved but perhaps the dogs could have been corralled in short order. If they were expecting either Animal Control or the police to have fulfilled their sacred responsibilities to the cats they were deadly mistaken.

The outcome was far different back in February of 2010 when a pack of coyotes arrived on the scene and began preying upon the Bluffers Park TNR colony in Toronto's Scarborough District. In an effort to save Half Mask and the other cats, the colony's caretakers staged all-night vigils in the biting cold and snow where they used sticks, flashlights, and whistles in order to drive off the coyotes. (See Cat Defender post of September 15, 2011 entitled "Ravenous Coyotes, Cat-Haters, and Old Man Winter All Want Her Dead, Buried, and Gone but Brave Little Half Mask Is Defying All the Odds.")

TNR therefore involves considerably more than merely feeding, watering, sheltering, and desexing homeless cats. Their fragile lives must be safeguarded at all costs from the machinations of dogs, wildlife such as coyotes and raccoons, cat-haters, and governmental officials. If at the end of the day all that their caretakers have to show for their efforts is a colony of dead cats their brand of TNR has been a miserable failure.

Cleopatra

Although dog owners are rather different individuals from ailurophiles, not all of them hate cats and even a few of them have been known to go out of their way in order to assist those in extremis. For example on New Year's Day of 2010, an unidentified man out walking his dog in Swinderby in Lincolnshire stumbled upon an eight-week-old black and white cat named Bess that had been zipped up in a bag and dumped along the side of a road.

He then took her to a veterinarian and she later was adopted by Matthew Walsh to serve as the mascot of The Bugle Horn Inn in Bassingham. "Bess has already used up two of her nine lives, but she's settled in now," he later reported. "She quickly got her paws under the bar, and she's ready to make her debut with the customers."(See Cat Defender post of February 25, 2010 entitled "Bess Twice Survives Attempts Made on Her Life Before Landing on All Four Paws at a Pub in Lincolnshire.")

In early October of 2014, a dog was credited with saving the lives of six cats, aged two to five years old, that had been dumped in a trash can in a remote area of the six-hundred-ten-acre Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve in Cambridgeshire. If the dog had not started barking, its owners never would have thought to have looked inside the receptacle.

"When the dog's owners opened the bin they found six cats staring up at them," Alan Maskell of Blue Cross revealed to the BBC on October 3rd. (See "Barking Dog Saved Cats from Wheelie Bin, Says Charity.")"They were completely shocked."

Best of all, the felines were said to have been in good condition despite their death-defying ordeal. Peter, a black and white tom, Tamara, white with black spots, and brown and white Cleopatra later were put up for adoption along with the other three unidentified cats.

It thus seems clear that large and potentially dangerous dogs, such as Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Labrador Retrievers, Dobermans, Greyhounds, and Rottweilers should not be allowed to run free. In addition to posing a significant threat to cats, other animals, and humans, their own lives are imperiled by such behavior.

Secondly, individuals such as Curwen, Ashworth, Varey, and Mullens who intentionally employ dogs in order to attack cats should not be shown any leniency whatsoever under the law. The same applies in spades for individuals who breed dogs for fighting.

Like gun possession and the driving of needlessly large trucks, vans, and Hummers, the keeping of vicious dogs is a form of anti-social behavior that benefits neither the community nor the animals themselves. Rather, it is a prescription for only abuse and death.

Animal welfare groups and the courts could, if they wanted to, put an end to this appalling misuse of dogs but that is not about to happen. As experience as more than abundantly demonstrated, the situation is even more deplorable as far as cats are concerned in that the majority of jurists would be unwilling to punish their abusers even if the offenses were committed flagrante delicto before their very own eyes.

Photos: The Blackpool Gazette (Regi, Regi on a fence, and Curwen leaving court), the Daily Mail (Curwen by herself and siccing Duke on Regi, and Freeman), Frome Standard (Fred), Facebook (Hamish and Stubbs), Strabone Chronicle (Bailey), Lancashire Telegraph (Varey and Mullens), Waterloo Alley Cat Project (R.J., Sylvester, Bobbi, and Pippi), Euclid Veterinary Clinic (Bubba), The Plain Dealer (black Labrador Retrievers), the Lincolnshire Echo (Tess), and Blue Cross (Peter, Tamara, and Cleopatra).

Spitz

"I just don't understand how they could do this to him. He was healthy. He was lovable. They just killed him."
-- Nancy Hornberger

Spitz was only doing what toms normally do but ultimately it was his scrapping and spraying that ended up costing him his life once the knackers at the Oakland County Animal Shelter (OCAS) in Auburn Hills, fifty-three kilometers north of Detroit, got their murderous hands on him. As it later was revealed, they liquidated him less than sixty minutes after he was delivered up to them on a silver platter by his totally unconscionable owner, Nancy Hornberger of Commerce Township, fifty-six kilometers northwest of Detroit.

Other than that he was fighting with her other cats and marking his territory, almost nothing else has been publicly disclosed about him. It is not even known how old he was or when he actually was killed.

"We couldn't have given that cat to another family," the shelter's Mark Newmann told WXYZ-TV of Southfield on July 3rd. (See "What Happened to Spitz the Cat?")"If that animal is adoptable we do everything we can to find that animal a loving home."

As with most things in this world, the devil is always in the details and OCAS clearly states on its web site that animals that demonstrate aggression toward other animals and humans are unadoptable. It also designates those deemed to have "behavioral, temperamental or medical characteristics" that would pose a danger to other animals, themselves, or the public to be unadoptable.

Presumably that latter definition includes spraying which was the official reason given by OCAS for killing Spitz. Even if he was not spraying, the shelter likely would have snuffed out his life for demonstrating aggression toward other cats. Thus, with two strikes against him Spitz never stood so much as a snowball's chance in Hell of making it out of OCAS alive.

For whatever it is worth, Hornberger claims that she was under the mistaken impression that the shelter planned on placing him in a home without any other cats. She apparently continued to operate under that illusion until she recently was disabused of it by the Michigan Political Action Committee for Animals (MI-PACA) of Southfield which has had OCAS in its crosshairs for at least the past two years.

Alerted by several conscientious employees to wholesale illegal killings, widespread dishonesty, and other irregularities, MI-PACA filed two requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in order to obtain data relating to the shelter's kill rate. In particular, it found that OCAS not only was killing cats like Spitz but subsequently recording their deaths as owner requested killings.

MI-PACA's findings are a little bit difficult to decipher but OCAS apparently was doing likewise to some homeless and lost animals as well. For some arcane reason, animals that are surrendered to OCAS in order to be killed are not counted in either its intake data or kill rate.

In effect, the shelter's léger de main not only expunges their cold-blooded murders from the public record but the petit fait that they ever had existed. In that respect OCAS conducts business in much the same fashion as Augusto Pinochet did when he ran Chile in that nothing is ever left behind, not even the corpses and graves of its victims.

Aside from the sheer pleasure of spilling innocent blood and the substantial savings realized in both time and money, such heinous conduct allows OCAS to boast on its web site that during the first six months of this year it released ninety per cent of the dogs that it took in and eighty per cent of the cats. That in turn translates into not only more donations but a marked increase in the number of individuals willing to volunteer their services to a shelter with such outstanding save rates.

"The game of manipulating the numbers to make a shelter's save rate appear higher than it actually is (is) beyond dishonest," MI-PACA stated July 3rd in an untitled article posted on its Facebook page. "It's a fraud upon the public."

Aside from the horrific and totally unforgivable snuffing out of so many lives, everything that OCAS trumpets itself to be now has been exposed as a blatant pack of lies. Most notably, MI-PACA was unable to locate a single document in the wealth of materials that it received under its FOIA requests that had been signed by an owner requesting that either a cat or a dog be killed.

In order to make doubly certain that it had been thorough, the advocacy group then contacted those individuals who had surrendered animals to the shelter and all of them reaffirmed that they had not signed away their companions' right to live. That, by the way, is how Hornberger belatedly found out what had become of Spitz and, since MI-PACA's investigation took time to complete, it would seem logical that Spitz was killed as far back as perhaps one or two years ago.

"I just don't understand how they could do this to him," she complained to WXYZ-TV. "He was healthy. He was lovable. They just killed him."

To be perfectly frank about the matter, her incredulity simply is not believable. Unless she has been living in a vacuum, she is every bit as acutely aware as everyone else on this planet that all shelters are garishly misnomered Auschwitzes and Buchenwalds for companion animals.

She also undoubtedly was aware that with two strikes already against him that Spitz was doomed from the very moment that she surrendered him. At the very least she should have kept her trap shut about his aggressive tendencies and overly active bladder and that way perhaps the shelter would have at least put him up for adoption.

"We never, in any way, requested that (killing)," she further argued to WXYZ-TV. "Why would I pack up all his food, his toys, and a two-page letter for the new owners if I wanted him euthanized?"

That rejoinder is not nearly as convincing as she would have the world to believe. For instance, she could have been so fed up with Spitz that she could not stomach having any reminders of him lying around her house.

Bob Gatt

That line of reasoning is supported by the disturbing fact that she apparently never once checked back with the shelter in order to determine what ultimately had become of him. Also, there is a good chance that she would have received a reply to her letter if Spitz had secured a new home but the absence of such a notification does not seem to have troubled her.

In spite of all of that, Hornberger has the audacity to claim that she would have acted differently if she only had known beforehand of OCAS' underhanded ways. "I would have walked out with him in my arms and he would be alive today," she pledged to WXYZ-TV.

Her cardinal sin was not in failing to walk out with Spitz but rather in walking in with him in the first place. In particular, spraying and fighting are not valid reasons for abandoning a cat.

As per usual, both WXYZ-TV and MI-PACA have disclosed to the public only what they feel it should know and nothing more. For example, although it is not known how many cats that Hornberger owned at that time the circumstantial evidence tends to suggest that she had a clowder of both males and females that had not been sterilized.

Usually it is intact males doing battle over fertile females that causes all the trouble and the simple solution to that dilemma is to sterilize the entire lot of them. If that, for whatever reason, is not a viable option other means then must be improvised.

For instance, females can be segregated in cages when they are in estrus and water guns can sometimes be successfully employed in order to separate males locked in mortal combat. When that does not work, however, they must be forcibly pulled apart and that can be dangerous, especially if an owner is adverse to being inadvertently scratched.

Males additionally can inflict severe damage on females by forcibly pulling out the fur from around their necks. Even if there is not any bloodshed, the noise that mating cats make and the damage that they are capable of doing to a house are enough to drive an individual crazy.

The best reason of all for altering males is that it usually, but not always, curbs their tendency to roam which not only can be dangerous for them but heartbreaking for their owners. Since toms are capable of smelling a female in estrus for miles, that often prompts them to blindly attempt to cross busy thoroughfares and that in turn makes them easy prey for motorists who specialize in deliberately running down and killing them.

Anyone who ever has lost a loving tom to one of those cretins will be more than glad to either neuter or at least confine all other males in the future. The love that they so freely lavish upon their owners is truly something special and irreplaceable.

Cat piss, on the other hand, is rather benign and easily cleaned up. In fact, some individuals can hardly even smell it at all whereas others, cat-haters for sure, claim to be able to detect its presence in an hermetically sealed Prince Albert tin rusting on the floor of the Amazon from as far away as the North Pole!

Needless to say, anyone adverse to occasionally cleaning up a little urine and poop does not have any business owning a cat in the first place. A pet rock would be better suited to the demands of their proboscises, wallets, and energy levels.

It certainly appears that Hornberger had her hands full with Spitz but her decision to fob him off on OCAS was unforgivable. Even if against all odds he had somehow managed to have gotten out alive, incarcerating a cat even for a brief period of time in a cage at a smelly and disease-ridden shelter run by a bloodthirsty gang of ruthless and psychopathic mass murderers is unconscionable.

Worst of all, cats are totally helpless under such no-win circumstances. In Sptiz's case, he sans doute was aware that he was about to be killed and he surely must have been terrified out of his mind. No one but a callous monster like Hornberger ever would subject a defenseless cat to such a hellish death.

"Never take any animal to the Oakland County Pet Adoption Center (shelter) on Brown Road in Auburn Hills," MI-PACA tardily declared in the July 3rd posting on its Facebook page cited supra. "Not ever. Not for any reason."

Surprisingly enough, however, at the top of the very same article it declares that "animal shelters are supposed to be safe havens for lost pets and a second chance for pets being given up by their owners, and some are, but that's sadly not the case in Oakland County." In making such an utterly asinine proclamation as that MI-PACA is guilty of perpetuating the same lies as those uttered by Hornberger.

Animal shelters never have been and, never will be, anything other than death camps and anyone who attempts to pass them off to the gullible as "safe havens" is deserving of a good public thrashing. Cats and dogs continue to be exterminated in the tens of millions each year at these wretched institutions but the charade itself nevertheless continues to have a life of its own thanks to the appalling complicity of individuals like Hornberger and groups like MI-PACA.

The tawdry relationship that exists between them and the public is reminiscent of what goes on at "hitters" bars where men and women on the make engage freely in the rituals of romance when all that they really care about is getting laid. Likewise, cat and dog owners simply want to be free of their solemn moral obligations to their companions and shelter personnel, fully cognizant of that reality, give them reassuring pats on the back and tell them that everything is going to be just fine.

Like fornicators on the prowl for a little slap and tickle, individuals like Hornberger know only too well that it is all a lie; they simply do not care. Above all, the cold, naked truth is the last thing on earth that they ever want to hear.

In a case that bears a striking resemblance to what happened to Spitz, Donna Pruitt of Sugar Land, forty kilometers southwest of Houston, dropped off two kittens and $20 in order to purchase food for them at Animal Control on July 8, 2010. When she returned less than three hours later in order to retrieve her pet carrier she was informed that the kittens had been liquidated almost as soon as she was out the front door.

"They had my phone number, as I had left it when I dropped the kittens off. They had our $20," she related to The Fort Bend Star on July 14, 2010. (See "Baby Kittens Put to Sleep in Error.")"Shouldn't that have bought me an explanation or at least a call before they murdered the kittens?"

As things turned out, her munificence failed to buy her any consideration whatsoever and contributed absolutely nothing toward prolonging the kittens' lives. It is not even known if Animal Control had the decency to return her Andy Jack. In Hornberger's case, it is pretty much a foregone conclusion that Spitz's food and toys never were returned to her.

Unlike Hornberger, Pruitt had some reason to trust Animal Control in that its own internal procedures call for it not only to hold all animals that it impounds for seventy-two hours but, much more importantly, to give their previous owners an opportunity to reclaim them before killing them. In the end, however, it did not make any difference in that the kittens lasted only slightly less than two hours longer than did Spitz.

Freckles, Singed, Dehydrated, and Hungry, but Alive

By contrast, not only have the atrocities been going on for a very long time at OCAS but, worst still, MI-PACA has been fully cognizant of that fact. "We come to you on the local issue of helpless animals in shelters being killed at an alarming rate," Rick Gladstone of Oakland Animal Advocates, the forerunner of MI-PACA, told The Oakland Press of Pontiac on July 21, 2013. (See "Animal Advocates Criticize Kill Rate at Oakland County Animal Control Shelter.")"All life is precious. I ask that the animal guidelines for these shelters (sic) be enhanced and enforced with more adoptive efforts."

In addition to killing off domesticated cats like Spitz and lying about their foul deeds, OCAS does a wholesale business liquidating en masse homeless ones. "We believe some animals (including homeless cats) are too aggressive to be put in homes...the same goes for suffering (or sick) animals," the shelter's head commandant Bob Gatt declared to The Oakland Press. "Those are humanely euthanized."

Gatt's slaughter of homeless cats is fully supported by George Miller of the county's health department who, not surprisingly, considers himself to be one of PETA's anointed savants. "Even PETA does not support the TNR program," he bellowed with pride to The Oakland Press. "Even they realize that the feral cat population has to be controlled."

That has not deterred Courtney Protz-Sanders of MI-PACA from lobbying Oakland County to adopt TNR. "Research has shown that feral cats do not spread disease, yet that's the excuse given by the shelter to justify their (sic) policy. It's archaic," she told The Oakland Press in response to Gatt's and Miller's outrageous lies. "It's a simple solution: don't accept feral cats into the shelter. Stop using my tax dollars to kill healthy community cats which serve a purpose, keep the rodent population down and it's impossible to eradicate them, anyway."

Although it is not known what private initiatives have been undertaken, Oakland County is yet to endorse TNR and as a result OCAS continues to liquidate hundreds, and more likely thousands, of homeless cats each year. A lack of money is not the problem in that it is one of the most affluent areas of the country with a median household income of $61,607.

Its shabby and bedraggled behemoth to the south, Detroit, may be bankrupt and its denizens smelly and dirty because they are too cheap to pay their $60 per month water bills but Oakland County is rolling in dough. Unfortunately, short arms are known to usually accompany deep pockets and ailurophobia is a plague that recognizes no boundaries, geographical, financial, or otherwise.

The problems associated with shelters and Animal Control officers cooking the books in regard to the number of cats and dogs that they kill each day is far more complex than even MI-PACA is willing to acknowledge. First and foremost, many cats and dogs and killed in the field and therefore never even make it to shelters.

For example, police officers gun down a large number of animals in the street and then casually toss their exsanguinated corpses in the trash. Their murders usually are not recorded anywhere and they certainly are not reflected in the kill rates disclosed by shelters. (See Cat Defender post of September 27, 2014 entitled "Falsely Branded as Being Rabid by a Cat-Hater, an Animal Control Officer, and the Gorham Police Department, Clark Is Hounded Down and Blasted with a Shotgun.")

Animal Control officers, many of whom also double as police officers, commit the same heinous crimes with impunity. (See WTSP-TV of Tampa, July 10, 2013, "Pasco County Kills Family Cat Before It Arrives at Shelter" and The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, June 11, 2013, "North Ridgeville Clears Humane Officer of Wrongdoing for Killing Feral Kittens but Animal Groups Want Action.")

In addition to liquidating close to ninety-eight per cent of the companion animals that it impounds at its shelter in Norfolk, PETA also takes in thousands more from other shelters under the pretense of finding homes for them only to turn around and whack them. (See Cat Defender posts of January 29, 2007 and February 9, 2007 entitled, respectively, "PETA's Long History of Killing Cats and Dogs Is Finally Exposed in a North Carolina Courtroom" and "Verdict in PETA Trial: Littering Is a Crime but Not the Mass Slaughter of Innocent Cats and Dogs.")

As if all of that were not reprehensible enough, the phony-baloney charity has death squads that sour the streets for both homeless cats and domesticated dogs to steal and kill. (See Cat Defender post of October 7, 2011 entitled "PETA Traps and Kills a Cat and Then Shamelessly Goes Online in Order to Brag about Its Criminal and Foul Deed" and The Virginian Pilot of Norfolk, December 1, 2014, "Man Says PETA Took His Dog from Front Porch, Killed Her.")

Some shelters, such as the Valley Oak SPCA in Visalia, California, and the Toronto Humane Society, callously allow cats to die in traps and it is doubtful that those deaths are included in their kill rates. (See Cat Defender post of August 23, 2010 entitled "Valley Oak SPCA Kills a Cat by Allowing It to Languish in the Heat in an Unattended Trap for Five Days at the Tulare County Courthouse" and the Toronto Star, November 28, 2009, "Humane Society: 'It Seems Like a House of Horrors'.")

Leaving cats to rot in unattended traps is far from being the only way that shelters thoughtlessly kill them and other animals. For instance during the summer of 2006, Animal Control officer Michelle A. Mulverhill went on a bender and left the animals under her supervision at a shelter in Oxford, Massachusetts, to fend for themselves. Even more shocking, oversight at the shelter was so lax that her dereliction of duty went unnoticed by town officials for more than two weeks! (See Cat Defender post of August 31, 2006 entitled "Animal Control Officer Goes on a Drunken Binge and Leaves Four Cats and a Dog to Die of Thirst, Hunger, and Heat at a Massachusetts Shelter.")

It is not well-publicized but in addition to being incubators of disease some shelters also are firetraps. (See Cat Defender post of April 3, 2007 entitled "Fires at Private Shelters Claim the Lives of More Than Two Dozen Cats in Connecticut.")

In a gut-wrenching example of the massive toll in lives that fires can take, only four of thirty-seven cats that were incarcerated at the Knox-Whitley County Animal Shelter in Rockholds, Kentucky, made it out alive when an unexplained conflagration broke out at the facility on November 29, 2013. Even more reprehensibly, a one-year-old cat named Freckles who had somehow survived the blaze was not found until a week later and even then it was not by shelter personnel but rather an insurance investigator. Staffers simply had written her off for dead without even bothering to look for her. (See WBIR-TV of Knoxville, articles dated December 2, 2013 and December 6, 2013 and entitled, respectively, "Animal Shelter Looking for Temporary Home after Devastating Fire" and "Cat Found Alive in Rubble One Week after Animal Shelter Fire.")

"Having her here is just wonderful, all of our hearts are filled with joy," Ashley Holder of the Lexington Humane Society (LHS), which took in Freckles, told WKYT-TV of Lexington on December 5, 2013. (See "Cat Pulled from the Rubble of Knox-Whitley Animal Shelter.")"We are so glad that she made it through this devastating time."

As an added bonus, she was adopted in early 2014 by Emily Tolliver of LHS and since then has made a complete recovery with the notable exception of losing all of her claws on both her front and rear legs. Otherwise, she is said to be a happy and loving cat.

It also is doubtful that shelters include in their kill rates the exorbitant number of kittens that they systematically exterminate each spring and autumn. That is because even those facilities that are located in small communities can be inundated with hundreds, if not indeed thousands, of them and yet the public is seldom informed as to their final disposition. (See Cat Defender post of July 7, 2012 entitled "NBC Philadelphia Conspires with a Virulent Cat-Hater and an Exterminator in Order to Have Six Newborn and Totally Innocent Kittens Killed in Southern New Jersey.")

Lewis Brooks Patterson

Topping off this entire sorry matter, some shelters categorically refuse to relinquish custody of condemned animals to individuals and rescue groups that are willing to take them. (See Cat Defender post of June 15, 2010 entitled "Bay City Shelter Murders a Six-Week-Old Kitten with a Common Cold Despite Several Individuals Having Offered to Give It a Permanent Home.")

Although MI-PACA is to be commended for endorsing TNR, its ringing, unqualified endorsement of no-kill on its Facebook page is indefensible. That is because the ruses and deceptions in situ at conventional shelters like OCAS and Sugar Land pale in comparison with the dodges, double-talk, and outright lies that plague the so-called no-kill movement. (See the Akron Beacon-Journal, February 23, 2008, "'No-Kill' Definition Will Vary at Shelters.")

When all is said and done, however, a shelter is still a death house regardless of whatever it chooses to call itself. (See Cat Defender posts of July 29, 2010 and October 23, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Benicia Vallejo Humane Society Is Outsourcing the Mass Killing of Kittens and Cats All the While Masquerading as a No-Kill Shelter" and "A Supposedly No-Kill Operation in Marblehead Betrays Sally and Snuffs Out Her Life Instead of Providing Her with a Home and Veterinary Care," plus the Alamogordo Daily News, November 7, 2009, "Kitty City Near La Luz Provides Haven for Felines Facing Euthanasia.")

Shelters justifiably receive a lion's share of the blame for slaughtering animals but they are far from being alone in that endeavor in that veterinarians also liquidate their fair share of them as well. Most damning of all, they kill off thousands of companion animals each year at the behest of their unconscionable owners.

The only difference between what they do and what is being done at shelters is that they are compensated for their dastardly deeds by private individuals as opposed to the government which funds the killings that take place at shelters. (See Cat Defender posts of January 11, 2012, December 22, 2011, and July 28, 2011 entitled, respectively, "A Deadly Intrigue Concocted by a Thief, a Shelter, and a Veterinary Chain Costs Ginger the Continued Enjoyment of His Golden Years,""Rogue TNR Practitioner and Three Unscrupulous Veterinarians Kill at Least Sixty-Two Cats with the Complicity of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals," and "Tammy and Maddy Are Forced to Pay the Ultimate Price after Their Owner and an Incompetent Veterinarian Elect to Play Russian Roulette with Their Lives.")

In addition to their contract killings, veterinarians maim and ruin the lives of scores of other animals through their sheer incompetence. (See Cat Defender posts of January 19, 2012, July 2, 2010, and June 17, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Veterinary Watchdog Group Not Only Allows an Incompetent Substitute Practitioner to Get Away with Killing Junior but Scolds His Owner for Complaining,""Lexi Was By No Means the First Cat to Be Lost by Woosehill Vets Any More Than Angel Was Their Last Victim of a Botched Sterilization," and "Veterinarian Gets Away with Almost Killing Felix but Is Nailed by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons for Not Paying Her Dues.")

The large number of animals that these bloodsuckers kill through both their mercenary practices and incompetence is surpassed only by those that they condemn to premature graves through their steadfast refusal to treat them because they either are homeless or their owners are unwilling to pony up the exorbitant fees that they demand for their services. (See Cat Defender post of March 19, 2014 entitled "Cheap and Greedy Moral Degenerates at PennVet Extend Their Warmest Christmas Greetings to an Impecunious, but Preeminently Treatable, Cat Via a Jab of Sodium Pentobarbital.")

As it should be obvious by now, the current shelter system cannot be reformed to any significant degree that is going to have much of a positive impact upon the lives of companion animals. For its part, MI-PACA nonetheless insists upon continuing to blame the senseless killings and deceptive practices at OCAS on Gatt and he certainly fits the bill of an old political hack to a tee. Not only is he bereft of so much as a jot of experience in the animal welfare field but he is a serial multiple-dipper at the public trough as well.

For example, in addition to his sinecure at OCAS, he also serves as mayor of Novi, a town of fifty-five-thousand souls located forty-six kilometers northwest of Detroit. The record is unclear but he possibly could be collecting a third welfare check from the taxpayers in his role as head of the Novi City Council.

Before coming to OCAS, Gatt spent twenty-seven years as a police officer in Novi and he followed that up with ten years in the county's prison system. Quite obviously he needs to go and since he has been caught falsifying records at OCAS and then submitting them to the state department of agriculture it is conceivable that he could be headed back to the correctional system but this time around it will not be as either a supervisor or a paid employee.

MI-PACA also singles out Gatt's boss, County Executive Lewis Brooks Patterson, for being complicit in his underling's crimes. Having first assumed office in 1992, it likewise is high time that he, too, was given his walking papers by either the courts or the voters. That is not going to be an easy feat to accomplish however in that even the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse might not be capable of ridding Oakland County of him and his buddy Gatt.

Even more distressingly, it is doubtful that conditions would improve all that greatly at OCAS even if they were removed from office. That is because the majority of the top managerial positions in both Animal Control and shelters go to old political hacks who care only about collecting another welfare check and absolutely nothing about the well-being of the animals entrusted to their care.

As such they are not about to make waves by either demanding additional funding or introducing radical policies that would alter the status quo by actually saving lives. Au contraire, the only purpose that they serve is to perpetuate the killings, lies, and deceptions.

The only recent noteworthy development in animal welfare has been the successful début of TNR which is wholly funded and sustained by volunteers. The lesson to be learned from its staggering success is that the only way that the atrocities which take place at shelters can be stopped is through private initiatives. The logical short-cut would be the enactment of a law that outlawed the killing and abuse of all animals under all circumstances but that is not about to happen in a million years.

Therefore in order to stop at least some of the carnage it is imperative that sterilization services be offered to one and all on demand. Penny-ante efforts such as Spay Day, PetSmart's grants, and Andy Kaplan's Toby Project are so woefully inadequate as to be laughable.

Before any of that is even remotely feasible there must be an end once and for all time to the lies and double-talk. Most important of all, shelters not only need to be recognized as death camps but renamed accordingly.

Secondly, no one should be allowed to get away with sugarcoating premeditated murder by using such patented falsehoods as euthanasia, put down, crossed the Rainbow Bridge, and gone to kitty heaven. Thirdly, the term no-kill has been so abused and corrupted that nothing short of striking it from the English lexicon will suffice in order to repair the damage that has been done in its name.

Above all, cat owners like Hornberger and advocacy groups like MI-PACA need to stop lying to both themselves and the public. If they are unwilling to do even that much, they are not all that much of an improvement over the Gatts and Pattersons that they excoriate.

Rather than continuing to waste precious time scrapping with sticks-in-the-mud like Gatt and Patterson, MI-PACA would be better off borrowing a page from the playbook of TNR practitioners and instead purchasing a few acres of land and constructing a legitimate sanctuary that one day, hopefully, would put OCAS out of business. It is strongly suspected, however, that it is too lazy and cheap to do even that much for the tens of thousands of cats and dogs that are destined, like handsome Spitz, to continue to follow the well-trodden cul-de-sac that leads to the door of OCAS's extermination factory.

Photos: WXYZ-TV (Spitz), City of Novi (Gatt), Emily Tolliver of the Lexington Humane Society (Freckles), and Kimberly P. Mitchell of the Detroit Free Press (Patterson).

Pops

"If only cats could talk I feel Pops probably has a very sad story to tell. It would be lovely to give her the happy ending she deserves."
-- Belinda Dark of Cats Protection

The complexities and difficulties that accompany the sacred gift of life are, at times, so overwhelming as to almost negate the value of the bequest itself and that is especially the case when it comes to coping with the frailties and insecurities that bedevil the twilight years. Elderly men and women at least have their families, Social Security, and Medicare to help them through their last days but very old cats seldom have any of those advantages.

Abandoned to their own devices, penniless, and with their health rapidly on the decline, they are totally dependent upon the kindness of strangers for their continued existence. Revoltingly, the only consideration that they most often receive from the hoi polloi is benign neglect and just about all shelters kill them on sight.

Nevertheless, in spite of the odds being stacked so heavily against them, a few of these senior felines not only manage to persevere but to find a measure of both meaning and happiness in their final years. "For every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life and the human race come to an end," Joe Conrad observed in his 1915 novel, Victory, and perhaps cats also have unfathomable illusions of their own that keep them going and thus prevent them from throwing in the towel early.

In the final analysis, it really does not make any difference what it is that motivates them to cling so tenaciously to life so long as their inalienable right to it is respected. That pretty much defines the precarious predicament that a lovely nineteen-year-old tortoiseshell erroneously dubbed Pops now finds herself in as her fragile life hangs in the balance at Cats Protection's Midsomer Norton and Radstock shelter near Bath in Somerset.

She was found dazed and stumbling alongside a road, presumably somewhere near Bath, back in May by a Good Samaritan who, mistakenly believing her to be ill, rushed her to a veterinarian. Thankfully, that was not the case but the ravages of old age have left her almost completely blind in both eyes, unsteady on her feet, and with fur that easily becomes matted.

Pops Is Able to Feed Herself and to Use a Litter Box

Every bit as heartbreaking and disgusting at the same time, the supposedly cat-loving English public does not want any part of her and for that reason she has been cruelly left to languish at Cats Protection's penitentiary for nearly three months. Her profile has been viewed more than five-hundred times on the charity's Facebook page and an undisclosed number of times on Animal Search UK but all those gawkers apparently have hearts that are even colder than those alleged to belong to whores.

The holdup seems to be that the light has all but gone out of her eyes and that in turn gives her a disquieting countenance. "I think because of her sight and health problems she isn't everyone's first choice," Belinda Dark of Cats Protection told the Western Daily Press of Bristol on July 14th. (See "United Kingdom's Oldest Rescue Cat Pops, Nineteen, Can't Find Home Due to Terrifying Eyes.")"Her appearance isn't as favorable as some of the younger kittens. I think people are put off (by her) eyes or how frail she is."

For so many fans of the species to turn up their dirty noses at an elderly feline in extremis does not reflect favorably upon the cat-owning fraternity. Aside from their appalling lack of compassion, such callous behavior additionally reveals their abysmal lack of intelligence. That is because an elderly cat is every bit as valuable and has just as much to give as a young one.

"She was very confused when she came to us," Dark added to the Western Daily Press. "Her sight is very poor and she is a weak old cat but she loves being close to you and being petted. She's incredibly friendly and doing well for her age."

Although in all likelihood Pops is not going to be around very much longer, every moment spent with her would be something to be treasured and that alone would more than compensate for both her adoption fee and the minimal cost of caring for her. Plus, once again having a loving home would mean so much to her.

Pops Is Still Capable of Getting Around on Her Own

"If only cats could talk I feel Pops probably has a very sad story to tell," Dark speculated to the Western Daily Press."It would be lovely to give her the happy ending she deserves."

In that light, absolutely nothing about Pops' past life has come to light so far and it accordingly is not known how that she ultimately wound up on the street. For her part, Dark is of the opinion that she previously was owned by an elderly individual who either died or became incapacitated in some fashion and therefore could no longer care for her.

The fact that no one so far as come forward in order to reclaim her tends to lend a certain amount of credence to that supposition. It also is conceivable that she was deliberately abandoned.

Another possible explanation is that the surviving members of her deceased owner's family were unwilling to take care of her. That, no matter how callous and appalling, is an all-too-common occurrence on the part of both individuals and institutions alike. (See Cat Defender post of June 9, 2008 entitled "Pennsylvania College Greedily Snatches Up Alumnus' Multimillion-Dollar Bequest but Turns Away His Cat, Princess.")

For example, a Ragdoll-Siamese-mix of undetermined age named Isabelle was left all alone in an unoccupied house in Stockbridge, thirty-five kilometers south of Atlanta, for an astounding two years after her unidentified guardian died. The shameless relatives gladly took in the dogs that had been left behind but they wanted no part of Isabelle.

Isabelle

They did stop by on a regular basis in order to feed and water her but even that heartless and cruel arrangement came to an abrupt end earlier this spring when the survivors elected to cash in once again by selling the house right out from underneath her. (See The Examiner, June 3, 2015, "Heartbreaking Story of a Cat Living Alone in Deceased Owner's Home for Two Years.")

The future looked rather bleak for Isabelle until she was taken in by Furkids of Atlanta which claims to have placed her in a new home during the first week of July. Inexplicably, no mention of either her or her new guardian could be found on either the organization's web page or its Facebook account.

As far as it could be determined, none of the relatives ever was charged with either abandonment or animal cruelty. There cannot be any denying, however, that the past two years must have been an exceedingly difficult and harrowing time for her.

At least she survived both home arrest and solitary confinement and that is considerably more than can be said for a nine-year-old white Persian named Tavia who was left all alone for two months in an unheated house in Kissimmee, Florida, during the fall of 2010 by a holy roller who bills herself as Prophetess Royal Poinciana Sprewell. Although Tavia was periodically supplied with food and water, she nevertheless was found dead on December 6th and a necropsy later revealed that she had died of hepatitis and kidney failure.

Because she had fallen behind with both her rent and the electricity bill, Sprewell skipped out on Tavia although she did retain the keys to the house and thus was able to continue to feed her. Even more outrageously, even though Osceola County Animal Control (OCAS), the Kissimmee Police, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office, neighbor Santiago Sandoval, and likely the landlord as well were fully cognizant of Tavia's rapidly deteriorating health, all of them categorically refused to come to her aid and instead stood idly by like rubberneckers at a train wreck and watched her die by degrees a slow and agonizing death.

Tavia

In the aftermath that followed, Sprewell had the audacity to claim that Tavia had died of loneliness and Lee Radevaugh of OCAC, desperate for any excuse to absolve his agency's malfeasance, opportunistically concurred with her. As a consequence she, like Isabelle's caretakers, never was charged with animal cruelty.

Instead of taking responsibility for her own dereliction of duty, Sprewell placed the blame squarely upon the shoulders of unnamed others who had refused to give her money. "To be honest with you, I feel it's the responsibility of a lot of individuals who didn't help us," she replied defiantly and without so much as a scintilla of remorse. (See Cat Defender post of December 23, 2010 entitled "Tavia's Desperate Pleas for Help Fall Upon the Deaf Ears of the Evangelical Who Abandoned Her and the Heartless Officials and Citizens of Kissimmee.")

Although the extent of feline homelessness is well documented, it might surprise some to learn that nearly ten per cent of the cats currently incarcerated at the thirty-one shelters operated by Cats Protection throughout the United Kingdom are at least eleven years old. Even more troubling, it takes the charity five times longer on the average to find homes for them that it does for kittens to be adopted.

During kitten season, which runs from April to September, that differential grows to six and one-half times. "During the spring-summer months we see a dramatic rise in kittens being adopted instead of older cats (and) it can be horribly sad to see them left behind," Dark confessed to the Western Daily Press."I think often older cats get a little overlooked, much like secondhand items, but ultimately there is just as much joy in rehoming an older cat as there is a kitten."

Hobo Cat

The wholesale neglect and abuse visited upon elderly cats is perhaps nowhere more vividly demonstrated than in Dark's offhand admission that before the arrival of Pops she never had taken in a cat that was older than fourteen. That would tend to imply that other than those that die natural deaths, the remainder are either whacked by unscrupulous veterinarians at the behest of their equally culpable owners or are abandoned, like Pops, to fend for themselves in an extremely hostile world.

There certainly is not any shortage of extremely old cats. For instance, in May of last year a twenty-year-old brown and white male was found by another Good Samaritan in Prescott, thirteen kilometers east of Liverpool, in Merseyside.

Dubbed the Hobo Cat, he was taken to the RSPCA where an implanted microchip revealed not only his age but that he had been adopted from Cats Protection way back in 1994. He also had apparently resided for an unspecified period of time in St. Helens, six kilometers removed from Prescott, and also in Merseyside.

"Unfortunately he is a bit poorly at the moment so he is being treated in one of our clinics but his issues all relate to old age," Derek Hampson of the RSPCA acknowledged to The St. Helens Reporter on May 16, 2014. (See "The Oldest Hobo? Cat Aged Twenty Living as Stray.")"He is such an old chap we would love to be able to reunite him with his owner and to get him home where he belongs."

Harry and Nicola Zelent of Lothian Cat Rescue

Regrettably, it has not been possible to determine what eventually became of him. His only obvious hope of salvation rested in his previous owner coming forward and reclaiming him in that it would be out of character for the RSPCA to be willing to foot the bill for his extended care.

Much of the same fears pertain to Pops in that if she is not adopted soon Cats Protection will eventually decide to snuff out her life also. The organization will never admit to committing such an atrocity but instead it will dredge up some nonexistent malady in order to justify getting rid of her.

It also is a bit disconcerting that the charity would commit the glaring faux pas of mistaking Pops to be a male when 99.96 per cent of all tortoiseshells are females. That equates to only one out of every four-hundred-thousand of them being males.

Despite their scarcity, about two male tortoiseshells are born in England each year. For instance, a twelve-week-old kitten named Harry was unwittingly surrendered to Lothian Cat Rescue in Bonnyrigg, thirteen kilometers southeast of Edinburgh, on November 14th of last year because his owners were allergic to his fur.

Even the veterinarian who first examined him committed the same mistake as Cats Protection did with Pops. "When I heard the cat was called Harry, I said to the owners (sic),'I think that might have to be Harriet," Margaret Riddell of ICR Veterinary Surgery in Gorebridge, three kilometers to the south of Bonnyrigg, told the Edinburgh Evening News on November 19, 2014. (See "One of the World's Rarest Cats Given to Rescue Center.")"I had to change my words when I discovered it was male. I've never seen one before and I've been a vet for more than thirty years."

Pops Is Still Waiting for Her Knight on a White Horse

That is a rather unflattering revelation for her to make in that the practice of veterinary medicine should be based upon knowledge, observation, and diagnostic testing as opposed to prejudice, false assumptions, and guess work. It also lends support to the strong suspicion that the only thing that some practitioners care about when it comes to treating cats is how much money that they can get out of their owners.

As far as Pops is concerned, the first order of business is to put pressure on Cats Protection in order to dissuade it from taking the easy and cheap way out by killing her. Secondly, a home must be found for her and as soon as possible.

Thirdly, she needs a proper name. Toward that worthy objective, Grandmother, Dowager, Survivor, and even Lady Hope would do just fine.

Anyone either willing to provide Pops with a loving home or to urge Cats Protection to spare her life is strongly encouraged to do so by contacting the organization's Midsomer Norton and Radstock branch at 44-01761 410594.

Photos: Western Daily Press (Pops), The Examiner (Isabelle), Santiago Sandoval (Tavia), St. Helens Press (Hobo Cat), and Gordon Fraser of the Edinburgh Evening News (Harry and Zelent).

The Way They Were: Dodger and Fee Jeanes

"It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make. I cancelled it twice."
-- Fee Jeanes

It recently has been learned that Dodger was killed off by his owner, forty-six-year-old Fee Jeanes of Bridport in Dorset, sometime in early February of 2012. Although his death is by now very old news, that in no way makes it either any less sad or revoltingly unjust.

Dodger, as it may be recalled by some, was a friendly and intrepid fifteen-year-old, ginger-colored tom who skyrocketed to international acclaim in December of 2011 when it was disclosed that he regularly rode the mass transit system in Dorset and Devonshire by his lonesome. Most notably, he was regular on First Bus's ten-mile run between Bridport and Charmouth.

At other times he could be found aboard the company's number fifty-three bus which operates along the Jurassic Coast between Poole in Dorset and Exeter in Devonshire. More often that not, however, he could be found hanging out at the bus station in Bridport. (See Cat Defender post of January 25, 2012 entitled "The Innocence of the Lambs: Unaware of the Dangers That Threaten His Very Existence, Dodger Charms Commuters on the Bridport to Charmouth Line.")

Jeanes allegedly had him killed off due to the presence of a stomach tumor that he is believed to have been diagnosed with sometime before Christmas of 2011. Since no additional details have been made public, it is difficult to know if the tumor could have been successfully treated with either surgery or some other means.

That which is not in dispute, however, is Jeanes's eternal gratitude to Bredy Veterinary Centre on Sea Road North for relieving her of both the expense and trouble of caring for an elderly and ailing cat. "Everyone at Bredy Vets has been brilliant all the way through this," she gushed to the Bridport News on February 22, 2012. (See "Dodger the Cat Is Put Down.")

By characterizing the bloodthirsty practitioners' dirty work in such glowing terms she is surely laying it on a bit thick because any idiot, shekel counter, and selfish, lazy bum can kill a cat. By contrast, recognizing that all cats have an inalienable right to live out their lives to the very end, cherishing every moment that they are alive, and being willing to do whatever is required in order to preserve and extend their all-too-brief existences is the first step on the road to true compassion and enlightenment.

The overwhelming majority of veterinarians, on the other hand, are little more than cold-hearted, bloodsucking mercenaries in that killing off unwanted cats, dogs, and other animals at the behest of their owners, shelters, and others constitutes a substantial portion of their practice. (See Cat Defender posts of March 19, 2014, January 11, 2012, December 22, 2011, and July 28, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Cheap and Greedy Moral Degenerates at PennVet Extend Their Warmest Christmas Greetings to an Impecunious, but Preeminently Treatable, Cat Via a Jab of Sodium Pentobarbital,""A Deadly Intrigue Concocted by a Thief, a Shelter, and a Veterinary Chain Costs Ginger the Continued Enjoyment of His Golden Years,""Rogue TNR Practitioner and Three Unscrupulous Veterinarians Kill at Least Sixty-Two Cats with the Complicity of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals," and "Tammy and Maddy Are Forced to Pay the Ultimate Price after Their Owner and an Incompetent Veterinarian Elect to Play Russian Roulette with Their Lives.")

For whatever it is worth, Jeanes insists that the decision to do in Dodger was anything but an easy one. "It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make," she swore to the Bridport News. "I cancelled it twice."

Even if she is being truthful, she likely only demurred because it was Christmas and she did not want to spoil that special time of the year for her three children, Jack, Emily, and William. It is, after all, well known that innumerable cat owners wait until after the holidays before killing off and abandoning their companions.

She additionally claims to be broken up about Dodger's demise. "The family are (sic) in tears," she confided to the Bridport News. "Poor old Dodger, it is very sad."

Even if her initial grief was real enough she certainly got over it awfully fast because soon thereafter she had graduated to rationalizing his death. "Dodger had a good life," she vouched to the Bridport News. "He was a brilliant cat and was spoilt rotten."

Named after the Artful Dodger in Charles Dickens' novel, Oliver Twist, he was renowned for befriending perfect strangers and gracing the laps of commuters. In particular, he is known to have substantially lifted the spirits of a sick woman on the number fifty-three bus by simply sitting on her lap.

"He made a lot of people happy," Jeanes told the Bridport News. "The response to him was amazing."

Dodger was buried in Jeanes's garden but it has not been disclosed if he was provided with either a memorial service or a tombstone. Jeanes did, however, put up a notice at the bus station in order to let both commuters and drivers know that they had seen the last of him.

Normally, that would have been the end of the matter, ashes to ashes and dust to dust as the Anglicans are fond of intoning, but since Dodger was such a special cat and because he had touched so many people his life and, especially, his death are deserving of additional examination. Although it is way too late to do him any good, such an inquiry might one day prove beneficial to other cats who are experiencing some of the same difficulties and challenges that plagued his life.

