One of the Dumping Sites Believed to Be in Madison

"The animals had been very decomposed which leads you to believe they had been dead for several months."
-- detective Tim Handy of the Madison Police Department

Employees of the Public Works Department (PWD) in tiny Madison Township, fifty-three kilometers north of Greensboro, made an horrific and disturbing discovery when they arrived at work just before 6 a.m. on May 4th. Dumped alongside a service road near Old Covered Bridge Road were six pet carriers which later were determined to contain the remains of seven cats.

Later that same morning at around 11:30 a.m. an unidentified park ranger stumbled upon the bodies of four additional cats trapped inside an unspecified number of carriers a little more than two kilometers south of the first site on U.S. 220 near Janet Road and Phoenix Auto Sales and just outside the Madison city limits in the manufacturing town of Mayodan.  As was the case with the first set of victims, their cages were lined with newspapers and contained several inches of rotting cat food and accumulated feces.

News reports are rather sketchy and somewhat contradictory, but apparently the only differences between the two sites other than the number of victims was that a plastic trash can also was found at the first one whereas at least two feeding dishes were found at the latter one. It accordingly is not known if the cats had been supplied with water because it could have been either previously consumed, evaporated on its own, or spilled during the bandying about of their death chambers.

Since employees of the PWD and the park ranger apparently frequent both locations on a more or less daily basis, it is believed that all of the eleven cats were dumped at their respective locations sometime between 6 p.m. on May 3rd and the following morning. Determining when they were killed is a considerably trickier proposition.

"The animals had been very decomposed which leads you to believe they had been dead for several months," detective Tim Handy of the Madison Police Department (MPD) theorized to WGHP-TV of High Point on May 4th. (See "Crates with Decomposing Cats Inside Found on Sides of Rockingham County Roads.")

While that certainly is a possibility it is by no means conclusive in that the carcasses of cats decompose at varying rates depending upon where and under what conditions they are either maintained or dumped. For instance, corpses that are stored indoors in either freezers, air conditioned rooms, or in unheated areas disintegrate at a rate far slower than those that have been left outdoors and thus exposed to the torrid rays of the sun. The freezing cold likewise serves as a preservative while scavengers and maggots will make quick work of most any dead animal.

A necropsy therefore is the only sure way of determining how long that they had been dead. The newspapers that lined their carriers might possibly however furnish some clues as to the approximate date of their incarceration. That is true even if their publication dates are missing because it is rather easy to match up news stories and advertisements to their counterparts on the web.

Most important of all, a necropsy should be able to determine exactly what killed each of the victims. Whereas kidney failure due to dehydration is a distinct possibility, they apparently did not starve to death. Besides, if their gaoler was thoughtful enough to have provided them with food that individual likely gave them water as well.

A post-mortem most assuredly also would be able to detect the presence of sodium pentobarbital and other lethal drugs in their systems and such a finding would serve to not only orient law enforcement officials in their investigation but it also would narrow down considerably the list of potential suspects. Even if that ultimately should prove not to be the case, the law enforcement community would still have numerous forensic tools at its disposal.

First of all, the pet carriers and feeding dishes should have been immediately dusted for fingerprints and vacuumed for microscopic evidence. After making a note of their brand names, relative ages, and manufacturers, they next should have been photographed.

All retailers in the vicinity that sell pet carriers and food dishes should have then been contacted. Considering the large number of carriers used in the commission of these diabolical crimes it is entirely possible that a merchant just might happen to recall making either a single sale of that quantity or a series of smaller ones to a particular individual or organization.

The Other Dump Site Believed to Be in Mayodan

Secondly, the food found in each carrier should have been analyzed in a laboratory in order to have determined both the brand and its age. In order to follow through on that thread, investigators would need to expand their dragnet from pet stores to supermarkets, drug stores, and other retailers that sell cat food.

Even the feces as well as the urine that had collected in the newsprint needed to have been scrutinized in a laboratory for clues. If the cats were either beaten, tortured, or used as guinea pigs the telltale signs of such abuse likely still would be detectable in their bones, skin, and fur.

Both locations where the cats were found should have been cordoned off and treated as crime scenes. Molds and photographs should have been taken of any and all footprints and tire tracks.

The police additionally should have canvassed door-to-door all residential dwellings and businesses located anywhere near both crime scenes. That is a real long shot but it is always conceivable that someone may have either seen or heard something suspicious during the evening hours of May 3rd.

Piecing together a profile of either the individual or group evil enough in order to have committed such dastardly acts is an equally demanding task. Nevertheless, several issues are not in dispute and the authorities actually have quite a bit of data to work with if only they could be prevailed upon to act.

First of all, the perpetrator had access to a rather large number of cats and considering that the population of Rockingham County is only ninety-three-thousand-six-hundred-forty-three, it would not seem likely that the area is overrun with an inordinate number of homeless cats. Secondly, since pet carriers are not cheap, the culprit is quite obviously either an individual or a group with disposable income.

Thirdly, the fact that carriers, as opposed to large, heavy cages, were used is a rather strong indication that the guilty party regularly moves around cats. Fourthly, considering the large number of carriers employed, either a truck or a van likely was used in the commission of the crimes. Whereas it is theoretically possible that the carriers could have been crammed into a station wagon, that is unlikely owing to both the smell associated with the decaying bodies and the porous nature of the contraptions.

Fifthly, the selection of such conspicuous dumping sites is an indication that the culprit was in a hurry to have gotten rid of the cats and did not particularly concerned that they would be found so quickly. Otherwise, it would have been much easier and safer for the killer to have placed the cats' corpses in black trash bags and then either burned or deposited them in Dumpsters and no one ever likely would have been any the wiser. That individual then could have either held on to or disposed of the carriers and food dishes in any number of ways.

Sixthly, the selection of the service road as a dumping site would tend on the one hand to indicate that the perpetrator is either a local resident or at least someone who is familiar with the area. On the other hand, that individual merely could have accidentally stumbled upon both locations.

Seventhly, even though the dumping of the cats in such a public manner suggests that the killer was imbued with a certain amount of arrogance and hubris, these horrific crimes do not appear to have been the handiwork or someone who was deliberately flaunting either his or her devilry as was the case a few years back in British Columbia. (See Cat Defender post of April 13, 2012 entitled "Serial Killer Who Freezes the Corpses of Cats and Dogs in Blocks of Ice and Then Exhibits Them on His Neighbors' Lawns Is on the Loose in Dawson Creek.")

Eighthly, unless the perpetrator belongs to an organization that has unlimited access to additional pet carriers, it would appear that either he or she is, at least for the time being, getting out of the business of trafficking and killing cats. Absolutely nothing can be taken for granted, however, and that is another poignant reason why it is so vital and the authorities monitor the sale of carriers and cages very closely until this case is solved. It is, after all, entirely conceivable that the killer simply was too lazy and nauseated to have cleaned the carriers and accordingly plans on purchasing replacements and continuing to kill cats.

Au premier coup d'oeil, this would appear to be the work of a hoarder but the perpetrator's modus operandi does not exactly fit that mold. First of all, the number of cats involved is far too small unless, that is, the culprit has killed and dumped additional victims elsewhere and that is a possibility that the authorities should not ignore.

One of the Feeding Dishes

Secondly, anyone with the financial means to have purchased that many pet carriers likely also would have been able to have had at least some of the cats sterilized. Thirdly and most telling of all, eleven cats are not either all that difficult or expensive to house and feed. For instance, numerous individuals are able to take care of twice that many of them and with relative ease.

Regrettably, even some practitioners of TNR have been known to abdicate their solemn responsibilities to their charges by either removing them from their colonies and subsequently imprisoning them in carriers in their houses or, even worse, handing them over to veterinarians to kill. For that reason, the authorities cannot completely rule out such individuals and groups from their inquiry. (See Cat Defender post of December 22, 2011 entitled "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.")

Although it is freely acknowledged that there simply are not enough facts to go on in order to reach any firm conclusions, it nevertheless could have been the case that these eleven cats were the victims of institutionalized violence. Accordingly, research laboratories, veterinarians, pet stores, groomers, and wildlife rehabilitation centers and zoos that nakedly exploit cats as surrogate mothers should be considered as prime suspects.

Animal Control officers, who even under the best of circumstances operate largely above the law, also have the vehicles, pet carriers, lethal means, expertise, and independence in order to commit such dastardly crimes. Much like letter carriers who dump rather than deliver the mail, it would be so easy for them to do likewise with the cats that they either trap or those that are surrendered to them by their uncaring owners.

For example in August of 2006, Michelle A. Mulverhill walked away from her job in Oxford, Massachusetts, and that led to horrific consequences for the animals under her care and control. (See Cat Defender post of August 31, 2006 entitled "An 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.")

Even the operators of cat sanctuaries have been known to hideously neglect their responsibilities and that is precisely what Virginia Kresge Justiniano and Andy J. Oxenrider of Cats with No Name in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, did back in 2009. Even more outrageously, they got away scot-free with the commission of their gargantuan crimes. (See Cat Defender post of May 10, 2010 entitled "Lunatic Rulings in Cats With No Name Cruelty Cases Proves Once Again That Pennsylvania Is a Safe Haven for Cat Killers and Junkies.")

Since they already possess licenses to kill, municipal shelters have little incentive to dump cats. Besides, most of them are subject to at least some minimal level of governmental oversight.

It is an entirely different matter for those organizations that operate private shelters and that, quite naturally, brings this analysis full circle to the criminal conduct of perennially engaged in by slimy and despicable PETA. Not only does it have a long history of killing and illegally dumping cats and dogs but its death house in Norfolk is only three-hundred-eighty-one kilometers east of Madison. Plus, it deploys a fleet of death vans that operate throughout all of Virginia and parts of northern North Carolina in search of cats and dogs to steal and kill.

Quite often municipal shelters hand over large numbers of animals to the representatives of this criminal organization who in turn kill them in their vans before dumping their corpses. For instance, in less than a thirty-day period back in 2005 two of its employees killed and dumped the corpses of seventeen cats and eighty-two dogs in a Dumpster at a Piggly Wiggly Supermarket in Ahoskie, three-hundred-eighty kilometers east of Madison in Hertford County.