Most important of all is the question of how he became so fatally ill and, although the cause of leiomyosarcomas is unknown, it is strongly suspected that his diet could have been to blame. "He loves it there (the Birdport bus station) because there are lots of people around and they all drop their sandwiches and pork pies," Jeanes told the Dorset Echo of Weymouth on December 14, 2011. (See "Dodger the Cat Hops on Bridport Buses.")

Whereas an occasional sandwich and a pork pie would not have killed him, such a fare was woefully deficient in the nutrients and vitamins that he needed. A far better choice would have been a diet consisting of either commercial cat food or raw meat.

Always the Perfect Gentleman, Dodger Waits for His Turn to Board

Moreover, it is doubtful that he received much of either of those because he was so seldom home. "He is down there (at the bus station) all day and I have to go out in the night to make sure he is okay," Jeanes revealed to the Dorset Echo.

Every bit as alarming, there simply is not any way of knowing what he was picking up and being fed at either the bus station or on board the buses themselves. It is even conceivable that he could have been either intentionally poisoned or fed rotten meat. It should be axiomatic that no halfway responsible owner would want her cat to be scrounging around in the street for his next meal.

It also is pretty much a sure bet that if Jeanes so flagrantly neglected Dodger's diet, the same likely is true of his personal hygiene, grooming, and the care of minor injuries. It is not even known if she afforded him periodic veterinary check-ups.

All of those omissions pale in comparison, however, with her decision to turn him loose to roam both congested West Street and the buses night and day. In addition to the very real possibility that he might have been poisoned, Dodger easily could have been lost, stolen, or preyed upon by ailurophobes.

The biggest threat that he faced came from motorists, however. "Sometimes he just sits in the middle of the road and waits for the bus to turn up before he gets on," Jeanes acknowledged to the Daily Mail on December 15, 2011. (See "Pay? No, I've Got a Puss Pass...")

If she is still alive, a now seventeen-year-old, one-eyed cat named Krümel is likewise allowed by her irresponsible owner to not only sit but to sleep as well in the street out front of her home at the Hotel Garni Herold in Hattingen, Nordrhein Westfalen. (See Cat Defender post of September 17, 2012 entitled "Contrary to the Neighborhood Scuttlebutt, Krümel Is Alive and Well, at Least for the Time Being, at the Hotel Garni Herold.")

The English dearly cherish their peripatetic cats and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with allowing them to roam if circumstances so warrant, they never should be permitted to venture out into busy streets. Furthermore, they should not knowingly be allowed to board buses and trains, except under rare circumstances, without there being someone to look after their safety and well-being. (See Cat Defender posts of December 5, 2006, April 19, 2007, January 31, 2014, and February 6, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Milo, Who Visits the Vet by Her Lonesome, Is Named Old Blighty's Most Adventurous Cat,""Bus Hopping Macavity Earns High Praise from His Fellow Commuters for Being the 'Perfect Passenger',""Northumbrian Shrink Lays Claim to the Title of Being the World's Most Irresponsible Cat Owner by Turning Loose Jasper to Roam the Perilous Tyne and Wear Metro for Weeks on End," and "Lovable and Adventurous Percy Is Still Very Much Alive and Safely Riding the Miniature Trains in Scarborough.")

Instead of taking decisive and concrete action in order to have eliminated the myriad of dangers that imperiled Dodger's life, Jeanes instead relied upon her children, the operators of First Bus's fleet of chariots, commuters, and the general public to do her duty for her. Even more appalling, she remained unconcerned about both his safety and well-being right up until the bitter end.

"He's absolutely fine," she swore to the Dorset Echo in the article cited supra. "He comes home and sleeps at the end of my bed and spends the rest of the day at the bus station."

With such a laissez-faire attitude toward him, it is not really all that surprising that she had him killed off at the first opportunity that was presented to her. As an added incentive, she furthermore claims that he had of late begun to lose his marbles and that as a result she was getting five to six telephone calls a day from concerned citizens to go and collect him from various parts of Bridport.

Not only has she failed to produce so much as a shred of evidence in order to back up her claim, but dementia is not normally considered to be a side effect of leiomyosarcoma. A far more plausible explanation is that Dodger had lost neither his mind nor changed his habits but rather that the increased concern voiced by Jeanes's neighbors was attributable to his newfound fame.

It also is not totally out of the question that she, a lifelong hoofer since the age of three, was simply too busy managing the Fee Jeanes Toddlers Ballet on Victoria Grove Street and promoting her daughter Emily's career as a dancer in order to be bothered with the additional responsibilities that came with Dodger's notoriety which, ironically, she knowingly had foisted upon both him and herself. As a consequence, she then cooked up the sottise about him being senile as just one more rationale for having him whacked.

Besides, she candidly admits to caring only about hoofing. "It is something I love doing. I guess it started as a hobby and has just gone from strength to strength," she proclaims on her web site. "Seeing children having fun, while at the same time learning basic ballet with good discipline and enjoyment is what is important to me."

It nonetheless is nothing short of a profound pity that she cared so little about Dodger because he unquestionably was worth considerably more than either hers or Emily's hoofing careers. To put the matter in even blunter terms, he most assuredly deserved far better than a vainglorious shekel chaser for a guardian.

It is utterly outrageous but far too many cat owners are, like Jeanes, strictly fair weather guardians. C'est-à-dire, they dearly covet the unconditional love and companionship that cats offer so long as they neither cost nor trouble them too much. Once their loyal companions become either sickly or simply inconvenient to have around any longer they do not think twice about getting rid of them.

Although the cold-blooded liquidation of elderly, sickly, and unwanted cats is every bit as socially acceptable as the slaughtering of tens of trillions of terrestrial animals each year for the dinner table, that in no way makes it any less morally objectionable. Nevertheless, private individuals commit countless numbers of these dastardly deeds every day without so much as a twinge of remorse. (See Cat Defender posts of October 27, 2008 and March 12, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Loved and Admired All Over the World, Feline Heroine Scarlett Is Killed Off by Her Owner after She Becomes Ill" and "Too Cheap and Lazy to Care for Him During His Final Days, Betty Currie Has Socks Killed Off and His Corpse Burned.")

Some of these moral degenerates even have been known to stoop so low as to cash in on their unconscionable crimes. (See Cat Defender post of July 17, 2013 entitled "Not Satisfied with Merely Whacking Meiko, Garrison Keillor Struts on Stage in Order to Shed a Bucketful of Crocodile Tears and to Denigrate the Entire Species.")

Dodger Was Forced to Turn to Strangers for Both Love and Sustenance

Even those public institutions and businesses that have money to burn, such as public libraries and newspapers, are not about to care for elderly and sick cats. (See Cat Defender posts of December 7, 2006 and February 9, 2006 entitled, respectively, "After Nineteen Years of Service and Companionship, Ingrates at Iowa Library Murder Dewey Readmore Books" and "Newspaper Cat Named Tripod Is Killed Off by Journalists He Befriended in Vermont.")

So-called no-kill shelters and even Alley Cat Allies have absolutely no qualms about killing cats. (See Cat Defender posts of October 23, 2012 and January 2, 2013 entitled, respectively, "A Supposedly No-Kill Operation in Marblehead Betrays Sally and Snuffs Out Her Life Instead of Providing Her with a Home and Veterinary Care" and "Alley Cat Allies Demonstrates Its Utter Contempt for the Sanctity of Life by Unconscionably Killing Off Its Office Cat, Jared.")

When it comes to homeless cats, the killing season never ends. Most of these heinous crimes are perpetrated by Animal Control officers, shelters, and cops but occasionally even their trusted caretakers cannot resist the temptation to take up arms against them. (See Cat Defender post of September 28, 2011 entitled "Marvin Is Betrayed, Abducted, and Murdered by a Journalist and a Shelter Who Preposterously Maintain That They Were Doing Him a Favor.")

Although PETA likes to claim that all homeless cats are better off dead than alive, that is a thoroughly disingenuous argument because it feels exactly the same way about all cats. (See Cat Defender posts of October 7, 2011, January 29, 2007, and February 9, 2007 entitled, respectively, "PETA Traps and Kills a Cat and Then Shamelessly Goes Online in Order to Brag about Its Criminal and Foul Deed,""PETA's Long History of Killing Cats and Dogs Is Finally Exposed in North Carolina Courtroom," and "Verdict in PETA Trial: Littering Is a Crime but Not the Mass Slaughter of Innocent Cats and Dogs.")

Jeanes's treatment of Dodger is further called into question by the timing of events. For instance, the Bridport News reported on December 21, 2011 that it was actually she who first contacted it about doing a story on her cat. (See "National Newshounds on the Trail of Dodger the Bus Puss.")

Coinciding as it did with the announcement soon thereafter that Dodger was suffering from stomach cancer, it would appear in retrospect that Jeanes knew that he was dying and accordingly acted with alacrity in order to capitalize on his growing popularity around Bridport before he kicked the bucket. As best as it could be determined, however, there is not any evidence to support the conclusion that she, unlike Susan Finden of Plymouth, followed through on her initial plans and has in any way profited financially from Dodger's death. (See Cat Defender posts of August 27, 2009 and January 30, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Casper Treats Himself to an Unescorted Tour Around Plymouth Each Morning Courtesy of the Number Three Bus" and "Casper Is Run Down and Killed by a Hit-and-Run Taxi Driver While Crossing the Street in Order to Get to the Bus Stop.")

As is the case with just about all cats, both the famous as well as those who live out their lives in obscurity, not a great deal is known about Dodger's life. For example, it has not even been publicly disclosed either where he was born or how long that he had lived with Jeanes and her family.

Equally important, it would be interesting to know what his life was like before he was relocated to West Street. For instance, did he also roam and ride public transit at his old address?

The only thing about him that seems to be relatively certain is that his riding of the buses in Bridport was a fairly recent development. "We moved here nineteen months ago and our house backs on to the bus station," she disclosed to the Daily Mail in the article cited supra.

It therefore might not be too far-fetched to conclude that it was precisely the close proximity of his house to the bus station coupled with Jeanes's abject neglect of him that drove him into the arms of the commuters. After that, either one of them carried him on board or otherwise he found his way aboard by himself.

Even Jeanes herself admits that it was precisely the siren call of the free food, warm laps, and the attention showered on him by both commuters and drivers alike that attracted him to the buses. That tends to make sense in that it is unlikely that either boredom, Wanderlust, or eros still held much of an appeal for a tom of his advanced years.

Nevertheless, the mere fact that Dodger was forced to venture Weit und Breit in order to procure the nourishment and nurturing that he so cruelly was denied at home is in itself a staggering indictment of Jeanes's misconduct as a guardian. Even more damnable, it very well could have been her neglect of him that shortened his life.

No matter how Dodger's short, tragic life is analyzed it is impossible to come away with any other conclusion than that he richly deserved to have been blessed with a far more attentive and caring guardian than Jeanes. By failing to fulfill her solemn obligations to him, she shortchanged not only him but, ultimately, herself as well.

"I know a lot of people are going to be very disappointed and saddened that Dodger has gone," she predicted to the Bridport News in the February 22, 2012 article cited supra.

That is putting the matter rather mildly in that he leaves behind not only the hundreds of commuters whose lives he touched so profoundly simply through his presence on the buses and at the Bridport station, but thousands of others who learned of his existence via the Internet, the Today Show on Australian television, and the women's weekly magazine, Chat. Even the suits at Whiskas were so impressed by him and his exploits that they once sent him a parcel of treats.

Sadly, he is gone now and both Bridport and the world are all the poorer. Even more disquieting, it is too late to recall him from the grave and to belatedly shower him with the love and nourishment that he was forced into cadging in random, intermittent installments from perfect strangers.

Photos: Daily Mail.

Butterscotch, His Head Still Stuck in a Bug Trap,  Pauses on a Fence

"Eighteen days to capture a cat was...ridiculous. The challenges and threats we faced were beyond bizarre. The nightmare (yes, nightmare) is over."
-- Brandon Area Lost Animals

Some cats cannot seem to win no matter how hard they try. As a consequence, misfortune is the only traveling companion that they ever are destined to know and although they occasionally may be able to break free from its merciless shackles it is always waiting patiently for them just around the next corner like their shadows on a sunny day.

That pretty much sums up the rotten hand of cards that The Fates have doled out to a dashing orange and white tom about town named Butterscotch from Brandon in Manitoba. His first stroke of miserable luck occurred when he was cruelly abandoned to fend for himself in the street.

No one seems to know either where he came from or how long he had been homeless. Press reports likewise have not even ventured to so much as hazard a guess as to his age.

His second piece of rotten luck occurred when he accidentally got his head stuck inside a green and red plastic bug trap that was thirty centimeters in length and between ten and fifteen centimeters wide. It is not even known exactly when he became ensnared in the device.

All that has been revealed so far is that he first was spotted in the south end of town on July 23rd with the contraption on his head by a woman identified only as Colleen. Because of the color of his fur, she christened him Butterscotch and then notified Brandon Area Lost Animals (BALA).

What then followed was an eighteen-day race against the clock jointly undertaken by BALA and Brandon Animal Control in order to trap the cat and remove the device before he came to harm. Unlike so many unfortunate cats who become trapped in glue traps, jars, and discarded cans, Butterscotch apparently never was in any real danger of succumbing to either starvation or dehydration because he at least was able to both eat and drink even with the trap on his head.

It did however significantly impair his vision and, possibly, even his sense of smell and that in turn left him vulnerable to any human and animal predators intent upon doing him harm. The trap itself also was breaking apart and that presented other dangers as well.

"The problem was the plastic ring," veterinarian Jennifer Beckwith of the Grand Valley Animal Clinic (GVAC) in Brandon later explained to the Winnipeg Free Press in the second of two articles dated August 9th. (See "Butterscotch the Cat Rescued after Two and a Half Weeks, 'Recovering Well'.")"He'd stuck his head through the top of it and had managed to basically break it apart, but the ring was still hanging off his neck. Our big concern was he could have been hung up on something and strangled himself."

Without knowing how badly the trap itself had deteriorated, it is impossible to speculate on the likelihood of that happening. It is known, however, that cats who snag both conventional and elastic collars on foreign objects can suffer simply horrific injuries.

Even getting so much as a paw entangled in one of those old-fashioned identification devices can lead to disastrous consequences. (See Cat Defender posts of June 22, 2010 and May 28, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Hobson Is Forced to Wander Around Yorkshire for Months Trapped in an Elastic Collar That Steadily Was Eating Away at His Shoulder and Leg" and "Collars Turns into Death Traps for Trooper and Que but Both Are Rescued at the Eleventh Hour.")

Equipped with humane traps that were camouflaged with leaves, grass, and twigs, night vision cameras, and electronic monitors that were set up outside the traps, Toni Gramiak of BALA and about a dozen dedicated volunteers then organized a campaign to trap Butterscotch. The use of tranquilizers and nets was ruled out from the very outset as being far too dangerous.

The trappers relied upon both electronic surveillance data and sightings reported by the general public in order to determine where best to place their camouflaged traps. "We're interested in his path of travel, his behavior," Gramiak explained to the Winnipeg Free Press in the first of two articles dated August 9th. (See "To Catch a Cat: Inside the Bizarre Search for Brandon's Butterscotch.")"We need to find a spot where he's calm."

Normally, corralling Butterscotch would not have posed much of a challenge to an experienced trapper like Gramiak but it did not take long for an unidentified saboteur to throw a monkey wrench into her meticulously laid plans. Described only as a south Brandon male in either his late forties or early fifties, the subversive began his obstructionist activities by damaging and overturning her traps. He followed that up by spreading lawn clippings in front of the traps, presumably to negate the aromatic smell of the tuna juice, catnip, and pheromones that she had laid down as bait.

He additionally attempted to disrupt the trapping exercise by, inter alia, banging on his fence, churning up a ruckus with a pressurized water hose, turning on his outside lights and cameras, and focusing a floodlight on Gramiak's vehicle. "He started blatantly sabotaging right in front of me," she futilely complained to the Winnipeg Free Press in the first article dated August 9th.

Toni Gramiak and Volunteer Sandy Brown with a Camouflaged Trap

Although the police were called in on numerous occasions, they inexplicably never took any action against the culprit. If the venue had been England, he in all likelihood would have been issued an Anti-Social Behavior Order and then jailed if he had failed to comply with its stipulations.

The mere fact that he was able to get away scot-free with his obstructionist activities reveals just how little the authorities in Brandon value the lives of  cats. By contrast, if he had been engaged in actively sabotaging the efforts of emergency personnel to save the life of either an adult or a child there can be little doubt that the police would have arrested him on the spot.

Although it is by no means one-hundred per cent clear, it does not appear that the individual was acting out of anything even remotely approaching a genuine concern for Butterscotch's well-being. If, for example, he had had reason to believe that BALA and Animal Control were planning on harming him in any way his actions would have been completely justified because saving an innocent life trumps all political and legal concerns to the contrary.

That critical assessment of his motivations is based upon the conspicuous absence of anything in press reports that would tend to indicate that he ever attempted to come to Butterscotch's aid by either befriending him in any manner or leaving out food for him. Additionally, he has racked up quite a reputation over the years as being a prototypical neighbor from Hell.

For example, he has been accused of attacking residents' automobiles with air gun pellets, eggs, and canine excrement. He even has been accused of scattering nails in their driveways so as to puncture their tires.

Unlike the unidentified miscreant in Elsdorf, Nordrhein Westfalen, who back in 2009 was caught flagrante delicto putting out a Nagelbrett in order to intentionally injure Manuela Lisken's cat, this is apparently the first time that he has been caught venting his spleen on a cat. It therefore is difficult to say if he is an ailurophobe as well as a sociopath. (See Cat Defender post of June 10, 2010 entitled "Cat-Hating Gardener in Nordrhein Westfalen Is Told by the Authorities to Remove a Board of Nails from His Yard.")

"It goes on and on," is how one of his unidentified neighbors characterized his aberrant behavior to the Winnipeg Free Press in the first August 9th article cited supra.

"Nobody will look at him," another neighbor who also elected to hide behind the cloak of anonymity added in the same article. "Who wants all that (presumably, trouble)?"

The man quite obviously has his neighbors buffaloed and that in turn is likely to only embolden him to commit even more egregious affronts against them and their properties. Even Gramiak and her assistants were caught off guard by his obstructionist activities.

"Little did we know that our biggest challenge wasn't just going to be that he (Butterscotch)  had his face covered affecting his sense of smell and sight," she confessed to the Winnipeg Free Press in the second article dated August 9th.

She soon got over her initial consternation, however, and if his behavior accomplished anything it served only to strengthen her resolve. "When I have to catch an animal, it's a job I have to do," she declared to the Winnipeg Free Press in the first article dated August 9th. "It's something you can't walk away from. Not a cat that's in distress like this one. The cat has to be captured."

So, in spite of all the daunting challenges, Gramiak and her team of volunteers persevered. "It's frustrating. It's heartbreaking. It's a challenge," volunteer Laurie Unruh admitted to the Winnipeg Free Press in the first August 9th article. "All you want to do is to do the best for this cat."

Although BALA did receive widespread support from the community for its efforts on behalf of Butterscotch, that did not deter some residents from maligning both it and the volunteers. "Some people say we're nuts. It's just a cat," kindhearted volunteer and mental health worker Jo-ann (sic) Pasklivich-Holder told the Winnipeg Free Press in the first article dated August 9th. "To each his own. Everybody has a right to choose a cause. I'd Help anybody in distress, people or animals."

The doggedness of their sworn enemy did, however, force Gramiak and the volunteers to not only amend their strategies but, above all, to proceed with extreme caution at all times. "A lot of the info we had we weren't putting out there because we do believe he was monitoring the (news) sites," Gramiak later told the Winnipeg Free Press in the second August 9th article. "He was following, he was finding us, there were mysterious things going on."

Sandy Brown Monitoring the Traps Electronically

In particular, although Gramiak knew early on that Butterscotch was able to eat and drink, she did not divulge that information to the public out of a fear that either the saboteur or someone else would attempt to poison him. That information also could have been used in order to have lured him into a private snare for all sorts of other nefarious purposes.

The tug-of-war that developed between BALA and the saboteur was the third misfortune to befall Butterscotch. Although he had been doing the very best that he could in order to survive on his own and under extremely trying circumstances, he now found himself branded as an outlaw and hounded both night and day on two different fronts.

Caught in the crossfire, he was only a heartbeat away from disaster and it arrived with a vengeance on the evening of August 7th when he came within an eyelash of being crushed to death underneath the wheels of a trucker while crossing the street. Although it is difficult to say if Gramiak's aggressive trapping regimen was in any way to blame for the incident, that  is a distinct possibility.

Although to her credit she did attempt in vain to get the trucker to stop, the incident not only left her badly shaken but it also vividly drove home to her just how dangerous a game she was playing. "To watch and know I can do nothing for him...it's hard," she afterwards admitted to the Winnipeg Free Press in the first August 9th article. "If he got hit by a car right in front of me..."

Working as she does in the animal protection movement, Gramiak of all people should be acutely aware that motor vehicles do not kill cats and other animals. Au contraire, it is precisely motorists that are to blame and they commit their dastardly deeds intentionally and with impunity.

All the sleepless nights spent by Gramiak and the volunteers finally paid off at 7 a.m. on August 9th when Butterscotch unwittingly strolled into one of their camouflaged traps. The winning combination of various lures that had been tried throughout this exercise turned out to be tuna, two kinds of cat food, and catnip. A trail of tuna juice that led up the path to the trap also proved to be simply too enticing for him to ignore.

With the successful denouement of their trapping campaign, everyone associated with the effort finally was able to breathe a collective sigh of relief. "Eighteen days to capture a cat was...ridiculous," BALA stated August 10th in an untitled article posted on its Facebook page. "The challenges and threats we faced were beyond bizarre. The nightmare (yes, nightmare) is over."

While that doubtlessly was true as far as BALA and Animal Control were concerned, Butterscotch's latest nightmare was just beginning and that constituted his fourth stroke of misfortune. This latest installment of misery began when he was taken into custody by Animal Control and transported to GVAC where he was anesthetized by Beckwith and the trap removed. While she was at it, she vaccinated him for rabies, distemper, and leukemia and gave him a good dousing for fleas, worms, and mites.

Despite being severely handicapped by the presence of the bug trap, he was neither emaciated nor dehydrated. Best of all, he tested negative for both FIV and FeLv.

"He's recovering well from the ordeal," the practitioner told the Winnipeg Free Press in the second article dated August 9th. "He's of course a little bit lighter now that he doesn't have a bug trap on his head."

As soon as he had recovered from the anesthesia, Butterscotch was remanded to the city pound for three days. That was necessitated by the twin realities that no one ever came forward to reclaim him and he was neither wearing a collar, tattooed, nor carrying around inside of him an implanted microchip.

Following that terrifying ordeal, he next was sloughed off onto Funds for Furry Friends where he was placed in foster care so that he could be socialized for eventual adoption. Not surprisingly after have been cruelly robbed of his freedom and bandied about like a Flying Dutchman, Butterscotch initially found the confinement to be a harrowing experience.

"For the first week in foster care, this traumatized kitty was frozen in fear," BALA stated August 25th in an untitled article posted on its Facebook page. "He would lash out at anything that startled him, and had an intense fear of hands and growled if any human got dangerously close to him."

Butterscotch Tried to Run but He Could Not Get Rid of the Bug Trap

Through the judicious use of treats, patience, and chemicals such as Feliway Diffuser, Feliway Spray, and Pet Naturals Calming Formula for Cats, Butterscotch's foster mother finally was able to wear down his resistance. BALA described the process as follows in the August 25th article:

"With time, his safe distance was down to inches. His need for affection and his fear of hands created a dilemma. To get that needed first human contact, treats and kibble were placed under the human's leg. Butterscotch pushed his head in for the food and he melted. He collapsed and purred, rubbing his body against his foster mom's."

As wonderful as all of that may appear au premier coup d'oeil, it does not in any way alter the sobering reality that it, like everything else heretofore in Butterscotch's short life, is destined to be transitory. That is because it is unlikely that his foster mother is going to adopt him and that in turns means that he is going to be not only uprooted again but, far more importantly, deprived of the care of the one person that he has come to trust.

Even placing him in the right home is not going to be an easy task. "It's got to be the perfect family because a lot of people might want him just because he's Butterscotch," Gramiak told the Winnipeg Free Press in the second August 9th article.

"Obviously, he's become famous," she candidly acknowledged earlier in the first Winnipeg Free Press article dated August 9th. "A cat wearing a hat."

To hear BALA tell it, however, Butterscotch's socialization is a done deal and his future as a pet cat is assured. In the August 25th Facebook article the organization gushed:

"Two weeks after coming into care, Butterscotch revealed his true self. He is a playful big kitten who loves to play fetch for treats. He loves human affection, rolls around on his trusted human's lap and he gives a lot of purrful head bumps."

That possibly could be the case but a far more likely scenario is that he has succumbed to the Stockholm Syndrome. After all, he is in jail and has to not only sing for his supper but his survival as well.

Much more importantly, it quite obviously was not necessary to anesthetize him in order to either cut off the plastic bug trap or to vaccinate him. Both BALA and Beckwith had a far more sinister motive in mind when they chose that course of action.

In particular, they were unable to resist the overpowering temptation to sterilize him and that was the fifth stroke of bad luck to befall him. Although Gramiak simply could be a sterilization fanatic, it would appear that her marked disdain for his philandering played a role in her decision to have Beckwith put an abrupt end to his love life.

"It's quite the relationship. But I think he has other girlfriends she doesn't know about," she said of his courtship of one female in the first Winnipeg Free Press article dated August 9th. "He's such a Casanova."

If there is any validity to that assumption, that would put her thinking on a par with that of Debbie Schultz, a former vice president of the Key West SPCA, who nearly succeeded in sterilizing the world famous polydactyls at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum out of existence. In her case, it was a tom named Ivan whose street corner romantic escapades drove her over the edge and launched her on her ruinous ball-whacking campaign.

"I saw Ivan many times loose. Ivan is a very unneutered, very macho male cat, and in each case, he had one of the street cats pinned down," she indignantly complained back in December of 2006. "We have an ordinance that says a nuisance cat can be removed."(See Cat Defender post of January 9, 2007 entitled "Papa Hemingway's Polydactyl Cats Face New Threats from Both the USDA and Their Caretakers.")

Simply put, some individuals cannot abide the sight of any cat deriving so much as a moment of pleasure out of this vale of tears called life. The same blatant hypocrisy abounds in Anglo-American politics in that it is perfectly acceptable for various religious, ethnic, and racial groups to behave like the royal families of Europe by intermarrying for both profit and power but any randy old bugger who gets caught doing any unauthorized dipping in what is deemed to be an inappropriate honeypot is immediately pilloried.

That is not meant to imply that Butterscotch may not go on to have a longer, healthier, and even happier life as a castrated and domesticated tom than he would have had living on the mean streets of Brandon but that is far from being guaranteed. Just because a homeless cat is able to adjust to one situation does not necessarily mean that it will accept being uprooted and transferred to an entirely different living arrangement.

Butterscotch's Fate Is Now Sealed

That was the hard lesson that Joan Wiley of St. Catharines in Ontario learned firsthand earlier this spring when she unsuccessfully attempted to fob off on a friend a black and white tom with yellow eyes named Merlin that she had somewhat domesticated. For various reasons but principally owing to the bullying of another cat, the experiment turned out to be an unmitigated disaster and Merlin had to be returned to Wiley.

"My good intentions to find Merlin a loving permanent home had robbed him of the joy of life," she wrote in a guest column for The Globe and Mail of Toronto on July 6th. (See "For Merlin the Feral Cat, a Spell Indoors Was Hell.")"My main concern had been for his physical safety, but I badly miscued on his emotional needs."

At last report, Merlin had resumed his happy-go-lucky existence as a combination indoor and outdoor cat but primarily the latter. As for Wiley, her misadventures with him were not a total loss in that she apparently has learned a valuable lesson from her mistakes.

"My experience with Merlin reminded me again of the folly of making assumptions about the needs and lives of humans and non-humans alike, especially those who can't speak for themselves," she stated in The Globe and Mail article. "In this diverse world, we should proceed with extreme caution when we try to cram the proverbial square peg into the highly overrated and one-size-fits-all round hole."

It is nothing short of appalling that individuals such as Gramiak, Schultz, and others like them who work with cats are so blinded by ambition and besotted by dogma that they are totally incapable of recognizing the existence of individual circumstances, unique histories, different personalities, and varying needs. Such pigheadedness is, in and of itself, arguably the most egregious form of ailurophobia imaginable in that it serves only to perpetuate the naked abuse and exploitation of the species.

Furthermore, along with domestication and sterilization also come a myriad of additional concerns and responsibilities that whomever ultimately gains custody of Butterscotch is going to have to sooner or later address. In particular, such cats are prone to obesity, diabetes mellitus, and bone cancer.

If they are cooped up exclusively indoors, they never receive the exercise and mental stimulation that they require in order to stay both physically and psychologically fit. Plus, indoor environments are hazardous to their health. (See Cat Defender posts of August 22, 2007 and October 19, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Indoor Cats Are Dying from Diabetes, Hyperthyroidism, and Various Toxins in the Home" and "Smokers Are Killing Their Cats, Dogs, Birds, and Infants by Continuing to Light Up in Their Presence.")

For Gramiak and others to ignore these concerns is nothing short of dishonest. Moreover, their attitude demonstrates an appalling disrespect for the nature, health, and happiness of cats.

In his 1922 seminal work, The Tiger in the House, Carl Van Vechten unriddled the sterilization conundrum as follows:

"But it has become the general custom, except for those who keep kings for breeding purposes, to alter these toms, so that they grow into large, affectionate, and lazy animals, who sleep a good deal, and are generally picturesque but not very active. These altered toms are generally the favorites as pets. Personally, I am more interested in cats who retain their natural fervor."

Even in saying that much he misses the boat by a mile when he implies that unaltered toms cannot be gentle, loving, and extremely well mannered toward their owners. Also, some of them exhibit little or no interest in either the opposite sex or in roaming and as a consequence it is senseless to castrate them.

For better or worse, Butterscotch's fate was sealed the moment that he wandered into Gramiak's cleverly disguised trap and there is not anything that anyone from the general public can do for him now. Hopefully, he will be able to find a measure of contentment and happiness somewhere down the road but even that depends in large part upon what type of guardian that Funds for Furry Friends foists upon him.

The sad reality of the situation is that his life no longer belongs to him and that is the sixth and by far worst coup du sort to have befallen him. Given what is known about those diabolical monsters who strut around on two legs with their long noses poked high in the air and running off at the mouth, being forced to live down at heel, under the thumb, and according to their whims is the scariest fate that ever could happen to anyone, cat or individual.

Photos: Moggies (Butterscotch on a fence), Randy Turner of the Winnipeg Free Press (Gramiak and Brown with trap, Brown watching the monitors, and Butterscotch on the run), and BALA (Butterscotch in a trap).

The Magnificent Clark

"I had a hard time wrapping my brain around why this happened and how it happened. I just feel really sad that this innocent, sweet animal was hunted down and shot in a yard where he felt safe."
-- Deb Webb

No one seems to either know or, for that matter, care very much about Clark's past. Based upon his friendly demeanor and total lack of fear of humans, however, it is rather safe to conclude that he at one time enjoyed the comforts and security of a permanent home.

That was a long time ago in that it is known that the five-to-eight-year-old black and white tom with long, elegant white whiskers and pale-green eyes had been forced for much of his adult life to eke out an existence on the violent and forbidding streets of the small Maine town of Gorham, eighteen kilometers west of Portland. As far as it has been revealed, the only material assistance that he received during that time came from Deb Webb of Maple Ridge Road who had fed him for the past three years.

Even that act of kindness still forced him to rely upon his own resources when it came to weathering Gorham's long, cold, and snowy winters, eluding both human and animal predators, and persevering through injuries and sicknesses without the benefit of competent veterinary care. Plus, he had to cope on a daily basis with the psychological loneliness and social isolation that accompanies being homeless and penniless and that is an especially difficult row to hoe for any cat that lives in such a cold-hearted and violent capitalist dystopia as the United States.

Despite having all the stars aligned against him, Clark nevertheless somehow persevered and even to a certain extent thrived on adversity. Malheureusement, neither courage, nobility of soul, nor the ability to withstand profound suffering are any match for either the malicious lies of an inveterate cat-hater or the murderous desires of a bloodthirsty cop.

That terrifying fact of life in present-day, police state America was brought home to Clark with a vengeance on the evening of August 20th after he allegedly became involved in some sort of a physical altercation with an unidentified seven-year-old girl. The girl's father, whose identity likewise has been shielded from public scrutiny by the obliging capitalist media, in turn telephoned the Gorham Police Department (GPD) complaining that Clark either had scratched or bitten his daughter.

That in itself was a highly dubious charge to levy against Clark in the first place in that scratch and bite wounds usually are readily distinguishable. Secondly, a far more likely scenario is that it was precisely the child who either had attacked or molested Clark in some fashion because homeless cats are not in the habit of approaching strangers, let alone assaulting them.

Thirdly, the man should have been doing a far better job of minding his young daughter. If he had been willing from the outset to have devoted so much as a fraction of the time that he since has invested in falsely maligning Clark to fulfilling that solemn responsibility this tragic episode never would have transpired in the first place.

As malicious and patently unfair as his initial accusation was, the man did not stop there but instead outdid himself by telling the police that Clark not only was limping but rabid as well. The first allegation is easily disposed of in that Clark most likely was victimized sometime in the past by a hit-and-run motorist and that accounts for his limp.

It is not, after all, anything out of the ordinary for outdoor cats to have some sort of mobility impairment. Moreover, there is not any correlation whatsoever between a limp and rabies and absolutely no one except either an inveterate cat-hater or a bloody fool ever would make such an asinine connection.

Much more to the point, neither civilians, cops, nor even veterinarians are capable of making an on-the-spot, in-the-field diagnosis of rabies. That can only be accomplished through either trapping and quarantining an animal so that it can be observed over an extended period of time for any outward symptoms of the malady or by killing it and analyzing tissues cut out of its brain.

An x-ray Details the Damage Done to Clark's Front Legs

Regrettably, Clark could not speak up for himself and as a consequence the Animal Control officer who arrived on the scene at 7 p.m. took the blatant lies of Clark's accusers to be the gospel truth. Although the thoroughly dishonest capitalist media have refused to publicly divulge his name, he is identified on the GPD's web site as its very own Paul Dubay who also doubles as a traffic cop.

With it rapidly growing dark outside, Dubay quickly abandoned his half-hearted effort to trap Clark and instead radioed Lieutenant Christopher Sanborn, who serves as second in command to outgoing Chief of Police Ronald Shepard, in order to request that a death squad be dispatched to hunt down and execute on the spot the totally innocent cat. In support of his case, Dubay not only alleged that Clark also had attempted to bite him but he even topped the father and daughter team when it comes to telling whoppers by furthermore claiming that he also was staggering, weeping, and vomiting.

Two unidentified police officers promptly arrived at the killing field and one of them wasted no time by assaulting Clark with one or more blasts from a sixteen-gauge shotgun that was loaded with pellets. Assuming that the triggerman was not either any of the GPD's four sergeants, three detectives, or pair of school crossing guards, he surely was one of the following nine officers: Robert Henckel, Brent Frank, Todd Gagnon, David Bruni, Dean Hannon, Ted Hatch, Michael Brown, Stephen Hinkley, and Steven Rappold. It seems highly unlikely that the department's tenth uniformed officer, Chelsea Emmons, did the shooting.

"After some discussion, they (Dubay and his unidentified supervisor) had some concern there was a rabid cat in the neighborhood that they were unable to capture," Sanborn told the Portland Press Herald on September 4th. (See "Stray Cat Recovering from Shooting by Officer Who Suspected Rabies.")"They decided the best way to deal with it so no one else was harmed was to shoot the cat."

Although the blast had broken bones in both of Clark's front legs, he nonetheless was able to somehow make it to the safety of a nearby wooded area and that doubtlessly saved his life because his attackers were hellbent upon eradicating him from the face of the earth. Toward that end, they pursued him for "an extended period of time" that night and the following day according to Sanborn.

"It leaped up in the air and took off," Sanborn later told the American Journal of Westbrook on September 11th. (See "'Super-Cat' Saga Touching Hearts.")

The not only unjust and barbaric but asininely stupid behavior exhibited by both Dubay and the GPD in this utterly outrageous example of animal cruelty raises a myriad of vitally important questions that need to be addressed. First of all, although police officers are allowed under Maine law to execute animals that they suspect of having rabies that is far from being a desirable policy.

Rather, such animals should be humanely trapped and taken to a veterinarian for examination. That is the only way that such a determination can be made without unjustly killing totally innocent animals.

Secondly, an Animal Control officer should not be a police officer as well. Simply put, most policemen have neither the prerequisite intelligence, training, temperament, patience, nor compassion required in order to properly attend to cats and other animals in a humane and just fashion.

In this particular case, Dubay's gross incompetence is nothing short of criminal. "This may be the first time I've ever heard of a police officer responding to help an Animal Control officer with a cat," Eric Sakach of the Humane Society of the United States told the Portland Press Herald."Animal Control officers should be trained and have the equipment to properly trap a cat."

Clark and Jeana Roth

Apparently, Dubay was not only bone-lazy but so mindlessly stupid that he attempted to grab Clark with his bare hands as opposed to using a trap. Otherwise, he is simply lying about Clark attacking him.

As any fool knows, a humane trap, the proper bait, and unlimited amounts of both patience and time are required in order to successfully apprehend a cat. Animal Control personnel and police officers are, on the other hand, by training and personality quick workers in that it only takes them a second or two in order to reduce and eliminate complex, vexing, and time-consuming problems to their lowest common denominator by emptying their revolvers in the direction of cats, dogs, and individuals.

Such a mindset additionally spares them the onerous tasks of either doing any thinking or breaking so much as a sweat. Many of them in fact talk and behave as if they have the intelligence quotient of a fifteen-year-old juvenile delinquent.

By contrast, earlier in August it took Toni Gramiak and the volunteers from Brandon Area Lost Animals (BALA) in Manitoba eighteen days in order to successfully corral a cat named Butterscotch who had gotten his head trapped in a bug trap. (See Cat Defender post of September 6, 2014 entitled "Butterscotch Is Finally Freed from a Bug Trap but His Deliverance Has Come at an Awfully High Price That He Will Be Repaying for the Remainder of His Days.")

On that occasion, she and her colleagues used various baits, electronic and human monitors of the traps, and tons of patience. Above all, neither she nor the volunteers were foolish enough to attempt to grab Butterscotch with their hands.

"To the people who thought they could catch him by hand, be thankful you didn't get the chance," BALA wrote August 25th in an untitled article posted on its Facebook page. "For the first week in foster care, this traumatized kitty was frozen in fear. He would lash out at anything that startled him, had an intense fear of hands and growled if any human got dangerously close to him."

The avowed willingness of both the girl and Dubay to get so close to Clark also calls into question the veracity of their assertions that he not only was feral but, more importantly, that he had rabies. First of all, the vast majority of homeless cats are unapproachable. Secondly, no one ever would go near a cat that they honestly suspected of having rabies.

Also, by electing to gun down Clark in Webb's yard, the GPD placed in jeopardy the lives of other cats and residents living in the area as well. "I mean, you (sic) could've done a little bit better, extensive job of searching for it, or put a trap out to search for it the next day, or something," Stephanie Roberts, who lives near where Clark was shot, astutely pointed out to WMTV of Portland on September 5th. (See "Cat Thought to Be Rabid Shot by Police, Survives.")

As for Clark's accuser, she never was treated for exposure to the rabies virus and that further undermines both her and her father's stories because normally in cases of this sort post-exposure prophylaxis is immediately commenced and continues over an extended fourteen-day period. The cops and Dubay likewise never believed so much as an iota of their own propaganda and lies because less than twenty-four hours later they gave up attempting to both trap and kill Clark.

As for Clark, he somehow managed to survive the cop's shotgun blast and subsequently was successfully trapped by Webb four days later on August 24th. He then was bandied about first to the Animal Refuge League for Greater Portland (ARLGP) in Westbrook, seven kilometers removed from Gorham, and then to an unidentified veterinarian fifty-six kilometers away in Lewiston before finally being returned to the former where he remains to this day.

Clark Rests in His Cage at ARLGP

It never has been explained where Clark spent the intervening days but more than likely he was with Webb. That assumption is based upon her own admission that she feared he would be killed if she immediately turned him over to ARLGP. Presumably, his deteriorating state of health prompted her to have a change of heart and to take a chance upon the shelter.

It additionally is unclear if she was at home at the time of the shooting. If not, she surely learned of it shortly thereafter and likely was on the lookout for Clark, even if she initially might have feared that he had been killed.

There can be little doubt, however, that the evil machinations of all those involved in this sordid affair have left her badly shaken. "I had a really hard time wrapping my brain around why this happened and how it happened," she explained to the Portland Press Herald in the article cited supra. "I just feel really sad that this innocent, sweet animal was hunted down and shot in a yard where he felt safe."

The first order of business at ARLGP was to quarantine Clark in a cage for ten days so that he could be observed for any symptoms of rabies. To the surprise of absolutely no one with so much as a scintilla of intelligence, that proved not to be the case otherwise he would have been liquidated on the spot.

Au contraire, rabies is extremely rare in cats and, according to statistics compiled by the Portland Press Herald, only eight such cases have been confirmed in Maine since January of 2010. Moreover, the last person in Maine to have been infected with rabies transmitted by any animal occurred way back in 1937.

That has not deterred the sworn enemies of the species, such as ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and the federal government, from falsely branding cats as the number one public menace when it comes to spreading rabies. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta published a scurrilous report in the July 17, 2013 online edition of Zoonoses and Public Health (volume sixty-one, issue four, pages 290-296) entitled "Rabies Prevention and Management of Cats in the Context of Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release Programmes"(sic) wherein the authors called for not only the outlawing of TNR but the roundup and en masse extermination of all homeless cats.

"We didn't think it was okay to have (homeless) dogs, but we think it's okay to create artificial cat colonies where they're exposed to wildlife that can transmit rabies," Charles E. Rupprecht of the CDC groused indignantly to USA Today on August 18, 2013. (See "Feral Cat Colonies Could Pose Rabies Risk, CDC Says.")

Rupprecht's colleague at the CDC, Jesse D. Blanton, furthermore claimed that three-hundred cats are reported to be rabid each year in the United States and that they accordingly are to blame for sixteen per cent of all individuals that require treatment after being suspected of having been exposed to the virus.

First of all and as the simply horrific abuse meted out to Clark has amply demonstrated, there is a huge difference between being suspected of having rabies and actually being infected with the virus. Secondly, individuals who come into contact with cats are inadvertently scratched and bitten all the time. As a result, they may sometimes even undergo rabies treatment as a precautionary measure but that certainly does not mean that the cats were in fact rabid.

On the contrary, there has not been a confirmed cat-to-human transmission of rabies in nearly forty years. In fact, if there were so much as an iota of truth to the CDC's outrageous claims the country would be overrun with a rabies epidemic.

Cindy

The veracity of the study is further called into question by not only the overt biases of the authors themselves but also by the CDC's lies about who actually conducted the research and authored the report. For instance, in addition to Rupprecht and Blanton, the consortium of authors allegedly also included M. Levin, Allison D. Roebling, and D. Johnson of the CDC. Besides them, D. Slate, who works for both the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) as well as its designated death squad, Wildlife Services, and none other than George Fenwick of the ultra cat-hating American Bird Conservancy (ABC) also put in their two cents' worth.

It afterwards was revealed, however, that the study actually was prepared and written by Roebling and Johnson, a pair of unpaid college students and not CDC staffers. In addition to being biased and dishonest, that shows up the CDC to be both cheap as well as a naked exploiter of students. (See District of Columbia Health Examiner, November 5, 2013, "'CDC Study' on Cats Actually Done by Students.")

Even more important than that it reveals that the CDC now has joined the ranks of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Wildlife Services, APHIS, the National Park Service, the United States Forest Service, the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the Pentagon, and other agencies in the feds' all-out war on cats. (See Cat Defender post of August 7, 2014 entitled "The National Park Service Racks Up a Major Victory by Expelling the Plum Beach Cats but It Is Thwarted in Its Burning Desire to Dance a Merry Little Jig on Their Graves.")

"This is fearmongering, and it can have disastrous consequences for cats," Becky Robinson of Alley Cat Allies pointed out in an August 15, 2013 press release. (See "Alley Cat Allies Denounces Biased Rabies Review that Calls for Eradicating Cats.")"Frankly, I am flummoxed that the American Bird Conservancy is included on a rabies prevention study. It also makes no sense that the review includes a totally unrelated section on feral cats and wildlife."

Whereas it is difficult to establish a direct causal connection between the CDC's and the ABC's blatant lies on the one hand and the GPD's gunning down of Clark on the other hand, there can be do disputing that the mere mentioning of rabies frightens some otherwise rational individuals out of their skulls. "It was alarming to think we had a rabid animal in the neighborhood," uninformed and clueless Gail Platts of Maple Ridge Road told the American Journal in the article cited supra.

ARLGP eventually got around to looking after Clark's gunshot wounds and that could not have come a minute too soon. "He was in rough shape, could barely walk," the charity's Patsy Murphy informed WGME-TV of Portland on September 4th. (See "Stray Cat Suffers in Woods after Being Shot by Police.")

"He was outside for four days after he was shot before he was brought to us," Murphy's colleague, Jeana Roth, added to the Portland Press Herald. "Who knows what kind of pain he was in?"

At last report, ARLGP was closely monitoring his condition in the hope that the shattered bones in his legs will heal on their own. If not, he will require surgery.

Surgery might also be called for in order to not only repair his limp but also to remove the lead pellets. If not removed in a timely fashion they ultimately could prove to be not only toxic but possibly even fatal.

For example, on August 29th an unknown and still at large assailant shot Constance Große's nine-year-old white cat, Cindy, in the stomach with an air rifle as she lay stretched out on the terrace of her mother-in-law's house in the Dütekamp development in the Himbergen section of Uelzen in Niedersachsen, ninety-two kilometers south of Hamburg. In yet still another utterly revolting example of veterinary malpractice, the unidentified practitioner incorrectly diagnosed Cindy to be suffering from a bite wound.

Peggy

When her condition did not improve, she was forced to undergo emergency surgery on September 2nd and on that occasion the projectile finally was found and removed. Tragically, by that time it already was too late and she did not survive.

Although the surgery and the anesthesia doubtlessly contributed to her death, it also is believed that the lead pellet poisoned her system. If she had been properly diagnosed and the projectile removed in a timely manner she in all likelihood still would be alive today.

The senseless murder of her beloved cat has not only deeply disturbed Große and her children but prompted her to demand that the police apprehend the assailant. "Wer tut so etwas und schießt in unserem Siedlungsgebiet mit einem Luftgewehr auf Katzen?" she asked readers of the Allgemeine Zeitung Uelzen on September 6th. (See "Tödlicher Schuss auf Cindy.")"Damit möchte ich erreichen, dass derjenige, der geschossen und damit gegen das Tierschutzgesetz verstoßen hat, ermittelt wird."

For the time being, however, Clark is persevering as well as could be expected under the circumstances. "Clark's doing well. He's receiving vet care and treatment. He's resting comfortably and certainly recuperating," Roth related to the Bangor Daily News on September 4th. (See "Stray Cat Survives Shotgun Blast from Gorham Officer Who Thought Feline Was Rabid.")"Animals are certainly resilient, and Clark certainly is a strong boy."

Although it is not known what Webb calls him, ARLGP has temporarily named him in honor of Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent. It also is rather revealing that the charity's description of his personality is on all fours with that of Webb and therefore totally at odds with the outrageous lies spread about him by the father and daughter team, Dubay, and the GPD.

"He's a lovebug. Everyone here has definitely rallied around him," Murphy declared to WMTV in the article cited supra. "We love his name, Clark, it really speaks to his Superman capabilities. And as you can see, he's a dream boy."

Depending upon how his health progresses, Clark is scheduled to be put up for adoption almost any day now and Webb has announced her intention to be first in line for that honor. The competition is expected to be steep, however, in that at least a dozen or so other individuals have expressed a similar interest in adding him to their homes. The petit fait that she demurred from doing so for so very long also could adversely affect her suit.

Regardless of where he ultimately winds up, Clark's rapid transformation from a rough sleeper and an outlaw into a domiciled and beloved cat has been nothing short of breathtaking. It nevertheless is appalling that it nearly cost him his life before both friends and foes alike belatedly realized not only that he was innocent of the accusations levied against him but, much more importantly, that he was entitled to be allowed to go on living.

That is about the only positive development to have come out of all of the naked abuse and profound suffering heaped upon Clark's tiny head in that none of those involved have seemingly learned a blessed thing from their colossal mistakes. First of all, there is the GPD which claims to have opened an internal investigation into the conduct of both Dubay and the triggerman. "We want to leave no stone unturned," Sanborn swore with, presumably, a straight face to the American Journal.

By that he undoubtedly means that his department is going to pull out all the stops in order to whitewash the conduct of all those involved. Quite obviously, since the GPD has categorically refused to even publicly identify either Dubay or those officers involved in this lawless and unprovoked assassination attempt upon Clark's life, there is absolutely no chance that any of them ever will be disciplined.

Barry Accorti

Besides, the shooting took place more than a month ago and it certainly does not take that length of time in order to conduct an internal investigation. A cover-up and a whitewash, on the other hand, require a good deal more time and effort.

If truth, justice, and public accountability mattered in Gorham, Dubay, the two uniformed officers, their supervisor, and Sanborn as well would be not only immediately fired but prosecuted under the anti-cruelty statutes as well.  Neither of those recourses are about to be followed, however, in that the cover-up is so extensive that it extends to the seven officials who make up the Town Council as well as to city manager David Cole, none of whom have had the decency and compassion to utter so much as a peep in protest.

Sanborn, who is being groomed to assume Shepard's duties in November, has behaved throughout this affair much like a piece of dingy laundry flapping in the breeze. "We're currently looking into the situation and obviously want to ensure the proper procedures were followed," he vacuously gassed to WGME-TV in the article cited supra.

On that same date he is quoted in the Portland Press Herald as candidly acknowledging his abysmal ignorance as to the protocol to be followed in dealing with animals suspected of being rabid but who cannot be immediately apprehended. Consequently, there is not any conceivable way that either he or his officers could possibly follow the dictates of the law if they do not even know what they are in the first place.

As moronic as that may sound to the uninitiated, it is simply the way that all cops operate. Absolutely none of them give so much as a rat's ass about the law, issues of right and wrong, and saving lives. Acting in their self-anointed roles as arresting officers, judges, jurymen, and street corner executioners, they recognize no higher authority and will not under any circumstances accept any constraints placed upon their exercise of power and that applies to how they deal with individuals as well as cats and other animals.

To make matters worse, the GPD's anti-feline agenda enjoys widespread support outside of Gorham. For example, Sheila Pinette of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Augusta has endorsed Sanborn's clarion call for all Maine residents to not only rat out all homeless cats to the police but to refrain from both feeding and handling them.

That draconian policy also has been wholeheartedly endorsed by none other than the ARLGP. "We hope that the message here is that if you have a stray animal in your neighborhood, use your shelter as a resource," Roth pontificated to the Bangor Daily News in the article cited supra.

Her supervisor, Murphy, is even more of a brownnoser and a suck-up to authority. "We're happy to work with the Animal Control officer and community to get strays into shelters," she pledged to WGME-TV. "We can get them spayed and neutered, and we can get them current on vaccinations."

Her bonhomie also extends to the GPD. "We had a meeting with the Gorham Police Department and we talked about communications and working together," she disclosed to WGME-TV.

Most outrageous of all, to withhold food, water, shelter, veterinary care, and simple acts of compassion and kindness from homeless cats is nothing short of barbaric and anyone who advocates for such a perverse agenda should be stripped naked and publicly horsewhipped. Secondly, Dubay has so amply demonstrated his complete incompetence as an Animal Control officer that anyone who cares so much as one whit about cats would have to be a complete idiot to rat out any of them to him.

Thirdly, as far as Sanborn and his highly-paid and trigger-happy goons are concerned, dealing with cats even remotely suspected of being homeless begins and ends with blasts from a shotgun. Accordingly, just as it would be utterly foolish to subject a blind man to a test of colors, it is ridiculous to allow the GPD within a mile of a cat.

Fourthly, the inveterate liars, fraudsters, and buttlickers at ARLPG know as well as everyone else that just about all cats that enter the front doors of shelters leave by the back doors in black plastic trash bags. That is not only true of all those that are suspected of being homeless, but the vast majority of domesticated and preeminently adoptable cats as well.

Pumpkin

"This is not a typical way for a cat to be brought to us," Roth told the Portland Press Herald in regard to Clark's gunshot wounds. "We never want to see a situation like this again."

Unless she is joshing, that can only be interpreted as meaning that she prefers to have cats delivered to her upon silver platters. That way she and her colleagues can whack them with jabs of sodium pentobarbital all the while maintaining that they are doing both them and the community a valuable public service.

"The mission of the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland is to provide temporary care and shelter for stray, abandoned, and relinquished animals, and to place as many as possible into responsible and caring homes," the organization declares on its web site. "Each animal is given the time it needs to find a home regardless of its age, color or medical condition until the time it is reunited with its family or adopted into a loving and responsible family."

Specifically, the organization claims that it takes in more than four-thousand animals each year and that more than half of them are homeless. Conspicuously omitted from its highfalutin rhetoric is any mention of its kill-rate and without that vitally important piece of information intake data are not only meaningless but patently dishonest.

It additionally is not anywhere sufficient for ARLGP to merely declare that it provides its inmates with veterinary care. It must go further and reveal exactly how many animals that it successfully treats as well as the number that it either intentionally kills or allows to die through malpractice and niggardliness. In that respect, Webb's fear that the shelter would kill off Clark is perhaps the most damning piece of evidence against it.

It also is more  than a bit troubling that the shelter, located at 449 Stroudwater Street, is only eight-tenths of a mile removed from Westbrook High School (WHS) at 125 Stroudwater Street which serves as the home away from home for its elderly ginger-colored mascot, Simba. In particular, the shelter's close proximity to it makes it all too convenient should either WHS or Simba's owner, Eileen Shutts, decide to employ it in order to prematurely snuff out his life.

Even as things now stand, he never has been fully appreciated. (See Cat Defender post of May 19, 2014 entitled "Even after Fourteen Years of Faithful Companionship and Exemplary Service, Teachers, Students, and Administrators at Westbrook High School Remain Clueless as to Simba's Intrinsic Value.")

On its web site the organization also fails to make any mention of either TNR or sanctuaries. It apparently does place some barn cats with farmers through its Country Kitties Program but the exact number is not specified. It therefore is difficult to see how that it possibly could be operating anything other than a mass extermination factory without making use of these other alternatives. It is, after all, a foregone conclusion that it is not about to invest the time and resources required in order to socialize for adoption every homeless cat that passes through its portals.

Fifthly, all of Gorham's simply outrageous polices for dealing with cats are not only inhumane but at odds with TNR. There are sans doute drawbacks to such an approach but until something better and more humane comes along it is an acceptable compromise.

Trumping all of those concerns is the simply grotesque lie spread by ARLGP, the GPD, and others that there is a discernible difference between homeless and domesticated cats. "Many people draw a distinction between their pet cats and cats that live outside, but they are really the same," Elizabeth Putsche, who along with her husband, Jason, has spent five years photographing homeless cats, told This Dish Is Vegan on September 11th. (See "Husband and Wife Team Document Feral Cat Colonies Across the Country.")"The care and compassion we give our animals at home should be extended to these cats, even if we can't pet them. Each has a personality and individuality and each has a story to tell."

Snuffy with Her Roommate Pebbles

Applied to the human race, the draconian policies advocated by ARLGP, the GPD, Dubay, and Pinette would sanction the gunning down in the street of not only the impecunious but orphans as well. As is the case with all forms of abuse, the starting point always is the lies spread by the elites who either control or have access to the communications channels.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about community cats," Putsche goes on to say. "We want people to see them as they truly are: independent, healthy, loved, and thriving outdoors."

That is the absolute last thing that their publicly declared enemies in Gorham and Westbrook ever want the hoi polloi to see. As far as they are concerned, the only good cat is either a dead one or one that has been denatured and brought to heel like a dog. C'est-à-dire, the entire so-called animal protection establishment is, for the most part, a huge racket that is run by and for the benefit of its members and the political elites that they serve. Consequently, it is only by either accident or as a fundraising ploy that the pressing needs of the animals ever are served.

Animal Control officers are by far the worst of a bad lot in that the manner in which Dubay treated Clark was merely par for the course when it comes to how they deal with cats. Whether their modus operandi is to either kill them in the field with lethal injections and bullets to the head or to deliver them to shelters and veterinarians to liquidate, Animal Control officers operate in a shadowy world where both their hideous crimes as well as the bodies of their victims remain hidden from public view.

There is a discernible pattern to their crimes, however, in that most of them originate with private citizens who lodge complaints with them against cats. All of these individuals are inveterate cat-haters and a good percentage of them are either ornithologists, wildlife biologists, the brainwashed dupes of PETA, or members of the federal bureaucracy. Moreover, they are seldom, if ever, publicly identified and held liable in any way for their actions. Worst still, Animal Control officers take their malicious and totally unfounded lies at face value.

For example, on July 6th of last year, Debbie Patsos's ten-year-old black cat Peggy escaped from her residence in the Tampa suburb of Land O'Lakes and took up refuge in Casey McCarthy's garage, four doors down the street. When he discovered Peggy's presence he promptly ratted her out to Pasco County Animal Services which dispatched an unidentified Animal Control officer with eight years of experience on the job who in turn killed her on the spot with, presumably, a jab of sodium pentobarbital.

When asked by the dispatcher if the cat was in imminent danger of dying, McCarthy replied, "Yeah...it probably won't make it until tomorrow as far as I'm concerned," according to a July 12th broadcast on WTSP-TV of Tampa. (See "Pasco Investigates Lethal Injection of Family Cat.")"It's probably going to go into shock and die."

Actually, Peggy was in perfect health save for the fact that she had been born with only three paws. "She was our family member. She had a handicap which gave her character to us," Patsos told WTSP-TV earlier on July 10th. (See "Pasco County Kills Family Cat Before It Arrives at Shelter.")"It did not mean she was unadoptable or unlovable. It made her more lovable to us."

In a feeble ploy designed to excuse his own culpability, McCarthy later pleaded ignorance as to how both Animal Control officers and shelters operate. "I'm beyond mad," he told WTSP-TV in the July 10th article. "First off, if anyone said, 'If the shelter takes it, they're going to euthanize it,' I would have said, 'Never mind'."

Even more telling the Animal Control officer informed McCarthy that Peggy might be killed; he simply did not mention that he was planning on doing the dirty deed that very moment and inside his garage. Moreover, McCarthy's story has been further undermined by the fact that he has been identified elsewhere on the web as an animal lover who in the past has rescued cats. He therefore does not have a valid excuse for ratting out Peggy to the knackers.

Elmo

"I'm angry now, and I want justice for her," Patsos stormed to WTSP-TV in the July 12th article cited supra. "I don't want this to happen to someone else's cat."

She is justifiably furious at Animal Control but McCarthy is even more at fault. "I'm blown away. I made the call, I tracked them down in an effort to get an injured cat help," he admitted to WTSP-TV on July 12th. "I didn't get help. I sent it to its death."

On June 10th of last year an unidentified woman residing on Vista Lake Way in North Ridgeville, Ohio, telephoned Animal Control in order to grouse about a family of homeless cats that had taken up residence in a woodpile on her property. In support of her complaint, she argued that the cats had fleas, were creating a stink, and killing wildlife.

Animal Control officer Barry Accorti arrived on the scene twenty minutes later and after informing the complainant that the shelters were full and that the cats would be going to "kitty heaven," he promptly pumped bullets into the tiny heads of a quintuplet of eight to ten-week-old kittens. All of that was just peachy keen to the homeowner until her children, who had witnessed the massacre, started screaming their heads off in horror. Like McCarthy, she had assumed that the killings would have been done out of sight and out of mind.

"It's heartbreaking," Teresa Landon of the Ohio SPCA later told The Plain Dealer of Cleveland on June 11, 2013. (See "North Ridgeville Clears Humane Officer of Wrongdoing for Killing Feral Kittens, but Animal Groups Want Action.")"There is no excuse for it. It's absolutely shameful that someone with the title of humane officer would do this."

Almost in the same breath the hypocritical Landon turned right around and defended the killing of vicious dogs and animals that are in great pain. Not surprisingly, her campaign to get the former thirty-one-year veteran of the North Ridgeville Police Department (NRPD) and a SWAT team commander as well fired for his actions fell upon the deaf ears of Chief of Police Mike Freeman.

"After visiting the scene, talking with the responding officer and re-interviewing the complainant, I have decided his actions were appropriate and have decided not to impose any disciplinary measures for the incident," Freeman pontificated to The Plain Dealer. "The North Ridgeville Police Department recognizes the concern of those who believe feral cats should not be killed for simply trying to survive but also acknowledges other research that recognizes the risks associated with these animals and the need to manage feral cats. Research and other organizations accept shooting as an acceptable means of euthanasia."

By other organizations he undoubtedly has the ABC, the National Audubon Society, and the feds, particularly the USFWS, in mind. His thinking in that regard coincides with Accorti's who, as a bird lover, had gone to great lengths two months earlier in order to save the life of a baby great horned owl that had fallen out of its nest.

To hear Freeman tell it, the eradication of innocent cats is nothing more than a matter of public service and the patented immorality of such aberrant behavior is, consequently, of no concern. "To walk away and leave a safety issue unresolved is irresponsible," he gassed to The Plain Dealer. "At no time does this agency condone or allow the indiscriminate killing of animals, but we will continue to assist residents when there is a safety or nuisance condition."

Since he and Accorti are so obliging, denizens of North Ridgeville have little or nothing to worry about on that score; it is an altogether different matter for cats and other animals residing in the city. Nevertheless, just because Accorti and Freeman have appropriated for themselves an exclusive right to kill animals with impunity that does not in any way legitimize either their thinking or behavior.

So, in the end, Accorti was able to not only get away unscathed with his crimes but to hold onto his job as well. The world, however, had not by a long shot heard the last of either him or his savagery.

On June 9th of this year he was at it again and this time around it was a baby raccoon that he shot dead in front of three children on Root Road. Just as was the case with the unidentified woman who had orchestrated the rubout of "The Woodpile Five," neighbor Tim Sherill did not have the least little problem with Accorti's killing of the raccoon; he simply wished that the execution had been carried out elsewhere.

Tobey

"I own a gun myself," he proudly declared to The Chronicle-Telegram of Elyria on June 10th. (See "Parent Alleges Humane Officer Killed Raccoon in Front of Kids.")"I can understand this up to a point...that they have to put animals down, but you don't do it in front of kids. I'm an adult, and I don't want to see it."

Just as before, old reliable Freeman was johnny-on-the-spot in order to defend North Ridgeville's number one animal killer. "This is a highly-trained individual who can make deductions as to whether this can be done safely or not," he declared to The Chronicle-Telegram. "He is a certified officer. Not somebody we just hire off the street, give them (sic) a gun, and tell them (sic) to go do it."

It is precisely that type of moronic thinking and naked disregard for the rights of animals that has earned Ohio the prestigious title of being the most backward and inhumane state in the union. (See Cat Defender posts of October 20, 2005, February 26, 2007, August 2, 2007, and April 8, 2008 entitled, respectively, "After Ridding the Ohio Statehouse of Rats, Cats Now Find Themselves Facing Eviction,""Charged with Feeding a Feral Cat Named Fluffy, Retired Ohio English Teacher Beats the Rap,""Ohio Cat Shot in the Leg with an Arrow Is Forced to Endure a Long-Drawn-Out and Excruciating Death," and "Ohio Politician Proposes Adding Cats to the Growing List of Pigs, Other Animals, and Humans Killed by Tasers.")

Sometimes the deliberate lies of private citizens are superfluous when it comes to dooming cats in that Animal Control officers and shelters are quite capable of doing the foul deeds from start to finish all by themselves. For instance, in late February of 2012, an unidentified Animal Control officer in Port St. Lucie trapped Shannon Johnson's elderly orange and white cat Pumpkin during a massive one-day roundup and subsequent extermination of more than fifty cats suspected of being homeless. Pumpkin, too, was taken to the St. Lucie County Humane Society and soon thereafter liquidated.

"He was senselessly killed. He shouldn't have been treated this way. He really shouldn't have," his heartbroken owner sobbed to WPEC-TV of West Palm Beach on March 6, 2012. (See "Port St. Lucie Family Pet Caught in Feral Cat Roundup, Euthanized.")"He was a special little guy."

The shelter's David Robertson defended his agency's cold-blooded murder of Pumpkin on the grounds that he was neither licensed, tagged, nor microchipped. He also claims that he failed a temperament test. "This cat unfortunately was very aggressive," he swore to WPEC-TV.

Although a cat's socio-economic status should not have any bearing whatsoever on whether it is allowed to live, absolutely no one can differentiate with any measurable degree of expertise between homeless and domiciled cats. Secondly, so-called temperament tests are a hoax in that almost any cat that is kidnapped by strangers and taken to a shelter where it is confined to a cage is apt to exhibit signs of aggression. The same would hold true for most individuals subjected to the same set of circumstances.

Robertson is furthermore exposed as a barefaced liar by the Animal Control officer who noted on the impound report that Pumpkin was wearing a flea collar and appeared to have an owner. Under those circumstances, it is nothing short of criminal that the officer did not immediately release Pumpkin in the neighborhood where he was trapped instead of initialing his death warrant by stubbornly proceeding on with him to the shelter.

Suspected of being homeless is, however, only one of the many justifications that Animal Control officers and shelters make use of in order to steal and kill cats. Why, even suffering from so much as a minor, preeminently treatable, condition is quite often sufficient in order to get an otherwise healthy cat killed.

For instance, at 9 a.m. on September 1st of last year six-year-old gray-colored and deaf Snuffy ran out the back door of Anna Latimer's house on Ellengale Road in Burlington, Ontario. An hour and forty-seven minutes later she was picked up by an unidentified Animal Control officer and immediately killed because she had a common cold.

"It appeared very sick to us," David Lake of Burlington Animal Control (BAC) told Metro Canada of Toronto on September 6, 2013. (See "Runaway Cat Euthanized Without Owner's Consent over Cold-Like Symptoms.")"Bringing it into our shelter would basically infect our cats."

It did not take long, however, for veterinarian Scott Mathison of Queen West Animal Hospital in Toronto to expose Lake as a liar by pointing out that neither the herpes virus nor an upper respiratory infection were valid reasons for killing a cat. "Definitely not," he told Metro Canada.

In addition to BAC's lies about Snuffy's health, it even refused to acknowledge that it knew anything about the cat when Latimer contacted it on September 3rd. It was not until the following day that it finally came clean and admitted to having stolen and killed her.

Haze

"I never even got the opportunity to try and go there and claim her or do anything to get her back," Latiner told Metro Canada."She survived lots of things and some hardships. I just feel it was a really bad way to go."

Police officers operate pretty much along the same lines as Animal Control officers when it comes to cats with the notable exception that they dispense with all the procedural niceties and instead settle matters with their guns. For example, on March 22, 2008 an unidentified individual in Cecil, Pennsylvania, telephoned the police in order to complain about a group of cats loitering on either his or her property. The complainant also alleged that one of them was rabid.

An unidentified twenty-five-year veteran of the force was dispatched to the scene where he trapped and shot Roger Oldaker's ten-year-old Persian, Elmo. Not only was Elmo falsely accused of having rabies, but his murder was a crime of opportunity made possible by his friendliness and lack of fear of humans.

"He was not injured. He just didn't know where to run," Oldaker later revealed. "Another cat ran away, and the policeman said if my cat would have run, he would have let him go."  Sadly, he was destined to prematurely join Elmo in the great void on May 11, 2013 at the age of forty-nine. (See Cat Defender post of March 31, 2008 entitled "Cecil, Pennsylvania, Police Officer Summarily Executes Family's Beloved Ten-Year-Old Persian, Elmo.")

In another simply outrageous case that is eerily similar to what happened to Clark, on Labor Day of 2009 Kelly Wesner's nineteen-year-old cat Tobey went out for a stroll in Raymore, Missouri, and somehow wound up either near or inside an unidentified neighbor's garage. The cat-hater first turned a garden hose on him before telephoning the police in order to report that a "large, vicious feral cat with rabies" had scratched a girl.

Accepting the cat-hater's accusations without reservation, the police snared Tobey with a catch pole and then pumped two shotgun blasts into his head. They then nonchalantly deposited his ensanguinated corpse in a Dumpster.

In the wake of the public outrage that followed, the cops enlarged considerably upon the original lies spread by the cat-hater. Specifically, they maintained that Tobey had his claws extended and that he was so vicious that it took a trio of them in order to get him, scratching and clawing, into the killing box.

As it later came to light, Tobey not only was deaf but declawed as well. Furthermore, he not only was not rabid but since he suffered from Feline Hyperthyroidism his weight had plummeted to only six pounds.

"He was our family member," a badly shaken Wesner later said. "He was the sweetest animal (and he) was always there to be your friend. He didn't know a stranger." (See Cat Defender post of September 16, 2009 entitled "Acting Solely Upon the Lies of a Cat-Hater, Raymore Police Pump Two Shotgun Blasts into the Head of Nineteen-Year-Old Declawed and Deaf Tobey.")

Larry

History repeated itself again on August 20, 2011 when an unidentified officer with the Lebanon Police Department shot Dori Stone's obese cat, Haze, in the head and then deposited his corpse in a trash can. Just as was the case with Clark, Elmo, and Tobey, the killer accepted at face value the unsubstantiated allegations of an unidentified neighbor that Haze was rabid.

"We love our cats. Do you know what it was like to pull your pet out of the garbage can and then pull him out of the garbage bag and his head is bloody with a bullet hole in it?" she later related. "It's so violent that they did this to our animal and made no effort to call the humane society to find his owners."

Furthermore, it is impossible to even begin to calculate the emotional toll that Haze's cold-blooded murder has taken on Stone and her husband, Randall. "My husband and I have not eaten since Sunday morning (August 21st). We are just sick," she said afterwards. "We close our eyes at night and see his little face and to think as good of care we took of him for almost seven years, those were his last moments and that was the way he had to die; it's unbearable." (See Cat Defender post of September 22, 2011 entitled "Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop.")

On January 13th of this year, a two-year-old male named Larry that was owned by John and Teresa Kauth was trapped and shot to death by Wally Holz, a fifteen-year veteran of the Bloomfield Police Department in Nebraska. He then dumped Larry's body behind a maintenance shed downtown.

In a storyline that has become nauseatingly familiar, Holz was acting at the behest of residents who hate homeless cats. One of them even complained that they were getting into his garbage.

On February 3rd, the Bloomfield City Council voted to give Holz a written reprimand but that is all. Quite understandably, that did not sit well with the Kauths' veterinarian daughter, Lisa Kilgore.

"Larry is finally at peace and I will do everything in my power to make sure this never happens to another animal again," she vowed to the Norfolk Daily News on February 8th. (See "Bloomfield Officer Disciplined for Killing Cat.")

Even requesting police assistance for an injured cat can be a fatal mistake as Wayne Meadows of Settlers Lane in Harrisonburg, Virginia, found out firsthand on November 11, 2011. On that tragic occasion he telephoned the Harrisonburg Police Department (HPD) for help with a forever nameless cat that had been run down and injured by a hit-and-run motorist.

What he and the cat received in return was something altogether different. Specifically, although veterinary assistance was only thirty minutes away, officer Jonathan N. Snoddy elected to finish off the cat right then and now with his night stick which he promptly did with up to as many as twenty savage blows to the head. Although he eventually was forced to face the music in court, in the end he was acquitted of animal cruelty charges and allowed to keep his job. (See Cat Defender posts of March 22, 2012, April 26, 2012, and August 23, 2012 entitled, respectively, "In Another Outrageous Miscarriage of Justice, Rogue Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Is Let Off with a $50 Fine for Savagely Bludgeoning to Death an Injured Cat,""Virginia's Disreputable Legal and Political Establishment Is All Set to Acquit Jonathan N. Snoddy at His Retrial for Brutally Beating to Death an Injured Cat," and "Cat-Killing Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Struts Out of Court as Free as a Bird Thanks to a Carefully Choreographed Charade Concocted by Virginia's Despicable and Dishonest Legal System.")

Bobby and His Injuries

As bad as small cats are treated by the police, the situation is even more deplorable for large ones who enjoy absolutely no protections against the evil designs of officers who slaughter them in droves and with impunity on a regular basis. (See Cat Defender posts of November 3, 2011, May 5, 2008, and January 28, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Sheriff Matt Lutz Settles an Old Score by Staging a Great Safari Hunt That Claims the Lives of Eighteen Tigers and Seventeen Lions in Zanesville,""Chicago's Rambo-Style Cops Corner and Execute a Cougar to the Delight of the Hoi Polloi and Capitalist Media," and "Hopped Up on Vodka and Pot, Trio Taunted Tatiana Prior to Attacks That Led to Her Being Killed by the Police.")

As far as it is known, the only times that cops have even so much as lost their jobs for killing and injuring cats has been for crimes that they have committed while off-duty. For example, North Carolina State Trooper Shawn C. Houston of Granite Falls was fired on January 22, 2010 after he was convicted of trapping and shooting to death a five-month-old orange and white kitten named Rowdy that belonged to his next-door neighbor, Andrea Evans. It allegedly was Rowdy's pussyfooting on his vehicles that precipitated Houston's murderous behavior.

At trial, he escaped punishment by paying only $125 in court costs and at last word he was still trying to get back his old job. (See Cat Defender post of July 8, 2010 entitled "North Carolina State Trooper Who Illegally Trapped and Shot His Next-Door Neighbor's Cat, Rowdy, Is Now Crying for His Job Back.")

On May 21, 2013, Lance DeLeon of the Boerne Police Department shot Natalie Brunner's two-year-old brown cat Bobby with a crossbow and an arrow after he strayed into his garden. The projectile punctured a lung and broke Bobby's right leg but he, mercifully, survived.

The attack underscores the propensity of cops to ignore procedures, both legal and otherwise, and to take the law into their own hands in that DeLeon's assault on Bobby came out of the blue and without any prior warning whatsoever having been voiced to Brunner. "He could have come and easily said, 'Do you own a little brown cat? He comes into my yard and I don't like it'," she related to the Daily Mail on May 24, 2013. (See "Off-Duty Texas Police Officer Arrested after Shooting Neighbor's Cat with Arrow.")"Turn a water hose on him, call Animal Control. Being a policeman, he had every resource at his fingertips."

DeLeon was arrested and charged with animal cruelty but a Kendall County Grand Jury refused to indict him on June 3, 2013 thanks in no small part to the shameful, lackluster prosecution of Kendall County District Attorney Bruce Curry who went after him with all the ferocity of a doting parent. Chief of Police Jim Kohler belatedly did the right thing, however, when he gave DeLeon his walking papers a day later. (See the Houston Press, June 6, 2013, "Lance DeLeon: Cop Fired after Shooting Neighbor's Cat with Arrow" and KSAT-TV of San Antonio, June 5, 2013, "Boerne Police Officer Terminated after Allegedly Shooting Cat with Arrow.")

Cops additionally gun down dogs with impunity as Snoddy's colleague with the HPD, Sergeant Russell Metcalf, did to an eight-month-old collie-mix named Sadie owned by Bryan Ware on April 3, 2012. On that occasion, the only offense that Sadie committed in order to warrant her on-the-spot execution was to approach Metcalf as he rode his bicycle through her neighborhood.

He subsequently was indicted and stood trial twice but in the end his buddies within the judicial branch let him off with a measly $800 fine. (See Cat Defender posts of July 18, 2012 and September 7, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Bloodthirsty and Lawless Harrisonburg Police Follow Up Their Bludgeoning to Death of an Injured Cat by Gunning Down a Collie named Sadie" and "Peripatetic Helvin Rides to the Rescue of Harrisonburg Police Sergeant Russell Metcalf and in Doing So Puts the Judicial Stamp of Approval on His Gunning Down of Sadie.")

During the interim between his two court appearances, Metcalf gave up the struggle to hold onto his job and resigned on October 1, 2012. (See the Daily News Record of Harrisonburg, January 10, 2013, "Ex-City Officer Fined.")

Metcalf's behavior was not as isolated incident in that it is common practice for cop all across the country to gun down dogs that so much as bark at them. Such conduct is not only lawless and morally abhorrent, but it stands in stark juxtaposition to that demonstrated by letter carriers, traveling salesmen, deliverymen, bicyclists, pedestrians, and others who must deal with aggressive dogs all the time and yet none of them pull out guns and shoot them.

Lance DeLeon

Policemen also deliberately kill service dogs by knowingly sending them out to confront armed gunmen that they are too cowardly to arrest themselves. The same is true of their unconscionable use and abuse of them as cadaver dogs at toxic sites, such as Ground Zero in Manhattan.

Numerous police dogs additionally have died from cancerous growths that most likely were caused by secondhand smoke that they were subjected to while being cooped up inside patrol cars all day with officers who smoke like chimneys. Yet, despite the litany of unspeakable abuse that they are subjected to, no animal rights group is willing to either speak up for these dogs or to demand that mankind address the evils that it has created instead of fobbing off that hazardous job on unsuspecting canines.

Given that it is so rare for any of the myriad of despicable crimes perpetrated against defenseless cats, dogs, and other animals by Animal Control officers and policemen to even so much as see the light of day, the full scope of not only their atrocities but the lies and ruses that they employ in carrying them out remains unknown. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that the former, aided and abetted by shelters and veterinarians, liquidate millions of them each year in the United States. As for cops, the annual tally of just their feline victims alone is surely in the hundreds if not indeed thousands.

As go the animals, so goes man. Consequently, it is not surprising that a New York City police officer recently choked to death Eric Garner of Staten Island for, of all things, selling "loosies." Countless unarmed individuals, such as Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri, likewise have been gunned down by the police.

It is not merely those suspected of doing something illegal but innocent bystanders as well, such as twenty-one-year-old Hofstra University student Andrea Rebello and eighty-nine-year-old Marie Zienkewicz of the Philadelphia suburb of Warminster, that trigger-happy cops armed with dangerous automatic weapons are killing with impunity. (See the Huffington Post, May 19, 2013, "Andrea Rebello Killed: Hofstra Student Shot by Police During 'Crime of Opportunity'" and the Courier Times of Levittown, March 8, 2013, "DA: Warminster Officer Accidentally Shot Eighty-Nine-Year-Old During Standoff.")

No surprisingly homeless men, already half-dead, vulnerable, and shamelessly forgotten by society, continue to be favorite targets of the police. For instance, in July of 2011 Fullerton police officers Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli beat to death thirty-seven-year-old Kelly Thomas at a bus station.

Even though a word-by-word and blow-by-blow account of the attack was captured on a thirty-three-minute surveillance camera as well as audio recorders worn by the officers themselves, a jury comprised of suck-ups to authority in Santa Ana deliberated for less than eight hours on January 13th of this year before acquitting both officers. The Justice Department in Washington is supposedly looking into the matter but no one should expect anything positive to come of that crass public relations ploy in that it is designed only to quiet protesters and to pull the wool over the eyes of a gullible public.

"All of us need to be very afraid now, Thomas' father Ron, a former deputy sheriff himself no less, told The Guardian on January 14th. (See "Verdict Clearing Ex-California Cops of Killing Homeless Man Sparks Protests.")"Police officers everywhere can beat us, kill us, whatever they want, but it has been proven right here today they'll get away with it."

That always has been the case as far as cats are concerned and in that regard it is a foregone conclusion that the officer who shot and nearly killed Clark never will be held accountable under the law. Clark survived by the skin of his teeth but that does not in any material way alter the terrifying reality that in doing so he became only one cat in a million to have been so fortunate.

What most individuals fail to realize is that there is an indelible link between a disregard for the sanctity of animal life on the one hand and a disrespect for human rights on the other hand. That line of reasoning can even be extended to include the environment.

Broadly speaking, respect for the sanctity of life is indivisible; either every cat, human, and tree counts or, sooner or later, nothing and no one is going to count.

Photos: Amelia Kunhardt of the Portland Press Herald (Clark, x-ray, and Clark with Roth), Seth Koenig of the Bangor Daily News (Clark in his cage), Constance Große (Cindy), WTSP-TV (Peggy), Daily Mail and WKYC-TV of Cleveland (Accorti), WPEC-TV of West Palm Beach (Pumpkin), Shannon Johnson (Snuffy and Pebbles), Roger Oldaker (Elmo), Kelly Wesner (Tobey), Dori Stone (Haze), Life with Cats (Larry), South Texas Veterinary Specialists of San Antonio (Bobby), and WOAI-TV of San Antonio and the Daily Mail (DeLeon).

Hamish McHamish

"I picked him out of the litter because he was the boldest. Arguably that was a mistake."
-- Marianne Baird

The only thing worse than reporting upon the death of a cat is being forced to bury one. It nevertheless is a sorrowful task that must be performed.

It therefore was with profound sadness coupled with a burning outrage that it recently was learned that former BBC producer Marianne Baird had enlisted the services of an unidentified veterinarian in St. Andrews in order to kill off the world famous Hamish McHamish. (See Cat Defender post of June 20, 2014 entitled "St. Andrews Honors Hamish McHamish with a Bronze Statue but Does Not Have the Decency, Love, and Compassion in Order to Provide Him with a Warm, Secure, and Permanent Home.")

That dirty and patently immoral deed was carried out early on September 11th allegedly because the handsome longhaired orange and white tom with watery green eyes had contracted a common cold. "In the end, the chest infection that he had been battling proved too much for him and the kindest thing to do was to let him go," either Baird or one of her flunkies announced on that date in an untitled article that appeared on Hamish's popular Facebook page.

As best it could be determined, he had been ill for only a few days in that an August 25th note on his Facebook page failed to make any mention of him being sick. In fact, the first inkling that there was anything amiss with him at all surfaced on September 9th in another untitled article on his Facebook page. Even that posting is remarkable only for what it failed to disclose. For example:

"Most of you will have noticed that I've been a little quieter lately. That's because I have been rather poorly. At fifteen years young, things that were once easy to overcome are now more difficult. My mum and the vet are keeping a close eye on me and I am being very well looked after. For now though, I'm taking some time to try to get better."

As it always is the case in matters such as this, no specifics as to Hamish's health have been revealed. All that the public has to go on is Baird's assertion that he was better off dead.

Without knowing all the specifics it is difficult to speak with any degree of authority but it nonetheless is strongly suspected that Hamish was killed off simply because Baird was too cheap and lazy in order to care for him during his time of greatest need. As far as her accomplice is concerned, it is well established that murdering cats, dogs, and other animals constitutes a substantial portion of all veterinarians' income.

For instance, it is common practice for these charlatans to charge distraught owners an arm and a leg in order to treat ailing cats. When they demur, the bloodsuckers counter by offering to whack their companions at a far more reasonable fee. If truth in advertising any longer counted for much of anything, the members of this disgraceful profession would be compelled by law to promote themselves as butchers as opposed to animal doctors.

The premature, cold-blooded killing off of Hamish involves considerably more than moral and ethical objections however in that it is beyond debate that common colds in cats, as in humans, are preeminently treatable maladies. While it is true that a cat's immune system is pretty much on its own when it comes to fighting off the primary viral infection, the amino acid Lysine has been shown to be helpful in that regard. Antibiotics, such as amoxicillin, can be prescribed in order to treat secondary bacterial infections.

In addition to all of that, cats need to be kept hydrated and well nourished. In the event that for whatever reason they fail to eat and drink, they must be forcibly fed and given subcutaneous fluids.

"The prognosis for recovery from viral upper respiratory infections is excellent, with the majority of adult cats making a full recovery," Manhattan veterinarian Arnold Plotnick wrote August 17, 2006 in an article entitled "Viral Upper Respiratory Infections in Cats" that can be found online at www.manhattancats.com.

Furthermore, it is not merely unconscionable owners like Baird and moneygrubbing veterinarians that are in the habit of killing off cats with common colds but Animal Control officers and shelters as well. For example, on September 1st of last year Burlington Animal Control stole and subsequently murdered Anna Latimer's six-year-old gray and deaf cat, Snuffy, all because she, like Hamish, had come down with a common cold.

Like Plotnick, Scott Mathison of Queen West Animal Hospital in Toronto is of the opinion that cats suffering from common colds and the herpes virus should not be killed. "Definitely not," he told Metro Canada on September 6, 2013. (See "Runaway Cat Euthanized Without Owner's Consent over Cold-Like Symptoms.")

Although it is utterly reprehensible, the sad truth of the matter is that there are not many owners and even fewer shelters that are willing to devote the time and money required in order to nurse cats stricken with common colds back to health. Rather, they look upon them in much the same fashion as they do pairs of worn-out shoes.

The common thread that unites both individuals and shelters alike is the pressing desire to get rid of aged, sickly, and injured cats as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The mere existence of such a perverted sense of values speaks volumes for the human race but it is anything but a flattering story.

Hamish on the Go, July 18th

Hamish's immune system ultimately may not have been resilient enough in order to have successfully warded off the infection, especially considering his advanced years, but he unreservedly deserved to have been given every opportunity, no matter how marginal, to have gone on living. By depriving him of that opportunity both Baird and the attending practitioner are guilty of cold-blooded, premeditated murder.

Baird's behavior is especially appalling in that she cruelly abandoned Hamish to wander the forbidding streets of St. Andrews like a threadbare vagabond as soon as he had celebrated his first birthday. Then, lo and behold, she reentered his life fourteen years later only to have him killed off.

Even if worse had come to worst, Hamish was quite capable of dying on his own and at his own sweet time and he certainly neither needed nor wanted any input from his derelict owner. The dying part of existence is every bit as easy as falling off of a log backwards; it is the living part that rips out the guts of both cats and men.

Baird's simply abhorrent mistreatment of Hamish bears a striking resemblance to that meted out to another fifteen-year-old cat named Dodger from West Street in Bridport, Dorset, by his derelict owner, Fee Jeanes. Too busy pursuing a career as a hoofer in order to properly care for him, she likewise turned loose the ginger-colored tom to ride the buses in Dorset and Devonshire by his lonesome and only reentered his life at the last minute in February of 2012 after he had been diagnosed with a stomach tumor.

Like Baird, she quickly dispensed with her custodial and moral obligations to Dodger by having him whacked by the practitioners at Bredy Veterinary Centre. Quite obviously, both mesdames consider abject neglect and jabs of sodium pentobarbital to constitute the alpha and the omega of proper cat care. (See Cat Defender post of August 27, 2014 entitled "After Traveling for So Many Miles on the Bridport to Charmouth Bus, Dodger's Last Ride Is, Ironically, to the Vet Who Unconscionably Snuffs Out His Precious Life at the Urging of His Derelict Owner.")

In London, the Fleet Street crowd is often disparagingly referred to as reptiles and that comparison is grossly unfair, not to the former, but rather to the latter. By virtue of the privileged perches that they occupy as members of the Fourth Estate, Baird and her colleagues go through life believing that they are entitled to only the very best that this world has to offer.

Such an attitude is accompanied by the equally strong conviction that they owe absolutely nothing to anyone in return. Not surprisingly, journalists have a long and checkered history of abusing and killing cats. (See Cat Defender posts of July 17, 2013, September 28, 2011, and February 9, 2006 entitled, respectively, "Not Satisfied with Merely Whacking Meiko, Garrison Keillor Struts on Stage in Order to Shed a Bucketful of Crocodile Tears and to Denigrate the Entire Species,""Marvin Is Betrayed, Abducted, and Murdered by a Journalist and a Shelter Who Preposterously Maintain That They Were Doing Him a Favor," and "Newspaper Cat Named Tripod Is Killed Off by Journalists He Befriended in Vermont.")

All of those heinous crimes are in addition to the simply outrageous libels and slanders that the capitalist media are constantly directing at the species at the urging of ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and the United States government. (See Cat Defender posts of March 23, 2007, December 8, 2007, July 10, 2008, and June 15, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Bird Lovers in South Africa Break Out the Champagne to Celebrate the Merciless Gunning Down of the Last of Robben Island's Cats,""All the Lies That Fit: Scheming New York Times Hires a Bird Lover to Render His 'Unbiased' Support for James M. Stevenson,""The Ventura County Star Races to the Defense of the Cat-Killers on San Nicolas Island,""and "American Bird Conservancy, The New York Times, and the Humane Society Unite to Form an Achse des Bösen Against Cats.")

Every cat-hating rant ever issued by PETA has been duly reported as the gospel truth by seemingly every newspaper in America and last year the Orlando Sentinel stooped so low as to publish the National Audubon Society's diabolical proposal to poison all cats. (See Cat Defender post of May 18, 2013 entitled "Ted Williams and the National Audubon Society Issue a Call for Cats to Be Poisoned with Tylenol® and Then Try to Lie Out of It.")

In spite of that it nevertheless would be incorrect to single out journalists as being the only professionals who harbor in their malignant bosoms an abiding contempt for the sanctity of feline life. Au contraire, librarians, politicians, phony-baloney no-kill operations, and even cat advocacy groups feel the same way. (See Cat Defender posts of December 7, 2006, March 12, 2009, October 23, 2012, and January 2, 2013 entitled, respectively, "After Nineteen Years of Service and Companionship, Ingrates at Iowa Library Murder Dewey Readmore Books,""Too Lazy and Cheap to Care for Him During His Final Days, Bettie Currie Has Socks Killed Off and His Corpse Burned,""A Supposedly No-Kill Operation in Marblehead Betrays Sally and Snuffs Out Her Life Instead of Providing Her with a Home and Veterinary Care," and "Alley Cat Allies Demonstrates Its Utter Contempt for the Sanctity of Life by Unconscionably Killing Off Its Office Cat, Jared.")