The Tar Heel State's utterly disgraceful judicial system would not countenance holding these mass murderers accountable under the anti-cruelty statutes and as a result both the duo as well as PETA walked away scot-free. (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," plus The News and Observer of Raleigh, April 15, 2008, "PETA Workers Cleared of Animal Cruelty (sic) Convictions.")

The clean bill of health given the organization has left it free to continue to steal and kill with impunity and it certainly has not been the least bit shy about availing itself of the golden opportunity given it by the courts. (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 Porch, Killed Her.")

Another Feeding Dish

It is important to point out, however, that at this juncture there is not so much as a shred of evidence to link PETA to the killing of the eleven cats in Madison. Nevertheless, based upon its past conduct, the location of the crimes, and the modus operandi of the perpetrator, it cannot be completely excluded from the list of suspects.

More to the point, all institutions, shelters, rescue groups, and individuals that traffic in cats must, at least theoretically, be regarded as suspects. The authorities first should concentrate their investigation within a fifty-mile radius of Madison but if that should fail to produce results the search should be widened to include at least another one-hundred miles. Although it seems unlikely, it is remotely possible that the cats were killed elsewhere and subsequently dumped in Madison by either someone or groups from outside the area.

The investigation is being handled by the MPD and the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office (RCSO) in Reidsville but it has not been disclosed what, if any, forensic tests have been performed or if any suspects have been questioned. If previous cases of this sort are any barometer, neither organization has stirred so much as a muscle in order to bring either the guilty party or parties to justice.

For its part, the RCSO has been acting as if it is totally unaware that a crime has in fact has been committed. "Reach out to us," sergeant Kevin Sutland of the RCSO implored in the WGHP-TV article cited supra."Let us help the animals. Let us try to find them new forever homes."

Unless that quote has been taken out of context, he apparently does not even know the difference between acts of abominable animal cruelty, which are patently illegal, and the perennial difficulties associated with finding guardians for homeless cats. Besides, mindless jawboning is not going to crack this case.

Every bit as disgraceful, the local media have dropped the story like a hot potato and that in turn has made it possible for the authorities to leisurely sit back on their fat cracks and do absolutely nothing. Local humane groups and individual cat lovers also appear to be permanently out to lunch.

The one group that has ventured to shove in an oar has been the thoroughly discredited Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and its willingness to help can only be described as a case of subtraction by addition. That is because its assistance has been limited to offering a minuscule and totally irrelevant $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer.

"Leaving these cats for dead inside their kennels and carelessly tossing them out is heartbreakingly cruel and also a serious crime," the organization's Erica Geppi blew long and hard in a press release dated May 5th. (See "Reward Offered in Rockingham County, North Carolina, Cat Cruelty Case.") "We hope our reward helps find the person or persons who committed this despicable act (sic)."

As it is the case with Sutland's gruntings, hope does not contribute a blessed thing toward solving animal cruelty cases. In order to accomplish that herculean task, the best forensic science available, dedication, and steadfastness are needed but, regrettably, all of those components are in exceedingly short supply in Rockingham County.

More to the point, the HSUS is only offering the reward money because it is absolutely certain that it never will be called upon to make good on its pledge. If it were even halfway serious about bringing the perpetrator to justice it would dispense with its empty rhetoric and acts of beau geste and instead promptly dispatch a team of trained investigators to Madison in order to beat the bushes.

Furthermore, the organization's intransigence, duplicity, grandstanding, and mendaciousness are not anything new. For example, after pledging to defend the cats on San Nicolas it turned around and sold them down the river to their sworn enemies. (See Cat Defender posts of June 27, 2008, July 10, 2008, April 28, 2009, November 20, 2009, and February 24, 2012 entitled, respectively, "United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Navy Hatch a Diabolical Plan to Gun Down Two-Hundred Cats on San Nicolas Island,""The Ventura County Star Races to the Defense of the Cat-Killers on San Nicolas Island,""Quislings at the Humane Society Sell Out San Nicolas's Cats to the Assassins at the Diabolical United States Fish and Wildlife Service,""Memo to the Humane Society: Tell the World Exactly How Many Cats You and Your Honeys at the USFWS Have Murdered on San Nicolas Island," and "United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Humane Society Hoist a Glass in Celebration of Extermination of the Cats on San Nicolas Island.")

Along about that same time it joined forces with its bosom buddies at PETA in an attempt to have the survivors of Michael Vick's notorious dogfighting ring killed. Fortunately, it was thwarted in its evil designs on that occasion by Judge Henry E. Hudson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond and the Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, both of whom rallied to the long-suffering and horribly abused canines' defense.

Even Though She Was In Bad Shape the Colchester Cat Deserved to Live

Neither the rot that so infests the so-called animal protection movement nor the dumping of cats in pet carriers along the sides of thoroughfares is by any means confined to this side of the Atlantic. Au contraire, both odious practices extend to England and the RSPCA.

For instance, along about the beginning of July of last year a forever nameless gray and white female of undermined age was beaten about the face with some type of blunt object before being locked up in a blue pet carrier and then dumped in a pile of rubbish on Easthorpe Road in Colchester, eighty-two kilometers northeast of London in Essex. She remained there battered and bruised, pestered by the insects and elements, and without food and water for two to three weeks until finally her desperate plight was discovered by an unidentified motorist who had stopped in order to take some photographs.

"She was emaciated beyond belief and looked as if she had been hit around the face before being thrown out of the window. She was crawling with maggots," Samantha Garvey of the RSPCA, which came and collected her, later revealed. "I could barely believe this cat was still alive she was in such a terrible state. I can honestly say it was one of the most heartwrenching sights I have ever seen."

Acting in full accordance with its warped business model, the RSPCA quickly made sure that she did not remain in that condition for much longer. "Sadly, there was nothing which could be done to save this poor cat, she was in such a bad state," Garvey continued. "We took her straight to a vet who said she had to be put to sleep to prevent further suffering."

C'est-à-dire, the RSPCA did not even attempt to save her when she unquestionably deserved to have been afforded every opportunity in the world to have gone on living after the way that she had been treated. Moreover, the mere fact that she still had enough strength left in her to meow for help is a rather strong indication that she wanted to live.

Unlike the cats dumped in Madison, she was still wearing a pink collar with three bells on it and that is a pretty good indication that she, at least at one time, had had an owner who cared about her. Lamentably, no one ever came forward in order to claim her remains and it is extremely doubtful that the RSPCA even bothered to so much as even open an investigation into her horrific murder. (See Cat Defender post of August 31, 2015 entitled "Beaten and Entombed Above Ground for Several Weeks, a Forever Nameless Cat from Colchester Is Finished Off by the RSPCA Which Refuses to Even Investigate Her Death.")

Contrary to what an awful lot of individuals earnestly believe, the lives of cats are not any less precious than those of their human counterparts and as such they are deserving of the same protections of the law. In fact, a good argument could be made that due to their vulnerabilities they are entitled to even more stringent protections. In reality, however, their lives count for next to nothing with both the law enforcement community and those phony-baloney charities that are sworn to protect them.

As a consequence, no matter how heinous the crimes, numerous the victims, or prolonged the suffering, neither the police nor rescue groups can be prevailed upon to take cruelty to cats seriously. Even on those exceedingly rare occasions when arrests are made, successful prosecutions are launched, and jurors convict, meathead judges cavalierly brush aside the law and allow the killers and abusers off with suspended sentences, probation, and court costs. It therefore is almost unheard of for cat killers to be sent to jail.

The life of the Colchester cat did not matter one whit to the RSPCA so far both the MPD and the RCSO have demonstrated the same callous indifference to the eleven cats killed in and around Madison. The warped thinking and do-nothing attitude of the authorities on both sides of the pond brings to mind the following description of the greedy capitalist Medbourne, the wastrel Colonel Killigrew, the crooked politician Gascoigne, and the scandal-plagued widow Wycherley in Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous 1837 short-story, "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment:"

"With palsied hands, they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor, if it really possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger imputed to it, could not have been bestowed upon four human beings who needed it more woefully. They looked as if they had never known what youth or pleasure was, but had been the offspring of Nature's dotage, and always the gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures, who now set stooping around the doctor's table, without life enough in their souls or bodies to be animated even by the prospect of growing young again."

The only real difference between Dr. Heidegger's research subjects and those individuals and groups charged with enforcing the anti-cruelty statutes is that the latter aggregate does not suffer from a lack of youthful vigor but rather from something that is far worse. Specifically, none of them recognize any substantial difference between right and wrong and for that reason they are completely lacking in all justice, compassion, honesty, and integrity. Tant pis, their intransigence serves not only as an official endorsement of cruelty to cats but also as a green light for yet still additional individuals and groups to take up arms against the species.

Photos: Madison Police Department (pet carriers and food bowls) and the Herts and Essex Observer of Bishop's Stortford (Colchester cat).

Tilly Has at Least Some Access to the Great Outdoors

"Over the years that we have had Tilly at the sanctuary, she has been passed over by more than thirty-thousand people looking for a cat."
-- Joyce Clarke

There are an infinite number of cat stories that are crying out to be told; in fact, every cat has a story that deserves to be taken down and preserved somewhere just to establish that either he or she had lived and not died in vain. Out of that tremendous number, perhaps no one is more worthy of being remembered and honored while that she is still alive than a twenty-four-year-old tortoiseshell named Tilly.

How, when, and under what circumstances it all began for her are secrets that she likely will take with her to her grave. As far as the remainder of the world is concerned, however, her recorded history began in 1995 when she and the litter of kittens that she had just given birth to were discovered holed up in a coal bunker in a garden.

By that time she already was somewhere between one and three years old and likely had been abandoned sometime before that by her uncaring and unscrupulous owner. She certainly had not been sterilized and that proved to be a stroke of Glück im Unglück in that it meant that her genes had at least some small chance of living on regardless of whatever became of her.

As things fortunately turned out, that coal bunker was not the end of the line for her but rather it marked the beginning of a new and entirely different life. The specifics are unknown, but one way or another she was handed over to Joyce Clarke who operates a sanctuary in the small West Midlands' town of Wednesbury.