When push finally came to shove, not even being a heroine with international stature was sufficient in order to have saved the beloved Scarlett from the hangman. (See Cat Defender post of October 27, 2008 entitled "Loved and Admired All Over the World, Feline Heroine Scarlett Is Killed Off by Her Owners after She Becomes Ill.")

No details have been disclosed as to what was done with Hamish's remains. Likewise, it is not even known if Baird had the decency to provide him with a proper funeral.

His Facebook page, which at last glance had attracted eight-thousand, nine-hundred-sixty-six followers, has not been updated since the tragic announcement of September 11th. All that is known for certain is that shortly after his death bouquets of flowers and lighted candles were dropped off at the bronze statue of him that was unveiled in Church Square on April 5th.

Hopefully it is not the case, but more than likely he was either cremated or simply chucked out in the trash in that it is hard to imagine someone like Baird doing right by him in death since she had so miserably failed him in life. Even more telling, she does not appear to have been all that broken up about putting an end to his all-too-brief sojourn upon this earth.

"I think the whole story's absurd," she cackled to the University of St. Andrews' student newspaper, The Saint, on September 18th. (See "Hamish McHamish: "He Started Out...")"He started out as just this little cat and became a positive legend. He was just a cat who would walk by himself."

Bronze Is a Poor Substitute for the Real Thing

Her last sentence is, rather obviously, a reference to Rudyard Kipling's scurrilous short-story, "The Cat Who Walked by Himself," which appeared in his 1902 book entitled Just So Stories. In it Kipling feebly attempts to justify the naked abuse of cats by what he estimates to be sixty per cent of men and one-hundred per cent of dogs on the grounds that cats are too independent and therefore totally unwilling to become slaves.

Kipling's forever nameless cat successfully ingratiates himself to a cavewoman by catching mice and looking after her newborn. In return, she allows him to enter her cave, to warm by the fire, and to drink milk three times a day.

Even in agreeing to become domesticated, the cat still insisted upon maintaining his independence and although that was agreeable with her it was a totally different matter as far as her husband was concerned. "I will catch mice when I am in the cave for always and always and always; but I am still the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me," he pledged to the caveman.

"Not when I am near," the brute shot back. "If you had not said that last I would have put all these things (two leather boots, a stone ax, a piece of wood, and a hatchet) away for always and always and always; but I am now going to throw my two boots and my little stone ax (that makes three) at you whenever I meet you. And so shall all proper men do after me."

The cat likewise attempted in vain to maintain his independence from the caveman's dog. "I will be kind to the baby while I am in the cave, as long as he does not pull my tail too hard, for always and always and always," he agreed to the canine's demand. "But still I am the cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to me!"

"Not when I am near," the dog barked back. "If you had not said that last word I would have shut my mouth for always and always and always; but now I am going to hunt you up a tree whenever I meet you. And so shall all proper dogs do after me."

Philadelphia scribe Agnes Repplier summed up the dilemma considerably less allegorical in her essay entitled "Agrippina" which appeared in the June 1892 edition of The Atlantic Monthly. "Rude and masterful souls resent this fine self-sufficiency in a domestic animal, and require that it shall have no will but theirs, no pleasure that does not emanate from them," she astutely observed. "Yet there are people, less magisterial, perhaps or less exacting, who believe that true friendship, even with an animal, may be built upon mutual esteem and independence; that to demand gratitude is to be unworthy of it; and that obedience is not essential to agreeable and healthy intercourse."

Both Kipling's and Repplier's insights into how both men and dogs feel about cats have stunning philosophical and political ramifications. Specifically, it thus would appear that what most men truly abhor above all else is independence and freedom and it does not necessarily matter whether such behavior is exhibited by either a cat or one of their fellows.

Kiplings's portrayal of both men and dogs also exposes them to be totalitarians who are not only prone to violence but unwilling to honor their agreements. Women, on the other hand, come across as being considerably more open-minded, reasonable, just and, above all, less belligerent.

According to Hamish's obituary in London's Independent on September 11th, Baird acquired "replacement pets" soon after she irresponsibly had abandoned Hamish to the streets. (See "Hamish McHamish Dead: St. Andrew's (sic) Town Cat Passes Away after Battling Chest Infection.")

Although it is not known either what those pets were or how she has treated them, it is strongly suspected that some of them were dogs and that certainly would be in keeping with both her personality as well as her apparent fondness for Kipling's overt denigration of cats. His summation is quite illuminating. For example:

"Pussy can sit by the fire and sing, pussy can climb a tree, or play with a silly old cork and string to 'muse herself, not me. But I like Binkie my dog, because he knows how to behave; so Binkie's the same as the first friend was, and I am the man in the cave. Pussy will play man-Friday till it's time to wet her paw and make her walk on the windowsill (for the footprint Crusoe saw); then she fluffs her tail and meows, and scratches and won't attend. But Binkie will play whatever I choose and he is my true first friend. Pussy will rub my knees with her head pretending she loves me hard; but the minute I go to my bed pussy runs out in the yard, and there she stays till the morning light; so I know it is only pretend; but Binkie, he snores at my feet all night, and he is my firstest friend!"

In rattling off such age-old prejudices as those, Kipling inadvertently revealed himself to be a complete imbecile when it comes to cats. Actually, they can be every bit as devoted and loving as dogs.

Secondly, they were domesticated by farmers in Cyprus, the Near East, and China and certainly not by cavemen. (See Washington University of St. Louis press release of December 16, 2013, "Cat Domestication Traced to Chinese Farmers Five-Thousand-Three-Hundred Years Ago.")

Thirdly, few cats, if any, are truly able to walk by themselves, especially in a world that is so chock-full of despisers of the species. The only thing that Old Kippie got right was when he correctly identified himself as a caveman and for Baird to rely upon his sottise in order to excuse her neglect of Hamish is both shameful and disgraceful.

Cats consequently require the assistance of sympathetic individuals if they are going to survive and flourish in this hostile world. With that being the case, the key issue then boils down to the specifics of the Faustian bargains that are foisted upon them and in Hamish's case he clearly received the shaft whereas Baird and St. Andrews got the gold mine.

Hamish Is Chased Up a Tree by a Pair of Dogs

Flora Selwyn, editor of St. Andrews in Focus and who also spearheaded the drive to raise the £5,000 needed for the statue, recalls how his presence lifted the spirits of the bedraggled construction crew at the St. Andrews Brewing Company. "The workmen weren't sure they would get everything done on time. They looked down, saw his tail waving and everyone knew everything would be fine," is how she chose to remember him to The Saint. "That's the reputation he acquired. He was rather magical in that sense."

Although there is not any obvious reason to doubt her sincerity, it nevertheless is strange that the September-October edition of her magazine neglects to make any mention whatsoever of Hamish's demise. The rag's web site likewise is pretending that he is still alive by continuing to showcase a video about the unveiling of his statue.

"It has to do with fantasy," is how she went onto explain his popularity to The Saint. "It's just a lovely fairy tale."

Whereas that may have been true as far as Selwyn and her fellow denizens of St. Andrews were concerned, it was an entirely different matter for Hamish who had a hard life and an even crueler, premature death. Astrid Lindgren may have romanticized life on the road in her 1956 thoroughly enchanting little volume, Rasmus and the Vagabond, but there cannot be any denying that being homeless is one of the most disastrous fates that ever could befall a cat.

That makes it especially difficult to comprehend how Baird could have so cruelly condemned him to a lifetime on the street. "Sometimes he'd come home for dinner," she disclosed to The Saint. "But it wasn't long before he'd be back in Queens Gardens or further afield. The garden just wasn't big enough for him."

Declaration such as that do not stand the test of reason in that although cats like to roam, most of them also enjoy the availability of free food and shelter, especially during inclement weather. One possible conclusion to be drawn from Hamish's atypical behavior is that he was made to feel, for whatever reason, unwelcome at home.

Even more alarming, Baird apparently did not make all that much of an effort to keep him at home. "When he started to wander around, he used to go to Greyfriars Garden at night because it was a good hunting ground. I would call him and carry him home," she told The Courier of Dundee on April 7th. (See "St. Andrews Pays Tribute to Famous Feline Hamish McHamish.")"If he didn't want to come home, he would jump over the wall. But more and more, he would just jump over the wall."

In all fairness to her, keeping a cat at home is a far more difficult task than most people realize. That is especially the case after one has gotten a taste of freedom.

In the final analysis, there is neither a right nor a wrong answer to this dilemma. Cats deserve their freedom but it is extremely dangerous for them to be outside without a chaperon. One possible compromise would be to provide them with large fenced-in yards that are covered on the top with nets.

Although doing so is feasible for only a handful of owners, that is exactly what veterinarian Hugh Chisholm did for his cat, Tuxedo Stan. In the end, however, he negated that good deed by killing him off after he became ill. (See Cat Defender post of September 26, 2013 entitled "Former Halifax Mayoral Hopeful Tuxedo Stan Is Killed Off by His Owner after Chemotherapy Fails to Halt the Onslaught of Renal Lymphoma.")

Furthermore, keeping cats cooped up inside polluted houses and apartments all the time is not only cruel and harmful to their health but it is the first step on the long road to denaturing them. In addition to robbing them of their freedom, the majority of them nowadays are sterilized, fitted with cancer-causing microchips, and fed diets of cheap kibble instead of the meat that they crave.

Some owners even cruelly declaw them while others, ably assisted by unscrupulous veterinarians, dope them up in order to keep them from going stir crazy as the result of their boredom, isolation, and confinement. Even during their twilight years their owners cruelly deprive them of even dying natural deaths.

Just when it would appear that modern man had all but exhausted his bag of dirty tricks when it comes to denaturing cats, Sarah Ellis of Lincoln University in Lincolnshire recently proposed that their ownership should be strictly curtailed. "I think what would be helpful for people would be to restrict the number of cats that they own," she declared to The Independent on September 29th. (See "Expert Urges Cat Lovers to Own Just One Animal Each.")

Ellis' assertion that multiple cat households lead to territorial disputes and cause psychological harm brought a swift rebuke from Celia Hammond whose charity, the Celia Hammond Animal Trust (CHAT), did such a herculean job in saving approximately two-hundred cats from the wrecking ball when large swaths of East London where demolished in order to make way for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. "The majority of cats are very gregarious. They love each other so much, they enjoy living together and grooming each other," she retorted to The Independent."If someone was out all day, we wouldn't give them just one cat because they would be lonely; we would give them two cats. Multiple cat households are a good thing."

Hammond summed up by putting the boneheaded Ellis in her place. "This is an academic view," she told The Independent. "Those involved in rehoming cats on a daily basis know this is ridiculous." (Also see CHAT's October 2nd rebuttal to Ellis on its Facebook page.)

Hamish Lies in Bed on August 25th

In spite of the myriad of difficulties confronting a homeless cat, there is absolutely nothing in press reports that would tend to indicate that Baird even so much as endeavored to get Hamish off the street during either the wintertime or whenever St. Andrews was buffeted by violent storms. All that has been disclosed is that she did have enough concern for his well-being so as to provide him with an annual veterinary checkup.

That may be too harsh of an assessment of her guardianship but at the same time it is difficult to get around the inescapable conclusion that she could have done considerably more in order to have made his life easier. Either way, it is she who is going to have to live with her callousness and that potentially could create a dilemma if she, against all odds, should turn out to have a conscience.

"I picked him out of the litter because he was the boldest," she admitted to The Saint. "Arguably that was a mistake."

Truer words never have been spoken in that Hamish certainly deserved a far more attentive guardian than she ever was to him. Her glaring shortcomings did not deter her, however, from basking in the limelight once he had became an international star.

"I can't really get over it," she gushed to The Courier in the article cited supra. "All I did was get a kitten."

Apparently Hamish was able to spend some nights in the flats of compassionate students from the university. The remainder of the time he apparently was on his own.

"It became an unwritten rule," Selwyn swore to The Saint. "If Hamish turned up at your door, you let him in."

That statement is misleading in that most of the shops and businesses in St. Andrews close their doors in the late afternoon and are shuttered completely on weekends and holidays. Some watering holes and restaurants keep later hours but it is doubtful that many of them are open all night. Consequently, Hamish's options for locating a warm and secure place to sleep were extremely limited.

As a perennially homeless feline, Hamish was forced to deal with the bone-chilling cold, snow, rain, and ice during St. Andrews' seemingly interminable winters where for long periods there are fewer than six hours of daylight. This is how Richard Adams summed up the plight of the dispossessed in his 1972 novel about rabbits entitled Watership Down:

"Many human beings say they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it. For them there is no winter food problem. They have fires and warm clothes. The winter cannot hurt them and therefore increases their sense of cleverness and security. For birds and animals, as for poor men, winter is another matter."

In that respect, it simply boggles the mind that all throughout the fourteen years that he spent on the street absolutely none of St. Andrews' more than seventeen-thousand residents was willing to provide him with a permanent home. The same criticism can be leveled against the tens of thousands of students and hundreds of teachers and administrators at the University of St. Andrews.

As Ellis and her fellow eggheads have more than amply demonstrated time and time again, such crass, selfish, and uncaring behavior is exactly what this world has come to expect from the intelligentsia. (See Cat Defender posts of November 21, 2012 and June 9, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Officials at Plymouth College of Art Should Be Charged with Gross Negligence and Animal Cruelty in the Tragic Death of the School's Longtime Resident Feline, PCAT" and "Pennsylvania College Greedily Snatches Up Alumnus' Multimillion-Dollar Bequest but Turns Away His Cat, Princess.")

As best it could be deciphered from press reports, even obtaining a sufficient amount of sustenance was a hardscrabble affair for Hamish. All that is known with any degree of certainty is that he sometimes was served Frühstück by the law firm of Pagan Osborne at 106 South Street. Students from the university also occasionally fed him and that is vouched for by the disturbing fact that his body weight was known to drop precipitately during the summertime when they were away on vacation.

It also is believed that the staff of Dynamic Hair at 98-100 South Street sometimes cared for his fur but it is not known if they bothered with either removing parasites from it, cleaning away the bothersome discharges that congeal around a cat's eyes, and attending to minor injuries. He additionally received some unspecified favors from the staff at Sue Ryder's Charity Shop at 109-A South Street.

Although the care provided to Hamish by the citizens of St. Andrews was woefully inadequate, they did have enough compassion so as to refrain from having him rounded up and killed and for that they are to be commended. Also, he surely would not have survived for as long as he did if they, at the very least, had not treated him with benign neglect.

All Alone and on the Street as Usual on June 20th

Besides all the deprivations associated with roughing it, Hamish had to be constantly on the lookout for predators, such as motorists, ailurophobes, and others. Just this past January, for instance, he had an especially close call when he was, just as Kipling presaged, chased up a tree on South Street by a pair of dogs.

Luckily, he was unharmed on that terrifying occasion even though it took the able-bodied assistance of the staff at Dynamic Hair and students from the university in order to bring him down to safety. The unprovoked attack did, however, prompt the provost of Fife and Dunfermline, Jim Leishman, to issue a public appeal on his behalf.

"We've got to protect the old boy. He's getting on. I would ask dog owners to please keep their animals under control and on a leash when around Hamish McHamish," he told the Daily Record of Glasgow on January 30th. (See "Provost of Fife and Dunfermline Legend Jim Leishman Wants to Protect Scotland's Most Famous Cat Hamish McHamish.")"We've got to make sure he's not upset. He's Scotland's most iconic cat, after all."

Despite uttering those lofty sentiments, there is absolutely nothing in the public record to suggest that he ever undertook any concrete measures in order to ensure Hamish's safety. Even more alarming, it does not appear that he attempted in any way to dissuade Baird from having him killed.

A good case could be made that since Baird had abdicated her guardianship of him that Hamish by default belonged to the town and that it was precisely Leishman's moral and legal responsibility to not only safeguard his life but to ensure that he received the competent veterinary care that he needed and so richly deserved. Regrettably, it is doubtful that even he would have acted much differently than Baird if Hamish had been his responsibility. As far as it is known, he has not even publicly commented one way or the other on Hamish's killing.

It is much too late to do anything for Hamish now; Baird has seen to that for once and all time. Moreover, it is doubtful that many residents of St. Andrews are boohooing in their tumblers of Johnny Walker as the result of his death. Like Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis, they likely believe that Hamish is going to be worth considerably more to them dead than alive.

For example, his statue is still standing and old Selwyn is already salivating all over herself as visions of wheelbarrows full of shekels dance in her old gray mop just as visions of sugar plums are said to do in the heads of small children at Christmastime. "I hope it will be a big attraction. It'll be a nice change from golf and universities," she declared in an undated video posted on her magazine's web site. (See "Hamish McHamish Unveiling. The Cool Cat Around Town.")"It'll be an added bit to the town."

First of all, inanimate bronze is a poor substitute for the genuine, real-life article. Secondly, the statue is not only hideously ugly but it bears only a faint resemblance to Hamish.

At the very least, any public depiction of him should have been life-sized and fashioned out of porcelain, ceramics, or some other material that would have been capable of accurately capturing the beautiful colors of his fur and eyes. The likeness also should have been accompanied by color photographs, videos, and other memorabilia and housed in either a museum or some other public facility.

Susan McMullan's 2012 biography of him, Hamish McHamish of St. Andrews. Cool Cat About Town, continues to sell well and Waterstones is unlikely to scrap its "Hamish Recommends" section. Most important of all, he will continue to live on in the memories of those who were fortunate enough to have known him.

Since the Scots freely chose fat slavery at the expense of lean liberty on September 18th, the British Open will be returning to the Old Course next July and it is conceivable that some of the tourists who will be in the auld grey toon for the event belatedly will realize that its most beautiful face and noblest soul is conspicuously missing from the all-too-familiar landscape. Sadly, their recollections and understanding of him are destined to be every bit as selective as those of the town's regulars. After all, mankind in general is infamous for confounding a clear conscience with a faulty memory.

Those who know and truly love cats, however, will not be quite so easily bamboozled. Rather, they will remember all the long, cold, and dark nights that he was forced to spend wet and shivering on the street with hunger pains gnawing at his stomach as he patiently waited for a new day to dawn that, just perhaps, would bring with it a few precious moments of shelter, some food, and a loving pat on the head from a sympathetic stranger.

They also will not forget all the times that he, lonely and frightened, was forced to cower in deserted alleyways and underneath buildings in order to elude predators, both animal and human, that were intent upon doing him harm. Most of all, their souls with burn with rage every time that they think of how his precious life was so cruelly and unjustly extinguished when all he wanted to do was to go on living.

"Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be," Miguel de Cervantes cautioned several centuries ago. That is, quite obviously, an insight that none of the thousands of individuals who either walked in or out of Hamish's brief life over the years ever bothered to take to heart.

Photos: Facebook.

Freya

"...she also likes to spend time in the bar. On many an evening she can be found in Westminster's favored political watering hole, the Red Lion, despite having to cross four lanes of traffic to get there. Apparently at the end of the evening the barmaids regularly have to carry her back home."
-- Oliver Wright of The Independent

Freya, the resident feline of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne had an especially close call on the evening of August 7th when she was struck by a motorist outside of her residence at the world famous 10 Downing Street. The details are pretty sketchy but she apparently was attempting to cross perilous Whitehall Road when she was mowed down.

According to the August 8th edition of the Daily Mail, she was left "battered and bruised."(See "George Osborne's Cat Freya Being Treated by Vets after Being Run Over Outside Downing Street.")

The August 8th report in The Independent was even bleaker. "Not very well at all," is how it summed up her condition. (See "George Osborne's Cat Freya Recovering at the Vets after Being Hit by Car.")

Fortunately, kindhearted pedestrians came to her rescue and saw to it that she was rushed to a veterinarian. As best it could be determined, the nature and extent of her injuries never have been made public.

Consequently, it is not known either how much trauma she was put through or how long it took her to recuperate. All that can be said is that she certainly looks well enough in a photograph of her that was posted September 16th on the Facebook page of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. That of course could be an old snap.

The Chancellor afterwards expressed his gratitude to those who came to Freya's assistance but insisted that he would pay for her treatment out of his own pocket. No information has been released as to the identity of her assailant but it would seem likely that she was the victim of a hit-and-run motorist in that it was passersby that came to her aid.

The good news is that Freya somehow survived and is still gracing the face of the earth. The bad news is that Osborne, his authoress wife, Frances, and their two children, Luke and Liberty, have not publicly announced any preventative measures designed to better protect her fragile life.

Relying upon the general public in order to look after a cat is an extremely dicey proposition as both a nameless two-year-old tuxedo and twenty-seven-year-old dog lover Dylan Cottriall of St. Helens in Merseyside found out firsthand back in July. Emaciated, dehydrated, and near death as the result of an infestation of fleas that were sucking the very life out of her, the cat had keeled over in the gutter alongside a busy highway.

Freya in a September 16th Photo Released by the Foreign Office

Unlike the Londoners who came to Freya's rescue, none of the passing motorists could be bothered with stopping to check on her condition. Even Cottriall at first thought that she likely had been run down and killed by a hit-and-run motorist but, thankfully, he had enough compassion and concern for her in order to pull over and make certain one way or the other.

"I stopped and went over to her to see if she had a collar and it was then I could see she was moving," he related to The Reporter of St. Helens on July 11th. (See "Outrage as Drivers Ignore a Dying Cat.")"She was just a bag of bones and had simply given up. Although she was at death's door she didn't stop purring even though she was too weak to do anything to help herself."

Cottriall then rushed the cat to Paws n Claws where she was provided with the emergency veterinary care that she so desperately needed in order to recuperate and thus to go on living. At last report she was in foster care with Gill Farrar of St. Helens.

Although little or nothing is known about the events that led to her abandonment alongside that busy thoroughfare, it is an entirely different story as far as Freya is concerned. Born in April of 2009, Osborne reportedly purchased her as a present for his children while he and his family were residing in Notting Hill, a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in central London.

She did not stick around for long, however, and instead mysteriously disappeared a few months later. The Osbornes reportedly blanked the tony neighborhood with "Lost Cat" posters but Freya never was located.

They eventually wrote her off as being dead and forgot all about her. The Conservatives later prevailed in the 2010 election and a year later the Osbornes moved into 10 Downing Street when George became chancellor of the Exchequer.

As was the case not only with Mark Twain but Prime Minister John Major's cat, Humphrey as well, the news of Freya's death turned out to be premature. In June of 2012, Frances received the shock of her life when she got a telephone call informing her that Freya not only had been found but, best of all, was alive and well.

The identification was made thanks to implanted microchip after Freya had been brought to a veterinarian for unspecified reasons by an unidentified neighbor of the Osbornes in Notting Hill. As best the story can be pieced together, the neighbor had not seen the posters and, believing her to be a stray, had been feeding her in a garden.

St. Helens' Cat, Cottriall, Gill Farrar, and a Woman Identified Only as Lizzie

Since the neighbor resides only a few streets removed from the Osbornes' dwelling, the only logical conclusion to be drawn from events is that they neither searched very hard nor very long for her. In particular, it is totally inexcusable that they did not personally knock on every door in the neighborhood.

That criticism in no way obviates the myriad of difficulties associated with locating an errant cat. Motorists, dogs and other animals, as well as ailurophobes kill them with impunity and afterwards their corpses are quickly disposed of by either garbagemen or the summertime heat.

Animal Control officers, the RSPCA, and other so-called humane groups steal and exterminate them all the time. Plus, they often become accidentally trapped inside automobiles, boxes, discarded furniture, and other movable objects and as a result wind up hundreds, even thousands, of miles from home.

Many private individuals also rescue homeless cats and then lock them up permanently inside, thus foreclosing any opportunity for them to ever return home. In spite of all those impediments, if a lost cat is still living outdoors on its home turf someone likely has seen it and probably is feeding it.

Although the neighbor in question is to be commended for feeding and providing Freya with veterinary assistance, it is shameful that the individual did not provide her with shelter. Not only are London winters far from being pleasant affairs, but she would have been much safer spending at least part of her time indoors.

After having been successfully reunited with the Osbornes, Freya took up residence with them at 10 Downing Street which, contrary to popular belief, serves as the official residence of the chancellor of the Exchequer. The prime minister and his family reside at the more commodious number 11.

It did not take the intrepid moggy long, however, to put her own indelible paw prints on her job as the number two mouser in Her Majesty's government. That began when the Osbornes, not wanting to lose track of her again, outfitted her with a £50 diamante collar with a tag.

Even that act of bon sens was not without controversy coinciding as it did with the austerity budget that Osborne had foisted upon his fellow citizens. (See the Daily Mail, July 20, 2012, "Feline Flush: Chancellor's Cat Shows Off Her Diamante Collar as She Prowls Downing Street.")

Freya and Her Pricey Collar

Later in October of that year, she became involved in a well-publicized scrap with Prime Minister David Cameron's cat, Larry, on the steps of number 10. One observer even later claimed that she had gotten the better of him. (See The Telegraph, October 16, 2012, "Police Called to Break Up Violent Cat Fight in Downing Street.")

It even has been alleged that she is a far more proficient mouser than Larry. That in turn spawned an erroneous rumor that she even had taken his job. (See the Daily Mail, September 16, 2012, "A Paw Performance! Larry the Downing Street Cat Is Sacked as Number 10's Chief Mouser after Chillaxing (sic) Too Much on the Job.")

One of the numerous limitations associated with implanted microchips is that they neither can be seen nor deciphered with the naked eye; for that, scanners owned almost exclusively by veterinarians and shelters are required. It therefore was fortunate that the Osbornes had equipped Freya with a collar and a tag because in May of this year she did yet still another runner.

On that occasion, she wound up in Vauxhall, more than two kilometers removed from home, and in the borough of Lambeth. Fortunately, she was found by Kate Jones of Thames Reach's London Street Rescue who allowed her to spend the night on her pillow.

Thanks to the information contained in Freya's tag, Jones was able to contact the Osbornes who immediately dispatched a chauffeur-driven limousine in order to collect her. It is unclear from press reports but apparently Freya was AWOL for only one night.

Her deliverance did not come without a political price tag, however, in that Jones took full advantage of the golden opportunity presented to her in order to post not only a photograph of Freya online but to accompany it with a blast at Osborne for his disgraceful neglect of the homeless. Regrettably, there is not any evidence to suggest that the dressing down that he received from her has had any impact upon his policies.

Much more importantly, it is doubtful that he even realizes just how rare it is to locate a lost cat once, let alone twice. "It's wonderful when you read about these reunions, but unfortunately for ninety per cent of lost cats, there is no returning home," Lorie Chortyk of the BCSPCA somberly pointed out to The Province of Vancouver on January 2, 2011. (See "Cats Rarely Come Back.")

The dangers associated with Freya's occasionally getting lost pale in comparison to the menace posed by London motorists. In particular, she is known to be a regular at the Red Lion located at 48 Parliament Street (a  continuation of Whitehall under a different name) and a little less than half a kilometer  removed from home. "...she also likes to spend time in the bar. On many an evening she can be found in Westminster's favored political watering hole, the Red Lion, despite having to cross four lanes of traffic to get there," is how Oliver Wright of The Independent described her perilous trek on June 7, 2013. (See "Lost Pet or Double Agent? Meet Freya, the Roving Tabby of the Treasury.")"Apparently at the end of the evening the barmaids regularly have to carry her back home."

Freya and Larry

Even more astonishing, Osborne is acutely aware of just how much danger he is placing her in through his abject neglect of her. For instance, back in February he publicly acknowledged that she was a regular at the bar. (See YouTube video of February 28, 2014 entitled "Fuller's Red Lion, Westminster, Is Reopened by George Osborne.")

She also has been sighted backstage at the Trafalgar Studio Theatre at 14 Whitehall, also half a kilometer from home but in the opposite direction from the Red Lion. Her roaming around the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office at number 10, and Exchequer do not pose much of a threat to her safety in that they are closely situated together and on the same side of Whitehall.

That is not meant to imply that even Downing Street itself is completely free of dangers as the aforementioned Humphrey discovered back in the 1990's when he came within an eyelash of being run down and killed by a limousine lugging around the ultimate political whore, Bill Clinton. (See Cat Defender post of April 6, 2006 entitled "Humphrey, the Cat from 10 Downing Street Who Once 'Read' His Own Obituary, Passes Away at 18.")

The failure of Old Blighty's political elites to better protect their resident felines is made all the more inexcusable by the petit fait that it would be rather easy and inexpensive for them to create a safe haven around numbers ten and eleven for Freya, Larry, and all future cats to roam. The area already provides enough gardens and public buildings in order to furnish them with plenty of fresh air, sunlight, exercise, and mental stimulation all within a safe and secure environment.

All that is needed would be to extend the height of the fences and walls which surround the compound and to install netting on the top. Aesthetics are not an issue given that Downing Street has been closed to the public since 1989.

An even better solution would be for the authorities to go whole hog and close Whitehall and the City of Westminster to all vehicular traffic. The time has come to remove both murderous motorists and their greenhouse gas emitting noisy machines from the inner cities and to transform those areas into pedestrian malls.

Neither proposal would be too much to ask especially considering how all recent occupants of Downing Street have so nakedly exploited their cats as valuable political props while simultaneously demonstrating little or no regard for their personal safety and well-being. Almost as shameful, no animal protection group in England is willing to so much as even contemplate holding them accountable under the anti-cruelty statutes.

The cold shoulder that Cameron and his minions have shown Larry over the years is a good case in point. Back in 2009 when he was still in the opposition and only daydreaming of political power and glory, Cameron put the kibosh on any notion of there being a resident feline in any new government that was led by him.

Freya at Home

By the time that February of 2011 had rolled around he had changed his tune and had consented to adopt Larry from the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in south London. (See Cat Defender post of July 21, 2011 entitled "Larry Faces Many Challenges and Dangers in His New Rôle as 10 Downing Street's Resident Feline.")

It did not take long, however, for Larry to wear out his welcome and for Cameron and his cronies to start belittling and sniping at him at every opportunity behind his back. (See Cat Defender post of November 28, 2011 entitled "Larry Is Persevering as Best He Can Despite Being Constantly Maligned by Both Fleet Street and the Prime Minister's Duplicitous Staff.")

A fork in the road of sorts was reached last year with the publication of Matthew d'Ancona's tome, In It Together. In the tell-all exposé, d'Ancona claims that Cameron does not care for Larry because he has failed to solve the rodent problem plaguing his residence and leaves cat hairs on his expensive suits. The prime minister also apparently does not even like the smell of cat food.

Once news of Cameron's reported antipathy toward Larry became public fodder a "Save Larry" campaign was launched on Twitter and that, at least for the time being, has saved both his job and home. "I can set everyone's mind at rest in the #Save Larry campaign," Cameron tweeted. "He and I get on purr-fectly well. The kids love him too."

Should the Tories fail to prevail in next year's upcoming election, Cameron will no longer need Larry and that very well could end up costing him his home. In that case, he most likely would be either sent back to Battersea or fobbed off on to an obliging staffer.

That is precisely the cruel fate that befell Humphrey. Although both the Iron Lady and Major welcomed him with open-arms, Tony Blair's resident witch, Cherie, could not bear the sight of him.

The miserable old hag, whom the Countess of Wessex once referred to as "horrid, horrid, horrid," first attempted to have him done in and when that ploy was foiled by Fleet Street she had him exiled to the residence of an unidentified staffer. "Humphrey is voting with his paws," a Tory spokesman chimed in on that unhappy occasion. "After eight happy years under a Conservative government he could take only six months of Labor."

He died in obscurity in March of 2006, but never has been forgotten. "He has caught numerous mice and the odd rat," a Cabinet dossier compiled on him and released in 2005 stated. "By a perhaps unfair comparison, Rentokill have been operating for years and have never caught a thing."

Freya Is Given the Bum's Rush by a Foreign Office Flathead

The document went on to famously describe that wonderful feline gentleman as "a workaholic who spends nearly all his time at the office, has no criminal record, does not socialize a great deal or go to many parties and has not been involved in any sex or drug scandals that we know of." (See The Times of London, March 20, 2006, "Political World Mourns a Killer Named Humphrey" and former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe's loving remembrance of him in The Telegraph, January 26, 2011, "A New Cat for Westminster.")

A simply adorable black and white female named Sybil who was owned by Osborne's predecessor, Alistair Darling and his wife, Maggie, was treated even shabbier than Humphrey. Brought down from Edinburgh by the Darlings on September 10, 2007, she initially was given free rein of the grounds and even had her own basket at the Exchequer.

"Sybil has been brought down because there are mice here," Darling declared upon her arrival. "She's a really good mouser." (See Cat Defender post of September 19, 2007 entitled "After a Dreary Ten-Year Absence, Number 10 Downing Street Has a New Resident Feline and Her Name Is Sybil.")

Alas, even that valuable and much sought after talent was not nearly enough in order to save either her job or home because Darling's boss, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, turned out to be a closet cat-hater. Sybil accordingly lasted only six months on the job before she was unceremoniously sacked and cruelly fobbed off on an old acquaintance of the unconscionable Darlings.

Like Humphrey before her, she either died or was deliberately killed off by her new owner on July 27, 2009 while living in obscurity. (See Cat Defender post of August 13, 2009 entitled "Sybil, 10 Downing Street's Former First Feline, Dies Unexpectedly from an Undisclosed Illness.")

"As numerous thinkers have noted, cats often have a soothing quality on their owners," is how The Independent began its July 29th eulogy of her. (See "Feline Friends.")"Granted, the economy is looking as shaky as a newborn kitten at the moment, but imagine what condition it might be in
without Sybil."

The one thing that both Freya and Larry have going for themselves is that they are owned by Tories who are occasionally more favorably disposed toward the species than their counterparts in the Labor Party. Additionally, Osborne appears to genuinely like animals in that in addition to Freya his family has a budgerigar named Gibson, a Bichon Frise named Lola, a hamster, and a pair of goldfish.

The odds therefore are at least even that he will choose to hang on to Freya regardless of what happens next year at the polls. Unless he dramatically mends his irresponsible ways and takes considerably better care of her, however, that is going to be a moot point.

Freya Makes Yet Another Daring Escape

In spite of their myriad of shortcomings and failings as guardians, English prime ministers and chancellors of the Exchequer treat cats slightly more humane than their utterly nauseating American counterparts who care little or nothing about the species, animals in general, and Mother Earth; au contraire, the only things that they care about are sucking up to the rich, lining their pockets, killing people, and telling lies.

For example, George H. Bush's cat, India, was either killed off or died from natural causes shortly before he and his family vacated the White House. (See Cat Defender post of January 24, 2009 entitled "India Dies at Age Eighteen Leaving the White House Without a Resident Feline for
the First Time in Sixteen Years.")

Callous and uncaring Clinton fobbed off Socks on his secretary, Betty Currie, as soon as he no longer had any further need of him. (See Cat Defender posts of December 24, 2008 and March 12, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Former First Cat Socks Is Gravely Ill with Cancer and Other Assorted Maladies" and "Too Cheap and Lazy to Care for Him During His Final Days, Betty Currie Has Socks Killed Off and His Corpse Burned.")

The utterly worthless stooge currently ensconced in the White House not only does not want anything to do with cats but has sat idly by while the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has launched en masse extermination campaigns against them on San Nicolas, the Florida Keys, and elsewhere. He also has sanctioned the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service's unwarranted intrusion into the private lives of Ernest Hemingway's world famous polydactyls in Key West. (See Cat Defender posts of February 24, 2012, June 23, 2011, and January 24, 2013 entitled, respectively, "United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Humane Society Hoist a Glass in Celebration of Their Extermination of the Cats on San Nicolas Island,""Wallowing in Welfare Dollars, Lies, and Prejudice, the Bloodthirsty United States Fish and Wildlife Service Is Again Killing Cats in the Florida Keys," and "The Feds Now Have Cats and Their Owners Exactly Where They Want Them Thanks to an Outrageous Court Ruling Targeting the Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West.")

All of those atrocities are in addition to the tens of thousands of bobcats, cougars, jaguars, lynxes, ocelots, and other large cats that are being systematically liquidated each year by the USDA's Wildlife Services and other federal agencies. Even more alarming, the fate of both small and big cats alike is not even part of the political discussion; the president and the feds merely assume that they have a divine mandate to do with them as they see fit.

Although politicians are entitled to own cats just like everyone else, they should be required by law to not only take proper care of them but to respect their inalienable right to live. Furthermore, in failing to fulfill their moral and custodial responsibilities to them, they are setting a simply horrible example for their constituents.

An individual can, either wittingly or unwittingly, fail a cat in countless ways but to knowingly allow one to regularly venture out into traffic on a busy, four-lane road constitutes the very epitome of animal cruelty and Osborne accordingly should be held accountable for  his shameful negligence. Unlike with Larry, however, there does not appear to be a "Save Freya" campaign on the horizon and that makes her situation all the more desperate because her precious life is rapidly slipping away like sand through an hourglass.

Photos: The Independent (Freye up close, at home, in the street, and scaling a wall), Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Facebook (Freya beside a statue), The Reporter (St. Helens' cat with her rescuers), Political Pictures (Freya's diamante collar), and The Telegraph (Freya and Larry).

Freya Relaxing

"Freya had to go, it just wasn't working out. She was a handful. Poor Lola was scared of her."
-- an unidentified Downing Street source

Freya's short-lived reign as the first cat of the Exchequer has come to an abrupt end. Fortunately, she has not been either run down and killed by a hit-and-run motorist or gotten lost again as it often was feared would be her undoing.

Rather, she is still alive and, as far as it is known, in good health. She is no longer living at 10 Downing Street, however, because her guardian, Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer Georgie "Porgie" Osborne, has sent her packing.

The end it is believed came sometime last week when Osborne fobbed off  the care of the dashing five-year-old brown female onto the hands of an unidentified member of his staff. All that has been revealed about that arrangement is that she is now residing at an undisclosed location somewhere in Kent.

The official word from Osborne and his flunkies is that Freya was gotten rid of for her own good. "The car accident could have been fatal, and as a result the family took the view that she was at too much risk living in Downing Street," an unidentified aide to the chancellor confided to the Daily Mail on November 8th. (See "Chancellor's Pooch, a Moody Mouser -- and an Uneasy Coalition That Was Doomed from the Start: George Osborne Evicts Freya the Cat for 'Bullying' His Bichon Frisé Dog.")

By that the official was referring to Freya's having been run down by a motorist on Whitehall Road back on August 7th. (See Cat Defender post of November 10, 2014 entitled "Freya, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Resident Feline, Cheats Death Once Again When She Survives Being Run Down and Injured by a Motorist but Her Good Luck Cannot Last for Much Longer.")

Quite obviously, Osborne and his subalterns are lying through their rotten teeth about why Freya was given the bum's rush. First of all, the accident occurred more than three months ago and if Osborne and his irresponsible family had cared so much as one whit about her safety and well-being they would have taken action back then.

Secondly, Osborne's contorted logic and warped morality is nothing short of stupefying in that no caring individual ever would abandon a cat under the pretext that by doing so he was saving her life. For example, millions of cat owners all over the world are forced to deal with the perils that threaten the lives of cats that roam but very few of them either choose Osborne's expedient or indulge in his outrageous, self-serving lies.

With all of his millions, Osborne easily could have assured Freya's safety simply by either confining her indoors or extending the height of the walls and fences that surround Downing Street and installing netting on top of them. He additionally could have either trained her to walk on a leash or assigned one of his numerous underlings to have accompanied her on her rambles. Any genuine lover of the species would have been more than willing to have spent the extra money and to have gone to the additional trouble that would have entailed in order to have kept her both safe and happy.

The Other Female in Osborne's Life, Lola

That is perfectly obvious to any thinking individual but it is the Daily Mail that the world has to thank for exposing Osborne as a bare-faced liar. "Freya had to go, it just wasn't working out," an unidentified Downing Street source confided to the newspaper in the article cited supra. "She was a handful. Poor Lola was scared of her."

Lola is a white Bichon Frisé that Osborne acquired less than a year ago and, admittedly, loves madly. "Some early toilet training issues (which are common with this particular breed )... but we don't care," he tweeted recently according to the November 9th edition of The Independent. (See "George Osborne's Family Cat Freya Sent from Downing Street to Kent.")"We love her."

That indeed surely must be the case because Osborne claims that he gets out of bed in order to walk her at both midnight and 6 a.m. He even earlier this year arranged for her to tie the knot in a mock wedding ceremony with another Bichon Frisé named Snowy that is owned by the Conservative Party's chief whip, Michael Gove.

Osborne supposedly decided to get rid of Freya because she had been bullying his beloved Lola but that allegation is difficult to believe. First of all, Freya was seldom home in order to bully anyone even if she had been so inclined. Secondly, the two pets were kept segregated on separate floors.

While it is conceivable that they may have had a few run-ins while passing on the stairs, they likely did not amount to anything serious. The Osborne camp's version of events also strains credulity in that it is always dogs that harass, and often kill, cats and not vice-versa. Most telling of all, it is simply beyond belief that Freya ever would want anything to do with Lola in the first place.

For whatever it is worth, another unidentified aide to the chancellor has shied away from the bullying story while simultaneously going to great lengths in order not to deviate from number 10's original pack of lies. "The issue was her tendency to roam, not her relations with Lola," he told the Daily Mail in the article cited supra. "She has ended up all over the place: Trafalgar Square, the Red Lion pub and miles south of the river. It was getting too much and it was only a matter of time before she was seriously hurt."

It is unclear at this juncture what affect, if any, Freya's ouster will have on the fate of Prime Minister David Cameron's much maligned resident feline, Larry. (See Cat Defender posts of July 21, 2011 and November 28, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Larry Faces Many Challenges and Dangers in His New Rôle as 10 Downing Street's Resident Feline" and "Larry Is Persevering as Best He Can Despite Being Constantly Maligned by Both Fleet Street and the Prime Minister's Duplicitous Staff.")

Nevertheless, her departure is anything but a good omen as far as he is concerned. With politicians being the opportunistic old slugs that they are, Cameron no doubt is closely monitoring the public's reaction to Osborne's shabby mistreatment of Freya before plotting against Larry.

In Freya's case, it is not known either if Osborne paid the staffer to take her off of his hands or who is footing the bill for her food and veterinary care. "A kind member of staff agreed to look after her and the family will get regular updates and photos," is all that a Downing Street source was willing to reveal to The Independent in the article cited supra. "The family are (sic) very grateful."

Freya Where She Felt Most at Home, on the Street

Truer words never have been spoken in that the Osbornes surely must be still popping the champagne corks in celebration of finally getting shed of the cat that they never really wanted in the first place. Even their token commitment to receive photographs and periodic updates on Freya's progress has been passed off as a concession to Osborne's children, thirteen-year-old Luke and eleven-year-old Liberty.

Osborne, quite obviously, could care less about what becomes of her. Even his children's supposed interest in her well-being sounds disingenuous in that it is highly unlikely that he would have been able to have so easily abandoned Freya again if they had, in reality, cared anything about her.

Osborne's troubles are now over but it is an entirely different story as far as Freya is concerned in that the changes she is undergoing in both scenery and ownership in no way address the underlying issues that have plagued her troubled life. First of all, it is not known who will be looking after her in that it certainly will not be the staffer who will be busy most of the time in London doing Osborne's bidding.

Secondly, it has not been disclosed if she will be confined at her new address or allowed to roam at will. Although it may sound counterintuitive, suburban thoroughfares and country roads often are far more dangerous for cats than congested inner city streets, such as those in Westminster. That is because the former attract considerably more speeders as well as those who run down and kill cats for the sheer pleasure of doing so. There also are fewer peelers patrolling the streets outside of the big cities.

Shortly after her birth in April of 2009, Osborne purchased Freya from an undisclosed source as a present for his children. A few months later, he not only carelessly allowed her to disappear but, worst still, made only a half-hearted effort in order to locate her. Consequently, it was not until June of 2012 that she finally was relocated and returned to him and his family.

So, in effect, this is the second time in less than five years that he has inexcusably abandoned her. Even when she was living underneath his roof he did little or nothing in order to protect and safeguard her life.

It thus could be argued on the one hand that she is far better off to be finally rid of both him and his god-rotten family. Hopefully, that will in deed turn out to be the case but even that happy prospect appears to be a long shot.

Specifically, entrusting her care to anyone who would work for such an irresponsible, cold-hearted, and filthy rotter as Osborne is anything but reassuring. Be that as it may, Freya's fate is now sealed for either better or worse in that there is not a solitary animal protection group in all of England that cares enough about her well-being in order to intercede on her behalf.

Freya as She Was and Will Be Remembered

If a private individual ever were to so neglect a cat as Osborne has done with Freya that person likely would have been arrested long ago and the animal confiscated. It is just too bad that has not happened to him because a little time spent standing in the dock at Old Bailey Bird has been known to sober up even those individuals terminally besotted with power and self-importance. In this case, however, Osborne not only has been allowed to get away scot-free with his hideous crimes but to fob off Freya's care on an unknown individual of his own choosing.

By his simply abhorrent mistreatment of her, Osborne has demonstrated writ large that he looks down upon cats as soulless automatons that big shot like him can neglect and abuse to their hearts' content. On that point his thinking is every bit as wrongheaded as his economics. Freya and all other cats have more soul, class, and dignity than a no-account bum like him ever will acquire even if he should live to be as old as Methuselah.

Even though not a great deal is known about what goes on inside a cat's head, it is nevertheless strongly suspected that their minds works pretty much the same way as those of their human counterparts. In particular, home is everything to them and that is verified by the old Sprichwort which maintains that "dogs belong to people but cats belong to places."

In Freya's case, she has been bandied about so much that by now she hardly knows where she belongs. First of all, she was uprooted from her place of birth by Osborne and shanghaied to live at his house in Notting Hill.

She soon thereafter either escaped or got lost and as a consequence was forced to spend the next three years eking out a living as a homeless vagabond. After that it was on to 10 Downing Street for a little more than two years and now she finds herself in Kent surrounded by strangers.

Being shoved around in such a cavalier fashion surely has exacted a high emotional toll from her and may, just perhaps, explain her Wanderlust. She could be in fact still searching for her original home.

It also is perfectly clear that the Osbornes did everything in their power to make her feel as unwelcome as possible in both Notting Hill as well as in London. Cats that are loved, appreciated, and esteemed do not often leave home of their own freewill.

Although there is not any known connection, Freya is not the only four-legged member of the Osborne household to have done a runner in recent months. For example, back in July the family's hamster broke out of its cage and went on the lam for two weeks before it was found and rescued by Freya.

Freya Was Always on the Outside Looking In

So, it is perhaps not just cats that cannot abide living under the same roof with the Osbornes. (See The Independent, August 8, 2014, "George Osborne's Cat Freya Recovering at the Vets After Being Struck by Car.")

In addition to getting used to a new environment and different people in her life, Freya undoubtedly will miss, at least for a while, visiting her old haunts in Westminster, especially the Red Lion, as well as all the attention has been ladled on her in the past. In time, however, she will forget about them just as Fleet Street and the world are destined to forget about her.

Sooner or later, however, a brief notice will appear out of the blue in the London dailies recording her demise. Most likely, she either will be prematurely killed off by her new caretaker or run down and obliterated by a motorist.

That is precisely how it ended for both Humphrey and Sybil after the elites on Downing Street had exploited them to the hilt and then sent them packing. (See Cat Defender posts of April 6, 2006 and August 13, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Humphrey, the Cat from 10 Downing Street Who Once 'Read' His Own Obituary, Passes Away at 18" and "Sybil, 10 Downing Street's Former First Feline, Dies Unexpectedly from an Undisclosed Illness.")

She will not be quite so easily forgotten, however, by her legions of admirers around the world who are going to dearly miss seeing her and reading about her exploits. It truly has been a rare and distinct pleasure to have been able to have shared her life, even if it has been only from afar.

She therefore truly belongs to, not Osborne and his cronies, but rather to the world. If there was so much as an ounce of justice in life, her fate would have been decided by those who love and admire her instead of a second-rate old political hack who merely exploited her for his own benefit.

It has been said before but it nonetheless bears repeating: real men do not hide behind cats and small children. They do not shirk their moral responsibilities and they do not tell outrageous lies.

The only thing positive that can be said about old Georgie "Porgie" is that it is somewhat poetic that a blighter who has spent his entire life down on his knees sucking the pennies out of the cracks of the rich now has been relegated to scooping up dog shit. While he is at it he might as well go whole hog and thus join Lola in a little copraphagia.

Photos: the Evening Standard (Freya relaxing) and The Independent (Lola, Freya in the street, up close, and outside number 11).

Anne McIntosh

"It is a matter of fact that the mouse population at Westminster is spiraling out of control. Will the Right Honorable Gentleman review his decision and, using the same model adopted by ten and eleven Downing Street, consider having a rescue cat that can be released in the evening to keep the mouse population under control?"
-- Anne McIntosh, Conservative MP from Thirsk and Malton in North Yorkshire

Although the world famous resident felines of Downing Street, both past and present, receive a lion's share of Fleet Street's attention, cats also are a hotly debated topic down the street at the Palace of Westminster where their invaluable service as mousers is dearly coveted by some members of Parliament (MPs). That is especially the case in that it is claimed that the joint is overrun with mice who deposit their excrement all over the place and even gnaw into official documents.

Whereas a considerable amount of palaver is devoted to the use of the Downing Street cats as mousers that is clearly a well-orchestrated public relations charade. That is not to say that the official residences of the prime minister and the chancellor the Exchequer do not have mice but that problem is handled by professional exterminators.

The cats, on the other hand, are kept in order to not only put kinder, gentler, and more civilized public faces on some pretty unsavory characters but also to temporarily take citizens' minds off of some of the more disquieting political and economic realities of the day.

By contrast, the ongoing debate in Parliament appears, at least from afar to be much more genuine and practical in that any cats employed there as mousers would belong to that body as a whole instead of to individual politicians and that in turn would make it far more difficult, but by no means totally impossible, for any member to exploit their presence for personal political gain. That analysis of the situation is buttressed by the fact that in comparison to the executives on Downing Street individual MPs receive comparatively little media exposure.

In the past the palace has employed cats as mousers including an unidentified feline who was so proficient that it reportedly caught up to an astounding sixty mice per night. Due to ailurophobia and some MPs being allergic to them, the facility currently relies exclusively upon professional exterminators, either for better or for worse, in order to control the rodent population.

Consequently, the only known current resident feline is a gray cat named Order who is owned by the speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow. While it is not known if Order is used on rodent patrol, it is doubtful that a single feline would be capable of policing the sprawling estate.

Pauline Latham

Predictably, the issue has divided parliamentarians along party lines with the Conservatives being largely in favor of bringing back the cats while both Laborites and the Liberal Democrats are adamantly opposed to their return. Also, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in south London, which supplied Prime Minister David Cameron with his current resident feline, Larry, back in 2011, has become unwittingly embroiled up to its eyeballs not only in the tug-of-war itself but the internecine nature of English politics as well.

"I am thrilled and delighted to work with Battersea Dogs and Cats Home," Anne McIntosh, a Conservative MP from Thirsk and Malton in North Yorkshire, declared to The Independent on January 28th. (See "Cats Poised to Descend on Parliament to Help Rid Westminster of Vermin.")"In my view, provided the situation was controlled with care, particularly considering the welfare of those allergic to cats, the best way to control and eliminate the mouse problem in Parliament would be a rescue cat."

Her proposal quickly was seconded by her colleague in the House of Commons, Pauline Latham, a Conservative from Derbyshire. "Battersea Dogs and Cats Home do a fantastic job, and I would certainly love to have one of their rescue cats come and take care of the mouse problem in my office," she added to The Independent.

In response to the politicians' plea for assistance, Battersea initially offered to dispatch a three-year-old tuxedo named Jill, an orange four-year-old male named Finn, and a one-year-old tortoiseshell named Bloom to work as palace mousers. Unfortunately for the cats, the Commission which runs the Palace vetoed that idea and it is not known what ever became of either them or their hopes for new leases on life.

Undeterred, McIntosh has continued to press her case. "It is a matter of fact that the mouse population at Westminster is spiraling out of control," she told Viscount Thurso (né John Archibald Sinclair), a Liberal Democrat who represents Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross in the Scottish Highlands, during debate on October 22nd according to the Daily Mail's October 23rd account of the proceedings. (See "Vermin in the Commons...Call the Squeaker!") "Will the Right Honorable Gentleman review his decision and, using the same model adopted by ten and eleven Downing Street, consider having a rescue cat that can be released in the evening to keep the mouse population under control?"

Thurso, however, was not about to be swayed. "Measures are being taken to combat that through pest control," he retorted. "Given the scale and size of the estate, it would be necessary to have a great number of cats to make any impact."

There are several problems with Thurso's bluster. First of all, the professional exterminators obviously are not any more up to the job than Vincent Price and his colleagues were when they battled an invasion of ship rats in a terrifying episode  of Suspense from the 1950's entitled "Three Skeleton Key." Secondly, he is guilty of deliberately distorting the number of cats that would be required in order to get the rodent infestation under control.

Bloom, Finn, and Jill: Where Are They Now?

All of that would have been bad enough if he had had the bon sens to have stopped there but he could not resist to temptation to make jest of McIntosh's proposal. "Having a herd of cats on the parliamentary estate would present a number of difficulties," he continued. "I am also advised by my own chief whip that herding cats is quite difficult."

Thurso obviously considers himself to be a part-time comedian and a full-time cutie-pie. His words and actions, however, expose him to be little more than a dishonest smart aleck.

That is because if Latham's plan were implemented, the care and supervision of the cats would be the personal responsibility of individual legislators and neither any herds nor herding would be necessary. Plus, their presence would be required only in specific offices and establishments, such as restaurants and bars, with significant rodent problems.

Of course, it is conceivable that it is precisely that aspect of Latham's proposal that Thurso fears the most. While it is not known if a per se cat vote does in fact exist, the political hacks on Downing Street clearly have demonstrated the numerous benefits of owning one.

"If mice can be close to the source of food and pose a health hazard, one would think it would be perfectly sensible to introduce a cat to keep the mouse population down." McIntosh, apparently familiar with the old Norwegian Sprichwort which counsels that "it is better to feed one cat than many mice," added in vain.

Similar arguments have been raised to no avail all over England, in New York City, Carson City, Salem, and elsewhere. (See Cat Defender posts of October 23, 2008, April 20, 2006, February 17, 2009, and May 21, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Pecksniffian Management at Swindon Pub Plies Ember with Food and Then Gives Her the Bum's Rush,""Molly Is Finally Rescued After Spending Two Weeks Trapped Inside the Walls of an English Deli in Greenwich Village,""Health Department Banishes Smallcat from Popular Carson City Restaurant but Her Feisty Owner Is Putting Up Quite a Fight," and "Salem, Massachusetts, Is Going After Cats Again Much Like It Did During 1692 Witch Trials.")

In spite of the soundness of her reasoning on that point, McIntosh is terribly wrong in striving to emulate the simply abhorrent example set by the politicians on Downing Street. As intelligent and sentient beings, cats are entitled to not only exemplary treatment but their care and well-being requires a lifetime commitment.

Viscount Thurso

They are not Flying Dutchmen to be bandied about by unscrupulous politicians who merely use, abuse, neglect, exploit, and then casually discard them like yesterday's newspapers once they no further use for them. That is precisely what the no-good rotters on Downing Street have done with Humphrey, Sybil and, most recently, Freya. (See Cat Defender posts of April 6, 2006, August 13, 2009, and November 13, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Humphrey, the Cat from 10 Downing Street Who Once 'Read' His Own Obituary, Passes Away at 18,""Sybil, 10 Downing Street's Former First Feline, Dies Unexpectedly from an Undisclosed Illness," and "Gutless Georgie 'Porgie' Osborne Gets Rid of Freya but in Doing So Lies About the True Reason Behind His Second Cruel Abandonment of Her.")

That also likely is destined to be Larry's cruel fate. (See Cat Defender posts of July 21, 2011 and November 28, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Larry Faces Many Challenges and Dangers in His New Rôle as 10 Downing Street's Resident Feline" and "Larry Is Persevering as Best He Can Despite Being Constantly Maligned by Both Fleet Street and the Prime Minister's Duplicitous Staff.")

The Commission's ruling left many cat-lovers disappointed but no one perhaps more so than the Daily Mail's Quentin Letts. "What fun it would have been to see the occasional pussycat strolling the corridors and playing cradle with the clerks' wigs. They could take post-prandial snoozes in the lap of the Father of the House, Sir Peter Tapsell. They could play games with the Westminster Police's anti-bomb sniffer dogs. They could compare claw varnish with the likes of Labor's Luciana Berger (of Liverpool Wavertree)," he fantasized in the October 23rd article cited supra. "But those ninnies in the Commission insist instead on using poisons and traps."

The House of Lords likewise has a recurring problem with mice and back in 2010 they were spotted, inter alia, in both the Peers' Guest Room and Bishops Bar. That in turn prompted Lord Brabazon, the then chairman of committees, to install a so-called "mouse helpline" so that his colleagues promptly could report any and all rodent sightings. (See the Daily Mail, March 5, 2010, "More Parliamentary Fat Cats Needed Fast.")

In spite of that chamber's ban on cats, one intrepid black and white moggy did somehow manage to gain access to the facility on several occasions last autumn. In fact, the cat was captured on film on November 14th. (See The Telegraph, November 15, 2013, "A Cat Burglar in the Commons (sic): the Mysterious Tale of a New Westminster Fatcat.")

Given that the lawmakers are so passionate about cats that do not even belong to them, it should not come as any surprise that they feel even stronger about their own beloved companions. With that being the case, at least one and possibly more MPs apparently do not have any scruples about engaging in a little old-fashioned cheating so long as doing so advances the cause of their cats.

That transpired in early February when Battersea, attempting to raise public awareness of the plight of homeless cats, sponsored an online contest in order to select the cat of the year. In addition to all the notoriety that was expected to go to the winner of the popularity contest, the lucky cat was to be dubbed "Purr Minister."

A Tuxedo Breaches the Supposedly Airtight Security at the House of Lords

Although anyone with access to a computer was eligible to vote, only those cats belonging to MPs and peers were allowed to enter. As things turned out, four Tory MPs and a trio of their Labor counterparts submitted entries. From the House of Lords Laborite Baroness Joyce Gwendolen Quin entered her cat Paul while Lord Tom McNally put forward his cat, Monty.

Everything went swimmingly until a fourteen-year-old black cat with green eyes named Bosun racked up an astonishing thirty-thousand votes over the course of a seven-hour period. As it later was revealed, many of the votes came from Australia which in itself is rather hard to believe in that the miserable low-life murdering scumbags who run the show down under are currently in the process of systematically exterminating, without apparently the least bit of public opposition, as many as twenty million homeless cats. (See The Australian of Surry Hills, June 2, 2014, "Greg Hunt (Environment Minister) Calls for Eradication of Feral Cats That Kill Seventy-Five Million Animals a Night.")

As it just so happened, Bosun is owned by Tory MP Sheryll Murray from the village of Millbrook in Cornwall and once her competitor, Labor MP Andrew Gwynne of Greater Manchester, got wind of what was afoot he cried bloody murder from every rooftop in London. "I think there's been vote-rigging," he declared to The Mirror on February 11th. (See "MP Sheryll Murray Withdraws Cat Bosun from Westminster Beauty Contest Amid Allegations of Vote-Rigging.") "It is not fair; it is against the spirit of it."

In her defense, Murray denied taking part in any chicanery. "It is very upsetting for me," she told The Mirror. "It is very upsetting for my children, because we have done nothing wrong."

A statement later released by Bosun's campaign raised the possibility that both he and Murray may have been victimized by a put-up job. "Battersea Dogs and Cats Home have already said that there have been a lot of voting irregularities with many candidates and we do not know if this instance was by a well-meaning supporter of Bosun or someone who was trying to frame him," the BBC reported on February 11th. (See "Westminster Cat of the Year Contest 'Hit by Vote-Rigging'.") "It does seem to have been a bit obvious."

Regardless of who was behind the sudden surge in voter support for Bosun, the damage already had been done to his candidacy and Murray reluctantly was forced to withdraw him from the contest. That decision provided Gwynne, who already had withdrawn his cat, Jude, in protest, with a golden opportunity in order to do some gloating.

Bosun Busy at Work Counseling MP Sheryll Murray

"It is such a shame that some people choose to take advantage of the incredible work that Battersea does finding homes for dogs and cats," he pontificated to The Mirror. "Justice has been done. This isn't Soviet Russia. Here in Britain, our cats play by the rules and those that don't will be found out!"

Although the dispute between Murray and Gwynne sans doute tarnished the integrity of the contest, it had even more disastrous results for both of their cats. Bosun, who was named in honor of Murray's late fisherman husband, would have made a splendid Purr Minister as would have Jude who was fished out of a canal in Manchester.

"In good faith, Battersea placed no onerous restrictions on voting. After all, the voting is simply to name a cat," a spokesperson for the charity told the London Metro on February 10th. (See "Ministerial Cat Elections for MPs' Pets Rocked by Cheating Scam.")"So we have been surprised by the voting patterns and will look carefully at how people can vote in next year's competition."

Once the dust finally had settled, a sixteen-year-old couch potato known as Kevin and owned by Labor MP Bill Esterson of the Borough of Sefton in Merseyside ended up taking home the prestigious title of Purr Minister with 29.8 per cent of the vote. "I'd like to thank all the other cats and their staff for taking part in the election and promise to be on the side of hard working cats everywhere," he declared in his gracious acceptance speech according to a February 13th press release issued by Battersea. (See "The Purr Minister Votes Are In and the Winning Westminster Moggy Is Kevin.")

He also is a cat blessed with quite a sense of humor. "Bringing a weight of experience to the job, Kevin will happily represent fat cats everywhere," is how Esterson described his cat in an undated pre-election address posted originally on Battersea's web site and later on his own web page. (See "Sefton Central Labor MP Bill Esterson's Cat Kevin Named Purr Minister" at billesterson.org. uk.)"He takes a laissez fur approach to life in general but fights hard to be top cat in our household against recent feline arrivals. He has sixteen years of eating and (mostly) sleeping to call on as valuable experience."

Kevin's ascendancy also allowed Lindsey Quinlan of Battersea to expeditiously dispose of all the difficulties that had plagued the contest from the start by uttering what has to be the understatement of the year. "Here at Battersea we know the British public love their cats and we're so pleased to see that our politicians do too," she declared unabashedly in the press release cited supra. "The inaugural competition was certainly memorable and we hope Kevin enjoys his exciting year as our first Purr Minister and we wish him well!"

The Ultimate Winner, Purr Minister Kevin

The other competitors in the contest were a cat named Tommy who is owned by Tory MP Greg Knight of East Yorkshire, Scaredy-Cat owned by Labor MP Sarah Champion of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, Parsnip owned by Tory MP Mark Spencer of Sherwood in Nottinghamshire, and Montague owned by Tory MP Justin Tomlinson of Swindon in Wiltshire.

In marked contrast to all the media attention ladled on both the parliamentarians and the big shots on Downing Street, the royal family's treatment of cats receives almost no public exposure. The one notable exception occurred in 2007 when it was disclosed that an intrepid black and white female named Mime was permitted to dine with the queen's corgis at Windsor Castle in Berkshire.

"Mime is part of the furniture," a castle spokesperson said at that time. "Everyone looks forward to her visits."

Owned by then sixty-nine-year-old Kevin Lam, she lives at the Chinese restaurant that he operates a scant fifty yards across the street from the castle. For reasons that are known only to her, she does not care for his cooking.

"She won't eat any of our leftovers," Lam confessed. "She's been going there for about four years."

Even in her case it is the castle's caretakers that she has to thank for both the food and her humane treatment in that the queen and her entourage seldom stay at the facility. The palace guards even have been known to unlock the fortress's Henry VIII gates for her on those rare occasions when they are bolted, such as on the queen's birthday. (See Cat Defender post of November 27, 2007 entitled "Mime Eschews Her Owner's Chinese Fare in Order to Dine with the Queen's Corgis at Windsor Castle.")

Regardless of the hospitality afforded Mime, it is suspected that the royal family is anything but a fan of the species. In particular, the queen is known to be a dog and horse enthusiast.

Even though the five sprawling royal estates that are scattered throughout England and Scotland make inviting refuges for cats than are on the road, it is extremely doubtful that their presence is either welcomed or tolerated. Moreover, none of the royals have been known to either give sanctuary to any homeless cats or to practice TNR.

Mime on Her Way to Have Lunch with the Queen's Corgis

With that being the case, it is likely that any cats that wander onto the royal palaces are liquidated on the spot by the queen's henchmen. If not by them, then either private exterminators or obliging humane groups are inveigled to do the royals' dirty work for them.

In summation, cats and politicians are not, generally speaking, a good mix. First of all, the vast majority of those individuals involved in politics are unwilling to devote the extraordinary amount of time and energy that are required in order to properly care for a cat.

On a more fundamental level, very few of them genuinely love and respect cats. Rather, they only use and exploit them for their own personal and political ends.

Perhaps most damning of all, no politician of note ever has been known to champion the cause of cats; au contraire, they are far better known for defaming and exterminating them en masse. With that being the case, they should not be permitted to get away with exploiting and abusing them as political props.

Rescue groups, such as Battersea, who not only bow and scrape at the feet of the political elites but also actively participate in their hideous crimes against the species are a disgrace to their profession. The first imperative for any halfway legitimate humane group should be to adopt and religiously implement an uncompromising attitude in respect to the inalienable right of all cats to live and implicit in that is a strict ban on all forms of killing including the misnomered practice of euthanasia.

The second imperative should be to provide free, competent veterinary care to any cat that needs it. Their third mandate should be to place all homeless cats in either good homes, sanctuaries, or managed TNR colonies.

Lastly, it is imperative that they take a no-nonsense attitude toward all forms of abuse and neglect and that includes, above all, going after the high and mighty, vivisectors, professors, the military, ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and all others who talk and behave as if they are endowed with a divine right to do with cats as they see fit. To put the matter succinctly, they must put the rights and needs of cats first; the dictates of their wallets and the gruntings of the elites are to be ignored.

Photos: annemcintosh.org.uk (McIntosh), paulinelatham.co.uk (Latham), BBC (Bloom, Finn, and Jill), Keith Edkins of Wikipedia (Thurso), The Telegraph (cat at the House of Lords), the Western Morning News of Plymouth (Bosun and Murray), Bill Esterson (Kevin), and The Sun (Mime).

Spice

“I saw something move in the bag. I didn’t know what it could have been. Out popped the cat’s head. It was pretty cool.”
-- Bob Watterson

Spice is a little kitten with three big secrets. Not the least of which is how did the pretty six-month-old gray and white female ever make it all the way from Albuquerque to Portland in less than five days?

Her second secret is the identity of the person who cruelly and irresponsibly zipped her up in a duffel bag on November 5th and then abandoned her on the doorstep of Threads of Hope, a Catholic thrift shop located at 244 St. John’s Street. From that point forward, her story has been meticulously documented but her past remains shrouded in both mystery and intrigue.

Local handyman Bob Watterson was the first to notice the bag and, mistakenly thinking that it contained a donation, he picked it up and carried it inside the old rag shop. His first inclination turned out to be correct in that it did contain a donation but it was not the type that the historically money-mad Catholics easily could convert into the hard currency that they so desperately crave.

“I saw something move in the bag. I didn’t know what it could have been,” he later told the Albuquerque Journal on November 21st. (See “Albuquerque Kitty Turns Up in Gym Bag in Maine.”)“Out popped the cat’s head. It was pretty cool.”

As far as it is known, neither anyone working inside the store nor passing by on the street outside saw who it was that left behind the bag. Regardless of whatever else that can be said about the dirty deed it certainly was a rather bold undertaking coming as it did not only in broad daylight but during business hours as well.

It also was planned well in advance in that the bag contained both cat litter and canned food. It is far from clear, however, if the choice of the shop was intentional or mere happenstance.

Under the former scenario its selection possibly could indicate that the culprit is a Catholic in that it is difficult to comprehend anyone else being willing to entrust the care of any cat to an institution that for millenniums has meted out nothing but diabolic abuse to members of the species. On the other hand, religion may not have played any role whatsoever in Spice’s plight in that individuals abandon cats all the time, in all sorts of places, and under all types of circumstances.

For instance, some individuals even deposit them both inside and outside of bins that are used in order to collect old clothes and, in Angleterre, bottles and cans. Nevertheless, since so many of these abandonments take place on Boxing Day that suggests that Christmas holds some sort of significance in the lives of the perpetrators of these outrageous acts.

Regardless of the motivation behind abandonments of this type, it seems clear that the culprits look upon unwanted cats in much the same fashion as they do old clothes. Even if their heartfelt desire is to spare their victims trips to the killing fields that masquerade as shelters, that ploy most often backfires.

In a case that bears a striking resemblance to the cruel fate that befell Spice, a seven-week-old calico kitten named Sleepy was sealed up in a brown box on June 24, 2009 and deposited in the heat and humidity on the doorstep of a mattress store at 2555 Grand Army of the Republic Highway in Swansea, seventy-seven kilometers south of Boston. Without either water, ventilation, or food, save for a few morsels of kibble, she surely would not have survived for long without the intervention of store employee Michael Medeiros.

Sleepy. Where Is She Now?

“When I tossed the box on my desk, I heard a meow,” he later recalled. Even after she had dodged that bullet, she nonetheless was incarcerated at the Ernest W. Bell Animal Shelter on Stevens Road and that was the last ever to be heard of her. (See Cat Defender post of July 3, 2009 entitled “Pretty Little Sleepy Survives a Suffocation and Starvation Attempt on Her Life Thanks to the Timely Intervention of a Mattress Store Employee.”)

For ever so briefly it at first appeared that Spice had side-stepped Sleepy’s fate when Watterson took her home to live with him, his wife, teenage daughter, dog, and resident feline. Once she had committed the faux pas of pissing in his bed he however quickly dropped her like a hot potato on November 11th at the Animal Rescue League of Greater Portland (ARLGP) in nearby Westbrook.

As part of the shelter’s routine intake procedure, Spice was scanned upon arrival for an implanted microchip and that is how that it belatedly was learned that she hails from Albuquerque. Her owner, who was contacted three days later by ARLGP, revealed at that time that she had adopted the cat earlier this year from a shelter in Albuquerque and that is likely where the chip was implanted.

The woman, who has chosen to remain anonymous, was unable however to shine much light on Spice’s cross-county misadventures. All that is known is that she resides in a “large apartment complex” and that Spice vanished sometime during the evening of October 31st while she was handing out candy and other goodies to children on Halloween.

With that being the case, what happened to her on that fatal evening constitutes Spice’s third secret. For her part, her owner claims to be every bit as surprised as everyone else that she wound up so far away from home.

“She was floored, absolutely stunned. She doesn’t know anyone in Maine and has never been here, so she had no idea how the cat got here,” Patsy Murphy of ARLGP told the Today Show on November 21st. (See “Lost Cat Trying to Go Home for Holidays after Mysterious Twenty-Three-Hundred Mile Trip.”)“English is not her first language, and she is very shy, but she desperately wants the cat back.”

That may or may not be true but she does not want Spice back badly enough in order to foot the bill for her return. “She does want her cat back,” Murphy’s sidekick, Jeana Roth, affirmed to the Bangor Daily News on November 22nd. (See “Kitten That Went Missing from New Mexico Found in Portland.”)“Unfortunately she doesn’t have the financial means to send Spice across the country home.”

In that regard she is far from being alone because ARLGP also answers the roll call for all those blessed with deep pockets but, regrettably, short arms. Specifically, the charity claims that it does not have so much as a lousy sou to spare in order to transport Spice back home. It thus would appear that a few drops of errant piss are not the only constraint upon the amount of compassion that both guardians and rescue groups alike have to offer a kitten in extremis.

As difficult as it may be for some contemporaries to comprehend, a lack of money was not always the deal breaker that it is today. Veterinarians, physicians, and other professionals used to be more than willing to work with the impecunious and that in turn gave birth to such venerable old practices as paying on time, lay-away plans, and payment in kind.

There even used to be old-fashioned virtues such as generosity, compassion, and liberality. For the most part, however, all of them have gone with the wind; today, the only tie that binds is cold, hard cash.

Spice Incarcerated at ARLGP in Westbrook

Sandwiched in between a representative from the anti-pissing brigade on the one hand and a pair of confirmed tightwads on the other hand, it sure looked like little Spice’s fate had been sealed. No one, however, should ever underestimate the resourcefulness of a group as well-connected as ARLGP.

It accordingly did what it does best and went begging on bended knee to one of its sugar daddies, Jonathan W. Ayers of IDEXX Laboratories, a multinational headquartered in Westbrook that develops and manufactures diagnostic, detection, and information systems for use by both small and large animal veterinarians. Always on the lookout for opportunities in order to burnish both his and his company's public image, he readily agreed to help return Spice home to her owner.

“It really touched my heart,” he told the Portland Press Herald on November 21st. (See “Wayward Kitten Will Fly Home to New Mexico from Maine.”)“She’s a miracle cat, and I felt like I could do something to complete the miracle.”

All of that would have been more than sufficient but Ayers did not stop there, however. “It just immediately struck me that there was a very strong bond between this pet owner and Spice,” he declared to the Albuquerque Journal in the article cited supra without disclosing how that he had arrived at that conclusion. “When I read Spice’s story, I realized she really wanted to go home.”

Initial plans called for Ayers to not only pay for Spice's transportation but also to pony up for a staffer from ARLGP to accompany her. "We don't want Spice to incur any more stress than she already has," he vowed to the Albuquerque Journal.

A quick turnaround also was promised. "We're hoping to get her on a plane within the next two weeks at most, and we know Thanksgiving is next week and it would be wonderful to get her home for the holidays (sic)," Roth told the Portland Press Herald in the article cited supra.

That is not the way things eventually worked out in that it was not until December 4th that Spice actually was put on a homeward bound plane. A lingering common cold that she had been battling has been cited in press reports as the reason for the delay but that may not be the entire story.

After arriving in Albuquerque Spice, who was accompanied by Murphy, was taken by ground transportation to the Animal Welfare Department's eastside shelter at 8920 Lomas Boulevard where she received a homecoming welcome worthy of a conquering hero. The media was on hand in order to record the event for the sake of posterity and the facility was festooned with "Welcome Home" balloons and a Christmas stocking with her name on it was pinned to a poster.

Her mysterious owner, however, was conspicuously absent. She was scheduled to have taken custody of Spice later in the day but that is a rather questionable outcome in that if she truly loved Spice she would not have missed her homecoming for anything in the world.

"She was a big little deal," Murphy told the Albuquerque Journal on December 5th. (See "Well-Traveled Cat Welcomed Home in Albuquerque.")"We got calls from all over from people who wanted to pay to reunite the cat and her family. Calls came from New York, California, Texas, New Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, China, and Germany."

Spice and Jonathan W. Ayers

It remains unclear, however, who actually paid for what and how many staffers from ARLGP were in Spice's party. The Portland Press Herald reported on December 3rd that it actually was Southwest Airlines and not Ayers who had paid for Spice's flight. Also, Spice was scheduled to have been accompanied by both Murphy and Roth with Ayers footing the bill for their overnight stay in an Albuquerque hotel. (See "Cat from New Mexico That Was Found in Maine Will Fly Home Thursday.")

The Albuquerque Journal, however, claims in the December 5th article cited supra that it actually was Ayers who paid for Spice's airfare and that only Murphy accompanied her. Of course, it is always conceivable that while Murphy was occupied with dropping off  Spice that Roth was living it up back at the hotel with a daiquiri in one hand and a dog-eared copy of Portnoy's Complaint in the other. The paper further claims that the only thing that Southwest contributed was a crate for Spice to ride in but that, even if true, seems to be rather superfluous in that ARLGP surely has plenty of spare pet carriers.

Regardless of what actually transpired, Spice quite obviously did not either need or require two chaperones and that gives rise to speculation that a donnybrook broke out between Murphy and Roth as to which of them was going to get the free trip to Albuquerque. On the other hand, perhaps they simply put their opportunistic noggins together and decided to stick it to both Southwest and Ayres.

That is not nitpicking considering that multitudes of cats are either dying or being systematically exterminated every day of the week because of a lack of guardians, shelter, food, and veterinary care. All the money that both Southwest and Ayres conceivably squandered on flying, housing, and feeding the superfluous staffer could have been much better spent on cats in need. Moreover, such crass, self-serving behavior exposes the true values and priorities of all those involved.

Back in the autumn of 2005 when a thirteen-month-old brown and gray female named Emily from Appleton, Wisconsin, accidentally became trapped inside a shipping container and wound up in Nancy her return was handled much differently. For starters, Raflatac, the laminating and labeling company that had unwittingly imported her, not only tracked down her owners from information contained on her identification tag but also paid her mandatory quarantine fee of $210.

Continental Airlines then magnanimously flew her home in a $6,000 business class seat. Furthermore, the airline certainly did not provide her with any superfluous chaperones.

Rather, George Chiladze accompanied her on the first leg of her flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport, outside of Paris, to Newark. From there on to General Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee she was in the care of Gaylia McLeod.

"I know it is close to the holidays," McLeod acknowledged at that time. "I'm happy to be a part of reuniting Emily with her family." Chiladze felt the same way. "I will make somebody really happy to deliver this poor traveler back home," he said sincerely.

The differences in how Emily and Spice were treated are illuminating. In the former's case, both Raflatac and Continental acted out of compassion and without either any grandstanding or overt self-interest. The same most definitely cannot be said for ARLGP, Ayers, and Southwest who have milked Spice's misfortune for all that it is worth.

Most impressive of all, Emily's eternally loving and grateful owners, Donny and Lesley McElhiney and their then nine-year-old son, Nicky, did not flinch at having to drive one-hundred-seventy-three kilometers to the airport in order to be on hand to throw their arms around her as soon as she was taken off the plane. (See Cat Defender post of December 9, 2005 entitled "Adventurous Wisconsin Cat Named Emily Makes Unscheduled Trip to France in the Hold of a Cargo Ship.")

Spice and Patsy Murphy Meet the Press in Albuquerque

Attempting to make sense out of Spice's biggest secret is not an easy task. Be that as it may, the same rules apply in this instance as they do in solving all riddles and puzzles.

Most important of all, nothing can be taken at face value. In this case, Spice's owner simply could be lying.

For example, Spice could have urinated in her bed and as a result she either abandoned her or gave her away to an acquaintance. In that light it would be interesting to know if she reported Spice's disappearance to either the Animal Welfare Department or the police. Also, did she make either any inquiries in her apartment building or put up any Lost Cat posters?

If she did not deliberately choose to get rid of Spice, it then follows that she either was stolen, accidentally picked up by a cat-lover who thought that she was homeless, or she accidentally, like Emily, became trapped inside some kind of movable object. Although cats have been known to walk tremendous distances in order to return to their homes, Spice most definitely did not walk all the way to Portland in less than five days. (See Cat Defender post of April 27, 2007 entitled "French Chat Named Mimine Walks Eight-Hundred Kilometers to Track Down Family That Abandoned Her.")

She therefore most assuredly transversed the twenty-three-hundred-mile distance using some type of modern conveyance. Considering how quickly that she arrived in Portland, it would seem that par avion would be most logical choice.

Unless she was either transported aboard a private plane or smuggled onto a commercial airliner, that could be easily checked because all major carriers maintain records pertaining to all cats and other animals that fly with them. It is doubtful, however, that the lazy rotters at ARLGP even bothered to look into the matter; on the contrary, they were far too busy plotting how best to exploit Spice's misfortune for their own benefit in order to waste time doing any serious detective work.

With the notable exceptions of service animals and an ongoing pilot project for pets in Illinois, Amtrak does not normally allow animals on board its trains. Its eastbound Southwest Chief does make one daily stop in Albuquerque but that train terminates in Chicago.

Therefore, even if  Spice had been smuggled aboard she and her handler would have been forced to change trains and then to continue on from there to Portland. Even under that scenario it is unlikely that they could have completed such an arduous trek in five days.

BNSF Railway also stops in Albuquerque on its way to Chicago and although cats have been known to hop freight trains by their lonesome, that seems unlikely in this instance due to Spice's tender years. (See Cat Defender post of June 7, 2007 entitled "Rascal Hops on a Freight Train in South Bend and Unwittingly Winds Up in Chattanooga.")

Greyhound operates between Albuquerque and Portland and it is remotely conceivable that Spice could have been smuggled aboard one of its buses. Individuals smuggle cats and small dogs aboard them all the time but that activity is usually confined to its much shorter runs, such as between Manhattan and Atlantic City.

Emily and George Chiladze Aboard Continental Airlines

Since traveling by boat is totally out of the question, that leaves only trucks and automobiles at Spice's disposal. Given that innumerable cats have been known to unwittingly crawl into either commercial trucks or to be carried aboard them after secreting themselves away in packages and furniture, that is a real possibility in Spice's case. (See Cat Defender posts of November 6, 2006 and August 18, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Trapped in a Moving Van for Five Days, Texas Cat Named Neo Is Finally Freed in Colorado" and "Ronaldo Escapes Death after Retailer Coughs Up the Exorbitant Bounty That Quarantine Officials Had Placed on His Head.")

It is even conceivable that she was sent through the mail. (See Cat Defender post of July 21, 2008 entitled "Janosch Survives Being Sent Through the Post from Bayern to the Rhineland.")

If Spice did not travel by truck, the next most likely explanation is that she was transported by car. That assumption is based not only upon the short amount of time that her journey took, but also the circumstances surrounding her abandonment in Portland.

It thus would appear that she was acquired, either legitimately or by nefarious means, by someone in Albuquerque, driven to Portland, and then dumped at Threads of Hope. (See Cat Defender post of July 25, 2014 entitled "Poussey Overcomes a Surprise Boat Ride to Dover, a Stint on Death Row, and Being Bandied About Like a Flying Dutchman in Order to Finally Make It Home to La Havre.")

In the final analysis, it is highly unlikely that the truth ever will be known. Spice's abductor, who could be either a permanent resident of the Portland area or someone merely passing through town, is not about to come forward and make a public confession, her guardian is not talking to the media, and Spice does not speak any language that her human counterparts are able to comprehend.

In spite of the volumes of laudatory media coverage that all of those involved in this affair have received, a closer examination of both the facts and circumstances reveals that none of them are heroes. On the contrary, by their words and deeds they have unwittingly exposed much of what is dreadfully wrong with both cat ownership as well as those individuals and groups who are responsible for their safety, well-being, and health.

In addition to her owner's carelessness, cheapness and, above all, unwillingness to collect her at the airport, Watterson's callous mistreatment and abandonment of Spice is totally inexcusable. First of all, since he blew his stack over a little bit of urine it is frightening to think what he might have done to her if she had either pooped or vomited in his house.

Secondly, by abandoning her at ARLGP he very easily could have initialed her death warrant. No one connected with the organization has been willing to publicly speculate as to what it would have done with Spice if the implanted microchip had not been detected and deciphered, but the possibilities are anything but pleasant to contemplate.

Once it was learned that she was Albuquerque, however, the shelter immediately recognized that it had a proverbial gold mine in both free publicity and donations on its hands and that is the principal reason that it went to such extravagant lengths in order to reunite her with her owner as opposed to getting out the sodium pentobarbital. The free, all expenses paid, late autumn vacation to sunny Albuquerque that Murphy, and possibly Roth, so adroitly finagled for herself was icing on the cake.

Emily Is Reunited with the McElhineys at the Airport

Just how perilously close Watterson came to dooming Spice is perhaps best illustrated by what happened on December 23, 2010 to a gray cat named Jack-in-the-Box from Troy, New York. Because he, like Spice, was urinating outside of his litter box his owner, Robin Becker, fobbed him off onto then forty-eight-year-old Michael T. Walsh of 10 Woodbridge Avenue who in turn had pledged to dump him at a shelter.

Apparently too cheap to even purchase a pet carrier, either Becker or Walsh sealed up Jack in a cardboard box but when he, justifiably terrified to death, let go with another burst of hot, smelly piss that was the end of the line. Instead of proceeding on to the shelter as agreed upon, Walsh promptly deposited him at the curb of One-Hundred-Ninth and One-Hundred-Tenth streets at the junction of Third and Fourth avenues in the Lansingburgh section of town to be collected by the garbageman.

Jack surely would have been either crushed to death by a trash compactor or dumped in a landfill if his plight had not accidentally come to the attention of Melissa Lombardo who was out walking a pit bull named Phoebe that she was fostering. "I was shocked and sad. I felt bad for the cat," she later told WXAA-TV of Albany on December 23, 2010. (See "Abandoned Cat Found 'Miracle on One-Hundred-Tenth Street'.")"It was obviously scared. It was crying."

Lombardo contacted the Troy Police who took Jack to the Troy Veterinary Hospital where he was treated for exposure to the bitter cold that grips upstate New York during that time of the year. Becker later saw a story about him on television and contacted the authorities who subsequently arrested Walsh on December 30th and charged him with three counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty.

As for Jack, he was scheduled to have gone to a new home sometime during the first week of January of 2011. (See Cat Defender post of October 14, 2011 entitled "Chucked Out in the Trash, Tabitha Winds Up in an Oxygen Chamber with Four Broken Ribs, an Injured Lung, and Pneumonia.")

In addition to being cruel and heartless, Watterson also is guilty of being terribly shortsighted in that if he lives long enough he, like just about all men, is almost certain to come down with an enlarged prostate and the incontinence that accompanies the malady. Once that happens he is once again going to be relegated to wearing diapers, pissing all over himself, and stinking up someone else's house.

Unlike Spice, however, his condition is not going to be either temporary or one that he is going to be able to outgrow. In comparison, occasionally being forced to clean up a little cat urine and feces is of no consequence, especially if doing so saves a life.

The case against Ayers and IDEXX is a good deal more sordid. First of all, the company employs nearly six-thousand workers at forty locations around the world and in 2013 it had revenues of $1.38 billion.

Ayers himself knocked down almost four-million dollars last year in salary, stocks, and other assorted perks. Even though he does own four cats, the only thing known for certain that he did for Spice was to pick up her veterinary tab; the largess that he squandered on Murphy and Roth does not count.

Emily and Nicky. Is That Not Worth More Than Money?

His cheapness even extends to fundraisers held by ARLGP. For instance, at an open house held on December 6th IDEXX raffled off a measly $300 Visa gift card and a paid adoption fee for the lucky winner. (See the American Journal of Westbrook, December 4, 2014, "Westbrook Notes, December 4th.")

That is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg, however, as far as Ayers and his colleagues at IDEXX are concerned in that they are god-rotten, scum-of-the-earth vivisectors! Quite obviously, all of the tests, procedures, and instruments that the company develops and manufactures for veterinarians and others must first be tested on cats, dogs, and other animals.

In that light it is imperative that the company be investigated in order to determine where it gets its cats and other animals, the conditions under which they are housed, the tests performed on them, and what ultimately becomes of them. Needless to say, giving a few quid to ARLGP pales in comparison with the innumerable cats that are tortured and killed in IDEXX's laboratories.

The atrocities that take place in its Livestock and Poultry Diagnostics Division surely must trump even those committed by its Companion Animal Group. For example, it is estimated that seven-trillion terrestrial animals are slaughtered each year in the United States alone for consumption and that does not even begin to include the unspeakable abuse meted out to dairy cows and laying hens.

On a more fundamental level, veterinary medicine as it is practiced today is nothing less than a fraud and a disgrace. For instance, small animal practitioners normally will not treat either cats that belong to the impecunious or those that are homeless. (See Cat Defender post of March 19, 2014 entitled "Cheap and Greedy Moral Degenerates at PennVet Extend Their Warmest Christmas Greetings to an Impecunious, but Preeminently Treatable, Cat Via a Jab of Sodium Pentobarbital.")

At the same time they are more than willing to kill off, for a fee, cats that simply have grown either old or incontinent. (See Cat Defender posts of October 18, 2014 and August 27, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Hamish McHamish's Derelict Owner Reenters His Life after Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect Only to Have Him Killed Off after He Contracts a Preeminently Treatable Common Cold" and "After Traveling for So Many Miles on the Bridport to Charmouth Bus, Dodger's Last Ride Is, Ironically, to the Vet Who Unconscionably Snuffs Out His Precious Life at the Urging of His Derelict Owner.")

They also work hand in glove with shelters and rescue groups in the commission of their myriad of crimes. (See Cat Defender posts of January 11, 2012 and December 22, 2011 entitled, respectively, "A Deadly Intrigue Concocted by a Thief, a Shelter, and a Veterinary Chain Costs Ginger the Continued Enjoyment of His Golden Years" and "Rogue TNR Practitioner and Three Unscrupulous Veterinarians Kill at Least Sixty-Two Cats with the Complicity of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC Animals.")

Likewise, the wholesale atrocities committed against animals that are raised for their flesh, milk, eggs, and other body parts would hardly be possible without the able-bodied assistance of large animal veterinarians. Members of this thoroughly immoral profession also experiment on defenseless animals themselves and IDEXX is up to its eyeballs in aiding and abetting them in the commission of their crimes.

For example, with locations in Columbia, Missouri, West Sacramento, and Ludwigsburg in Baden- Württemberg, as well as at its flagship office in Westbrook, IDEXX's Bioresearch division is devoted to testing, monitoring, and studying diseases in research animals. Included in all of that devilry is unspecified genetic research, cold-blooded vivisection itself, and the inculcation of veterinary and graduate students in the ancient art of torturing defenseless animals to death.

As thoroughly reprehensible and patently immoral as all of that is, it has not deterred ARLGP the least little bit from frolicking in the hay with Ayers and IDEXX. "IDEXX is a generous supporter of the ARLGP, and we are very appreciative of their help getting this little lady back to her family," the organization proclaimed recently in an undated press release posted on its web site. (See "Spice, Kitten from New Mexico Mysteriously Lands at ARLGP!")"Please join us in putting our paws in the air for IDEXX and Jon Ayers."

Jack-in-the Box and Veterinary Assistant Natasha Stalker

Besides that, ARLGP is not only cheap but greedy and opportunistic as well. "To support animals like Spice, who come to the ARLGP in need of treatment, shelter, and care, please consider making a donation to our treatment care fund to support our life-saving programs," the organization pleaded in the press release cited supra. "Every dollar makes a difference."