The establishment has been identified in various press reports as either the Wednesbury Cat Sanctuary or the West Midlands Animal Welfare Sanctuary but since neither of them has a presence on the web it is assumed, correctly or incorrectly, that it is a private, nameless one that Clarke has operated out of her house for the past thirty years. If, on the other hand, the secrecy is due to fears that the place easily could become overrun with cats dumped by the public, that serves only to underscore how truly lucky Tilly was to have been taken in all those years ago.

All of that is inconsequential when compared to the stunning realization that she is still living there today, twenty-one years later. That, most assuredly, was not how that Clarke had scripted it for things to turn out for Tilly.

She initially was put up for adoption but, if Clarke is being completely truthful, no one ever wanted any part of her. "Over the years that we have had Tilly at the sanctuary, she has been passed over by more than thirty-thousand people looking for a cat," she averred to The Mirror of London on April 4th. (See "Oldest 'Rescue Cat' in United Kingdom May Be Most Rejected after Being Rejected Thirty-Thousand Times by Potential Owners.")

That great a number of snubs is nothing short of astounding in that it means that Tilly has been rejected one-thousand-four-hundred-twenty-eight times each year that she has been with Clarke. That further breaks down to one-hundred-nineteen rejections per week and a staggering seventeen snubs per day.

There also could have been other factors involved and principally among them is the very real possibility that Clarke eventually grew so fond of her that she could not bear the thought of giving her up to another individual. She also could have wisely and compassionately mandated that Tilly not be declawed and that proscription would have disqualified a number of potential adopters from consideration. A lack of access to the great outdoors could have been another sticking point.

Although there is not anything in the public record to even remotely suggest that this was the case with Clarke, some shelters and sanctuaries are doing a real disservice to the cats that they have in their care by ruthlessly running roughshod over not only their lives but those of their potential adopters as well. They are doing so by not only mandating that their cats be sterilized, microchipped, and vaccinated against all sorts of unnecessary and imaginary ailments but that prospective adopters foot the bill for these and other procedures and manipulations.

Tilly Is Anything But Aloof with Joyce Clarke

Still other rescue groups attempt to make as much money as possible off of each cat that they sell back to the public and such ruthless and inhumane trafficking in those that already are down and out and on death row discourages some people from adopting. Besides, it is not universally true that individuals with money make better guardians than do those that are considerably less prosperous.

Perhaps most galling of all, some groups never completely relinquish control of the cats that they adopt out but instead insist upon making surprise visits in order to check on how well they are getting on in their new homes. Although no halfway conscientious rescue group ever wants to see a cat either abused or neglected, the "Big Brother" mentality and tactics that some of them are known to stoop to are seldom effective and oftentimes counterproductive.

As far as Tilly is concerned, Clarke attributes her rejection by the public to her personality. "It was probably her personality that meant nobody ever wanted to adopt her," she added to The Mirror."She can be a bit stroppy and would occasionally snap at people, but not anymore."

It is difficult to know with any certainty but Tilly's standoffishness and wariness could be attributable to her having been taken away from her mother too early. For example, that was the assessment rendered by Robyn's Nest and All the Rest Animal Rescue of an inadequately socialized six-month-old black kitten named Bilbo Baggins that it took in after he had been dumped at a pet store in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster on May 12th of last year.

"He doesn't know how to play," Nadia Munday, who for a while served as his foster mother, said of him at that time. "Most kittens are taught how to play by their mother (sic) when they start venturing out of the nest around three weeks of age, and when they are too rough playing the mother cat tells them off. It's almost like he hasn't had any of that."(See Cat Defender post of December 3, 2015 entitled "Bilbo Baggins Does Justice to the Memory of His Esteemable Namesake by Surviving Being Hogtied, Wrapped in Plastic, and Stuffed into a Shopping Bag in Order to Finally Come Out on Top in the End.")

Like Bilbo, Tilly also could have been abused during her early years. If that along with having been prematurely separated from her mother did not contribute to her disdain for humans, life on the rough and tumble streets of the Black Country certainly would have soured her on the world of man.

In the final analysis, however, none of those arguments are really all that persuasive in that the blame for her lengthy confinement at Clarke's sanctuary most assuredly lies, not with her, but rather with the abysmally ignorant, tasteless, and callous public itself. "They (potential adopters) want a cat that will come over for a cuddle and she didn't fit the bill," Clarke confided to The Mirror.

Whereas it is well understood that dog owners care only for animals that will worship at their feet, the conventional wisdom used to be that cat owners were above such shamefully selfish and idiotic thinking and conduct but that apparently is not always the case. If so, there is not much hope that civilization ever will be able to rise above the ugly truths that Euripides spoke of way back in 420 B.C. in his play, "Hippolytus."

The Sanctuary Is the Only Real Home Tilly Has Ever Known

Take for example this rather poignant exchange between the protagonist and one of his attendants:

Attendant: "Dost know, then, the way of the world?"

Hippolytus: "Not I, but wherefore such a question?"

Attendant: "It hates reserve that careth not for all men's love."

Hippolytus: "And rightly too. Reserve in man is ever galling."

Attendant: "But there's charm in courtesy?"

Hippolytus: "The greatest surely, aye, and profit, too, at trifling cost."

If all of that were not distasteful enough in its own right, the same subservient mentality also holds sway not only in the next world but with the blessed immortals as well. For instance:

Attendant: "Dost think the same law holds in heaven as well?"

Hippolytus: "I trow it doth, since all our laws we men from heaven draw." (E.P. Coleridge, translator)

In other words, all the world loves flatterers, fawners, and strokers and that has profound implications for all morality, law, social relations, economics, and politics. All is not lost, however, in that there are some individuals who have proven themselves to be fully capable of rising above such baseness and one of them was Philadelphia writer Agnes Repplier who in her famous essay, "Agrippina," wrote the following:

"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.

"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. A man who owns a dog is, in every sense of the word, its master: the term expresses accurately their mutual relations. But it is ridiculous when applied to the limited possession of a cat. I am certainly not Agrippina's mistress, and the assumption of authority on my part would be a mere empty dignity, like those swelling titles which afford such innocent delight to the Freemasons of our severe republic."

Théphile Gautier could not have agreed more. "Si vous êtes digne de son affection, un chat deviendra votre ami mais jamais votre esclave," he once astutely pointed out.

The indictment against the supposedly cat-loving English public is by no means confined to those multitudes who, apparently, do not recognize any discernible differences between felines and canines, but rather it also extends to those who harbor ingrained prejudices against those cats that are elderly, frail, and suffer from impaired vision. For example, last summer more than five-hundred of them turned up their crooked noses at a nineteen-year-old female named Pops before she finally was able to secure a new home at the last minute. (See Cat Defender posts of August 6, 2015 and September 12, 2015 entitled, respectively, "Elderly, Frail, and on Death Row, Lovely Pops Desperately Needs a New Home Before Time Finally Runs Out on Her" and "Pops Finally Secures a Permanent Home but Pressing Concerns about Both Her Continued Care and Right to Live Remain Unaddressed.")

For any true lover of the species, a cat's age, appearance, health, disabilities, and personality quirks are totally irrelevant. Furthermore, there arguably is not any more satisfying achievement on this earth than to finally be able to win the love and trust of a wary and standoffish cat, such as Tilly.

Nevertheless, the shabby treatment meted out to both her and Pops is an indication of just how low the cat-owning fraternity has sunk since Francis Scarfe penned the following lines to his poem, "How We Should Regard Cats Like Grizabella:"

"Those who love cats that do not even purr,
Or which are thin and tired and very old,
Bend down to them in the street and stroke their fur
And rub their ears and smooth their breast and hold
Their paws, and gaze into their eyes of gold."

Tilly May Be Old But Her Health Is Rather Good

Even though at first glance it would appear that Tilly has led a sad and tragic life, there are other indications that point in an entirely different direction. That is because in some respects she not only has persevered in what Charles Dickens would have called reduced circumstances but, more importantly, thrived.

In particular, not only has she more than earned her keep by assisting Clarke and her staffers in caring for the other cats at the refuge but she additionally has found meaning and a purpose in life by taking a keen interest in those that are disabled. "She is so good with the other cats in the shelter and has looked after a few of them herself," Clarke declared to The Mirror."There have been times when we've had paralyzed and blind cats come into our rescue center and Tilly has really taken them under her wing. We kept finding them asleep with Tilly looking after them."

Not a good deal has been revealed about Tilly's life at the sanctuary but other than being recognized as England's oldest rescue cat she lives in the same cottage with Clarke and has plenty of food and water as well as access to veterinary care whenever she needs it. She also has the companionship of Clark and the other forty cats that reside at the sanctuary.

Even though the facility likely is fenced-in, that does not mean that she has spent her entire life cruelly cooped up indoors. "She has lived in the cottage and has got fields and land to hand," Clarke told the Express and Star of Wolverhampton on April 4th. (See "Tilly the Rescued Cat Still Without an Owner after Twenty-One Years.")

Best of all, she is in remarkably good shape. Her weight is good, her eyes are still bright, and her fur is so glossy that hardly anyone encountering her for the first time would be able to correctly guess her age.

"She can be a bit grumpy but she is in good health," Clarke told The Mirror."She has only really had minor things wrong."

In addition to the superlative care that she has received from Clark, she doubtlessly also has long and robust genes to thank for her longevity. The proof of that lies not only in her but also in one of her kittens that was born in 1995 and is still alive today and living with her and Clarke.

Luck sans doute also has played a key role in her life in that tortoiseshells are believed by many to be endowed with it in spades. "We have got a lot of old cats but Tilly is the oldest of all of them," Clarke added to The Mirror. "We knew that cats can live for a long time and once had a cat that lived to be twenty-three, but never as old as Tilly."

Whereas some establishments, such as Cats With No Name in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, and Tenth Life Sanctuary in Clewiston, Florida, have given sanctuaries a bad name, Clarke's operation appears from all outward considerations to be a credit to the movement. (See Cat Defender posts of May 10, 2010 and May 17, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Lunatic Rulings in Cats With No Name Cruelty Cases Prove Once Again That Pennsylvania Is a Safe Haven for Cat Killers and Junkies" and "Julie Levy and Her Henchmen Ride to the Rescue of Maury Swee's Severely Neglected Cats and Promptly Slaughter at Least One-Hundred-Eighty of Them.")

First and foremost, Clarke refuses to kill off those that are healthy and although that is a good starting point she desperately needs to expand that policy to include the killing of all cats under any circumstances. As things now stand, the only real difference between a healthy cat and an unhealthy one often boils down to monetary and labor considerations and no individual or institution should be afforded that kind of discretion in matters of life and death.

At this rather late stage in Tilly's remarkable life, the sanctuary wisely has given up on getting rid of her. "We're not looking for a home for her now," Clarke vowed to the Express and Star."It would be too much for her at her age."

Tilly Does Not Have Any Regrets and Is Not Looking Back

Whereas Tilly conceivably might be able to successfully adopt to new surroundings and different people, such a transition would in all likelihood be way too stressful for her. In that light, it is always important to remember that although dogs may belong to people cats belong to places.

Tilly's fate, either for better or worse, was sealed a long time ago and she should be allowed to live out her remaining days with Clarke and her four-footed friends at the sanctuary. Besides, she seems to be happy enough and totally unconcerned about not having a conventional home.

Besides, there really is not any reason why she should lament not having either what she never has known or, if she did, only briefly. She also appears to be every bit as psychologically fit as she is physically and not to have suffered any adverse effects from being rejected by so many potential adopters.

In all likelihood she probably could care less what those thirty-thousand fools felt and said about her. Good riddance! The loss has been all theirs, not hers.

Her plight does, however, bring up the thought-provoking dilemma of what cats actually do need and want out of life and the first part of that equation is considerably easier to address. Specifically, they first of all require protection from their sworn enemies because they are totally incapable of surviving on their own no matter what the University of Lincoln and others argue to the contrary. (See Cat Defender post of October 9, 2015 entitled "A Lynch Mob Comprised of Dishonest Eggheads from the University of Lincoln Issues Another Scurrilous Broadside Against Cats by Declaring That They Do Not Need Guardians to Safeguard Their Fragile Lives.")

Beyond that they need shelter, food, water, veterinary care, and the companionship of other cats and at least one human counterpart. They most definitely are not islands unto themselves any more than humans are but exactly how much human interaction they desire depends upon their upbringing and circumstances.

In that sense, they are not really all that different from humans in that they desire to have the best of both the natural and civilized worlds. The wild outdoors can be pleasant when the weather is hospitable, food is readily available, and their surroundings are free of both human and animal predators. A loving home can likewise be appreciated but even it fails to satisfy all of a cat's desires.

Due to circumstances beyond her control, Tilly missed out on having a conventional home but she nevertheless has done all right for herself at Clarke's sanctuary. The arrangement may not be ideal but she at least has bits and pieces of both worlds and, perhaps, that has proven to be enough for her.

The life that she has forged for herself there certainly dwarfs by a country mile any sort of meager existence that she would have had on the street and the proof of that is to be found in her good health and longevity. In the end all that really matters is that she has survived against Herculean odds.

She is a real treasure and it certainly would be well worth both the trouble and expense of visiting the sanctuary just to get a fleeting glimpse of her. It even would be a rare and distinct honor just to have her turn up her dainty nose and hiss before ambling off in an air of marked disdain and insouciance.

Photos: London Metro (Tilly outdoors), The DoDo (Tilly with Clarke and in profile), The Express and Star (Tilly indoors), and The Mirror (Tilly up close).

Familiar themes and villains dominated the top cat stories of 2013. Most prominently among them, Ted Williams and the National Audubon Society became so drunk on their money, power, and all the evil that percolates throughout their warped gourds that they had the audacity to issue a public call for cats to be poisoned out of existence with Tylenol.® Despite being patently illegal, their outrageous proposal received the full endorsement of their kindred spirits at the Orlando Sentinel.

Christians likewise continued their two-thousand year old holy war against the species but in 2013 it was evangelical blowhard Rick Bartlett, not the Catholics, who garnered a lion's share of the media's attention when he stole and subsequently murdered his neighbors' beloved cat, Moody, in Bastrop, Texas. The mercenary and utterly cutthroat nature of the practice of veterinary medicine was exposed writ large for all those with eyes to see when the rich-as-Croesus practitioners at PennVet killed off an impecunious, but preeminently treatable, cat after it accidentally had swallowed a ribbon from a Christmas present.

Irresponsible owners also were very much in the news. For example in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, Alex McAllaster came dangerously close to costing her already ailing cat, Dante, his life through an egregious lapse in judgment. Worst still, in Moore, Oklahoma, Misty Satterlee abandoned her cat, Gypsy, to fend for herself during a tornado and did not even bother to return home to look for her until three weeks later.

Such callous and uncaring behavior was by no means confined to private individuals but rather it extended to shelters as well. For instance, staffers at the Knox-Whitley Animal Shelter in Rockholds, Kentucky, left dozens of cats to be burned alive in a fire. A cat named Freckles somehow survived but even then she owed her deliverance, not to staffers, but rather to an insurance investigator who found her while sifting through the carnage six days after the blaze had been extinguished.

In Swansea, Massachusetts, an elderly tortoiseshell named Penny fended off a spirited attempt by a local rabble-rouser to have her evicted from the public library. The thoroughly odious practice of whereby owners hire veterinarians to kill off their elderly and ailing cats continued unabated and the lowlight of the year in that regard came when entertainer Garrison Keillor joined the legions of murderers by whacking his cat, Meiko.

The news was not all bad, however, in that at a nursing home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a beloved cat named Miss Kitty celebrated her twenty-first birthday. The most absorbing and melancholic story of the year, however, belonged to a four-year-old cat named Tabor from Portland, Oregon, who hooked up with a down-and-out homeless man in order to do enough roaming to last one-hundred of her mates a decade. Finally, the world came within a hairbreadth of losing one of its best loved and most admired felines when Mayor Stubbs was nearly killed in savage mauling by a dog in Talkeetna, Alaska.

For previous articles in this series, see Cat Defender posts of January 4, 2007, January 11, 2008, February 2, 2009, March 16, 2010, June 20, 2011, December 20, 2012, and December 30, 2014 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,""The 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,""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," and "The Federal Government's Resounding Victory in Its Long-Running War Against Ernest Hemingway's Polydactyls Was the Biggest Cat Story of 2012.")

1.)  Mayor Stubbs Is Almost Killed in a Savage Mauling by a Dog in Talkeetna.

Mayor Stubbs and His Horrific Injuries

"I only hope I have served them (the residents of Talkeetna) with as much love and respect as you (sic) all have shown me. I love you all -- meeow!"
-- Mayor Stubbs

The attack was so savage that it is hard to believe that a buffalo could have survived it, much less an elderly cat. Nevertheless, on August 31st a then seventeen-year-old ginger-colored cat named Stubbs was on his way to get his customary evening dish of crab meat at the Wildflower Cafe at 13578 East Main Street in tiny Talkeetna, Alaska, when out of the blue he was ambushed by an unleashed dog.

The world famous part-Manx and tailless tom who has served as the city's de facto mayor ever since 1997, suffered multiple life-threatening injuries and was left bloodied and knocking on death's door. He surely would have soon died all alone in that forlorn, dark, and deserted street if an unidentified individual had not intervened by telephoning his longtime owner, Lauri Stec, of Nagley's Store.

After dropping everything and rushing to the scene, she was able to eventually locate him and rush him to Golden Pond Veterinary Services in Talkeetna where practitioner Jennifer Pironis was able to stanch the bleeding and stabilize him. Apparently believing that he required substantially more veterinary expertise than she was able to provide, she then accompanied him and Stec on a nerve-wracking ninety-six kilometer race against the clock to the Big Lake Susitna Veterinary Hospital in Big Lake.

Stubbs was in such bad shape, however, that Pironis brought along with her a jab of sodium pentobarbital just in case his condition deteriorated en route. Mercifully, her colleague in Big Lake, Amy Lehman, would not have any part of that criminality and instead chose to treat his injuries.

Over the course of the following three hours she used twelve stitches in order to close a long deep gash in the mayor's side. She also was forced to attend to a punctured lung, a fractured sternum, an unspecified number of broken ribs, and a bruised hip.

Unable to breathe properly on his own, Stubbs was placed on a respirator while Stec and his legions of fans from around the world held their collective breaths. Amazingly, he pulled through and by September 5th was back on his feet and eating on his own.

By September 9th he was well enough to be released from the hospital into Stec's care but months of relying upon pain medication and frequent return visits to the vet still lay ahead of him. "I am still recovering slowly but he (sic) has been able to make my way out to the front of the shop and although not quite my old self I am feeling a bit better today," he wrote October 18th on his Facebook page. "I am still very stiff and hold close to Lori (sic) as I am still a little jumpy around other animals and loud noises."

In the aftermath of the attack, the mayor was flooded with get-well cards and presents from his admirers around the world. Best of all, he was the beneficiary of $3,000 donated by 9Lives® in order to cover part of his not insubstantial veterinary bill.

Other individuals and groups, however, elected to cash in on Stubbs' miseries by attacking Stec for not only allowing him to be out alone at night but even for accepting the generous donation from 9Lives.® Not surprisingly, opportunistic PETA struck like a viper in the grass in order to advance its and its partners in crime at the American Bird Conservancy's cats indoors agenda.

To her credit, Stec wisely chose to ignore the gratuitous advice proffered by the notorious defamers and killers of cats. "I will be closely monitoring him, but when he feels better, he will be let outside," she defiantly declared. "He's been roaming Talkeetna since he was a kitten. Caging him up inside would kill him."

Anticipating such a response, PETA furthermore contended that at the very least Stec should put him on a leash and in a harness if he was, contrary to its advice, to be allowed outdoors at all. That suggestion also was rejected by Stec.

"He's a loved cat, he's very well taken care of," she countered. "I'm not going to put him on a leash and I'm not going to put him on a harness."

The point actually was moot because it turned out to be quite a while before the mayor was well enough in order to get around on his own. "He's going to have to curb back the social lifestyle for a few weeks, at least a month and a half, and we'll see how he's doing from that point on," Lehman ordered. "It's going to take a long time for him to heal."