There undoubtedly is much truth in that last declaration but it is suspected that the difference is more often than not reflected in Roth's and Murphy's bank accounts than in the lives of animals in need. As revolting as that may be, it is merely the norm with most animal rescue groups.

For example, when it comes to cases of animal cruelty most of these organizations categorically refuse to even launch investigations. Instead, they content themselves with appealing to the public for donations while offering beau geste rewards for information that they know full well they never will be forced to honor. (See Cat Defender post of January 6, 2010 entitled "Large Reward Fails to Lead to the Capture of the Archer Who Shot an Arrow Through Brownie's Head.")

The organization additionally continues to dishonestly trumpet the value of implanted microchips. "Spice's journey speaks to the importance of microchipping and providing identification tags for your cat or dog," the shelter stated in the press release cited supra. "Microchipping is a low-cost service we provide right here at the ARLGP, for just $35."

Clearly, microchips are just another of its numerous money-making scams in that quite a few entities, such as Animal Humane New Mexico and the city of Albuquerque, sometimes offer this service for free. Even Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in south London is offering the service gratis during the run-up to a new mandatory microchipping law that targets canines and is scheduled to go into effect on April 6, 2016. (See "Battersea's Five-Hundred-Day Countdown to Compulsory Microchipping" at www.battersea.org.uk.)

As it should be perfectly obvious to any thinking person, microchips do not offer cats so much as an inkling of protection against both humans and animals intent upon doing them harm. (See Cat Defender post of May 25, 2006 entitled "Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats.")

"It's wonderful when you read about these reunions, but unfortunately for ninety per cent of lost cats, there is no returning home," Lorie Chortyk of the BCSPCA told The Province of Vancouver on January 2, 2011. (See "Cats Rarely Come Back.")

Additionally, microchips are sometimes difficult to locate and decipher, the contact information contained in the databases that they are linked up to is not always kept updated, and they have been known to cause cancer. (See Cat Defender posts of September 21, 2007 and November 6, 2010 entitled, respectively, "FDA Is Suppressing Research That Shows Implanted Microchips Cause Cancer in Mice, Rats, and Dogs" and "Bulkin Contracts Cancer from an Implanted Microchip and Now It Is Time for Digital Angel and Merck to Answer for Their Crimes in a Court of Law.")

Perhaps most egregious of all, ARLGP is opposed to both homeless cats and TNR. "We hope that the message here is that if you have a stray animal in your neighborhood, use your shelter as a resource," Roth declared to the Bangor Daily News on September 4th. (See "Stray Cat Survives Shotgun Blast from Gorham Police Officer Who Thought Feline Was Rabid.")

Since very few cats that enter shelters alive ever come out in the same condition, it is anything but surprising that ARLGP intentionally fails to disclose its kill-rate on its web site. Although it does place some cats with farmers as mousers, it also is mum on the subject of sanctuaries.

Spice Contemplates an Uncertain Future. Que Será, Será.

Instead of defending and caring for the animals that need it most, ARLGP is guilty of not only accepting receipt of shekels that are encrusted with the blood of murdered animals, such as those given to it by Ayers, but also of sucking up to both the Gorham Police Department (GPD) and Animal Control after they conspired to have a falsely accused and totally innocent cat named Clark gunned down in cold blood on August 20th. "We had a meeting with the Gorham Police Department and we talked about communications and working together," Murphy disclosed back in September. "We're happy to work with the Animal Control officer and community to get strays into shelters."

After the way in which those two agencies attacked and nearly killed Clark any halfway legitimate animal protection group would have immediately brought animal cruelty charges against both of them and the fact that ARLGP freely chose to do the exact opposite is just one more staggering indictment against it. (See Cat Defender post of September 27, 2014 entitled "Falsely Branded as Being Rabid by a Cat-Hater, an Animal Control Officer, and the Gorham Police Department, Clark Is Hounded Down and Blasted with a Shotgun.")

It is a difficult lesson for both individuals and groups alike to learn but money is the elixir of life as far as most people are concerned. With that being the norm, it is imperative that individuals and groups that cherishes their independence and freedom have their own sources of funding and that does not include bumming from vivisectors, the government, churches, or anyone else for that matter.

In that respect, ARLGP's sellout to IDEXX, the GPD, and others, stands in stark juxtaposition to the behavior of practitioners of TNR who not only donate their time and labor but also pay for their cats' food, milk, shelter, veterinary care, and legal protection out of their own pockets. Unashamed of a little honest toil, most of them labor at uninspiring, low-paying, dead-end jobs but their sacrifices allow them to maintain both their integrity and independence.

ARLGP's legitimacy as an animal protection group is further tarnished by the petit fait that it does not have to associate with the likes of Ayers and IDEXX. Even Murphy herself has publicly admitted that her organization had dozens of offers from individuals around the world who were willing to come to Spice's aid but yet she shunned all of them in favor of accepting shekels from a vivisector.

It is anyone's guess as to what kind of life Spice has been able to resurrect for herself upon her return to Albuquerque. The very best that can be hoped is that she has not once again gone from the frying pan into the fire.

Perhaps the Animal Welfare Department occasionally will look in on her in order to see how she is doing but even that is doubtful. Murphy may have done some nosing around while she was in town but more than likely she was too busy enjoying herself in order to have been troubled with doing so.

It is difficult to let go of cats, even those that have been encountered only from afar, in that there is always the tendency to worry about them and to wonder how that they are progressing. Be that as it may, Spice is now on her own and must either sink or swim by her lonesome.

In what was destined to be a harbinger of things to come, Spice's ordeal began on All Hallows' Eve which can be a pretty spooky time of the year in its own right. She can be forgiven, however, for failing to realize back then that in this world there are considerably more ghouls and goblins to be found in everyday life than ever have ventured out on that celebrated night of both fun and mischief.

For instance, with Murphy and Roth swooping high and low on their gold-plated broomsticks in search of yet still more shekels, Ayers terrorizing cats and other animals with his horns, long tail, and razor-sharp pitchfork, and Watterson, mop and pail in hand, screaming like a banshee about a little piss, Spice surely must have thought that she had descended into the bowels of Hades. Her unfortunate foray into the macabre world of shelters, their sugar daddies, and those who use them in order to get rid of unwanted cats is, hopefully, at an end but for millions of other animals the horrors that she experienced constitute nothing less than a never-ending nightmare.

Photos: Shawn Patrick Ouellette of the Portland Press Herald (Spice by herself and in a cage), The Herald News of Fall River (Sleepy), ARLGP (Spice and Ayers and a contemplative Spice), Dean Hanson of the Albuquerque Journal (Spice and Murphy), Christopher Ena of the Associated Press (Emily and Chiladze), Kirk Wagner of the Appleton Post-Crescent (Emily's homecoming and with Nicky), and Cindy Schultz of the Albany Times Union (Jack-in-the-Box and Stalker).

The calendar year 2012 has long since come and gone but it is never too late in order to take a look back at some of its top stories. The thing that readily stands out about it is the cavalier manner in which cats, their owners, and caretakers continued to be victimized by both criminals and the courts around the world.

In the United States, the feds were handed a major victory over Ernest Hemingway's polydactyls in Key West by their buddies who sit on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta while Virginia's utterly disgraceful excuse for a judicial system went overboard in order to shield a rogue cop from punishment after he savagely bludgeoned to death an already severely injured cat. In Angleterre, the courts continued to put their stamp of approval upon the killing of cats by both bird lovers and gardeners.

Christians also continued to perpetrate their age-old crimes against cats but they were joined in 2012 by a reporter from NBC Philadelphia who went out of his way in order to have the lives of six newborn kittens extinguished in southern New Jersey. A shelter in Massachusetts killed off Sally while still publicly professing to be a no-kill operation while veterinarians continued to kill cats, such as Hartley, through their gross incompetence and to literally steal others, such as Tazzy, from their owners.

Cats were murdered, frozen in ice, and then exhibited to the public in British Columbia and a thief in Washington State cost a homeless man the continued companionship of his beloved cat, Herman. Finally, not satisfied with merely eradicating the cats on San Nicolas Island, the utterly diabolical United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and their subalterns held a party in order to both gloat about their hideous crimes as well as to plan additional ones.

For previous year-end reviews, see Cat Defender posts of January 4, 2007, January 11, 2008, February 2, 2009, March 16, 2010, June 20, 2011, and December 20, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Continuing Mass Extermination of Millions of Cats at Shelters Across the World Heads the List of Top Ten Cat Stories of 2006,""Serial Cat Killer James Munn Stevenson's Victory in a Galveston Courtroom Heads the List of the Top Stories of 2007,""The Creation of Clones That Glow in the Dark for Vivisectors to Torture and Kill with Impunity Was the Most Disturbing Cat Story to Come Out of 2008,""Humane Society's Sellout of San Nicolas's Felines to the Assassins at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Was the Biggest Cat Story of 2009,""Rocco's Abduction, Systematic Torture, and Cold-Blooded Murder by a Bird-Lover in München Was the Number One Cat Story of 2010," and "The Inexcusable Refusal of Washington's Derelict Legal Establishment to Punish Nico Dauphiné and the Smithsonian for Their Despicable Crimes Was the Most Momentous Cat Story to Come Out of 2011.")

1.)  The Feds Win a Decisive Court Victory Against Hemingway's Polydactyls.

Ernest Hemingway's Former Home in Key West

"We (the museum and its cats) are now at the whim of the agency (APHIS). It's silliness; it's just got insane. This is what your tax dollars are paying for. The agents (of APHIS) are coming down here on vacation, going to bars and taking pictures of cats."
-- Cara Higgins, attorney for the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum

In what can only be described as an utterly outrageous and insane assault upon the liberties of all cats, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, sitting in Atlanta, ruled on December 7th that the federal government has the authority to regulate the intimate details of their daily existence. Although numerous federal bodies, most notably the USFWS, have appropriated for themselves an unqualified right to exterminate en masse all homeless cats, the court's holding extends that mandate to include purely domestic felines residing in private home and businesses.

The case also marked the denouement in the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service's (APHIS) decade-long war against the world-famous polydactyls who, along with their antecedents, have resided at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West since the 1930's. To make a long story short, the protracted legal wrangling boiled down to a heated debate over the interpretation of such nebulous terms as "distribution" and "exhibitor" contained within the ghoulishly misnomered Animal Welfare Act (AWA) of 1966.

Writing for a unanimous three-member panel, Chief Judge Joel Fredrick Dubina handed the feds their long sought after victory in a brief thirteen-page exposé in contorted logic that made a mockery of both justice and common sense. "The statute is ambiguous on the question whether 'distribution' includes the display of animals by a fixed-site commercial enterprise," he briefly conceded before lowering the boom on the cats. "And, given Congress's intent to regulate zoos, which are notably stationery and which could potentially exhibit animals that are neither purchased nor transported in commerce, we cannot see how the Secretary's (of the USDA) interpretation of 'exhibitor' is unreasonable."

In arriving at that totally absurd conclusion, Dubina argued, inter alia, that since the museum features images of the cats in its promotional materials it was in fact "distributing" them. Secondly, since the museum charges visitors an admission fee, that in turn made it an "exhibitor" of cats within the meaning of the AWA.

In doing so the court rejected out of hand the museum's perfectly sane argument that the cats merely reside on its premises and are not being exhibited to either the public or anyone else for that matter. Secondly, it contended that since they never roam outside the state of Florida they could not possibly be involved in interstate commerce. Thirdly, the museum argued that the AWA did not authorize federal preemption of a field already regulated by state and local animal welfare groups.

None of those arguments were sufficient, however, to dissuade Dubina and his colleagues from doing somersaults around both the law and logic in order to suck up to authority. "We conclude that the museum's exhibition of cats substantially affects interstate commerce," he summed up with a flourish and, presumably, a straight face to boot. Ergo, the feds now have a legal precedent for intruding into the private lives of domesticated cats based upon the authority granted them under the commerce clause which provided the constitutional backing for passage of the AWA.

Judge Joel Dubina

"Notwithstanding our holding, we appreciate the museum's somewhat unique situation, and we sympathize with its frustration," Dubina tossed out as an afterthought in an insultingly disingenuous act of beau geste. "Nevertheless, it is not the court's role to evaluate the wisdom of federal regulations implemented according to the powers constitutionally vested in Congress."

A year earlier on August 12, 2011, he was not nearly so deferential to congressional authority when in State of Florida et al. v United States Department of Health and Human Services, he and his brethren struck down the individual mandate of Obamacare. He accordingly has his jurisprudence all wrong because the flagrant abuse of federal power sanctioned in 907 Whitehead Street, doing business as the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum v USDA, Dr. Charles A. Gipson, deputy administrator of APHIS, clearly dwarfs anything even remotely contemplated in the Affordable Care Act.

For example, the museum now must, inter alia, purchase exhibitor licenses for each of its forty-four or so resident felines. It also is required to tag and individually cage them each night and to provide them with elevated resting areas inside their cages. All of that is in addition to the $200,000 that it already has ponied up in a futile effort to appease APHIS.

For instance, it has spent $15,000 on a sprinkler system and installed a net on top of the wall that surrounds the one-acre estate in an effort to prevent the cats from roaming. APHIS additionally has ordered it to purchase bowls in which to drown bugs.

The agency also wants it to hire a nightwatchman in order to keep an eye on the felines as well as to either extend or string an electrified wire across the top of the perimeter wall. It is unclear what other draconian measures the agency has up its sleeve but given its past track record it is unlikely to be magnanimous in victory.

"We are now at the whim of the agency," Cara Higgins, the museum's longtime attorney, said in defeat. "It's silliness; it's just got insane. This is what your tax dollars are paying for. The agents are coming down here on vacation, going to bars and taking pictures of cats."

That is not all. Besides spying on the cats, APHIS has threatened in the past to steal and, presumably, kill them and the museum has been subjected to numerous surprise and warrantless searches.

Worst of all, Dubina's interpretation of both the AWA and the feds' authority under the commerce clause has far reaching implications that extend well beyond the polydactyls and the museum. For instance, any blogger, author, breeder, groomer, and veterinarian who uses images of cats in their promotional materials and receives compensation from such activities could be subjected to surprise visits and regulation by APHIS. The same also could hold true for libraries that keep cats and street performers who use them and other animals in their acts.

Patches Contemplates Doing a Little Writing

Although the museum's position is indeed dire, it still has at least three arrows left in its quiver. First of all, it could request an en banc rehearing by the appellate court.

Secondly, it could appeal the adverse ruling to the United States Supreme Court. The danger therein lies in the fact that should it lose Dubina's ruling then would be the law of the land as opposed to currently being applicable in only the states of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama which make up the Eleventh Circuit.

Its third option would be to somehow try to convince Congress to rein in APHIS and that appears to be the direction in which it is leaning. "We're better off investing our money back into the business and employees," museum president Michael A. Marowski stated after the verdict. "So I think we're probably dealing with a legislative issue now."

As he surely is destined to find out for himself, getting Congress to do his bidding will be neither easy nor cheap. Also, given his previous monumental errors in judgment, Marowski needs to proceed with caution.

After all, it was his idiotic decision back in 2003 to employ Debbie Schultz, formerly of the Key West SPCA, to sterilize the polydactyls that precipitated this debacle in the first place. Being a mindless sterilization fanatic, she nearly succeeded in spaying and neutering the entire line out of existence and that in turn forced Marowski into firing her.

In retaliation, she not only ratted out the museum to APHIS but somehow succeeded in convincing it to go after the polydactyls with a vengeance. This entire legal imbroglio from start to finish therefore furnishes yet still another poignant example of how personality differences, prejudice, malice, and rank opportunism so often masquerade as rational and legal discourse. (See Cat Defender posts of January 24, 2013, August 3, 2006, January 9, 2007, and July 23, 2007 entitled, respectively, "The Feds Now Have Cats and Their Owners Exactly Where They Want Them Thanks to an Outrageous Court Ruling Targeting the Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West,""USDA Fines Hemingway Memorial in Key West $200 a Day for Exhibiting Papa's Polydactyl Cats Without a License,""Papa Hemingway's Polydactyl Cats Face New Threats from Both the USDA and Their Caretakers," and "Cat Behaviorist Is Summoned to Key West in Order to Help Determine the Fate of Hemingway's Polydactyls.")

2.)  Harrisonburg Cop Gets Away with Bludgeoning to Death an Injured Cat.

Wayne Meadows Sits on the Steps at the Scene of the Cat's Murder

"It is difficult for a judge to second-guess law enforcement. I think the way he killed the cat was in violation. The way he killed the cat was unnecessary."
-- Judge Steven H. Helvin

Bloodthirsty policemen kill cats with impunity every day of the week but seldom has this world witnessed the degree of savagery that was meted out by one of them to an injured cat on November 11, 2011 on Settlers Lane in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The chain of patently criminal events that led to the forever nameless cat's murder began when it was run down and severely injured by a hit-and-run motorist who remains at large to this very day.

The cat was discovered lying beside the road by kindhearted area resident Wayne Meadows who tried unsuccessfully to secure veterinary assistance for it. In particular, he contacted the Harrisonburg SPCA, Animal Control, and several unnamed veterinarians who, in a portent of events to come, refused to give him so much as the time of day.

At his wit's end, he committed the fatal faux pas of telephoning the Harrisonburg Police Department (HPD) which in turn dispatched twenty-five-year-old hotshot cop Jonathan N. Snoddy to the scene. Instead of compassionately taking the cat to the nearest veterinary office, which was only thirty minutes away, he elected to take matters into his own hands.

Specifically, he proceeded to bash out the cat's brains with his nightstick. Although he was indoors at the time and therefore did not actually witness Snoddy's brutality, Meadows nonetheless did overhear the report of at least twenty blows having been administered. In his defense, Snoddy later swore that he only struck the cat four times and that the other sounds that Meadows overheard had come from him attempting to close his collapsible baton.

The damage done to the siding and woodwork of Meadows' town house also makes it highly probable that Snoddy swung the cat's head against the building in order to make doubly certain that he had bashed out whatever lingering vestiges of life remained in its already battered body. The bloodstains left on the porch bear additional witness to the savagery of Snoddy's handiwork.

When the HPD, the mayor, city council, and local prosecutors all turned blind eyes to this simply outrageous act of premeditated animal cruelty, the Virginia State Police belatedly intervened on January 12, 2012 and charged  Snoddy with one count of misdemeanor animal cruelty. On March 8th, he was found guilty in a bench trial presided over by Judge Steven H. Helvin in Rockingham County General District Court but fined only a paltry $50.

Considering Helvin's long and checkered history of shortchanging both cats and their owners, even that small victory came as somewhat of a surprise. Plus, he also is overtly biased in favor of cops.

"It is difficult for a judge to second-guess law enforcement," this supposedly impartial trier of facts candidly admitted. "I think the way he killed the cat was in violation. The way he killed the cat was unnecessary."

Nevertheless, good old reliable Helvin was not about to allow Snoddy to spend any time behind bars. "He doesn't deserve to go to jail," he declared.

Not satisfied with merely escaping justice and being allowed to hold on to his job, Snoddy immediately appealed his conviction to the Rockingham County Circuit Court and that was when the already burlesque nature of the proceedings against him quickly morphed into a full-blown circus. The opening event consisted of Judge James V. Lane being chosen to serve as ringmaster and that was followed by his appointment of Page County district attorney Kenneth Leo Alger II to serve as his and Virginia's thoroughly corrupt judicial system's designated stooge.

After deliberately wasting several months of valuable time in order to allow public outrage to abate somewhat, Alger ultimately gave up all pretense of trying the case when he announced nolle prosequi in court on July 30th. In a ridiculously lame attempt designed to excuse his miserable abdication of duty, he then turned around and blamed Snoddy's detractors for spreading what he called "misinformation and sensationalism."

If the four-eyed cattle rancher and part-time law professor at James Madison University had had the bon sens to have stopped there that would have been outrageous enough in its own right, but he went on to express his wholehearted approval of Snoddy's heinous crime. "I think that putting the cat out of his (sic) misery immediately was the most humane thing to do as a result of the animal's broken spine and other internal injuries. As such, I do not feel that his actions rise to the level of criminal conviction of animal cruelty," he blowed long and hard. "It is my belief that under the urgency of the situation and a lack of specific guidelines and training, Officer Snoddy was acting to the best of his abilities."

Some of the Damage Done to Meadows' Town House

The very best that can be said for Alger's absurd reconstruction of events is that in spitting out such utter sottise he made all pathological liars extremely proud. First of all, there was absolutely nothing humane about what Snoddy did to the cat and consequently Alger should be dipped in hot oil for claiming otherwise.

Secondly, as far as it is known a necropsy never was performed on the cat and even if it did have a broken spine that was more likely the result of what Snoddy did to it rather than the motorist. Thirdly, Snoddy was charged with misdemeanor, not criminal, animal cruelty. Fourthly, the only urgency was to have gotten the cat to a veterinarian as soon as possible and certainly not to have bashed out its brains in such a cruel and inhumane fashion.

So, in the end, Snoddy not only walked out of court as a free man but he was able to even hold on to his precious $50 in the process. As far as Alger is concerned, he disgraced both himself and his profession by his unprincipled conduct but in doing so he also sans doute endeared himself to Virginia's political elites as a man who, like Helvin, can be counted on through thick and thin to protect their vested interests.

Much the same thing can be said for Cristobal Opp who prosecuted Snoddy the first time around with all the ferocity of a paper tiger. Old hacks Helvin and Lane also are to be commended for vividly demonstrating that it is utterly impossible for any cat to ever receive a fair hearing in the Old Dominion State. (See Cat Defender posts of March 22, 2012, April 26, 2012, and August 23, 2012 entitled, respectively, "In Another Outrageous Miscarriage of Justice, Rogue Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Is Let Off with a $50 Fine for Savagely Bludgeoning to Death an Injured Cat,"" Virginia's Disreputable Legal and Political Establishment Is All Set to Acquit Jonathan N. Snoddy at His Retrial for Brutally Beating to Death an Injured Cat," and "Cat-Killing Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Struts Out of Court as Free as a Bird Thanks to a Carefully Choreographed Charade Concocted by Virginia's Despicable and Dishonest Legal System.")

While those legal shenanigans were going on, Snoddy's colleague within the HPD, Sergeant Russell Metcalf, shot to death a black, eight-month-old collie-mix named Sadie when she had the temerity to cross his path on April 3rd while he was out riding his bicycle on Robinson Road in the Clover Hill section of town. Metcalf not only failed to report the shooting to headquarters but he also did a runner. Fortunately, he was tracked down by an unidentified neighbor whose description of him later led to his arrest.

Even with that valuable piece of evidence having been delivered to the authorities on a silver platter, it nonetheless took the appointment of Shenandoah County district attorney Amanda Wiseley to even determine that an actual crime had been committed. Once she had made that belated determination, Metcalf finally was arrested six weeks after the fact on May 18th, not by the HPD, but rather the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office.

Indicted on one count of misdemeanor animal cruelty and one count of the reckless handling of a firearm, Metcalf was convicted on both charges in Rockingham County District Court on August 23rd but he was given only a sixty-day suspended jail sentence. For that, he also had Helvin to thank who once again came out of semi-retirement in order to shield another obviously guilty cop from getting his just desserts.

As was the case with Snoddy, Metcalf did not have the prerequisite intelligence in order to leave well enough alone but instead appealed his conviction to the Rockingham County Circuit Court where on January 9, 2013 presiding judge Dennis Hupp convicted him once again of animal cruelty but exonerated him on the weapons violation. Even then he escaped with only an $800 fine.

"It appears he did it (in) a cavalier fashion," Hupp is quoted as stating in the January 10th edition of the Daily News-Record of Harrisonburg. (See "Ex-City Officer Fined.")"He would have had to have known it was someone's pet. It was pretty callous."

Sadly, nothing ever will bring back Sadie but her owner, forty-six-year-old Bryan Ware, did receive a measure of satisfaction from Metcalf's conviction. "It was such a senseless act. We feel like we got some justice for Sadie," he said after the first trial. "I don't think he should be a police officer or carry a gun."

Ultimately, Ware's latter wish did come true when Metcalf unexpectedly resigned from the HPD in September of 2012. (See Cat Defender posts of July 18, 2012 and September 7, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Bloodthirsty and Lawless Harrisonburg Police Follow Up Their Bludgeoning to Death of an Injured Cat by Gunning Down a Collie Named Sadie" and "Peripatetic Helvin Rides to the Rescue of Harrisonburg Police Sergeant Russell Metcalf and in Doing So Puts the Judicial Stamp of Approval on His Gunning Down of Sadie.")

Regrettably, all the public outrage churned up by Snoddy's and Metcalf 's outrageous acts of animal cruelty has contributed absolutely nothing toward ending the law enforcement community's senseless attacks on cats and dogs. (See Cat Defender post of September 27, 2014 entitled "Falsely Branded as Being Rabid by a Cat-Hater, an Animal Control Officer, and the Gorham Police Department, Clark Is Hounded Down and Blasted with a Shotgun.")

3.)  Polygamists Kill Thomas by Burying Him Up to His Neck in Concrete.

Thomas Trapped in the Concrete That Became His Death Shroud

"Dead cats have been found in our place for years. This is the first time they've done it with a live animal."
-- Issac Wyler

In yet still another damning indictment of the practice of Christianity, a gray kitten named Thomas of undetermined age was buried alive up to his neck in wet concrete inside a cylindrical seven-foot-high steel post on a horse ranch in Colorado City, Arizona, on May 31st. Sadly, his desperate plight was not discovered until the following day when the owner of the property, Issac Wyler, and his assistant, Andrew Chatwin, returned to work on what was destined to be a shed for horses.

The pair was able to extricate Thomas by cutting away the steel post but that still left huge chunks of hardened concrete embedded in his fur. They then tried unsuccessfully to chip away the concrete before finally giving up and telephoning Best Friends Animal Sanctuary forty kilometers away in Kanab, Utah. The charity came and collected him but he died on June 4th as the result of his massive injuries.

Since the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) owns practically every inch of both Colorado City and its sister town Hildale, located across the border in Utah, there can be little doubt that Thomas was murdered by one of the polygamists. That is especially the case in that both Wyler and Chatwin were declared personae non gratae by the sect's now imprisoned spiritual leader, Warren Steed Jeffs, back in 2004.

In an all-out effort designed to force them out of the insular community, Jeffs' confederates have subjected Wyler and Chatwin to a torrent of abuse, harassment, and discrimination. As part of that campaign, their enemies have killed up to a dozen cats and left them on Wyler's ranch in recent years.

"Dead cats have been found in our place for years," Wyler testified in the wake of Thomas's killing. "This is the first time they've done it with a live animal."

The FLDS was quick however to deny any involvement. "It's really inappropriate to try to extend that the FLDS church on the basis of nothing at all, except a dead cat," the sect's lawyer, Rodney Parker, retorted. "They don't even have evidence it was a church member, let alone the church."

A Rabbi Prepares to Dispatch a Rooster to the Devil That He Serves

It is difficult to imagine that the perpetrator of this heinous act could have been anyone else given that no one other than FLDS members are allowed to reside in Colorado City. Plus, the sect's secret police, God's Squad, keep both church members and visitors alike under constant surveillance.

Since concrete hardens quickly in hot weather, "someone had to have been watching us work on this project the whole time," Chatwin added. "Someone had to have done it quickly after I left."

Cats are far from being the only animals to feel the Mormons' wrath. For example, in 2001 Jeffs banned dogs from both Colorado City and Hildale and as a result all of them were rounded up, shot, and buried in a mass grave. Horses and other livestock also have been periodically abused.

Since all city officials as well as the officers of the Colorado City-Hildale Marshal's Office belong to the FLDS, it was a foregone conclusion from the outset that Thomas's premeditated murder never would be investigated. "Throw dirt on it (Thomas)," an unidentified marshal reportedly told Chatwin.

The situation in Colorado City is made all the more perilous due to the glaring absence of not only any animal protection groups but also any practicing veterinarians. Cats, dogs, and other animals thus have been left to the mercy of these morally repugnant Christians.

Doomed Chickens Outside Skware Mosdos shul in Boro Park, Brooklyn

Furthermore, their incestuous breeding of girls as young as eleven years old to old men not only has doomed them to lives as brood mares and sex slaves but also to a form of mental retardation known as Fumarase Deficiency or alternatively as polygamist Down's. Being so incapacitated, they thus are forced to thus spend their entire lives on welfare. (See Cat Defender post of August 8, 2012 entitled "Polygamists Condemn Thomas to a Long and Excruciatingly Painful Death by Burying Him Up to His Tiny Neck Inside a Steel Post Filled with Wet Concrete.")

The hideous abuse and killing of animals in the name of religion is by no means limited to either cats or the Mormons. Rather, it also extends to ultra-Orthodox Jews and their totally their inexcusable killing of thousands of innocent redemption roosters during Yom Kippur each autumn.

In an expiation ritual known as Kaparot, celebrants swing the roosters high above their heads three times before slitting their throats. The birds afterwards are allegedly donated to the poor but that is another of the Jews's blatant lies in that their corpses actually are deposited in the trash.

Thousands more of them die from heat exhaustion and other causes as the result of being left outside in the street in small plastic crates without either food or water for days. Even some of the birds that make it inside the synagogues in order to be sacrificed are instead suffocated to death inside plastic bags if they appear to be ailing.

Although United Poultry Concerns has been attempting since 1994 to get this ancient and bloodthirsty practice abolished, it has not made an iota of headway. Like the FLDS, the Jews are so powerful that everyone is scared to death to hold them accountable for their utterly despicable crimes. (See the New York Daily News' print edition, September 30, 2014, "Fowl Brawl. Activists Blast Chicken-Slaughtering Rite.")

That is all the more the pity because chickens, like all other animals, are richly deserving of both man's respect and compassion. Above all, they have an inalienable right to both live and to be free of abuse.

Far from being inanimate, unfeeling, and dumb animals, all of them are individuals with their own personalities, interests, and desires. They even recognize their individual names and come when called.

Furthermore, Christine Nicol of the University of Bristol claims that they outperform not only cats and dogs but four-year-old toddlers as well on a whole host of cognitive and behavioral tests. (See the New York Daily News, August 16, 2013, "Chickens: Smarter Than a Four-Year-Old.")


4.)  Ted Greenberg of NBC Philadelphia Orders the Murders of Six Kittens in Southern New Jersey.

A Pair of Kittens That Were Rescued from Aloe Village

"I just really appreciate the fact that Channel 10 (NBC Philadelphia) helped me and really helped all the neighbors. We couldn't do anything about it but you did and we thank you."
-- Evelyn Koegler

Even on their best of days, the members of the American capitalist media are sorry excuses for journalists. Whenever a television reporter stops merely covering the news, no matter how biased he may be in the first place, and instead not only starts choosing sides but taking an active role in shaping the outcome of events, he most often degenerates into something far worse, such as the cold-blooded murderer of six newborn kittens.

That was the dastardly and utterly unforgivable deed that Ted Greenberg of NBC Philadelphia committed on June 5th when he took it upon himself to call in a private exterminator named Raymond Lane of Animal Capture Control Services at 302 North Leipzig Avenue in Egg Harbor City in order to trap and remove an unspecified number of cats and kittens from the grounds of the nearby Aloe Village Senior Complex at 1311 West Aloe Street. In doing so he was acting at the behest of his fellow tribal member and inveterate cat-hater, Evelyn Koegler.

"It stinks back here," she complained to him and NBC Philadelphia on June 6th. (See "Animal Control Helps Capture Feral Cats.")"You can't open the door because of the smell."

In the same televised interview she even went so far as to ludicrously claim that the cats had attacked her when in fact it was she who had assaulted them. "I was shooing them and one grabbed a hold of my fingers," she bellyached in a pitiful effort designed not only to doom the cats but also to garner sympathy for herself.

She came a good deal closer to the truth earlier when she candidly blamed her cruel and inexcusable behavior on her advanced years. "They need to go. It's too much for old people," she declared to Greenberg and NBC Philadelphia on June 5th. (See "Senior Community Overrun with Feral Cats.")"I can't even get out here when they're here."

Always willing to snuff out innocent lives so long as he is handsomely paid for doing so, Lane hustled on over to Aloe Village where he wasted no time in trapping six kittens. "That's another six cats that aren't going to be breeding," he proudly crowed to Greenberg and NBC Philadelphia in the June 6th article cited supra.

True to his word, he then fobbed them off onto the Atlantic County Animal Shelter (ACAS) on Old Turnpike Road in nearby Pleasantville where their lives promptly were extinguished shortly after their arrival. "Any kitten under the age of three to four weeks is in danger of starvation if they (sic) do not have the means to feed every two or three hours. Unfortunately the shelter is inundated with young kittens," is how the death house's commandant, Andrea Ceremele,  feebly attempted to justify killing them in an interview with Care2.com on June 13th. (See "Death (sic) of Six Kittens Brings Community Together.")"In the shelter setting we do our best to find alternatives to euthanasia. The amount of kittens we see typically outweighs our resources and so we are left with the only humane solution to prevent starvation."

The cold-blooded murders of the six kittens pleased old Koegler no end. "I really appreciate the fact that Channel 10 (NBC Philadelphia) helped me and helped all the neighbors," she cooed to NBC Philadelphia and Greenberg on June 6th. "We couldn't do anything about it but you did and we thank you."

Kitten Killer Ted Greenberg of NBC Philadelphia

For his part, Lane vowed to return the next day and to trap the remainder of the estimated fifty to one-hundred cats and undoubtedly would have done just that if it had not been for the timely intervention of Alley Cat Allies (ACA). "Six newborn kittens have been ripped from their mothers and euthanized at the shelter," the organization's Becky Robinson told Care2.com in the article cited supra. "This cruel approach is not humane and it is not a solution."

Representatives from  the charity then visited the estate where they were able to persuade management to call off Lane and instead to adopt TNR. Almost immediately thereafter twenty-four cats were sterilized, vaccinated, and returned to the grounds. Ten kittens also were spared the hangman by being placed in foster care.

Even then ACA's intervention came way too late in order to save the lives of the dozens of cats and kittens that Lane and the ACAS had trapped and liquidated over the course of the previous three years. As deplorable as all of that was, it is merely the norm as to how cats are mistreated throughout Atlantic County.

For example, a stunning sixty-five per cent of the three-thousand-one-hundred-seventy-nine felines impounded at county shelters during 2012 were killed. (See The Press of Pleasantville, November 23, 2013, "Region's Cats Put Down by the Thousands.")

Almost as alarming, there is not any free sterilization service to be found anywhere in the county. Even the Atlantic County Humane Society, located next-door to the Borgata's gambling den in Atlantic City, charges close to $100 in order to sterilize a cat once all of its mandatory inoculations and other hidden costs are factored into the final price tag. It is in fact so hungry for shekels that it even charges for the disposal of the excised genitalia!

Furthermore, there are not any known cat sanctuaries in the county and those few TNR colonies that do exist are privately financed. Overall, it is difficult to imagine that there possibly could be a worse place for a cat to live in the United States than in Atlantic County.

Quite naturally, Greenberg purposefully neglected to inform his viewers about any of these distressing realities. Au contraire, he deliberately lied to them when he reported that the kittens would be evaluated by ACAS for adoption.

In a staggering indictment of the level of moral depravity and lawlessness that exists in both Atlantic County and the City of Brotherly Love, to this very day neither Greenberg nor his employer have been compelled to answer for their outrageous crimes in so much as the court of public opinion let alone a court of law . (See Cat Defender post of July 7, 2012 entitled "NBC Philadelphia Conspires with a Virulent Cat-Hater and an Exterminator in Order to Have Six Newborn and Totally Innocent Kittens Killed in Southern New Jersey.")

5.)  Sally Is Betrayed and Killed by a Supposedly No-Kill Shelter.

Animal Control Officer Betsy Cruger Visits Sally's Memorial

There is not very much positive that can be said about Homo sapiens to begin with, but their total lack of both appreciation and gratitude for cats that have provided them with unlimited amounts of unconditional love and faithful companionship over the course of many years is, arguably, their most repulsive character trait. Instead of reciprocating by providing them with the top-notch veterinary intervention and the around-the-clock care that they so richly deserve once they become either sickly or aged, their owners instead unconscionably have them killed off and, in most cases, their remains burned.

That was the cruel fate that befell a sixteen-year-old gray cat named Sally from Marblehead, twenty-six kilometers north of Boston, on April 30th after she had suffered a stroke. Although feline seizures are preeminently treatable, her de facto caretakers at the Friends of Marblehead's Abandoned Animals (FMAA) shelter at 44 Village Street and the Marblehead Animal Control Department elected instead to have her killed and her corpse cremated.

As far as it is known, Sally lived her entire life on the grounds of the shelter but rather than providing her with heated accommodations FMAA and Animal Control forced her to hole up in a pile of rocks out back. Considering Massachusetts' long cold and snowy winters, it is nothing short of amazing that she lasted for as long as she did under such inhumane conditions.

Although she apparently was provided with food and water on a daily basis, the shelter did absolutely nothing in order to protect her from the diabolical machinations of motorists on busy Village Street. Even more lamentable, it never attempted to either socialize her or to place her in a loving home. It therefore is safe to say that FMAA's attitude toward her was one of benign neglect.

As disgraceful and uncaring as all of that was, it nevertheless pales in comparison with the shelter and Animal Control 's shameful betrayed of her in her hour of greatest need. In particular, shortly before she suffered the stroke FMAA began to allow her into its basement where she was able to recline on a blanket.

Instead of exploiting her deteriorating health in order to finally do right by her by supplying her with permanent shelter and veterinary care, FMAA and Animal Control did the exact opposite and got rid of her for good. Only those monsters who strut around on two legs with their dirty schnozes poked high in the air are capable of such treachery and moral depravity.

FMAA's betrayal and murder of Sally was made all the more reprehensible by the fact that it likes to pass itself off as a no-kill operation. Whereas no cat ever should be killed under any circumstances, the so-called no-kill movement is not so much of a step in the right direction as it is a grotesque fraud that is rife with more double-talk, ruses, and just plain scams than those ever perpetrated by the protagonist in Herman Melville's 1857 novel, The Confidence Man.

To put the matter rather bluntly, to have any credibility at all no-kill should mean exactly what that connotation implies and nothing less. (See Cat Defender post of July 29, 2010 entitled "Benicia Vallejo Humane Society (now known as the Humane Society of North Bay) Is Outsourcing the Mass Killing of Kittens and Cats All the While Masquerading as a No-Kill Shelter.")

Sally's executioners did erect a small memorial in her honor in back of the shelter that consisted of her ashes and food dish as well as a photograph of her but all of that is a rather shabby substitute for the presence of the genuine article herself. (See Cat Defender post of October 23, 2012 entitled "A Supposedly No-Kill Operation in Marblehead Betrays Sally and Snuffs Out Her Life Instead of Providing Her with a Home and Veterinary Care.")

A lack of respect for the sanctity of feline life is by no means limited to no-kill impostors, such as FMAA, but it is a malignancy that extends to just about all feline advocacy groups as well. For example, ACA killed off its longtime office cat, Jared, in November.

Later on January 22, 2013, another of its office cats, Jazzy, either was killed off or died on her own. (See Cat Defender post of January 2, 2013 entitled "Alley Cat Allies Demonstrates Its Utter Contempt for the Sanctity of Life by Unconscionably Killing Off Its Office Cat, Jared" and ACA press release of January 23, 2013 entitled "Alley Cat Allies Remembers Office Cat Jazzy.")

As it readily should be apparent, it is extremely difficult to elevate the status of cats when those groups and individuals in the vanguard of the feline protection movement have so little respect for the sanctity of life. Moreover, their dismal conduct and public pronouncements set simply horrendous examples for everyone else to follow.

6.)  Bird Lover in Norfolk Murders Hartley with an Air Rifle.

Hartley

Marthán Niewoudt Bester Killed 3,400 Cats on Marion

Clearly, all of these maniacal cat killers knew well beforehand of the adverse consequences of their crimes. They simply killed the cats in order to establish a rationale for exterminating other animals.

Like the National Audubon Society, their ultimate objective is to systematically liquidate any species that they either simply do not like or are able to obtain the funding to attack. All of their palaver about saving endangered species and the environment is merely a subterfuge for the commission of their horrific crimes. (See Cat Defender post of March 15, 2007 entitled "Connecticut Audubon Society Shows Its True Colors by Calling for the Slaughter of Feral Cats, Mute Swans, Mallards, Canada Geese, and Deer.")

In addition to providing ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and other ailurophobes with unlimited opportunities in order to line their pockets, pad their curricula vitae, slake their thirsts for feline flood, and to celebrate their evil deeds, the selection of remote islands as the venues for their extirpation campaigns allows them to perfect their extermination methodologies far from the prying eyes of the public. Their ultimate goal, however, is to apply the same technologies and lies toward the systematic eradication of cats everywhere.

For example, after years of eliminating cats on Macquarie, Tasman, and other islands, Australia is now posed to kill up to as many as twenty million of them on the mainland. In doing so it not only intends to employ some of the same techniques employed by Bester on Marion, such as the use of the FPV and 1080, but it has come up with some of its own that are every bit as sinister. (See Sydney Morning Herald articles of  July 1, 2014 and November 7, 2014 entitled, respectively, "'Curiosity': The Cat-Killing Bait to Protect Native Species" and "Dying to Be Clean: The New Technique for Controlling Feral Cats.")

Even if these feline extirpation campaigns were run on the level and served some valid conservation causes, which is most definitely not the case, they never would be either just or morally acceptable. First of all, the cats that are being so maliciously maligned and horrifically slaughtered with a vengeance were cruelly uprooted from their native lands and then subjected to long, grueling, and often fatal voyages to distant lands in the holds of cargo ships.

Once they had outlived their usefulness to their imperialist overlords they were cruelly and irresponsibly abandoned without food, water, shelter, and veterinary care. Now that there are megabucks to be made from their elimination, they are being hounded down like convicted felons and hideously killed. To condense a long and sordid story to its bare essentials, they are the victims and their killers are guilty of worse crimes than those ever perpetrated by the Hitlers and Pol Pots of this world.

If there were so much as an ounce of justice in this wicked old world, those individuals responsible for these mass murders would be arrested, tried and convicted, and then shot. In Bester's case, however, a bullet in his warped noggin would be far too charitable; instead, he should be administered, in measured increments, a dose of everything that he gave the cats on Marion. It is imperative that his punishment be protracted, excruciating, and hideous.

He is such a thoroughly evil son of a bitch that he has forfeited his right to remain above ground where he poisons the very air that he breathes. His demise also would put an end once and for all to his incessant preening like a peacock and bragging about how many cats that he has killed.

In memoriam:

Jonathan Frid, Television's Barnabas Collins, Dies at Eighty-Seven.

Jonathan Frid and His Cat

Anyone who was lucky enough to have grown up during the rollicking, frolicking 1960's sans doute recalls hurrying home from school each afternoon in order to catch the latest installment in a gothic soap opera entitled Dark Shadows. The star of the show was a two-hundred-year-old vampire named Barnabas Collins who was portrayed to perfection by Jonathan Frid.

Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins

After the show ended in 1971, he returned to the stage and in the early 1990's delivered a series of dramatic public readings in Manhattan. For the most part, however, he contented himself in later life by appearing at cast reunions of Dark Shadows and at memorabilia shows.

Little is known about his private life but it is believed that he was a devoted cat lover. Sadly, he died in his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, on April 14th as the result of injuries sustained in a fall. (See The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 20, 2012, "Jonathan Frid, Eighty-Seven, TV Vampire" and the New York Post, April 20, 2012, "Dark Shadows' Star Dead.")



Davy Jones of the Monkees Dies at Sixty-Six.

Davy Jones

The Monkees were the American equivalent of the Beatles back in the 1960's and that transformed the band's Davy Jones into an overnight teenage hearttrob. Many of the band's signature tunes, such as "Daydream Believer,""Last Train to Clarksville,""Pleasant Valley Sunday," and "I'm a Believer," can still be heard on radio stations that cater to music from that fabulous era.

Although perhaps better known for his love of horses, Jones also kept four cats -- Big Red, Fluffy, Momma, and Liekey -- at his summer residence in the tiny Pennsylvania village of Beavertown, two-hundred-fifty-seven kilometers northwest of Philadelphia. Although he spent his winters in Florida, he hired his neighbor, Carol Wickard, to look after his cats during his absence.

Two of them lived under heat lamps in his barn while the remaining pair resided in his yellow clapboard house where he spent $4,000 annually on heat alone in order to keep them warm during the wintertime. He died in Stuart on February 29th but, sadly, it is not known what became of his cats. (See The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 9, 2012, "Hey, Hey, Monkee Hideaway.")

Both he and Frid will be sorely missed in that not only is this world a far poorer place without their artistry, personalities, and compassion, but because cats need all of their supporters and admirers alive, healthy and, above all, ready to do battle on their behalves. They also dearly need advocates who have not only razor-sharp fangs and claws but the savoir-faire and willingness to use them.