Not a great deal has been written about him either in the press or on Facebook since then but apparently his recovery did not progress as rapidly as anticipated in that he was forced into announcing that he was planning on stepping down as mayor of Talkeetna. "As you have read I don't think I will return to public life in the same manner as before," he disclosed in the October 18th posting on Facebook cited supra. "I had a great run and a very exciting life as mayor but it is time for Talkeetna to find a new mayor."

Then came the disturbing announcement early last year that Stec had sold Nagley's and Stubbs to Stephanie Enders. "Really, without having him, the deal would have gone a lot differently," Stubbs' new owner told KTVA-TV of Anchorage on January 14, 2015. (See "Talkeetna Store Gets New Owner; Mayor Stubbs the Cat Sticks Around.") "He's a big part of Talkeetna in general."

It is nothing short of stupefying that Stec would willingly relinquish custody of the cat that she had purchased out of a cardboard box in a parking lot when he was still just a kitten. That is especially the case considering his advanced years and health problems. Regrettably, it is not even known if she still resides in Talkeetna and is thus able to occasionally stop by and spend some time with him.

Very little accordingly is known concerning the mayor's health, activities, and care. An e-mail letter received on January 21st of this year from Dennis Freeman, who is in some capacity connected to Nagley's, stated only that he was "doing well."

A few weeks ago it was reported on social media that he had died but that spurious rumor was quickly quashed by Enders. "He's alive and well, and we can't get all of the fake pages off Facebook," she told KTVA-TV of Anchorage on May 16th. (See "Mayor Stubbs Is 'Alive and Well' Despite Facebook Rumors of His Death.")

Although Stec knew almost immediately after the attack the name of the vicious dog's owner and subsequently filed a complaint with Animal Control officers at the Matanuska Susitna Animal Shelter, they apparently never took any action on the matter. She nevertheless expressed confidence at that time that Stubbs had nothing further to fear from either the man or his vicious canine.

"The dog has not been seen and neither has the owner," she related. "I can guarantee you they will not come into this town again."

Regardless of how, when, and under what circumstances it all ends for the mayor, it is going to be a sad day in Talkeetna and around the world as well. "I only hope I have served them (the residents of Talkeetna) with as much love and respect as you (sic) all have shown me," he wrote in the October 18th Facebook article cited supra."I love you all -- meeow!"

On that last point, Stubbs can rest easily because he certainly has accomplished that and considerably more during the twenty years that he has graced this planet. (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.")

2.)  Tabor Hooks Up with a Homeless Man on the Streets of Portland for the Adventure of a Lifetime.

Tabor

"There's going to be six or seven men crying the day I give her away. My pack will be twenty pounds lighter but a big hole, a big hole."
-- Michael King

Forty-eight-year-old Michael King was wandering the forbidding streets of Portland at around midnight during the middle of September 2012 when he spotted a four-year-old gray and white female cowering underneath an outdoor table at the Tabor Hill Cafe at 3766 Southwest Hawthorne Street. The rain was coming down in buckets and his first thought was to keep on going.

"I see cats all the time. I don't pick up cats," he later disclosed. "I don't want a cat, especially a full-grown one."

That is not the entire story, however, because he used to own several of them but that was long before his world fell apart in 2003. His companion died, he lost his job, and ultimately wound up on the street.

It therefore was perhaps the special bond that homeless men and their feline counterparts share in common as members of the fraternity of the damned and forgotten that prompted him to change his mind. "Something told me to grab her," he later recalled. "I don't know..."

His own not insubstantial psychological needs also may have factored heavily into that decision. "I really needed the companionship. I'm homeless," he explained. "Depression is a big thing out there. The cat was a rainbow in a dark world."

He accordingly picked up the frightened, emaciated, and soaking wet cat and stuffed her into his backpack. Since she also was suffering from a swollen eye, his first order of business was to attend to it.

The next hurdle to be surmounted was the seemingly impossible task of safeguarding and caring for a cat while living on the street. The enormity of that task cannot in any way be underestimated and that is especially the case when viewed against the disturbing reality that even owners blessed with permanent abodes and tons of money have tremendous difficulties in hanging on to their resident felines.

King was able to pull off that seemingly impossible feat by purchasing a cage in order to transport her about and at other times by keeping her tethered to a ten-foot leash. Most important of all, he never allowed her out of his sight.

Even so, Tabor, her food, and accouterment added another twenty pounds to his backpack, which is anything but an insignificant amount especially for an individual who is forced to carry around with him the sum total of his worldly possessions on his back. As for Tabor, it is far from clear whether she willingly consented to such an arrangement or was left without any choice in the matter once King had gotten his hands on her.

They hung around Portland for another three weeks where King doubtlessly was able to pick up a few bob by posing with her for photographs. "She's a hit on the streets of Portland," he admitted. "Very rarely do you see a cat riding on top of someone's backpack."

After the weather had taken an even more dramatic turn for the worst, events unfolded pretty much as Johnny Mercer had scripted them way back in 1962 when he penned the following lyrics to his timeless song, "Moon River:"

"Two drifters off to see the world
There's such a lot of world to see
We're after the same rainbow's end,
Waiting 'round the bend
My huckleberry friend, Moon River and me."

Specifically, they embarked upon a twelve-hundred-eighty-three-kilometer hitchhiking trek that took them to Ventura, California, for the winter. In the spring of 2013, they returned to Portland via stops along the way at the Sacramento River and Yosemite National Park.

Best of all as far as Tabor was concerned, she enjoyed free taxi service the entire trip. "We've traveled thirty-six-hundred miles and the cat's probably got a half mile walking," King summed up.

Tabor and Michael King Shortly Before It All Ended

King soon grew tired of Portland and set off to visit his foster father, Walt Ebert, in Helena, Montana, and, although little did he realize it at the time, that marked the beginning of the end of this extraordinary love affair. In June, he and Ebert took Tabor to Helena Veterinary Service for a routine checkup where they received a mixed report.

The good news was Tabor's health. "The cat was in awesome shape," Maddie Park of the surgery exclaimed. "He had taken good care of it."

The disconcerting news, as revealed by an implanted microchip, was that Tabor belonged to Ronald A. Buss of 2232 Southeast Thirty-Seventh Avenue in Portland who had rescued her and her brother, Creto, as two-week-old kittens after they had been cruelly abandoned to die by a neighbor. Tabor, as it turns out, had disappeared from Buss's home on September 1st but it is far from clear what, if any, measures he had undertaken in order to find her.

Before he had left Portland back in September, King had placed a notice on Craig's List that somehow had eluded Buss's attention. He did not at that time have the money in order to have her scanned for an implanted microchip.

Once the chip was discovered, King quickly abandoned all thought of retaining custody of Tabor. "She is going to go back home where she belongs. I didn't want a cat in the first place," he said at that time. "I just thought I was saving someone's cat. And that's what I've done."

Tabor, whom Buss refers to as Mata Hari from the 1970's television show "Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp," was accordingly returned to him sometime during the third week of June. For his part, Buss was planning on inviting family members and friends to a homecoming party in Tabor's honor where she was expected to have been treated to one of her favorite dishes consisting of ground-up raw chicken, egg yolks, and vitamins.

Once it became time to relinquish custody of her, however, King proved not be quite as sang-froid as he earlier had indicated. "There's going to be six or seven men crying the day I give her away," he admitted. "My pack will be twenty pounds lighter but a big hole, a big hole."

Although he doubtlessly was sincere when he uttered those heartfelt sentiments, in reality he had already moved on to the next chapter in his turbulent life. In particular, during his trip to California he had hooked up with Kyle Brecheen somewhere along the way and it is now him, not Tabor, who is the focus of his life. That also was the time that the music died and he and Tabor ceased to be chasing the "same rainbow's end."

As for Buss, it is difficult to know exactly what to think of him as an owner in that this marked the second time that he had carelessly allowed Tabor to get lost. He has vowed to keep her inside this time around but it is difficult to coop up a cat who has become accustomed to roaming.

At no time throughout Tabor's travails was any thought ever given to either what she wanted or what would have made her happy. Even if King no longer wanted her, it does not automatically follow that she should have been returned to an owner who has been as careless with her safety as Buss.

As it seemingly always turns out to be the case, both King and Buss have, in their own ways, gotten what they wanted out of Tabor but she has received precious little in return. Much more importantly, King has lived long enough to fully understand that friends come and go with the wind but a cat's love is the one constant that an individual can rely upon through thick and thin in this topsy-turvy world and that, accordingly, is not something to be casually thrown out the window.

Some day in the future and long after Brecheen has deserted him and he is sleeping all alone underneath a bridge he may just remember that. As Mercer expressed it so well in the following lyrics, there are hazards in chasing even dreams:

"Oh, dreammaker, you heartbreaker,
Wherever you're going, I'm going your way."

As for Tabor, nothing further has appeared in the press concerning her so it not known what has become of her. (See Cat Defender post of July 5, 2013 entitled "Tabor's Long and Winding Road Finally Leads Her Back Home but Leaves Her with a Broken Heart.")

3.)  Penny Staves Off an Attempt to Oust Her from the Swansea Public Library.

Penny Holds Court at the Library

"I've lived here all of my life and I can't remember a time when the library didn't have a cat. Penny is a breath of fresh air. She's very therapeutic."
-- local resident Luna Leal

For more than a decade a beautiful and sedate tortoiseshell with green eyes named Penny resided at the public library in Swansea, seventy-six kilometers south of Boston, without incident. The peace and tranquility that she had enjoyed for so long was rudely interrupted in March when local troublemaker and chronic litigant Patrick Higgins attempted to have her removed from the premises.

"I must again demand that Penny the 'house cat' for the Swansea Library disappear since there are many people who are allergic to cats who cannot use the library (sic) facilities due to their allergies, in direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)," he demanded in a March 24th e-mail letter sent to the library's director, Cynthia St. Amour, and other bigwigs around town.

Although St. Amour readily responded by pointing out that the facility never had received any complaints whatsoever about Penny, she was not about to go to the mat in order to save her. "We'll be looking at adoption possibilities," she conceded by way of throwing in the towel on her loyal and utterly defenseless resident feline.

Fortunately for Penny, other staffers at the library were nowhere nearly as chicken-hearted as their boss and as a result they started an online petition designed to save their beloved mascot, goodwill ambassador, and resident mouser. They soon were joined in their effort by former residents, The Herald News of nearby Fall River, and kindred spirits from around the world.

"I've lived here all of my life and I can't remember a time when the library didn't have a cat," local resident Luna Leal said at that time. "Penny is a breath of fresh air. She's very therapeutic."

That certainly was true enough in that the facility always has kept cats since 1986. Much more importantly, there is absolutely nothing in the language of the ADA that bars them, as Higgins alleged, from public buildings.

Armed with an advisory opinion to that effect from the Justice Department in Washington and a pledge of pro bono support from the law firm of Killoran and Killoran of Fall River, the Board of Library Trustees met on April 3rd and adamantly refused to knuckle under to Higgins' outrageous demands. "All you have here is a complaint," Arthur Frank, an attorney for the city, said on that historic occasion. "It's not a properly filed complaint."

He additionally availed himself of the opportunity afforded him to give Higgins a good dressing-down. "Basically, he wants you (the board) to make her disappear. It's an ultimatum. He's saying do this or I'll file," he said. "If you want to deal with the devil, you can deal with the devil."

Belatedly arriving at the realization that this time around the town was not about to be bullied, Higgins thereafter abandoned his campaign to have Penny evicted. His blatant hypocrisy throughout this sordid affair had not however escaped the discerning intellect of Bill Kinnane of neighboring Somerset. "I think considering the source...I don't know how he can point a finger when he has spent time in a Pennsylvania prison," he pointed out.

By that he was referring to Higgins' pair of convictions for illegally collecting unemployment compensation while simultaneously working at Burger King.® When he refused to make restitution he accordingly was jailed.

"Penny is here and I think this is where she's going to stay," children's librarian Carol Gafford predicted at the height of the squabble. "She runs this library. We take care of her."

For a while at least it certainly looked if that indeed was going to be the case as Penny continued to spread comfort and joy to both staffers and patrons alike. On most days she still could be found either hanging out at the front desk or sleeping in her straw basket.

Sadly, her reprieve was destined to be an exceedingly brief one and less than eleven months later she died on March 8, 2014. As far as it is known, the library has not found a replacement for her and given that one of Higgins' chief demands was that she not have a successor, it certainly would appear that although he may have lost the initial battle he ultimately has won the war. (See Cat Defender post of March 8, 2016 entitled "Penny of the Swansea Public Library: A Remembrance.")

4.)  Freckles Is Found Alive in the Rubble of the Knox-Whitley Animal Shelter Six Days after It Burned to the Ground.

Freckles and Her Singed Whiskers and Fur

"She is a very sweet cat after everything she has been through (and) we are amazed she is alive."
-- Ashley Holder of the Lexington Humane Society

Almost every knowledgeable individual fully realizes that shelters are little more than camouflaged feline extermination camps but that which is considerably less well-known is that they also are firetraps. That horrifying reality was brought home with a deadly vengeance to thirty-seven cats that were residing at the Knox-Whitley Animal Shelter (KWAS) in Rockholds, Kentucky, at 9:45 p.m. on November 29th when a fire broke out and rapidly engulfed the facility.

Press reports are contradictory but between twenty-nine and thirty-four of them perished in the blaze. A one-year-old tortoiseshell named Freckles miraculously survived the fire but she was not discovered until six days later on December 5th when an insurance investigator accidentally stumbled upon her.

"She's in serious, but stable condition," Teresa Martin of KWAS said following her rescue. "Her will to survive is just amazing."

Transported to the Lexington Humane Society (LHS), she was diagnosed to be suffering from an upper respiratory infection, burned paws and pads, and singed fur and whiskers. Since she had not been fed in almost a week, she additionally was dehydrated and malnourished.

"She is a very sweet cat after everything she has been through (and) we are amazed she is alive," Ashley Holder of the LHS marveled at that time. "Having her here is just wonderful, all of our hearts are filled with joy. We are so glad that she made it through this devastating time."

Thanks to the excellent care that she received at LHS, Freckles' fur and whiskers soon grew back and the pads on her feet healed. Unfortunately, all of her claws, both front and rear, had to be surgically removed.

In early 2014, she received a very special gift when she was adopted by Emily Tolliver of the LHS. She now resides with her and her two-year-old son, a pair of cats, and two dogs.

Her utterly astonishing transformation from being a death row inmate and the victim of a shelter fire only to finally land on all four paws in a loving home was quite an achievement even for an animal that is often said to be blessed with more than one life. By contrast, the same most definitely cannot be said for the employees of KWAS.

In fact, numerous questions concerning the deadly blaze remain unaddressed to this very day. First of all, there is the inexplicable discrepancy in the number of feline fatalities.

Secondly, the origin of the fire has not been publicly disclosed. Thirdly, it is not even known if anyone was on duty when it erupted.

Fourthly, since only one of the twenty-five dogs that were housed there died in the inferno, it certainly appears that staffers gave preferential treatment to them while callously allowing the cats to be burned to death. Fifthly and most incriminating of all, none of the employees of the shelter even bothered to reenter the facility after the flames had been extinguished in order to search for any possible feline survivors.

If any of them had cared just a tiny bit about the fate of the cats, they would have immediately found Freckles and thus spared her from spending a week in Hell. It additionally is highly probable that they could have saved the lives of several other cats as well.

"I think an animal's life is (as) precious as a person's and I think that was a horrible, horrible death," city resident Virginia Thompson remarked in the aftermath of the disaster. Quite obviously, that is a minority opinion that absolutely no one associated with KWAS shares.

Despite their dereliction of duty, no one at the shelter ever was charged with either animal cruelty or gross negligence in the totally preventable deaths of these cats. Instead, they were rewarded with a new facility in nearby Corbin in order to continue to perpetuate their outrageous crimes against the species. (See Cat Defender post of March 15, 2016 entitled "Freckles Is Alive and Well More Than Two Years after Having Been Inexcusably Left for Dead in the Rubble of the Burned-Out Knox-Whitley Animal Shelter.")

5.)  Ted Williams and the National Audubon Society Call for Cats to Be Poisoned with Tylenol®.

Ted "Slick Willie" Williams Daydreaming, No Doubt, of Killing Cats

"The feral-cat (sic) fiasco wasn't my finest hour, or Audubon's. Audubon asked me to write an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel because the Florida chapter didn't have time and because I'd recently done an 'Incite' column on cats."
-- Ted Williams of the National Audubon Society

Through both their words and deeds, ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and their acolytes have demonstrated time and time again that they will stop at absolutely nothing when it comes to defaming and killing cats. Consequently, it really did not come as much of a shock when Ted "Slick Willie" Williams of the National Audubon Society (NAS) published an article in the March 14th edition of the Orlando Sentinel calling for cats to be poisoned with Tylenol.® (See "Trap, Neuter, Return Programs Make Feral-Cat Problem Worse.")"There are two effective humane alternatives to the cathell (sic) of TNR. One is Tylenol® (the human pain medication) -- a completely selective feral-cat (sic) poison," he proclaimed. "But the TNR lobby has blocked its registration for this use."

While he was at it, "Slick Willie" also voiced his wholehearted support for trap and kill. "The other is trap and euthanize (TE). TE is practiced by state and federal wildlife managers; but municipal TE needs to happen if the annihilation of native wildlife is to be significantly slowed," he thundered like Zeus from Mount Olympus.

In the firestorm that followed Williams' incendiary, not to mention patently illegal, proposal, the Orlando Sentinel belatedly deleted his remarks about Tylenol® and any reference to the fact that he was speaking for the NAS but nonetheless allowed his article to remain online. For its part, the NAS suspended him for an inconsequential ten days and lamely attempted to distance itself from his outrageous proposal.

"Ted Williams is a freelance writer who published a personal opinion piece in the Orlando Sentinel," it swore to its fellow cat-haters at National Geographic on March 20th. (See "Writer's Call to Kill Feral Cats Sparks Outcry.")"We regret any impression that Mr. Williams was speaking for us in any way. He wasn't."

Although knowledgeable people knew even back then that the NAS was, as per usual, lying through its rotten teeth, it was not until only recently that Williams finally came clean on that point. "The feral-cat fiasco wasn't my finest hour, or Audubon's," he confided to his pals at Forbes on December 1, 2015. (See "Writer Ted Williams Talks Obama, the NRA, Feral Cats and Sportsmen Versus Environmentalists.")"Audubon asked me to write an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel because the Florida chapter didn't have time and because I'd recently done an "Incite" column (in Audubon Magazine) on cats."

Actually, the NAS' poisoning offensive had its genesis a few weeks earlier in the diseased gourd of little Georgie "Porgie" Fenwick of the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). "The only sure way to protect wildlife, cats, and people is for domestic cats to be permanently removed from the outdoor environment," he wrote February 26th in The Baltimore Sun.(See "The Destructive Species Purring on Your Lap.")"Local governments need to act swiftly and decisively to gather the thirty to eighty million unowned cats, aggressively seek adoptions and establish sanctuaries for or euthanize cats that are not adoptable."

In a clumsy, dishonest, and utterly laughable attempt to excuse his criminality, Williams went on to claim both in 2013 and again in 2015, that he wrote the article in haste and was a freelancer as opposed to being a salaried employee of NAS. Both of those excuses simply are not credible because freelance writers seldom work for gratis and Williams is well-known as a writer and speaker who chooses his words with the utmost care.

In addition to all of that tap-dancing around the truth he also had the chutzpah to declare that his proposal would have been less revolting if only he had used the generic name (acetaminophen) for Tylenol®. The only logical conclusion to be drawn from such balderdash is that "Slick Willie" and the NAS not only believe the reading public to be totally lacking in all moral consciousness but to be as dumb-as-mud to boot.

To this very day, Williams has backed off from his original proposal in only one respect. "I urge people not to take the law into their own hands," he wrote in a March 21st postscript to his original column. "They should leave it to the professionals."

He not only reiterated that viewpoint to Forbes but endorsed the Australians' ongoing wholesale extermination of two-million cats. "The only solution is selective poisoning -- again by wildlife professionals, not the public," he told Forbes."The Aussies do it; we don't."