Photos: Trip Advisor (Hemingway's house), Alabama State Bar (Dubina), Roberto Rodriguez of the Associated Press (Patches), WHSV-TV of Harrisonburg (Meadows and his damaged town house), Andrew Chatwin (Thomas), the New York Daily News (rabbi with a rooster), Tanay Warerkar of the New York Daily News (chickens outside shul), Care2.com (kittens rescued at Aloe Village), Facebook (Greenberg), Terry Date of the Marblehead Patch (Cruger at Sally's memorial), Daily Mail and Albanpix (Hartley), Matthew Usher of the Dereham Times (Reeves), Daily Mail and Masons (Doyle), Bedfordshire on Sunday (cat trapped by Doyle), BCSPCA (cat frozen in ice), the Wiltshire Times (Tazzy), KIRO-TV of Seattle (Young), Hayne Palmour IV of the North County Times of Escondido (cats rescued from San Nicolas), Institute for Wildlife Studies (Garcelon), University of Pretoria (Bester), Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict (Frid with a cat), ABC-TV (Frid as Barnabas Collins), and the cover from Davy Jones's 1971 eponymous album (Jones).

Lewis and His Shadow Watch over the Plants

"I knew something was wrong today (December 27th) when I walked in and he wasn't lying there."
-- Brian Wolfe

Lewis, the longtime resident feline of Downtown Home and Garden at 210 South Ashley Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan, departed this vale of tears on Boxing Day. It is far from clear, however, if he left on his own accord or was deliberately shoved headfirst into the great void.

"Lewis, the orange tabby store cat at Downtown Home and Garden, has died peacefully at about twenty (sic) years of age," seventy-year-old Mark Hodesh, who up until January 1st owned and operated the store, announced in an untitled article posted at 12:53 p.m., December 26th, on the retailer's Facebook page.

The local rag, The Ann Arbor News, likewise demonstrated that it is every bit as adept as Hodesh in obfuscating the truth when it reported on December 27th that Lewis simply had "passed away." (See "Lewis the Cat Mourned at Ann Arbor Downtown Home and Garden.")

The response to his death from those in Ann Arbor who were fortunate enough to have known the eighteen-year-old tom during the fifteen years that he slaved away for peanuts at Hodesh's store was equally callous and uncaring. Although dozens of them took to Facebook in order to proclaim their abiding love for him, none of them questioned the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death.

"I knew something was wrong today (December 27th) when I walked in and he wasn't lying there (on the bench across from the cash register)," Brian Wolfe of Superior Charter Township, eighteen kilometers east of Ann Arbor, casually remarked to The Ann Arbor News.

There is nothing in the public record to suggest, however, that he treated Lewis's death as anything other than a mild curiosity. That in itself speaks volumes for just how little most humans value the sanctity of feline life. If either Hodesh or one of his employees had died suddenly Wolfe most definitely would have demanded to know the particulars.

"Lewis has regular visitors," Hodesh proclaimed to The Ann Arbor News on August 1, 2011 after his resident feline went AWOL for a week. (See "Ann Arbor Store Downtown Home and Garden Still Searching for Lewis the Cat.") "He means a lot to a lot of customers."

Evidently that was not the case. Much more disturbingly, the events surrounding Lewis's death lead to the likely, although by no means substantiated, conclusion that he was deliberately killed off by Hodesh and a local veterinarian.

First of all, there is not any evidence to indicate that Lewis recently had been ill; au contraire, the mere fact that he weighed a robust fifteen pounds would tend to suggest just the exact opposite. Moreover, since some cats have been known to live to be at least thirty-five-years-old, Lewis at eighteen was not really all that old.

Secondly, if Lewis had died of natural causes, Hodesh likely would have promptly divulged that information to the public. Thirdly, Hodesh's glaring lack of both surprise and grief tends to indicate that he ordered Lewis's death with all the sans souci that he does takeout from a chop suey joint.

Lewis and Mark Hodesh

Fourthly, Lewis's death on Boxing Day is a dead giveaway in that all-too-many alleged lovers of the species choose that time in order to abandon, dump at shelters, and kill off their faithful companions. Fifthly, even the timeline of events is suspicious.

For example, on its web site Downtown Home and Garden states that it shuttered its doors at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve and did not reopen them again until December 26th. In spite of that, Hodesh posted a Christmas card on the store's Facebook page at 8:18 a.m. on Christmas Day and once again took pen in hand at 6:53 a.m. on Boxing Day in order to announce that every item in the store would be twenty per cent off throughout the remainder of the year.

While it is conceivable that he could have updated his Facebook page from home, that in no way shines any light upon what Lewis was doing between 3 p.m. Christmas Eve and the morning of December 26th when he allegedly died. In particular, was he left all alone during that period?

Hodesh's version of events simply is not plausible because he has not revealed exactly when Lewis died. If he simply had found him dead when he arrived at the store on December 26th it seems that he would have informed the public of that sad occurrence right from the outset.

Sixthly, December 31st was Hodesh's last day as owner and operator of Downtown Home and Garden and that makes it appear that getting rid of Lewis was one of his final acts as ruler of the roost. That analysis of his motivation is somewhat compromised in that he still owns the building and plans on continuing to toil away at the store in some unspecified capacity.

He also intends to continue operating the adjoining Mark's Carts, a summertime outdoor food court, as well as Bill's Beer Garden, which is open for business evenings in the garden shop's parking lot during both the spring and summer. There accordingly was not any obvious reason why he could not have continued to care for Lewis.

The solution to that conundrum in all likelihood lies with the store's new owner, former employee Kelly Vore, who may not have wanted Lewis around and that constitutes the seventh reason for questioning Hodesh's version of events. "The cat is a legendary part of this business," she acknowledged to The Ann Arbor News in the December 27th article cited supra. "That is a vacancy I wouldn't even begin to try to fill."

It thus could be argued that if Lewis had died unexpectedly and she truly had cared about him, she would have found an immediate replacement for him. After all, that would have been the best way in order to both honor him and to keep his memory alive.

Eightly, Hodesh has not explained what was done with Lewis's remains. Even more outrageously, he did not even provide him with a proper funeral. All of that strongly suggests that his corpse was either burned or tossed out in the trash like yesterday's newspapers.

If there is any validity to the foregoing analysis of events, Hodesh's conduct is not only morally repugnant and revolting, but totally unjustified. "I have plenty of money, I don't need much," he bragged to The Ann Arbor News on October 29th of last year. (See "Downtown Home and Garden Owner Mark Hodesh to Sell Business to Employee.")"I have a Ford Escort, not a BMW."

With that being the case, he did not have even a remotely valid excuse for killing off Lewis. For instance, if he had become ill, Hodesh easily could have afforded to pony up for his veterinary treatment no matter how much it cost.

Lewis Relaxes after a Hard Day's Work

That is a far different scenario from the gut-wrenching dilemmas faced every day by impecunious cat owners who are unable to pay the exorbitant fees that veterinarians demand in order to treat their ailing cats. There arguably is not any greater benefit to having money than to be able to use it in order to save the lives of sick cats, family members, and valued friends. Money should only be used for doing good, not evil, and that is a lesson that Hodesh, quite obviously, never has taken to heart throughout his many years upon this earth.

Secondly, with his money and contacts within the community, both personal and professional, it would have been a rather easy matter for him to have placed Lewis in either another home or at a sanctuary. He most definitely did not have any right to prematurely snuff out his precious life.

In all likelihood it never will be known how Lewis spent the first two years of his life. All that has come to light so far is that he showed up one day during the spring of 1999 at the residence of Maureen Grady in Scio Township, eight kilometers to the west of Ann Arbor. He remained with her for six months but never was fully accepted by her four cats and trio of canines.

"He was just fierce. He had his own agenda," she claimed to The Ann Arbor News in the December 27th article cited supra."He was very aggressive. I realized that he needed a different home."

Either later that year or in early 2000 she fobbed him off on Hodesh and the rest in history. "It was an immediate fit," he told The Ann Arbor News on December 27th. "He ended up being very friendly to people."

"It was a marriage made in heaven," Peter Heydon of the Mosiac Foundation added. "He had the freedom of a big place."

None of those testimonies should be construed, however, to imply either that things could not have been worked out at Grady's residence if she had possessed the prerequisite savoir-faire or that Lewis would not have made a simply splendid companion for some other individual or family. As things eventually turned out, residing at Downtown Home and Garden was far from the idyllic paradise that Heydon claims.

Most notably, Lewis was forced to spend all of his nights as well as holidays when the store was closed all by his lonesome. Also, as his misadventures in 2011 vividly demonstrated, Hodesh irresponsibly placed his life in jeopardy by allowing him to roam without the accompaniment of a chaperon.

Although it would be unfair to maintain that Hodesh nakedly exploited him, Lewis most assuredly deserved a far better life than the one that he was forced to forge for himself as a garden shop cat. It also is clear that a lion's share of the benefits derived from the arrangement accrued to Hodesh and his store rather than to Lewis.

In particular, there can be little doubt that his presence drew countless new customers to the store and that in turn made Hodesh's cash register sing like a hallelujah choir. "We walked in after looking from the outside and (Lewis) was lying right there on the bench," Wolfe added to The Ann Arbor News in the December 27th article cited supra. "It was always nice seeing the cat there."

As all clever retailers and marketers know only too well, the path that leads to the wallets of adults often wends its way through the eyes and hearts of small children and that certainly was the case with Lewis and Hodesh's clientele. "A million kids learned how to pet a cat on his head," store employee Sarah Kaufmann told The Ann Arbor News on December 27th. "People in their twenties bring in their kids and say 'my mom used to come bring me to see this cat.' He was really amazing."

Lewis Holds Court with His Many Young Admirers

To his credit, that is a fact that Hodesh readily acknowledges. "He enjoyed a brilliant career here over seventeen (sic) years allowing children to maul him with kisses, and gently taught them when enough is enough," he wrote in the December 26th Facebook article cited supra. "He indulged foolish baby talk from some adults while keeping a knowing, dignified relationship with others."

He additionally sans doute kept the store free of rodents and that saved Hodesh a packet in pest control. All of that and much, much more Lewis freely donated to Hodesh and Downtown Home and Garden in exchange for only tuna, kibble, and water. Try as he may, Hodesh never will be able to find another employee willing to work for so long and hard for so very little in return.

In addition to lounging on the bench across from the till, Lewis will be remembered for snoozing near the radiator during the wintertime and for brightening the evenings of patrons at Bill's Beer Garden as he strolled from table to table. The unidentified North Carolinian who stops by the store each year on his drive up to his summer home in Petoskey, four-hundred-five kilometers north of Ann Arbor, also doubtlessly will be saddened to learn of his demise.

If indeed Hodesh had him killed, Lewis thus has joined the ranks of countless millions of cats before him who have been murdered in cold blood by their owners once their presence was no longer desired. Very few of these helpless victims are known to the world at large but, as the deaths of Lewis and numerous other cats like him have more than amply demonstrated, even worldwide acclaim is not any palliative against the perfidy that lurks like a viper in the diseased souls of most cat owners. (See Cat Defender posts of February 9, 2006, December 7, 2006, May 31, 2007, October 28, 2008, March 12, 2009, October 23, 2012, July 17, 2013, August 27, 2014, and October 18, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Newspaper Cat Named Tripod Is Killed Off by Journalists He Befriended in Vermont,""After Nineteen Years of Service and Companionship, Ingrates at Iowa Library Murder Dewey Readmore Books,""Port Taranaki Kills Off Its World Famous Seafaring Feline, Colin's, at Age Seventeen,""Love and Admired All Over the World, Feline Heroine Scarlett Is Killed Off by Her Owner after She Becomes Ill,""Too Cheap and Lazy to Care for Him During His Final Days, Betty Currie Has Socks Killed Off and His Corpse Burned,""A Supposedly No-Kill Shelter in Marblehead Betrays Sally and Snuffs Out Her Life Instead of Providing Her with a Home and Veterinary Care,""Not Satisfied with Merely Whacking Meiko, Garrison Keillor Struts on Stage in Order to Shed a Bucketful of Crocodile Tears and to Denigrate the Entire Species,""After Traveling for So Many Miles on the Bridport to Charmouth Bus, Dodger's Last Ride Is, Ironically, to the Vet Who Unconscionably Snuffs Out His Precious Life at the Urging of His Derelict Owner," and "Hamish McHamish's Derelict Owner Reenters His Life after Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect only to Have Him Killed Off after He Contracts a Preeminently Treatable Common Cold.")

Given that there are so many pressing political, legal, and moral issues affecting the lives of cats, it is difficult to single out any particular one that is of paramount importance. Nevertheless, the abolition of the odious practice of killing off elderly and ailing cats has to be near the top of the list.

In fact, it is difficult to understand how that the status of all abused cats, especially those that are homeless and preyed upon by vivisectors, ever can be upgraded so long as the guardians of domesticated ones are permitted to utilize with impunity the misnomered expedient of euthanasia as a convenient excuse in order to absolve themselves of their moral and custodial obligations to their faithful companions. To put the matter rather bluntly, their patently immoral behavior is only one step removed from the horrific crimes perpetrated against the species by ornithologists, wildlife biologists, PETA, and vivisectors.

As far as their accomplices in crime are concerned, absolutely nothing can be said in their favor; on the contrary, the entire miserable lot of them not only should be stripped of their licenses to practice veterinary medicine but, like Jack Kevorkian, sent to jail to boot. As things now stand, however, these glorified knackers are not even so much as compelled by law to disclose either their kill rates or the number of impecunious cats that they send to their premature graves each year by categorically refusing to treat them.

It additionally is nothing short of disgraceful that not a single known cat advocacy group is willing to so much as condemn this simply outrageous and morally repugnant practice. The reason for their deafening silence is, quite obviously, the petit fait that they are every bit as guilty as guardians and veterinarians of not only killing off cats that have been entrusted to their care but even their very own companions as well! (See Cat Defender post of January 2, 2013 entitled "Alley Cat Allies Demonstrates Its Utter Contempt for the Sanctity of Life by Unconscionably Killing Off Its Office Cat, Jared.")

"He met me at the door every morning," Hodesh declared to The Ann Arbor News on December 27th. "There will never be another cat like Lewis."

On that last point he is deadly correct but, malheureusement, there will be countless more men and women who think and behave just like him and therein lies the gist of the problem. Tant pis, in time even the memory of how Lewis lived and died will fade from the collective consciousness of those who knew him.

The killing, abuse, and exploitation of cats like him is thus destined to continue unabated. In that respect he has lived and died in vain because mankind has learned absolutely nothing from all that he gave so freely to this world and that makes his death all the more tragic, heartbreaking and, above all, totally unforgivable.

Photos: Facebook.

A Bedraggled Nicky Has His Paws Wrapped

"I just thought, gosh, there is no way he can make it because he's been inside with us all these years."
-- Candice Darmafall

Nothing good ever lasts.

If something sounds too good to be true, it likely is not so.

Good guys only win in the movies.

And, storybook endings are reserved for the world of fiction.

Like poisonous arrows shot from a quiver in spitfire fashion, the cynics sling their distressing truths at anyone willing to so much as lend them an ear. Moreover, there is precious little solace to be found in even the grudging acknowledgement that their pronouncements do contain a certain degree of validity. That is especially the case after a handsome and loving cat who, at first report had made a miraculous recovery from a simply horrendous case of frostbite and hypothermia, has had a relapse and died.

As painful as it is to even contemplate, let alone chronicle, that is precisely what has happened to a ten-year-old longhaired, orange-colored tom named Nicky from Lorain, Ohio, who died on January 17th as the result of cruelly having been left outside in the freezing cold for an astonishing twenty-one consecutive days and nights! Like countless other felines who succumb to the numbing effects of hypothermia each winter, Nicky's prolonged suffering was entirely preventable and that only serves to make his premature death all the more tragic and inexcusable.

On Thursday, January 15th he was found near death by an unidentified family in Amherst, eight kilometers due south of Lorain, and transported to the Friendship Animal Protection League (FAPL) in Elyria, fifteen kilometers to the west. "It was completely frozen. The cat was basically stiff as a board," Greg Willey of FAPL told WKYC-TV of Cleveland on January 18th. (See "Miracle Cat Found Frozen Has Died.")"The best way for me to describe it is that it looked like it came out a meat locker."

Willey's first instinct was to finish the job that Old Man Winter had started but when Nicky stirred and meowed he had a positive change of heart and instead rushed him to Fox Veterinary Hospital in Carlisle Township, approximately seven kilometers removed from Elyria. "The poor cat came to me completely flat out; we thought he was dead," veterinarian Ashley Berardi told WKYC-TV. "Temperature was low below normal, so low it wouldn't even register on the thermometer."

Like Willey before her, Berardi's first thought was not to even attempt to save Nicky's life but rather to snuff it out. "Greg had thought we were going to have to euthanize. But we kind of showed the cat some food and he perked up right after it, so he still had that drive," Berardi added to WKYC-TV. "So we thought, okay, let's get the catheter in, let's try."

As it should be obvious to any thinking person, the life of any sick or injured cat is worth saving regardless of whether it has an appetite or not. Furthermore, just because a cat is too sick to eat does not necessarily mean that it will not respond to veterinary intervention.

Based upon both Berardi's appalling lack of respect for the sanctity of feline life as well as her indefensible triage protocol, she undoubtedly would have followed Willey's advise and killed off Nicky on the spot if he had not responded to the offer of sustenance. That can only be interpreted to imply that if she were practicing medicine she likely would subject a man with a hole in his head to a test of scarfing down a platter of pork chops before she commenced treatment.

She eventually did, thankfully, get around to administering intravenous fluids and painkillers to Nicky as well as placing him on a heating pad in order to quickly elevate his body temperature. Each of his badly frostbitten paws also were treated and carefully wrapped.

All of that initially proved to be a resounding success in that he was able to shake off death's icy grip and to regain consciousness. "I cannot describe to you how much of a miracle it is that this cat is still ticking," Willey later marveled to The Chronicle-Telegram of Elyria on January 16th. (See "Olaf the Frozen Cat Reunited with Owner.") "It is truly incredible. You could have probably lifted it by its tail and it would have stayed flat."

Once Nicky's miraculous return to the world of the living had been reported by both WKYC-TV and Facebook, his longtime owner Candice Darmafall came forward to reclaim him on January 16th. "I'm so happy," she rejoiced to The Chronicle-Telegram. "He's so beautiful and has always been such a nice cat."

Since the staff at Fox had dubbed him Olaf in honor of the snowman from Walt Disney's 2013 production, Frozen, she even briefly contemplated changing Nicky's name. "We might have to start calling him Nickolaf," she mused to The Chronicle-Telegram.

Her newfound lightheartedness was strikingly at odds with the doom and gloom that she expressed when she was first reunited with him and he was still tethered to intravenous tubes. "I just thought, gosh, there is no way he can make it because he's been inside with us all these years," she told WKYC-TV.

As things tragically turned out, her original dire assessment of his slim chances of pulling through proved to be prophetic in that by Saturday Nicky was dead. "They (Darmafall and her family) got a chance to spend a lot of time on Saturday with Nicky and say their goodbyes, and that was a pretty important thing," was all that Willey was willing to disclose to The Chronicle-Telegram on January 19th. (See "Cat Nicknamed Olaf Dies from the Cold.")

Darmafall likewise was equally reticent about what actually had happened to Nicky. "Social media and caring people are what gave us the opportunity to reunite with him," she declared to The Chronicle-Telegram on January 19th. "We can't thank the family who found him, FAPL, and Fox Veterinary Hospital enough."

It therefore is not known what caused Nicky's abrupt relapse and death although Berardi earlier had warned that he could have sustained unspecified internal injuries as the result of his prolonged exposure to the elements. All that has been reported in the media is that by January 16th his body temperature had returned to normal and that he was up and about. It is not unusual, however, for ailing cats to raise the hopes of their loving guardians by mounting surprising, last-ditch rallies only to later break their hearts to bits by suddenly dying.

Nicky Lies Suspended Between Life and Death

Much more importantly, it is not even known if he was allowed to die on his own terms or was intentionally killed off by Berardi at Darmafall's urging. After all, Berardi certainly does not have any qualms whatsoever about killing cats so long as she is handsomely paid for her diabolical crimes.

It is even remotely conceivable that Nicky could have been whacked by Willey of FAPL in that it was he who announced his death. His outrageous tendency to repeatedly refer to Nicky as it also tends to suggest that he looks down upon cats as inanimate objects.

Furthermore, honesty is far from being FAPL's strong suit. For example, although it claims to be a no-kill operation, in practice it kills off all cats and other animals that enter its portals with the notable exception of those that it is able to sell back to the public for a profit.

On its web site it not only admits to killing animals that are terminally ill and deemed to be dangerous, but it also reserves the right to kill off its inmates in so-called emergencies as well as to comply with unspecified federal, state, and local laws. Most revealing of all, it declares that it will not allow animals to live for prolonged periods of time in cages and that can only be interpreted to mean that FAPL is operating a slaughterhouse thinly disguised as a no-kill operation.

Far from being an isolated case, that is how another no-kill fraud known as Kitty City in La Lutz, New Mexico, operates. Plus, it additionally has the audacity to support bans on the feeding of homeless cats as well as to stipulate that the ones it sells back to the public be cruelly confined indoors for the remainder of their lives. (See Cat Defender post of July 29, 2010 entitled "Benicia Vallejo Humane Society Is Outsourcing the Mass Killing of Kittens and Cats All the While Masquerading as a No-Kill Shelter.")

In addition to not knowing where and how Nicky died, it has not even been publicly disclosed what was done with his remains and, as per usual, it is precisely the capitalist media who are to blame for those glaring omissions in the public record. When it comes to their coverage of cats, they oscillate between cute stories that are designed to sell newspapers and to attract viewers and the outrageous lies spread by ornithologists, wildlife biologists, PETA, and others. Such a dishonest policy therefore allows them to laugh all the way to the bank without ever being compelled to recognize that cats are sentient beings endowed with both rights and liberties that should be respected.

As suspicious, horrible, and heartbreaking as Nicky's death was, that is only one part of the story. The other part is that he had been living on the streets ever since Boxing Day! Although the weather was mild enough on that ill-fated day in that temperatures ranged from 31°to 48° Fahrenheit, conditions soon deteriorated. According to data recorded at the Lorain County Regional Airport in nearby New Russia Township and posted online at www.friendlyforecast.com, the thermometer was below freezing on twenty of the days and nights that he was forced to spend outdoors. Included in that total were four days of single digit readings plus another four with of sub-zero temperatures.

It also snowed on twelve of those days and the rain came down on four other occasions. So, in addition to being nearly frozen to death, Nicky also was soaked to the bone.

In the end it undoubtedly was the sub-zero temperatures that killed him. Although he did somehow manage to survive a -4° Fahrenheit reading on January 8th and a -2° Fahrenheit night on January 10th, he was unable to make it through the night on January 14th when the thermometer plunged to -12° Fahrenheit. Even on the day that he finally was rescued the thermometer stood at a teeth chattering  -3° Fahrenheit.

It thus appears in hindsight that Nicky likely would still be alive today if his deliverance had come a day earlier. Sadly, neither The Fates nor lady luck were willing to accommodate him even in that regard despite the fact that he had suffered so painfully for so very long.

Compounding an already totally unmanageable stroke of simply horrendous misfortune, Nicky not only had lived his entire existence indoors but he had been cruelly declawed and neutered as well. "Nicky has been with us ten years and has never been outside," Darmafall disclosed to The Chronicle-Telegram in the January 16th article cited supra.

He accordingly knew absolutely nothing about the outside world and without claws he was unable to procure sustenance, defend himself against predators, and to climb trees and fences in order to elude pursuers. His weight at the time of his rescue has not been disclosed but it is difficult to imagine that he could have been anything other than severely emaciated.

It therefore is truly amazing that he lasted for as long as he did under such unrelenting, hellish circumstances. Needless to say, no cat ever should be subjected to the pain, suffering, deprivations, and fears that were visited upon Nicky.

His plight also serves as a poignant reminder of the adverse consequences of denaturing cats. First of all, besides being outrageously cruel, painful, and utterly barbaric, declawing amounts to a death sentence for cats that, one way or the other, find themselves outdoors and on their own for extended periods of time. (See Cat Defender post of November 29, 2010 entitled "Harrison's Turbulent Years Spent on the Street Are Yet Another Reason Why Declawing Is Not Only Cruel and Inhumane but Dangerous as Well.")

Secondly, confining cats indoors exclusively is not only cruel and inhumane but it deprives them of both the knowledge and skills that they need in order to survive should they unexpectedly find themselves outdoors. Most domesticated cats live for quite a few years and absolutely no one can foresee what the future will hold for either them or their guardians.

For instance, some of them have been known to escape from their carriers while en route to the veterinarian with disastrous results. (See Cat Defender post of March 7, 2008 entitled "Georgia Is Found Safe and Sound After Spending a Harrowing Twenty-Five Days Lost in the Bowels of the New York City Subway System.")

Individuals also not only die but cruelly abandon their cats. It therefore is imperative that they be acquainted with the outside world and know how to survive in it. No halfway responsible parent ever would lock up a child in a closet and keep it in total ignorance of the outside world and the same logic applies in spades to the nurturing of cats.

Nicky Is Briefly Reunited with  Candice Darmafall

Thirdly,  many kittens are weaned way too early. Without human intervention it is not uncommon for their mothers to continue to nurse and instruct them for as long as six to twelve months after birth.

Fourthly, PETA ridiculously wants to denature the species by transforming these obligate carnivores into vegetarians. Many owners do not help matters by feeding them a steady diet of cheap kibble instead of the meat that they crave.

Fifthly, although necessary in many instances, en masse sterilizations are robbing them of their sexual freedom. Sixthly and most outrageous of all, their guardians and unprincipled veterinarians are depriving them of their right to die natural deaths.

Man always has been the great manipulator and annihilator of the animals, Mother Earth, and even his fellow man but that does not make such abhorrent conduct either right or desirable, especially where the animals and Mother Earth are concerned. If modern man has sunk so low that he no longer has any ambition other than to be a dumb herd animal who works most of the time and devotes his ever diminishing leisure to counting his shekels and lapping up whatever garbage du jour that mass culture has to offer, that is his business but he should have enough decency not to impose his baseness upon cats and other animals.

"To live is so startling that it leaves little time for anything else," Emily Dickinson once observed and that is not a bad philosophy to follow. It will not make an individual either rich or popular but it will deter either him or her from abusing the animals and Mother Earth.

The circumstances that led to Nicky's abandonment are cloaked in every bit as much secrecy as his death and on that vitally important issue Darmafall has been anything but forthcoming. "I don't know how he got out, but we were so happy to find him," she vowed to The Chronicle-Telegram on January 16th.

On that latter point she appears to have been sincere. "She was just sobbing when she saw her cat," is how Willey described her reunion with Nicky at Fox to The Chronicle-Telegram on January 16th. "This was just a wonderful turn of events."

Notwithstanding that, it is nevertheless highly suspicious that Nicky disappeared on Boxing Day in that so many nominal Christians select that time of the year in order to get rid of their unwanted cats. (See Cat Defender post of January 15, 2015 entitled "Lewis, Ann Arbor's Much Celebrated Garden Shop Cat, Departs This World Under Highly Suspicious Circumstances.")

It additionally is odd that Nicky was found eight kilometers away in Amherst. Although it is remotely possible that he could have walked that distance over the course of a number of days, that seems unlikely given the inclement weather.

Besides, since he had spent his entire life indoors it only seems logical that he would have been frightened to death of the world outdoors and as a consequence would not have strayed far from home. That in turn opens up the possibility that he became trapped inside either a box or some article of furniture and thus unwittingly ended up in Amherst.

It is not a pleasant scenario to contemplate and there most assuredly is not a shred of evidence to support it, but it is conceivable that Nicky was driven to Amherst by Darmafall and turned loose in the cold to fend for himself. She is, after all, already guilty of robbing him of both his freedom and claws and this world is chock-full of all sorts of seemingly honest and respectable individuals who nevertheless do terrible things to cats. Plus, her total lack of candor concerning his disappearance only serves to fuel such speculation, no matter how unfounded it may be.

Her credibility is further undermined by the fact that it is unclear just how hard and thoroughly she and her family searched for Nicky. According to The Chronicle-Telegram's January 16th edition, she limited her rescue efforts to posting messages and photographs of him on Facebook.

If that is true, she belongs in jail! That is all the more the case given his handicaps and the inclement weather.

She was fully cognizant from the outset that he was ill-equipped to survive for very long under such dire conditions and her failure to mount an all-out rescue effort can only be described as inexcusable. In particular, all the while he was suffering piteously and dying by degrees in the unforgiving cold she appears to have contented herself with pecking away on her computer from inside the comfort of her heated house!

In that light it would be interesting to know how she spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Specifically, was she in her cups, making merry, and watching the football games on the idiot box or out combing the streets and fields for Nicky?

None of that is meant to imply that locating an errant cat is an easy job; au contraire, it is a frustrating, heartbreaking, and near impossible feat to pull off even under the best of circumstances in that it is estimated that fewer that ten per cent of them ever are reunited with their owners. Be that as it may, that is not a valid excuse for not dropping everything and searching high and low, both night and day, for them.

The Amazing Annie

Instead of merely writing off Nicky as dead, she should have logged off of her computer, forsaken her warm and cozy house, and scoured her neighborhood for him. His health and well-being was, after all, her personal and moral responsibility and not that of the users of Facebook.

"Lost Cat" posters should have been printed and nailed to every lamppost and rescue groups, such as FAPL, promptly contacted. Most important of all, she should have trekked door-to-door interviewing residents and leaving "Lost Cat" posters with them.

Only she knows what happened on Boxing Day and how hard she tried to find Nicky. Above all, it is she who is going to have to live with the decisions that she made and that is destined to create a dilemma if she does in fact have a conscience.

It additionally does not reflect positively upon area residents and public officials in that at least some of them surely must have seen Nicky wandering the streets under life-threatening conditions and yet none of them had so much as the common decency to notify the authorities of his desperate plight. Even more deplorable, such callous indifference to the acute suffering of an animal is totally in keeping with Ohioans' well-earned reputation as being some of the most flagrant abusers of cats, both small and large, in the country. (See Cat Defender posts of October 20, 2005, February 26, 2007, August 2, 2007, April 8, 2008, September 22, 2011, and November 3, 2011 entitled, respectively, "After Ridding the Ohio Statehouse of Rats, Cats Now Find Themselves Facing Eviction,""Charged with Feeding a Feral Cat Named Fluffy, Retired Ohio English Teacher Beats the Rap,""Ohio Cat Shot in the Leg with an Arrow Is Forced to Endure a Long-Drawn-Out and Excruciating Death,""Ohio Politician Proposes Adding Cats to the Growing List of Pigs, Other Animals, and Humans Killed by Tasers,""Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop," and "Sheriff Matt Lutz Settles an Old Score by Staging a Great Safari Hunt That Claims the Lives of Eighteen Tigers and Seventeen Lions in Zanesville.")

So, in Nicky's case the cynics were proven to be correct in that his remarkable turnaround ultimately proved to be just too good to last. They are not always right, however, in that other cats felled by Old Man Winter's ruthlessness have gotten off of their death beds in order to live again.

For instance back on January 2, 2010, an unidentified Good Samaritan found a thirteen-year-old tuxedo named Annie emaciated and apparently frozen to death in a snowdrift near Main Street and Sweetland Farm in the Boston suburb of Norfolk. The unidentified rescuer then wrapped her in a blanket and contacted Animal Control Officer Hilary Cohen.

"At first response, she appeared dead. She was cold, stiff, and unresponsive," she said at that time. "When I picked her up, I did hear an agonal cry, but that sometimes happens postmortem."

Despite having grave reservations about her chances of surviving, Cohen refused to give up on Annie. "I kept her in the blanket and put her on my lap in the cruiser and headed to the hospital," she later recalled. "Once in the car, I turned the heater on and saw a whisker twitch. That was the only sign of reflex I saw from her."

At Acorn Animal Hospital in nearby Franklin, Annie was diagnosed to have a body temperature of only 86° Fahrenheit, which is fifteen degrees below normal for a cat. She also nearly had starved to death in that she weighed only three and one-half pounds.

The hospital's staff used electric blankets, hair dryers, hot water bottles, and heat disks in a desperate effort to elevate her body temperature. They also administered intravenous fluids and steroids, conducted a blood test, and closely monitored her blood-sugar levels and heart rate.

Seven hours later Annie regained consciousness and within forty-eight hours she was eating, drinking, and back on her feet. "I've seen different kinds of animal issues over the years but I've never seen an animal this cold be revived," Cohen later marveled.

Instead of depositing Annie at a shelter, Cohen went beyond the call of duty when she elected to take her home to her house so that she could continue administering heat therapy to her. On January 5th, her owners came forward to reclaim her after reading about her plight in The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro.

As it later was disclosed, Annie's family had been living in Norfolk for only about a week before she mysteriously disappeared in early December of  2009. She was found only about three quarters of a mile from home but even to have made it that far she had been forced to cross railroad tracks and other obstacles. Although her owners had contacted Animal Control and put up "Lost Cat" posters, they quite obviously had not been looking in the right places. (See Cat Defender post of January 21, 2010 entitled "Trapped Outdoors in a Snowstorm, Annie Is Brought Back from the Dead by the Compassion of a Good Samaritan and an Animal Control Officer.")

As Annie's remarkable turnaround clearly demonstrates, time and knowledge are of the essence when dealing with cats suffering from frostbite and hypothermia. Cohen and Acorn's crackerjack veterinary team knew exactly what to do and they did not waste valuable time bandying about Annie and debating the merits of attempting to save her life as FAPL and Fox did in the case of Nicky.

It thus is safe to conclude that the cynics do not hold an absolute monopoly on truth because:

One never knows until one tries.

Miracles do happen and dreams do come true once in a blue moon.

Aegroto dum anima est, spes est.

And, never give up, especially on a cat.

None of that in any way can now either help Nicky or erase the haunting memory of what his last three weeks on this earth must have been like. Only a profound change in how individuals, especially guardians, look upon and treat cats can ever ensure that no cat is again put through what he was forced to endure. Sadly, even that seems to be every bit as far away as the shelter and warmth that he so desperately sought as he trudged day after day, lonely, frightened, and hungry, through the unrelenting Ohio cold and snow.

Photos: Friendship Animal Protection League (Nicky being attended to and with Darmafall), Dan Bowman of WKYC-TV (Nicky by himself on a table), and The Chronicle Sun (Annie).

Flick

"This cat has been outside with a collar for quite a while. Maybe the family packed up and moved."
-- Redford Animal Control Officer Dan Brown

As the bitterly cold winter of 2014-2015 rages on across the northern half of the United States and throughout most of Canada, the number of kittens and cats victimized by its ruthlessness continues to mount with each passing day. On January 14th, for example, a less than one-year-old black kitten subsequently dubbed Flick was found with his front paws frozen to a porch in Redford, Michigan, twenty-six kilometers west of Detroit.

"There was a pool of blood right next to his front paws," Animal Control Officer Dan Brown, who was contacted by an unidentified homeowner who resides at the intersection of Curtis Street and Five Points, related to WDIV-TV of Detroit on January 15th. (See "Cat Frozen to Porch of Redford Home Rescued.")  "It looked like it was coagulated, so he's been there for a while."

Given that an unidentified neighbor had overheard a cat meowing throughout the long, frigid night when the thermometer plummeted to -3° Fahrenheit at the nearest reporting station in Farmington, the homeowner surely also must have heard Flick's plaintive cries as well but for some unexplained reason elected to wait until the following morning before summoning help. That totally inexcusable delay, if indeed the owner was at home, not only ended up exacting an horrific toll on Flick but it nearly cost him his life as well.

Fortunately for him, lady luck was on his side in that Brown knew exactly what to do and he wasted no time in hustling on over to the neighbor's house where he borrowed a pail of room temperature water in order to free Flick's front paws. "Hot water would have only made it worse," he later pointed out to WTSP-TV of Tampa on January 15th. (See "Cat Rescued after Found Frozen to Home's Porch.")

Oddly enough, Flick's rear legs were not frozen to the porch and for that Brown believes that he has a weak bladder to thank. While that certainly is conceivable, it is not the only possible explanation.

For instance, whereas WDIV-TV insists that Flick ripped out his front claws while attempting to extricate himself from his would-be tomb, WTSP-TV claims on the other hand that they had been previously removed. That very well could be the case in that it seems only logical that it would be considerably easier for declawed paws to become frozen to an extremely cold surface than those that had been left intact.

The type and condition of the porch has not been disclosed but based upon the horrific injuries inflicted upon Flick, it not only was frigid but likely covered in ice and possibly snow as well. Regardless of its condition, the injuries sustained by Flick are yet still another cogent argument against the thoroughly barbaric practice of declawing cats.

After delicately extricating him, Brown took Flick to Tail Wagger's 1990 in Livonia, seven kilometers to the west of Redford, where the full extent of his massive injuries first became known. Specifically, his claws were not only missing but he additionally had ripped out the pads on his front paws.

Flick Is on the Mend but He May Be Crippled

Although press reports have not specified the type of treatment that he received at Tail Wagger's, his paws most assuredly were cleaned, medicated, and bandaged. He also likely was given painkillers, heat therapy, and possibly intravenous fluids.

Almost as bad, it initially was reported that he had broken every single digit in both of his front feet during his desperate struggle to extricate himself from the frozen death trap. All of that in turn had left him in simply horrific pain and with swollen paws.

Tail Wagger's did not, however, plan on treating the broken bones in his feet. "There probably will not be a lot of treatment for the break (sic), much like a human, you'd have to let it heal on its own," the charity's Laura Zain told WDIV-TV.

In an untitled article posted January 20th on its Facebook page, Tail Wagger's reversed itself and declared that Flick had not sustained any broken bones and that he was able to support himself on both paws. Later on February 10th the charity disclosed that a portion of one of his paws had been surgically removed but that it would not be known for another week or so if he will be able to walk.

Described by the staff at Tail Wagger's as a "sweet boy with spirit," Flick is scheduled to be put up for adoption as soon as his paws heal. Hopefully, he will not end up as a cripple but even if he is forced to walk with a limp there cannot be any denying that he is truly fortunate to still be alive.

"If it wasn't for the phone call from the homeowner and the assistance from the neighbor, he would've surely froze (sic) to death," Brown told WTSP-TV.

Although this world favors those cats and humans with unfettered access to money, family, and friends, Old Man Winter does not play favorites. He is in that sense the great leveler in that he will unconscionably freeze the life out of any creature that, either unwittingly or through misfortune, tumbles into his merciless grasp.

That, by the way, is the reason why some individuals occasionally are able to screw up smidgens of compassion for homeless men during the wintertime while turning deaf ears to their desperate plight during the remainder of the year. In that regard it is just too bad that there are not other mechanisms in addition to the elements that would allow them to experience firsthand the deprivations that cats and the poor face every day.

Frozen Kitten

Flick's misfortune is all the more deplorable in that it seems highly probable that he was intentionally abandoned by his previous owner. For instance although he had not been neutered, he was wearing both identification and flea collars.

"This cat has been outside with a collar for quite a while," Brown affirmed to WDIV-TV in the article cited supra. "Maybe the family packed up and moved."

Compounding an already desperate state of affairs, Flick's collar was wound so tightly around his neck that it was nearly strangling the life out of him. Although his previous guardian apparently had taken great care to remove his name tag so that he could not be traced back to either him or her, that person irresponsibly left his collar in place so that it could eventually either throttle him or snag on a foreign object.

Even though the dangers associated with both conventional and elastic collars are well-documented, it is almost superfluous to point out that any cretin who would condemn a cat to tough it out in the unforgiving cold and snow is not likely to be overly concerned about him being strangled to death. (See Cat Defender posts of May 28, 2008 and June 22, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Collars Turn into Death Traps for Trooper and Que but both Are Rescued at the Eleventh Hour" and "Hobson Is forced to Wander Around Yorkshire for Months Trapped in an Elastic Collar That Steadily Was Eating Away at His Shoulder and Leg.")

According to google's Street View, the Curtis Street and Five Points section of Redford appears to be the very epitome of a middle-class residential neighborhood with its white wood frame houses, tree-lined streets, and neatly-trimmed green lawns in the summertime. While it always is conceivable that Flick was driven into the area and dumped, the preponderance of the available evidence tends to suggest that his guardian resided not too far away from where he was found.

Redford also has the dubious distinction of being the birthplace of disgraced rocker Theodore Anthony Nugent who not only hates cats with a passion but admittedly shoots every one of them that he sees on sight. Even more outrageously, he is allowed to commit his dastardly deeds with impunity at the canned hunting ranch that he operates in Jackson, one-hundred-one kilometers to the west of Redford, because no animal rights group in Michigan is willing to so much as even investigate him let alone put him in jail. (See The Washington Times, December 3, 2010, "Nugent: The Time for Kitty Killing Has Come.")

Since the overwhelming majority of all cases of animal cruelty go unreported by the press, that in turn makes passing judgment on a particular geographical area a rather dicey proposition. For example, some areas actually could be far more antagonistic toward cats than Michigan but their crimes are kept hidden from the outside world by an obliging media.

Nonetheless, there is not any getting around the inescapable conclusion that the catalog of crimes committed against the species by residents of the Wolverine State is indeed long and varied. Heading that list is, as one would expect, the failed city of Detroit where designer cats are shot down and killed in the street while others are poisoned. (See Cat Defender posts of April 19, 2014 and May 2, 2013 entitled, respectively, "Doomed from Conception to a Lifetime of Naked Exploitation and Destined to Never Fit in Anywhere, Chum Is Gunned Down in Cold Blood on the Violent Streets of Lawless and Uncaring Detroit" and "Poisoned Within an Inch of His Life While Living on the Mean Streets of Detroit, Chairman Waffles Survives Three Surgeries in Order to Live Again.")

Rosalie

Not only is the city itself bankrupt, but hundreds of homeowners are so cheap that they prefer to live in unsanitary conditions rather than to pay their monthly water bills. In such a depraved milieu, it is not any surprise that cats are abused with impunity.

Even in parts of the state that are still functioning more or less as normal neither education nor the lack thereof serves as any deterrent to Michiganders' lust for feline blood. (See Cat Defender posts of September 11, 2006, August 20, 2009, and November 24, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Selfish and Brutal Eggheads at Central Michigan University Target a Colony of Feral Cats for Defamation and Eradication,""Combine Operator Severs Howard's Front Paws and Leaves Him in a Ditch to Die but He Is Saved at the Last Minute by a Pair of Compassionate Lads," and "Howard the Combine Kitty Is Adopted by the Lads Who Saved Him from a Sure and Certain Death in a Ditch Alongside a Michigan Wheat Field.")

Shelters throughout the state not only liquidate cats and kittens that have homes waiting for them but they additionally do the dirty work of ailurophobic gardeners. (See Cat Defender posts of June 15, 2010 and August 19, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Bay City Shelter Murders a Six-Week-Old Kitten with a Common Cold Despite Several Individuals Having Offered to Give It a Permanent Home" and "Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and an Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw.")

Like everywhere else in this world, individuals and businesses in Michigan exploit cats to the hilt and then whack them once they have outlived their usefulness to them. (See Cat Defender post of January 15, 2015 entitled "Lewis, Ann Arbor's Much Celebrated Garden Shop Cat, Departs This World Under Highly Suspicious Circumstances.")

That certainly is not the entire story in that Michigan also is home to a handful of individuals who not only care dearly about cats but are willing to go out of their way in order to rescue those in distress. (See Cat Defender post of October 16, 2007 entitled "Tourists from Michigan Save the Life of a Critically Ill Oregon Cat Named Marmalade.")

Redford, and presumably the remainder of Michigan as well, also is guilty of discriminating against cats in that although it is illegal in the city to leave a dog outside in the cold without the benefit of shelter, cats do not enjoy any comparable legal protections against the elements. "It is not illegal for a cat to be outside," Brown told WTSP-TV. "It's frowned upon."

Standing idly by and frowning while untold numbers of cats are suffering and dying in the cold is, quite obviously, not nearly good enough. Au contraire, Redford instead should follow the example set last year by the Philadelphia City Council when it entertained the notion of making it illegal to leave both cats and dogs outside when the thermometer either plummets below freezing or soars above 85° Fahrenheit. (See the Philadelphia Daily News' print edition, April 9, 2014, "Leaving Kitty Out Back All Year Could Cost You.")

While it is readily acknowledged that since neither humane groups nor the police do very much in order to enforce the existing animal cruelty statutes, they certainly are not about to break so much as a sweat safeguarding cats from the cold. Nevertheless, just having such a statute on the books coupled with an occasional arrest and prosecution might serve as a mild deterrent in some instances. Affording cats the same legal protections that dogs now enjoy also would go a long way toward eliminating the widely held view that their lives are somehow less worthy of protection.

Blizzard

While it is difficult offhand to think of either a season of the year or a particular set of circumstances that would justify the heartless abandonment of a cat, doing so during cold and snowy weather is an especially egregious offense. That is doubly so because if they are not done in by the elements they are likely to starve to death in that there is precious little outside for them to eat at such times.