In doing so, he was careful not to define what he meant by "professionals." Since he never has denounced her actions, he likely is an avid supporter of Nico Dauphiné of the Smithsonian Institution who was caught flagrante delicto in 2011 attempting to poison a TNR colony in Washington. (See Cat Defender posts of July 12, 2011, November 18, 2011, and January 6, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Arrest of Nico Dauphiné for Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats Unmasks the National Zoo as a Hideout for Ailurophobes and Criminals,""Nico Dauphiné, Ph.D., Is Convicted of Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats but Questions Remain Concerning the Smithsonian's Role," and "Nico Dauphiné Is Let Off with an Insultingly Lenient $100 Fine in a Show Trial That Was Fixed from the Very Beginning.")

He undoubtedly also considers himself to be one of the anointed ones who is endowed with a god-given right to kill cats and other animals by any means available. "I erect nest boxes for Eastern Bluebird (sic) in our field," he confessed to Forbes."If I didn't euthanize the alien English Sparrows that enter the boxes, they'd peck the bluebird nestings to death and raise their own broods which would then imprint to the boxes and spread like a virus."

Quite obviously, any card-carrying member of the NAS who would publicly brag about systematically exterminating, not euthanizing, birds never would think so much as twice about killing cats. Moreover, since acetaminophen is dirt-cheap, readily available, virtually untraceable, and only one tablet is required in order to kill a cat, it is precisely the type of poison that anyone as devious, underhanded, and diabolical as Williams would find attractive.

Since cats, unlike most other animals, lack the enzymes necessary in order to metabolize the drug, it rapidly destroys their red blood cells and thus their ability to carry oxygen to their vital organs. That is precisely why Williams is all the time touting it as "a selective cat poison."

Above all, acetaminophen poisoning is a hellish way for any cat to die and that sans doute is another reason why "Slick Willie" is so enthusiastically championing its use. Among the observable symptoms are, inter alia, depression, weakness, labored breathing, swollen faces, necks, and limbs, hypothermia, vomiting, brownish-gray gums and tongues, and jaundice due to liver damage.

Because neither the police nor humane groups are willing to even so much as to open investigations into the activities of Williams and the NAS, it is impossible to know how many cats that they already have killed in this hideous fashion. Almost as bad, his partners in crime at Forbes have chosen to pay homage to this diabolical monster as a "national treasure" and the "modern-age equivalent of Rachel Carson for sportsmen."

His repeated call for cats to be poisoned with Tylenol® also was endorsed on January 25th of this year by the High Country News of Paonia, Colorado. (See "Taking Down Feline Marauders and Surviving 'Feral' Landscapes'.")

Every bit as unprincipled and scurrilous as Audubon Magazine, Forbes, and the High Country News, the Orlando Sentinel published Williams' call to arms for all cat poisoners out of sympathy for his cause. "And considering the scale of destruction that feral cats are inflicting on wildlife, Ted Williams' views on the matter deserved publication," the paper's Mike Lafferty wrote March 22nd on its web site. (See "Column About Feral Cats Demanded a Forum, and More Editing.") "At the same time, the public deserved more discretion -- and editing from us."

That left it to Joe Mason to put the entire sorry matter into the proper perspective. "But to suggest that the best way to solve the problem of homeless cats is to poison them might be the dumbest and most irresponsible thing I've ever seen written in (a) paper," he wrote in the March 16th edition of The Burlington County Times of Willingboro, New Jersey. (See "Killing Cats Is a Problem Not a Solution.")"It's outrageous, stupid, dumb, and every other word you can use for idiotic."

He also had some choice words for Lafferty and the Orlando Sentinel which are equally applicable to Forbes and the High Country News."I work at a paper and we're held to standards...," he wrote. "So when a paper allows someone to suggest poisoning cats as a solution to a problem, it really makes me angry."

Deplorably and inexcusably, there are far too few individuals either within or without the feline protection movement who share his anger. As a result, low-life criminals and all-around scumbags like Williams, NAS, the ABC, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and others are busily poisoning and killing cats with impunity at this very minute.

Worst still, such behavior violates every anti-cruelty statute on the books. Their ultimate goal is to transform America into another Australia where no cat's life is worth so much as a plug-nickel.

Like their kindred spirits down under, their thirst for feline blood is not about to be slaked with the elimination of cats. For instance in his interview with Forbes, Williams also endorsed the killing of fish, horses, donkeys, rats, pigs, and goats.

Earlier in 2007, the Connecticut Chapter of the NAS came out in favor of the mass eradication of not only cats but several other species as well. (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.")

All those who care about cats and other animals accordingly do not have any excuse for not standing up to these fascists of the animal world. (See Cat Defender post of May 13, 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.")

6.)  Lone Star State Bible Thumper Gets Away with Stealing and Killing His Neighbors' Cat, Moody.

Moody Was Abducted, Starved, and Then Thrown Off of a Bridge

"It's not that they lost their kitty, it was in the manner in which it happened by a man who purported to be a man of God."
-- attorney Bill Aleshire

Demonizing, abusing, and killing cats may have begun in earnest with the Roman Catholic Church but it certainly has not ended there in that fundamentalist Christians seem unable to resist the temptation to do likewise. For instance on January 15, 2012, fifty-seven-year-old Rick Bartlett, pastor of Bastrop Christian Church in the Texas city of the same name, stole a twelve-year-old brown and white cat named Moody that lived three down from him with Eddy and Sarah Bell.

He then incarcerated him in a cage in the back of his truck for three days without either food, water, or heat before finally tossing him off of the Loop 150 Bridge at 4:30 p.m. on January 17th. He was found motionless and near death at 8 p.m. that same day by an unidentified jogger in Fisherman's Park on the banks of the Colorado River.

He then was rushed to Crossroads Animal Hospital where he was diagnosed to have suffered a ruptured lung and other unspecified internal injuries. The force of the sixty-foot plunge also had injured his penis and left him in shock.

"(Moody was) just laid out like a sack of potatoes," veterinarian Greg Maynard said at that time. "No obvious signs of trauma."

Since he was wearing a collar and a tag, the Bells were immediately notified whereupon they instructed Maynard not to spare any expense in an all-out effort to save his life. Sadly, veterinary intervention came way too late and the beloved cat that they had owned for eleven years died later that evening.

That most likely would have been the end of the matter and absolutely no one ever would have known what had happened to Moody if Bartlett had not moonlighted as the chaplain of the Bastrop Police Department. As it just so happened, shortly before he killed Moody he had stopped by the department and its Animal Control officer, Susan Keys, had spied the cat in the back of his truck.

"I said I'd be taking the cat back to its owners because it had a tag and he said if that was the case, he would take it back to the neighborhood," she later testified. She then dismissed the matter from her mind.

After Moody was killed, however, she was called in to investigate his death and instantaneously recognized him as the cat that she earlier had seen in the back of Bartlett's truck. She then turned the matter over to detective Sarah Moore who subsequently arrested Bartlett a few days later but he immediately was freed after posting a $5,000 bond.

Holy Man and Convicted Cat Killer Rick Bartlett

The wheels of justice grind slowly and it was not until May 13th of the following year that Bartlett was forced to face the music in Bastrop County Court of Law. "The bottom line is this man was the last one to have our cat, and then he was found dying under a bridge," Eddy Bell said going into the trial. "We all want answers and want him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Prosecutor James Rhodes certainly did his part and Keys, Moore, and Maynard testified for the state. Bartlett declined to take the stand and his attorney, Chris Dillon, did not call any witnesses on his behalf.

Nevertheless, the man of god is known to earlier have claimed that Moody, despite his collar and tag, was homeless. He also ludicrously swore that he had jumped to his death of his own volition after he had unlocked his cage. As for not feeding him, Bartlett maintained that the matter simply had slipped his diseased gourd.

The jury deliberated for only forty minutes on May 17th before finding him guilty of misdemeanor animal cruelty and under Texas law he could have been sentenced to up to a year in the sneezer and fined $4,000. Lamebrained judge Terry "Flimflam" Flenniken, however, was not about to countenance any of that.

Instead, he let the demon off with a minuscule fifty hours of community service and placed him on probation for a year. He also tacked on a customary six-month suspended jail sentence that seemingly every jurist on the planet feels compelled to mandate for the sake of making it appear that the ends of justice had been served.

In anticipation of such an egregious miscarriage of justice, the Bells earlier on March 24, 2012 had filed a civil suit against Bartlett and his wife, Tina, in the District Court of Bastrop, Three-Hundred-Thirty-Fifth Judicial District. "It's not that they lost their kitty, it was in the manner in which it happened by a man who purported to be a man of God," their attorney, Bill Aleshire, declared on that occasion.

In doing so, he went on to point out the absurdity of Bartlett's defense. "If you were a cat and you'd been in that cage the whole time, and someone opened that cage, how long do you think you'd stay in that cage? Would you stay long enough for the truck to start and cross the bridge, and then jump out?" he asked rhetorically. "The story is a little hard to believe."

Although it initially had been hoped that the suit might ultimately undo a small portion of the damage that Flenniken had done, that apparently is not in the offing in that a recent check of online court records revealed that no further action has been taken on the matter since December 11, 2013. As a consequence, Moody's murder remains unavenged.

Bartlett also remains at large to continue stealing and killing cats with impunity, which Dillon freely admitted in court he has been doing for years. Old "Flimflam" Flenniken likewise is still on the bench where he is free to continue shortchanging cats and their owners with impunity all the while masquerading as an impartial trier of facts. (See Cat Defender post of January 10, 2014 entitled "Texas Judge Idiotically Allows Pastor Rick Bartlett to Get Away with Stealing and Killing Moody but a Civil Court May Yet Hold Him Accountable.")

7.) PennVet Murders a Sick Cat Because Its Owner Could Not Come Up with the Exorbitant Fee That It Demanded in Order to Have Saved Its Life.

The Scene of the Crime, the Matthew J. Ryan Small Animal Hospital

"Veterinary care has become brutally expensive."
-- Kenneth J. Drobetz of PennVet

Just in case any further proof was needed as to exactly how cutthroat and mercenary the practice of veterinary medicine has become the high-strutting, moneygrubbing scoundrels who rule the roost at PennVet in Philadelphia furnished it in rather graphic fashion right before Christmas. In keeping with their perverted version of the spirit of the season, the sawbones killed off a preeminently treatable cat simply because its owner could not readily come up with the thousands of dollars that they had demanded in order to treat it.