That is especially the case with both exclusively indoor cats and kittens who do not have any firsthand experience at either surviving on their own or in the elements. (See Cat Defender post of February 2, 2015 entitled "Cruelly Denatured and Locked Up Indoors for All of His Adult Life, Nicky Is Suddenly Thrust into the Bitter Cold and Snow for Twenty-One Consecutive Days with Predictably Tragic Results.")

Perennially homeless cats, on the other hand, are experienced enough to at least seek shelter underneath buildings, in recesses in the ground and, sometimes imprudently, underneath the hoods of automobiles. Even then their wiles often are not nearly sufficient in order to save them from sub-zero readings.

Even those fortunate few that somehow manage to survive end up, like Flick, scarred and maimed for the remainder of their lives by the cold. Regardless of how close to death they may be when first rescued, that is not a valid excuse under any circumstances for rescuers and veterinarians not doing all within their power in order to save their lives.

For example, an elderly cat named Annie from Norfolk, Massachusetts, was brought back from death's doorstep in January of 2010 after she came within a hairbreadth of freezing to death in a snowstorm. (See Cat Defender post of January 21, 2010 entitled "Trapped Outdoors in a Snowstorm, Annie Is Brought Back from the Dead by the Compassion of a Good Samaritan and an Animal Control Officer.")

Later on January 26, 2014, a near death brown male kitten subsequently dubbed Frozen Kitten was dropped off at the Animal Care and Control Team in Philadelphia. Although utterly reprehensible and totally unforgivable, the first thought that percolated through the minds of the organization's top honchos was to finish him off on the spot.

Mercifully, volunteers Marta Skuza and Lori DiFiglia intervened with syringes filled with warm fluids, water bottles and heating pads in order to elevate his body temperature, and chest rubs in order to stimulate his circulation. Skuza even took Frozen Kitten home with her to her abode near King of Prussia.

Seven hours later, Frozen Kitten's body temperature had climbed to 97.2° Fahrenheit but he was far from being out of the woods. "We were very nervous and sad," Skuza related to the Burlington County Times of Willingboro, New Jersey, on January 28, 2014. (See "Volunteers Rescue a Cold Kitty.")"Frozen Kitten was getting better almost immediately but the progress was very slow and we were not sure if he is better or if he is going into shock, so we really didn't know that he will be just fine till about midnight when he reached his normal temperature and ate."

Frosty and His Frostbitten Ears and Nose

A few hours after that he was almost back to his old self. "Then I woke up at 3 a.m. to check on him and he moved off the heating pad, was stretched out and comfortably sleeping," she added "When he saw me he hissed and moved away from me. Obviously he got his personality of a scared kitten back and at that point it was definite that he was all better."

Frozen Kitten later was moved to the Pet Adoption and Lifecare Society in Broomall, Delaware County. "He is apparently very chatty now, eats like there is no tomorrow and doing great," Skuza confided to the Burlington County Times. "No more hissing. He is quite content now with the good life off the streets."

Whereas it was not disclosed if Frozen Kitten had suffered either frostbite or internal injuries, an eighteen-month-old gray, brown, and yellow female with beautiful green eyes named Rosalie was not nearly so lucky. Found frozen to the ground sometime during the second week of January in 2014 on Merritt Island in Welland, Ontario, she ended up losing her right ear, part of her left ear, and the tip of her tail to frostbite.

Thanks to the prompt and competent care that she received from the Welland and District Humane Society and the Grand River Veterinary Hospital in Caledonia, she survived in order to live another day. As an added bonus, she later was adopted by her rescuer, Jamie Kmety. (See the St. Catherines Standard, January 17, 2014, "Frostbitten Cat Undergoes Surgery.")

On February 1, 2011, Natasha Schroeder was driving down Pawnee Street in Cleveland, Oklahoma, when she just happened to spy a two-month-old white kitten with black spots named Blizzard meowing piteously in eight inches of snow. His paws were cracked and bleeding, one of his rear legs was injured, and he was suffering from both hypothermia and starvation.

"It was shaking uncontrollably," she later told KJRH-TV of Tulsa on February 2, 20ll. (See "Woman Finds Kitten Freezing in the Snow after Being Dumped in Cleveland, Oklahoma.")"He could barely hold his head up."

Without so much as a moment to spare, Schroeder wrapped Blizzard in a blanket and rushed him to Pound Pals for emergency treatment. He recovered and subsequently was adopted by an unidentified member of the United States Marine Corps from San Angelo, Texas. (See KJRH-TV, February 28, 2011, "Kitten Found During Blizzard in Cleveland, Oklahoma, Has a New Home.")

As terrible as wintertime abandonments in the snowbelt are in themselves, they often are worsened by intentional acts of outrageous animal cruelty. For example, in late December of 2005, most likely on Boxing Day, a calico cat named Lucky was locked up inside a cage that was weighted down with a sixteen-pound stone and tossed into the Clark Ford River in Missoula, Montana.

Roo and Melissa Smith of the York SPCA

Thankfully, The Fates were looking after her on that dreadful occasion in that not only did her cage land on the ice but it was spotted by a passerby who notified the Missoula Fire Department which in turn mounted a rescue just in the nick of time. Later, she was adopted by one of her saviors, firefighter Josh Macrow. (See Cat Defender post of January 13, 2006 entitled "Montana Firefighters Rescue 'Lucky' Calico Cat Who Was Caged and Purposefully Thrown into an Icy River.")

History repeated itself during the yuletide season of 2010 when a black and white kitten named Chabot-Matrix was dumped in the Pennesseewassee Stream in Norway, Maine. Like Lucky before her, Chabot-Matrix landed on an ice floe and subsequently was rescued unharmed on December 30th by members of the Chabot Construction Company from Greene.

She later was adopted by local beautician Chris Ryan. (See Cat Defender post of March 25, 2011 entitled "Compassionate Construction Workers Interrupt Their Busy Day in Order to Rescue Chabot-Matrix from a Stream in Maine.")

Slightly before the attempt was made upon Chabot-Matrix's life, a handsome gray cat named Jack-in-the-Box was sealed up in a cardboard box on December 23, 2010 and left at the curb in frigid Troy, New York. The game plan called for him to either freeze to death during the overnight period or to be collected by the garbageman the next morning. Fortunately for him, he was found by Melissa Lombardo who promptly notified the Troy Police.

Although he was treated for exposure, Jack recovered and was scheduled to have gone to a new home in January of 2011. The man who had abandoned him, forty-eight-year-old Michael T. Walsh, was arrested on December 30th and charged with three counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty. (See WXAA-TV of Albany, December 23, 2010, "Abandoned Cat Found 'Miracle on One-Hundred-Tenth Street'" and Cat Defender post of October 14, 2011 entitled "Chucked Out in the Trash, Tabitha Winds Up in a Oxygen Chamber with Four Broken Ribs, an Injured Lung, and Pneumonia.")

The frigid temperatures unleashed by Mother Nature are not the only source of cold that cats have to fear in that the artificial, man-made variety can be every bit as deadly. For example, in one of the most outrageous cases of animal neglect and cruelty on record, the management and staff at an unidentified frozen food warehouse located somewhere in either Northamptonshire or the East Midlands knowingly allowed a one-year-old tuxedo named Frosty to spend five weeks in their -28° Fahrenheit facility during January and February of 2010.

It is theorized that Frosty was able to persevere in such an extremely cold environment because the doors to the warehouse were open on certain days in order to facilitate the receipt and dispatching of deliveries and that in turn allowed in a degree of warmth. He also likely was able to have secured sanctuary in either a corner or inside some object where it was not quite as cold. As far as sustenance is concerned, he is believed to have avoided starvation and dehydration by eating frozen peas and licking the condensation off the outsides of packages.

Even so, frostbite cost him both of his ears as well as his tail. Although it is not known with any certainty, it nevertheless is believed that he became trapped inside the frozen death chamber after having arrived as an unwitting stowaway on one of the delivery trucks.

Jean

He also could have been intentionally dumped there by one of the drivers but no matter how that he arrived the neglect shown him by the callous capitalists can only be labeled as criminal. (See Cat Defender post of April 8, 2010 entitled "Frozen Food Purveyor Knowingly Condemns Frosty to Spend Five Weeks in Its -28° Fahrenheit Warehouse Without Either Food or Water.")

In November of 2008, an unknown and still at large monster in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, even went so far as to divest a twelve-week-old orange kitten named Chopper of his fur and then to abandon him, still bleeding from multiple cuts that resulted from a mean job of shaving, to the elements. Fortunately, his plight was discovered by a Good Samaritan who brought him to the attention of the Ontario SPCA (OSPCA).

In addition to the cuts, he had contracted a common cold, fleas, worms, and ear mites. He also was so emaciated that his bones were visible through his skin.

"He was in rough shape...we didn't know if he'd make it," Dave Wilson of the OSPCA later said. "He was probably just trying to survive on the street and someone did this to him."

That may not have been necessarily the case in that it could have been his guardian who shaved him and then abandoned him to the street; his health thereafter could have taken a downward spiral. The important thing, however, is that he was rescued in time, received treatment, and later was adopted. (See Cat Defender post of December 9, 2008 entitled "Shaved from Head to Tail and Left to Freeze to Death in the Ontario Cold, Chopper Is Saved at the Last Minute.")

The repercussions that result from the horrific toll that motorists take on cats even during clement weather is magnified a hundredfold whenever they commit their atrocities during the wintertime. For instance, back on February 16, 2007 a two-year-old brownish-gray cat named Roo was mowed down and left for dead by a hit-and-run motorist on Manor Road in Lower Windsor Township, Pennsylvania.

He thus found himself in a totally hopeless predicament that bears a strikingly resemblance to the one that befell Flick in that the blood from his injuries had frozen his front paws to the road. He was rescued by a compassionate woman who took him to the York SPCA but even then his right paw had to be amputated and his left one was placed in jeopardy due to a fracture. (See Cat Defender post of March 5, 2007 entitled "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Cat Named Roo Is Saved by a Caring Woman.")

Domino. Whatever Became of Her?

A pretty white female kitten with patches of black and brown to go along with captivating green eyes also was run down and left for dead around the middle of January of 2014 in Youngstown, Ohio. She somehow managed to survive that attack but was forced to hobble around town for another fortnight as she in the meantime nearly succumbed to both hunger and the elements.

On January 28th she was rescued by an elderly woman in her eighties named Jean who attempted to procure veterinary assistance for her but every shelter that she contacted wanted to kill the kitten. Eventually she found her way to West Side Cats which not only took in the kitten but named her in her honor. (See January 28, 2014 untitled article on West Side Cats' Facebook page.)

On January 29th, Jean finally received the veterinary treatment that she so desperately needed and richly deserved. Specifically, she was diagnosed to be suffering from a luxating patella (trick knee) and a broken pelvis.

Frostbite also claimed the tops of both of her ears but, mercifully, her hearing was unimpaired. She additionally came through her long and trying ordeal in the cold without any apparent internal organ damage. (See January 29, 2014 untitled article on West Side Cats' Facebook page.)

"Jean is an absolute lover and whoever gets her is in for a real treat," the charity exclaimed March 2, 2014 in an untitled article posted on Facebook. Inexplicably, Jean is not listed on the organization's web site as having been one of its successful adoptions of 2014 and that glaring omission could mean almost anything from either her foster mother having elected to keep her or something tragic.

As revolting as it may be, rescue groups as well as individuals abandon cats to the cold and snow. Back in March of 2008, for instance, when Ann and Mike Hirz of Poynette, Wisconsin, decided to relocate to Green Valley, Arizona, they attempted to leave behind their five-year-old cat, Domino, to tough it out in the cold and snow.

Domino, however, became unwittingly trapped in a shipping crate and thus made the trip with the Hirzes to Green Valley. Instead of rectifying their original mistake and holding on to Domino this time around, they instead took the advice of Paws Patrol and transported her back to Poynette where they abandoned her for a second time.

Ninja and Kristina Clark

"It knows its safety areas. It knows its sources of food and shelter," Patti Hogan of the rescue group argued at that time. "This is Domino's best chance of survival."

For anyone looking for a totally bogus rationale for shirking their moral responsibilities, Hogan's baloney certainly fits the bill. First of all, with the Hirzes long gone Domino no longer had any food, shelter, or safety zones to return to in Poynette.

Much more importantly, her welfare and care was their solemn moral responsibility regardless of whether they continued to reside in either Poynette or Green Valley. It is not known what ultimately became of Domino but her bleak prospects are not pleasant to contemplate. (See Cat Defender post of May 8, 2009 entitled "Domino, Feral and All Alone, Faces an Uncertain Future in Wisconsin Following an Unplanned Trip to Arizona.")

Thankfully, not all cat owners are cold-hearted, low-life exploitative scumbags. For example, on January 25th of last year twenty-two-year-old Kristina Clark of Copper Center refused to allow a total lack of money, the biting cold, avalanches, and even being jailed by the Alaska State Police to dissuade her from procuring life-saving veterinary intervention for her ailing five-year-old gray and white tom, Ninja. As long as there is life on this planet, the heroism and dedication that she showed Ninja will remain the gold standard as to how all cat lovers are judged. (See Cat Defender post of February 15, 2014 entitled "Indefatigable Young Alaskan Woman Overcomes a Lack of Money, Jailing by the Police, and a Series of Avalanches in Order to Save Ninja's Life.")

Looking ahead, there is not a good deal of room for optimism. Not only did Punxsutawney Phil predict six more weeks of winter on Groundhog Day but some meteorologists are expecting the cold and snow to linger on across North America until at least the middle of April. The area accordingly may not see any warm weather until July.

Also, considering the enormous amount of ice covering both the Arctic Circle and Greenland that has yet to melt it certainly looks as if winters in the northern hemisphere are destined to become progressively longer, colder, and wetter in the foreseeable future. Once all the ice has melted, conditions will rapidly deteriorate in the opposite direction.

That can only be interpreted to mean that in addition to Flick countless other cats are destined to suffer and die simply hideous deaths as the result of prolonged exposure to the unforgiving cold. Only caring individuals, the managers of TNR colonies, and the guardians of domestic cats have it in their power to significantly alter that distressing scenario.

Photos: Tail Wagger's 1990 (Flick), Burlington County Times (Frozen Kitten), Maryanne Firth of the St. Catherines Standard (Rosalie), Natasha Schroeder (Blizzard), Daily Mail and SWNS (Frosty), Bill Bowden of the York Daily Record (Roo), West Side Cats (Jean), Green Valley News (Domino), and Kristina Clark (Ninja).

Tigger

"Some pieces of his tale remain unanswered but to us Ozzie will always be our Australian traveler who came to our care for a reason."
-- Cats Protection's Armagh Branch

There are numerous missing chapters in his all-too-brief life but even so it is difficult to come to any other conclusion than that the fifteen years that Tigger spent upon this earth could not possibly have been anything other than abject misery. The mere fact that the large and affectionate ginger-colored tom was able to persevere for as long as he did is a testament to both his indomitable spirit and tenacious will to live.

As best it could be determined, he was born in Sydney in 1999 and a microchip was implanted in him a year later. In 2004, he inexplicably turned up as a stray at an unidentified veterinary clinic in London but the practitioners were either unwilling or unable to identify and thus contact his owners.

What happened to him after that is a closely guarded secret owing to the surgery's unwillingness to disclose what it did with him. Presumably, the practitioners either fobbed him off on another owner or surrendered him to a shelter but even that is at best conjecture.

Regardless of the denouement at the surgery, Tigger somehow managed to live for another eleven years until an unidentified woman in Laurelvale, fifty-six kilometers south of Belfast, telephoned the Armagh Branch of Cats Protection on June 7th in order to rat him out for loitering in her precious little patch of weeds. Quite obviously, she possessed neither the compassion to offer him some food nor the common decency to provide him with shelter and emergency veterinary care.

Even more appallingly, she did not even care that in telephoning Cats Protection she was initialing his death warrant. It is even conceivable that doing him in may have been her ulterior motive right from the start. (See Cat Defender posts of July 31, 2015 and August 19, 2010 entitled, respectively, "The Cold-Blooded Murder of Spitz Once Again Exposes the Horrifying, Ugly, and Utter Appalling Truth about Not Only Shelters but Callous Owners and Phony-Baloney Animal Rights Groups as Well" and "Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and an Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw.")

True to its calling, Cats Protection arrived johnny-on-the-spot and immediately took Tigger into custody just as if he were nothing more than a convicted felon on the lam. It then transported him in a cage to the Willow Veterinary Clinic in Portatown, thirty-seven kilometers southwest of Belfast, where he was diagnosed to be suffering from malnutrition. If he was suffering from any other maladies at that time they certainly were not divulged by either Cats Protection or the surgery.

Rather, the public debate that followed focused solely upon the information disclosed by the microchip and as a consequence it did not take long before his past life was pieced together in higgledy-piggledy fashion albeit with numerous apertures, omissions, and inaccuracies. Most glaring of all, the charity at first claimed that he had been born in 1989 which would have made him an astounding twenty-six years old.

Secondly, even though it knew from the very outset that he had been christened as Tigger, Cats Protection nevertheless stubbornly insisted upon calling him Ozzie in a jeu de mots deliberately designed to constantly rub his tiny nose in the humiliating fact that he had suffered the galling misfortune to have been born in a feline hellhole such as Australia. (See Cats Protection's press release of June 17, 2015, "Australian Cat Found in Northern Ireland.")

The organization then launched an international appeal on its web site, social media, and through the capitalist press in order to locate his longtime derelict owners in Sydney. "How we wish he could talk," it declared to The Daily Telegraph of Surry Hills in New South Wales on June 18th. (See "Cat Born in Sydney Turns Up in Northern Ireland Animal Shelter.")"Please share...we would love to solve this puzzle and maybe find his owners."

The organization even ventured so far afield as to contact the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) of Sydney Olympic Park in New South Wales which maintains an animal registry. "We are desperate to unravel the rest of this cat's past and hopefully reunite him with his owners," Gillian McMullen of the Armagh Branch told London's Independent on June 18th. (See "The Mystery of the Twenty-Five-Year-Old Australian Cat Which Turned Up in Northern Ireland.")"We have been in touch with the Australian Animal Register (sic) and have our fingers and paws crossed on word from them on this cat."

Press reports are contradictory as the amount of cooperation that Cats Protection was able to get out of the RAS. For example, The Daily Telegraph claims that the agency was able to locate Tigger's original owners and that it left a telephone message for them.

Meanwhile, Ulster Television (UTV) of Belfast reported on June 19th that Tigger's owners had been identified as world travelers and that they definitely wanted him back. That information is of dubious veracity, however, in that the station also ludicrously claimed that they had left him with friends in either Armagh city or County Armagh and that he later had done a runner. (See "Globetrotting Cat Mystery Solved.")

Such slipshod, slapdash reporting in no way accounts for either how Tigger made it across the Irish Sea from London to Armagh or what, if any, efforts his owners undertook in order to locate him over the course of the intervening eleven years. It also is exceedingly odd that Cats Protection and the RAS were able to accomplish at this late date in Tigger's life what the London surgery was unable to pull off in 2004. Quite obviously, someone is being considerably less than truthful.

It additionally is nothing short of reprehensible that Cats Protection would squander so much valuable time and resources in Australia when Tigger had not only been living in the United Kingdom for such an extended period of time but until apparently fairly recently also had a known, but not publicly identified, guardian somewhere in County Armagh. "The poor cat was starving but obviously had been cared for in the past because it was wearing a collar," McMullen conceded to The Daily Telegraph in the article cited supra.

Most outrageous and unforgiving of all was the charity's utterly insane decision to attempt to send him back to Australia where the authorities are in the midst of eradicating more than two million cats over the course of the next five years. If Tigger had been sent back to the killing fields and so much as ventured out of doors he surely would have been felled on the spot by any one of the dozens of barbaric, sadistic, cunning, and underhanded means that the bloodthirsty Australians have conjured up in order to rid the land that they stole from the aborigines of cats. (See the London Telegraph, July 22, 2015, "Brigitte Bardot Condemns Australia's Plan to Kill Two-Million Feral Cats" and Bardot's July 21st letter to Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt entitled "Le gouvernment australien prévoit de tuer deux million de chats: Brigitte Bardot réagit.")

As things eventually turned out, UTV had it all wrong in that Tigger's original owners never made good on their pledge to come to Armagh and collect him. Plus, nothing further ever was reported concerning either the identity or the intentions of his recent owner in Armagh.

That left him at the mercy of Cats Protection and it certainly did not waste any time in lowering the boom on him. "Sadly his health has deteriorated and he is in kidney failure," the charity confirmed to the Daily Mail on July 1st. (See "Globetrotting Aussie Cat Found in Ireland (sic) Is Spending His Last Days in a Cat Shelter after Being Diagnosed with Kidney Failure.")"He is spending his last days with us and when the time comes it will end in dignity surrounded by love."

When it comes to killing cats the charity certainly means what it says and is not to be trifled with and as a direct consequence Tigger was dead by July 6th. "We were really hoping for a happy end to his story, but he had developed serious and untreatable kidney failure. In the end it proved too much for him and he was very weak and ill," McMullen claimed in a July 6th press release. (See "Dignified End for Globetrotting Puss Ozzie.")"It was heartbreaking when the vet said the only thing we could do was to have him put to sleep. In the end, he died peacefully and quietly in my arms."

Tigger Certainly Looked Healthy Enough on Death Row

For starters, only a homicidal maniac ever could find any dignity in the cold-blooded murder of a cat. Secondly, although Cats Protection has not disclosed what was done with his remains, it more than likely casually tossed them out in the trash and it likewise is utterly impossible to find any dignity in such rank callousness.

"He was fifteen and had clearly led a very colorful and eventful life," McMullen further declared as an additional rationale for snuffing out his life. Like her argument about dignity, this is simply more self-serving sottise.

As if all of that palaver were not dishonest enough, either she or one of her colleagues had the unmitigated gall to slyly invoke divine providence as yet still another justification for killing Tigger. "Some pieces of his tale remain unanswered but to us Ozzie will always be our Australian traveler who came to our care for a reason," the charity pontificated to the Daily Mail in the article cited supra.

First of all, Tigger did not come to Cats Protection voluntarily but rather was forcibly abducted from the street and shanghaied onto death row. Most important of all, it is extremely doubtful that either the gods or The Fates authorized his death and gave Cats Protection the right to kill him.

To engage in such patently bogus rationalizations is not only dishonest but insufferable as well. Like all cat killers, Cats Protection must accept responsibility for its own actions and stop fobbing off the blame for its despicable crimes on supernatural powers.

On a more practical level, it is strikingly peculiar that Tigger was able to somehow persevere for so long on his own but once Cats Protection got its hands on him he suddenly was deemed to no longer be fit to go on living. A very similar set of circumstances befell a sixteen-year-old homeless cat named Marvin from Half Moon Bay, California, in August of 2011.

Like Cats Protection, Ken White of the Peninsula Humane Society in San Mateo engaged in pretty much the same nonsense in order to justify his killing of Marvin. (See Cat Defender post of September 28, 2011 entitled "Marvin Is Betrayed, Abducted, and Murdered by a Journalist and a Shelter Who Preposterously Maintain That They Were Doing Him a Favor.")

In that light it would be helpful to know exactly when Willow Veterinary Clinic arrived at its conclusion that he was suffering from irreversible kidney failure and what, if any, measures were undertaken in order to treat him. As for the malady itself, its onset has been attributed to almost anything and everything excluding the kitchen sink.

For instance, it has been linked to, inter alia, the Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLv), the Immunosuppression Virus (FIV), abdominal trauma, genetic defects, urinary tract obstructions, hypertension, Feline Hyperthyroidism caused by exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and other toxins in the home, diabetes, and inbreeding. Researchers at Colorado State University have found a troubling link between it and the vaccinations for Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis (herpes), Feline Calcivirus (pneumonia), and Panleukopenia (distemper).

Veterinarian Karen Baker even blames the disease on a steady diet of dry food. (See "Why Do So Many Domestic Cats Have Chronic Kidney Failure?", August 6, 2012, at www.healthypets.mercole.com.)

In an undated article posted on about.home.com, Mary Marlowe Leverette claims to have uncovered a link between kidney failure in cats and laundry dryer sheets that are sometimes used in order to remove loose hairs and static electricity from their fur. Consumption of them also can be lethal. (See "Dryer Sheets Are Harmful to Cats and Dogs.")

Botched sterilization also have been known to rob cats of the use of their kidneys. (See Cat Defender post of October 11, 2013 entitled "Heroic Hermione Is Holding Her Own Despite Tragically Losing a Kidney to a Botched Sterilization Two Years Ago.")

Although any one of those factors could have prompted Tigger's kidneys to fail, it additionally is conceivable that conditions at Cats Protection's shelter in Armagh could have exacerbated some underlying health issue that he may have had prior to his unjust arrest and incarceration. Regardless of the cause, the organization's terse announcement on July 1st that it was planning on killing him came as a coup de foudre.

It also cannot be completely ruled out that he was liquidated, not because he was too sick to go on living, but rather due to financial considerations. That is because Cats Protection was not about to pony up for either his extended care or his treatment and, presumably, the same was true for his unidentified guardian in Armagh.

By default that left matters in the hands of his original owners in Australia who, because of their ability to travel the big, wide world, quite obviously have money to burn. When they, predictably, refused to come to Tigger's rescue, Cats Protection wasted no time in getting rid of him.

Although that analysis of events is, admittedly, pure supposition, it at least has the advantage of being buttressed by the well-known fact that kidney failure in cats is no longer a coup de grâce. Au contraire, it quite often can be successfully treated with dialysis, diuresis, renal replacement therapy, and chemotherapy but doing so is not only expensive but labor intensive as well.

Although prohibitively expensive for most guardians, kidney transplants are available for cats residing in both England and the United States but not Deutschland. (See the Hannover Allgemeine, October 27, 2010, "Kater aus Hannover bekommt US -- Niere für 7000 Euro.")

The best news, however, is that many cats do not need to go through all of that torture but rather their lives can be saved through the daily administration of subcutaneous fluids and by placing them on special diets. "I've seen even very sick cats, cats who need hospitalization in the beginning, do really well on home care with an owner who was willing to give it a try," Miami veterinarian Patty Khuly told the San Francisco Chronicle on August 18, 2009. (See "Caring for a Cat Whose Kidneys Have Failed.")"What makes the difference in how well a cat with kidney failure does is not how sick they (sic) are, or how bad their kidney values are on a blood test. It is the attitude of the owner."

The M1 Kitten

The benefits to be derived from home care are not necessarily of a transitory nature either. "Many of these cats who are on the brink of death can be brought back with supportive care at home," Khuly added to the Chronicle."Not only brought back for days or weeks or months, but years. You just don't know unless you try."

Although the specifics of Tigger's disease have not been made public, he undoubtedly was killed because he did not have anyone in his corner who cared enough about him to even so much as to attempt to save his life. Otherwise, he very well might still be alive today.

It is a subject that is not discussed all that much but caring for a large number of felines, as Cats Protection does every day of the year, invariably leads to certain amount of institutionalized callousness whereby saving individual lives is more often than not sacrificed upon the utilitarian altar of doing the most good for the greatest number. Under such harried and parsimonious circumstances, it is difficult for questions of morality and compassion to receive anything other than short shrift, that is, if they receive any consideration whatsoever.

Regrettably, shelters make dozens, if not indeed hundreds, of these life and death decisions every day of the week. The only difference is that the tens of thousands of cats that they so callously sell down the river in the name of expediency and with hardly so much as a second thought never find their way, like Tigger, into public consciousness.

The operate under such a philosophy is not only morally indefensible but dishonest as well in that Cats Protection sans doute reaped a windfall in terms of the donations that poured in from the public in order to relieve Tigger's plight. By killing him off while simultaneously holding on to those donations the charity is guilty of defrauding the public and as such should be held accountable under the consumer fraud statutes.

Far from being an isolated case, shelters and animal rescue groups all over the world practice the same leger de main, especially when it comes to how that they deal with cases of animal cruelty. Specifically, instead of keeping alive the victims and apprehending their abusers, they kill off the former, turn blind eyes to the latter, and pocket the donations. (See Cat Defender post of January 6, 2010 entitled "Large Reward Fails to Lead to the Capture of the Archer Who Shot an Arrow Through Brownie's Head.")

Furthermore, the killing of Tigger is far from being the only skeleton in Cats Protection's commodious and spidery closet. For example, in 2005 it got greedy and began depositing its money in an Icelandic bank known as Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander (KSF).

The heady times and high interest rates that KSF promised the charity came to a crashing halt in 2008 when it went bankrupt. As a result, Cats Protection lost £11.2 million and that resulted in eighty of its employees losing their jobs.

Much more importantly, the organization's recklessness undoubtedly ended up costing the lives of innumerable cats that it otherwise could have saved with those funds. (See the Daily Mail, October 10, 2008, "Cats Protection Set to Loose £11.2 Million as Biggest Charity Victim of Iceland Bank Crisis.")

In 2013, the charity's branch in Moray flimflammed twenty-nine-year-old Suzi Gallacher of Elgin, two-hundred-eighty kilometers north of Edinburgh, out of a cat named Bramble that she earlier had adopted from it. In particular, representatives of the organization seized it under the pretense of taking it to a veterinarian only to later leave Gallacher a message stating that Bramble had been reclaimed because she had allowed it out into her garden.

The Moray branch later was forced to concede that deceiving Gallacher had been "an error in judgment."(See the Aberdeen Evening Express, July 25, 2013, "Animal Charity Admits 'Error of Judgment' to Reclaim Cat from North-East Family.")

In January of this year the charity presented to Parliament its Manifesto for Cats and although eight of its proposals are rather commendable the remaining two, if adopted by the legislators, would be disastrous for the species. In particular, the organization's call for the establishment of a national database in order to keep track of all cats would undoubtedly lead to the senseless killing of thousands of foreign cats who illegally enter the United Kingdom each year.

The authorities already kill an undisclosed number of them due to a lack of shelter space. "Our holding facility on the docks is designed for keeping a cat now not much longer than a day," PC David Palmer of the Port of Dover Police disclosed in 2013 after a cat named Poussey entered the country illegally from La Havre. "After that, if a home hasn't been found for it, the animal is usually put to sleep."(See Cat Defender post of July 25, 2014 entitled "Poussey Overcomes a Surprise Boat Rode to Dover, a Stint on Death Row, and Being Bandied About Like a Flying Dutchman in Order to Finally Make It Home to La Havre.")

Secondly, the six-month quarantine period that countries such as England, Canada, France, and the United States subject undocumented cats to is unduly lengthy in that caging a cat for ten days is usually sufficient in order to make a rabies determination. Besides, required vaccinations for that and other diseases can be administered on the spot and in a matter of minutes. (See www. petmd.com, "Rabies in Cats.")

Thirdly, the quarantine fees that these nations charge are not only exorbitant but end up costing many wayward felines their lives unless saviors can be promptly found in order to ransom their lives. (See Cat Defender posts of August 11, 2008, August 18, 2008, September 8, 2010, December 9, 2005, and May 17, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Trapped Inside a Crate, Ginger Licks Up Condensation in Order to Survive a Nightmarish Sea Voyage from China to Nottinghamshire,""Ronaldo Escapes Deaths after a Retailer Coughs Up the Exorbitant Bounty That Quarantine Officials Had Placed on His Head,""Mandarin Survives a Long and Harrowing Sea Voyage from China to Canada Only to Wind Up in Hock to the Calgary Humane Society,""Adventurous Wisconsin Cat Named Emily Makes an Unscheduled Trip to France in the Hold of a Cargo Ship," and "A North Carolina Shelter Is Plotting to Kill a Cat That Survived Being Trapped for Thirty-Five Days in the Cargo Hold of a Ship from China.")

Cats who through absolutely no fault of their own are stolen, become lost in transit, and wind up trapped inside vehicles and shipments of merchandise are all the time finding themselves in dutch with immigration authorities and instead of placing bounties on their tiny heads and issuing death sentences they should be accorded all the prevailing rights and privileges that are enjoyed by their counterparts who are legal residents. Any other approach is cruel and utterly barbaric.

It is by no means clear how this proposal would have affected Tigger if it had been in situ in either 2004 or 2015. Nevertheless, it does not take a genius to realize that a cat without a loving and caring guardian in order to shelter and protect it is already up the spout and to have immigration officials aligned against it as well makes for a totally unwinnable situation that, barring a miracle, can only lead to its demise.

Moreover, if Cats Protection and its flatheaded allies within the political establishment are allowed to prevail, pretty soon no cat will be able to take so much as a bleeding piss without first receiving written permission from the queen, MI5, and the local water commissioner! The mere fact that such bureaucratic and veterinary chicanery is being used in order to make money and to kill innocent cats makes it all the more deplorable.

Dante

The charity' second ludicrous proposal calls for the mandatory microchipping of all cats. "It is only because of a microchip that we were able to identify Ozzie," McMullen caroled in the Armagh Branch's July 6th press release cited supra. "But as his case highlights, it's really important to keep the details up-to-date."

Au contraire, Tigger carried around inside of him a microchip for fourteen long and trying years and there is not so much as a solitary shred of evidence that he in any way benefited from its presence. Other than piquing Cats Protection's undying lust for money, the only thing of value that it revealed was the callousness of his Australian owners and the careless and irresponsible practices of the London surgery.

On a much more broader level, microchips offer cats absolutely no protection whatsoever against the machinations of both animals and individuals intent upon doing them harm. (See Cat Defender post of May 25, 2006 entitled "Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats.")

They also have been shown to cause cancer. (See Cat Defender posts of September 21, 2007 and November 6, 2010 entitled, respectively, "FDA Is Suppressing Research That Shows Implanted Microchips Cause Cancer in Mice, Rats, and Dogs" and "Bulkin Contracts Cancer from an Implanted Microchip and Now It Is time for Digital Angel® and Merck to Answer for Their Crimes in a Court of Law," plus The Chronicle of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, February 18, 2014, "Consett Cat Sassie Paralyzed in Microchipping Bungle.")

As if all of that were not horrendous enough, Katherine Moseby and her colleagues at the University of Adelaide are in the process of developing toxic microchips that are designed to kill cats. The chips are to be implanted, not in cats, but rather in those species fawned on by the eggheads and their political paymasters.

Specifically, the chips are designed to break open upon attack and to kill the cats while leaving the host species unharmed. (See Takepart of Beverly Hills, August 14, 2015, "Australia Targets Wildlife-Killing Cats with Toxic Microchips.")

As Jean-Jacques Rousseau pointed out in his 1750 treatise, Discours sur les sciences et les arts, precious little good ever has been derived from the advancement of knowledge and technology. That is due principally to the fact that the benefits of such advancements are almost always monopolized by the evil people in this world and used primarily to augment their power at the expense of others, the animals, Mother Earth and, above all, the truth.

"Progress is the destruction of the real world in favor of a technology that creates a comfortable way of life for a few fortunately situated people," is how Native American scholar Vine Deloria Jr. would later put it. The remainder of creation accordingly would have been far better off if man had remained relegated to the pre-Promethean state described by Aeschylus in his play, Prometheus Bound, where he was without arts and hope and knew only that death was before him.

If even could be argued with some force that things might very well have turned out for the better if Prometheus had allowed Zeus to destroy the entire human race. Whereas that is a debatable point, there cannot be any denying that man has grown too big for his breeches and that Zeus may yet be forced to intervene and, as Aristophanes maintains in Plato's Symposium, once again chop him in two.

Due to all those considerations but especially the killing of Tigger, it initially was feared that Cats Protection's Midsomer Norton and Radstock shelter near Bath in Somerset was greasing the skids for a nineteen-year-old, nearly blind, tortoiseshell named Pops. (See Cat Defender post of August 6, 2015 entitled "Elderly, Frail and on Death Row, Lovely Pops Desperately Needs a New Home Before Time Finally Runs Out of Her.")

Apparently those fears were groundless in that the charity announced August 12th on its web site that it at long last had placed her in a new home. (See "Blind Cat Pops Finally Finds a New Home.")

No additional details have been provided, however, and that makes it all but impossible to corroborate the charity's claim. The best therefore that can be hoped for is that she has not received the same "dignified end" that it gave Tigger.

About the same time that Pops was exiting its Midsomer Norton and Radstock branch, the charity's shelter in Armagh was welcoming a nameless young kitten that had been rescued in early August from the M1 in Lurgan, twenty-nine kilometers south of Belfast, by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Diagnosed at Willow Veterinary Clinic to be suffering from a cut lip and shock, it has been put up for adoption and time alone will tell what Cats Protection ultimately elects to do with it. (See UTV, August 14, 2015, "Kitten Rescued from M1 'Waiting for New Home'.")

Looking back over the course of Tigger's turbulent and distressful life it is impossible to find anything even remotely constructive to say about any of the dozens of individuals and institutions that sashayed into and out of his world. His life and, especially, his death therefore constitute a staggering indictment of both the callousness and malfeasance of the entire god-rotten lot of them.

Most inexcusable of all was the shameless behavior of Cats Protection which had at its disposal the veterinary expertise, manpower, and money in order to have saved his life but instead voluntarily chose to commit the cardinal sin of doing the exact opposite. Considering all the trials and tribulations that he had been put through, he richly deserved every chance in the world to have gone on living but the only things that he received in return from the charity were perfidy, a feast of self-serving sophistry and, finally, a lethal jab of sodium pentobarbital.

It also never must be overlooked that Cats Protection, whether for either financial or xenophobic reasons, wanted to deport him to his doom when it would have been much easier for it to have found him a sugar daddy in Armagh. That was, after all, the only way that his life could have been spared because the only morality that the charity recognizes is the folding kind that fits neatly into its wallet.

Secondly, the London surgery that failed to contact his owners, to update his microchip database, and to disclose to the public what it ultimately did with him, should not only be publicly identified but selected as well as the poster clinic for the entire veterinary medical profession. Once the huge number of cats that practitioners all over the globe deliberately kill each year, their outrageous incompetence, and the incalculable number of sick and injured animals that they send to their premature graves because of the exorbitant fees that they demand is taken into consideration, the picture of them that emerges is that of a thoroughly unprincipled criminal gang of cutthroat mercenaries who, outrageously, have appropriated for themselves the exclusive right to determine which animals are going to be allowed to continue living and at what price.

Unsuspecting Tigger Never Knew What Hit Him

To put the matter succinctly, they look down their crooked noses at cats as being little more than the expensive playthings of the bourgeoisie and the rich. At no time are any considerations of either morality or compassion allowed to enter into the desiccated recesses of their shriveled gourds.

Even more disturbing, since few, if any, complaints are ever voiced against the profession and how it conducts business, the general public surely must be every bit as morally bankrupt as it is. Notwithstanding all of that, affordable pet care is every bit as fundamental to the proper functioning of a civilized and compassionate society as is health care and for those individuals and groups who supposedly care about cats to allow veterinarians to continue to get away unscathed with their multitude of crimes speaks volumes for their lack of commitment to those whose cause they proclaim to defend.

Ever once in a blue moon a practitioner will make headlines by treating an impecunious cat but it is all for show and donations; worst still, absolutely nobody on the planet cares enough in order to investigate and disclose the thousands of suffering animals whose desperate plight they turn deaf ears and hardened hearts. To put the entire sorry matter in a neat little nutshell, the practice of veterinary medicine is on a par with that of operating either an animal research laboratory or an abattoir.

Besides the uncaring and irresponsible conduct of his recent guardian in Armagh and the downright hostile reception that he received from the woman in Laurelvale, Tigger suffered the greatest amount of abuse at the hands of his original caretakers in Sydney. Not only did they shamelessly run out on him in 2004 but they left him marooned in a foreign land to boot.

There is absolutely nothing in the public record that would even hint at the remote possibility that they either cared so much as one whit about his welfare or that they undertook any efforts whatsoever to locate him. Having failed to learn a bloody thing from their past mistakes, they likewise gave him the cold shoulder back in June when he needed them the most.

Their errors of both omission and commission predate all of those offenses, however, and actually began when they initially decided to drag him all around the world. As an old Sprichwort stipulates, dogs belong to people but cats belong to places and as such traveling with them is, under most circumstances, not a good idea.

First of all, traveling is not only traumatic for them but extremely dangerous as well. For instance, some of them freeze to death in the cargo holds of airliners. (See Cat Defender post of April 7, 2009 entitled "Pregnant Minskin Arrives in Oregon Frozen as Solid as a Block of Ice Following a Fatal Cross-Country Flight in the Cargo Hold of an Airliner.")

Airliners also loose a far greater number of them than either they or the industry's regulatory bodies are willing to acknowledge. Airports, such as JFK in Queens, then turn around and systematically exterminate these lost pets whereas others, such as Manchester International in Ringway, cruelly give them the bum's rush. (See Cat Defender posts of November 5, 2007 and May 28, 2015 entitled, respectively, "Port Authority Gives JFK's Long-Term Resident Felines the Boot and Rescue Groups Are Too Impotent to Save Them" and "Abandoned, Homeless on the Street, Expelled by the Ingrates at Manchester International Airport, and Finally Whacked by Her Last Guardian, So Ran the Course of Ollie's Sad and Turbulent Life.")

On top of all of that, the legal restrictions placed upon cats that unwittingly venture across international frontiers are simply too onerous, expensive, and unwieldy, not to mention dangerous, as to make traveling with them worthwhile. All of those factors combine to severely limit the options of owners who also like to see the world.

The only real solution is to leave them in their own houses with a family member who has graciously elected not to travel. Pet sitters are, generally speaking, not a good idea because cats require almost constant supervision. Boarding kennels are rife with disease and cat hotels are just too expensive.

For those adventurous souls not crossing international lines, recreational vehicles (RVs) are an option so long as strict security precautions are implemented and meticulously followed. Even under those circumstances disaster can strike at almost any moment as sixty-two-year-old Henriette Henault of 100 Mile House in British Columbia found out on September 29, 2010 when she lost her cat, Precious, when she was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for drinking while behind the wheel of her parked RV. (See The Province of Vancouver, October 2, 2010, "Woman Loses 'Parked' Motor Home, Cat, Misses Court Date in Divorce.")

Private yachts and jets are possible alternatives for those who want to take their cats along with them as they see the world but even they need to be wary of the machinations of immigration and customs officials. The vast majority of individuals soon realize, however, that owing cats, like having children, changes everything and as a consequence prior foreign adventures are destined to become only fond memories that never are to be repeated.

In spite of that myriad of daunting impediments, some individuals stubbornly insist upon leaving their beloved companions behind and hitting the road. For instance in May of 2013, Alex McAllaster of Fort Walton Beach went on a six-week sailing trip and in doing so left behind her beloved cat, Dante, with an unidentified roommate. She did that in spite of the fact that Dante, whom she had owned for eight years, is afflicted with a bladder condition that prevents him from consuming dry food.

When she returned home in late June she was horrified to learn that almost as soon as she was out the door her roommate had fobbed off Dante on a stranger that she had met in the parking lot of Sam's Club. Thanks to a fortunate tip from a public-spirited citizen, McAllaster finally was able to relocate Dante on June 29th.

He had lost eight of his sixteen pounds and had suffered unspecified liver damage but, thankfully, was expected to live. Although Dante's and McAllaster's misadventures ended happily, the episode demonstrates the risk of entrusting the care of a cat to anyone other than a reliable family member. (See the Northwest Florida Daily News of Fort Walton Beach, articles dated June 7, 2013 and July 3, 2013 and entitled, respectively, "Roommate Gives Cat Away; Owner Searching" and "Cat Given Away by Roommate Found: 'As Soon as He Meowed, I Knew It Was Him'.")

In conclusion, it is difficult to fully comprehend the depth of the fears and deprivations that Tigger experienced as he was bandied about from Sydney to London and on to Armagh. All that can be said with any degree of certainly is that no cat ever should be so continuously uprooted, deserted, betrayed, and left to fend for himself in a world that even on its best days most often closely resembles a nest of wipers as far as members of the species are concerned.

The mud and manure on the cake was, however, Cats Protection's unforgivable decision to kill, as opposed to treating, him. Things could have turned out so very differently for him if only one person had cared just a tiny bit about him but not so much as an ounce of love was to be found anywhere along the wide expanse that separates southeast Asia from northern Europe.

All that is left of him now are the photographs and the memories. It is difficult, however, to refrain from speculating as to what it was that sustained him throughout all of his lonely and utterly terrifying perambulations.

Perhaps it was the memories of his happier days that kept him going. Charles Dickens, who was intimately acquainted with the abject cruelty that man is capable of inflicting upon others and cats, penned this memorable passage on the subject in his 1844 novel, Martin Chuzzlewit:

"Oh, weary, weary hour! Oh haggard mind, groping darkly through the past; incapable of detaching itself from the miserable present, dragging its heavy chain of care through imaginary feasts and revels, and scenes of awful pomp; seeking but a moment's rest among the long-forgotten haunts of childhood, and the resorts of yesterday; and dimly finding fear and horror everywhere! Oh, weary, weary hour! What were the wanderings of Cain to these!"

So, too, was the case with noble Tigger, the cat who, sadly, never counted for very much of anything with anyone.

Photos: Cats Protection (Tigger), PSNI (kitten), and the Northwest Florida Daily News (Dante).