Neither the name of the cat nor that of its owner ever were publicly disclosed and as a result all that is known is that it had swallowed a ribbon from a Christmas present that subsequently had lodged somewhere in its digestive tract. It likewise is not known how much that the mercenaries demanded in order to snuff out its life, but it is a sure bet that they did not execute that gruesome task gratis unless, that is, they hate cats so much that they did it for the sheer pleasure of seeing another one of them die.

Given the extremely limited amount of information provided by PennVet's publicists at The Philadelphia Inquirer, it is difficult to speculate on possible alternatives but it nonetheless is remotely possible that, given time, the ribbon would have either rotted away or passed harmlessly out of the cat's intestines. Such an outcome would have depended upon a number of factors and not the least of which would have been the texture and length of the ribbon. Additionally, it might have been possible to have dislodged it with an enema if it had not become too intricately intertwined in the intestines.

Such speculation if largely spurious, however, in that PennVet had a moral and a professional obligation to have saved the cat's life. The mere fact that its owner did not have the money is totally irrelevant.

It certainly would not have strained the coffers of the high and mighty professors if they had extended credit to the cat's owner and thus recouped their blood money in installments. Besides, even if that individual never had been able to repaid so much as a red cent the University of Pennsylvania with its $8 billion endowment and annual operating budget of another $6 billion most assuredly could have afforded to have done a little pro bono work.

If the professors at PennVet had been willing to have done that, they not only would have saved a life but in doing so they also would have instantaneously transformed the owner's wails of distress into tears of joy. For their part, the practitioners would have had the satisfaction of knowing that for once in their miserable lives that they had done something that was noble and worthwhile.

Instead, the sawed-off slugs settled for counting their shekels."Veterinary care has become brutally expensive," was all that Kenneth J. Drobenz, head of the emergency room at the Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital, was able to come up with in defense of his colleagues' shameful behavior.

Whereas there sans doute is some measure of truth in his declaration, the cost of veterinary care is not nearly as brutal as the level of callousness and abject disrespect for feline life that exists in Drobenz's black soul. To put the matter succinctly, for any individual to allow an animal to die when either he or she has the necessary means and prerequisite expertise in order to save its life is not only morally indefensible but should be a jailable offense as well.

On its web site, PennVet boasts to treating thirty-three-thousand small animals each year, including thirteen-thousand that require emergency surgery, but that is a grossly misleading statistic. Instead of dishonestly tooting its own horn, the surgery should reveal the total number of cats and dogs that it sends back home to die through its refusal to treat them if their guardians are unable to pay its exorbitant fees.

It also should disclose not only how many animals that it deliberately kills off as opposed to treating but also the number that it kills through sheer incompetence. Only after the entire picture has been revealed can its performance be accurately evaluated; self-serving lies and propaganda are not acceptable substitutes for the unvarnished truth.

Conditions at Ryan's sister facility, the George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at the New Bolton Center in Kenneth Square, are ever more diabolical in that its practitioners devote their lives to whoring for factory farmers, the thoroughbred horse racing industry, and other serial abusers of animals. For instance, the remains of a nine-year-old gelding named Homeboykris was taken there for a necropsy after he collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack after winning the first race of the day at Pimlico on May 21st. (See the New York Post's print edition of May 22, 2016, "Deaths Mar Early Races.")

Furthermore, veterinarians at both Ryan and the New Bolton Center routinely torture and kill untold scores of cats and other animals in their research laboratories. These facilities, and numerous others that are scattered around campus, oftentimes do not even comply with the minimalist standards of care dictated by the scandalously impotent Animal Welfare Act of 1966.

To sum up, the veterinary medical establishment is, arguably, the number one abuser and killer of cats and other animals. Worst of all, schools such as PennVet each year churn out nothing except dunces and flatheads who are every bit as morally bankrupt as the rotten bums at whose elbows they have earned their tuition.

As a consequence, the profession cannot possibly be reformed. (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.")

8.) A Florida Woman Entrusts the Care of Her Cat, Dante, to a Roommate Who Soon Thereafter Abandons Him.

Dante

"As soon as he meowed, I knew it was him. I know his meow."
-- Alex McAllaster

There are always exceptions to any rule but, generally speaking, the care of a cat cannot be delegated. That is one lesson that Alex McAllaster of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, was forced into learning the hard way after an egregious mistake in judgment on her part nearly cost the life of her beloved cat, Dante.

The trouble all began when she cast off on a six-week sailing expedition sometime in either late April or early May. In doing so, she left Dante, a light-brown colored tom whom she had owned for eight years, in the care of her unidentified roommate. Even more inexcusably, she ran out on him even though he suffers from a bladder condition that will not allow him to eat kibble.

Predictably, when she returned home in early June Dante was nowhere to be found and her roommate refused to inform her as to what she had done with him. That in turn necessitated her calling in the police who eventually were able to get the roommate to admit that Dante had been fobbed off on an unidentified individual a fortnight earlier in the parking lot of Sam's Club at 740 Beal Parkway Northwest.

"You could have burned the house down, and I wouldn't have cared," an irate McAllaster swore to the Northwest Florida Daily News of Fort Walton Beach on June 7th. (See "Roommate Gives Away Cat; Owner Searching.")"But you screwed with my cat."

Although by that late date locating Dante had become a real long shot, McAllaster was not about to submit to the seemingly inevitable without first putting up a fight. Toward that end, she contacted the charities Save Our Cats and Kittens Shelter (SOCKS) and the Panhandle Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), offered a monetary reward for his safe return, and erected Lost Cat posters in her neighborhood. Best of all, she solicited and received the support of the Northwest Florida Daily News.

In spite of that, the search turned out to be a long and frustrating slog. "I've been getting phone calls and e-mails and texts since all of this happened," she confided to the Northwest Florida Daily News on July 3rd. (See "Cat Given Away by Roommate Found: 'As Soon as He Meowed, I Knew It Was Him'.")"Every time I've gone and looked."

Her hard work, due diligence, and indefatigability paid a huge dividend on June 29th when an unidentified woman telephoned to report that she had seen Dante in a drainage ditch in front of a Walmart store located at 748 Beal Parkway Northeast. Although the telephone call had been received at 8 p.m., McAllaster inexplicably demurred for several hours before finally taking any action.

"It was midnight, pitch-dark, and I saw his little shadow of a body just sitting there," she later disclosed to the Northwest Florida Daily News in the July 3rd article cited supra. "I stopped, squatted down and said his name, 'Dante.' He started meowing."

Then and only then did she realize that her travails had reached an end. "As soon as he meowed, I knew it was him," she added. "I know his meow."

Dante, thankfully, was alive but the weeks of sleeping rough and going without sustenance had exacted an awful toll on his health. In particular, he had lost eight of his sixteen pounds and, even worse, he had sustained unspecified damage to his liver. The good news, however, was that the attending veterinarian was confident that he would recover.

"He's dirty, but he's alive. I'm so grateful to the community," McAllaster told the Northwest Florida Daily News on July 3rd. "I prayed every day and I just kept calling him home. It's a miracle that I found him."

Truer words never have been spoken in that almost anyone could have picked him up and spirited him halfway across the country. Tant pis, Animal Control easily could have trapped and killed him at any time and McAllaster never would have been any the wiser.

Also, the mere fact that he was found only doors down from Sam's Club is a pretty strong indication that McAllaster's roommate had lied about giving Dante to a third party. On the contrary, the already sickly cat likely was cruelly abandoned to either sink or swim on his own.

As far as it is known, the roommate never was charged with either theft or animal cruelty. Moreover, it is not even known if that individual and McAllaster are still living underneath the same roof.

This case once again demonstrates just how imperative it is that cat owners exercise extreme caution when choosing roommates. For example in September of 2004, Chavisa Woods left her cat, Oliver, in the custody of a blind roommate while she made a trip out of town.

As a result, the roommate carelessly allowed him to escape from their Lower East Side walk-up in Manhattan and it took Woods several years in order to locate and then regain custody of him. (See Cat Defender post of January 3, 2006 entitled "Manhattan Court to Rely Upon 1894 Dog Law to Decide Custody of a Russian Blue Cat Named Oliver Gatsby.")

Although the gender of McAllaster's roommate never was revealed, it nevertheless is precisely the resident felines of women who take on live-in male lovers that are most at risk. That is because even though their good-looking, smooth-talking studs may be heaven in hay the way that some of them mistreat their cats can only be described as diabolical.

For instance, in 2008 Joseph Petcka killed a cat named Norman that belonged to Lisa Altobelli of Sports Illustrated. (See NBC-TV, September 29, 2008, "Man Who Killed Cat: 'I Did Not Act Intentionally'." and the New York Post, December 18, 2009, "Cat-Killer Petcka Sentenced to Community Service.")

Only recently, twenty-four-year-old Declan Garrity of Omagh, County Tyrone, beat nearly to death a cat named Lucy that belonged to his Manhattan roommate, identified in press reports only by her first name as Danielle. Although he later not only was arrested and charged with animal cruelty but fired from his job as a financial analyst with Barclay's Bank as well, he chose to do a runner instead of sticking around to face the music.

Moreover, it is highly unlikely that he ever will be extradited. (See the New York Daily News, articles dated February 26, 2016 and April 20, 2016 and entitled, respectively, "Cat-Torturing Goon Tricked Pet's Owner into Thinking He Was 'Best Roommate Ever' while Sadistically Burning, Beating Animal for Three Months" and "Cat-Torturing Creep Declan Garrity Back in Native Ireland (sic), Manhattan Judge Issues Bench Warrant," plus the Belfast Telegraph, March 3, 2016, "New York Cops Rearrest Northern Ireland Man Accused of Cat Torture after He Ignores Ruling by Judge.")

Considering both the duration of the abuse and the extent of Lucy's injuries, it would appear that Garrity maintained Danielle in such an erotic stupor that she was barely cognizant of the day the week, let alone the abject cruelty that was occurring right underneath her schnoz. Her behavior therefore is every bit as inexcusable as Garrity's in that she committed the selfish error of placing a far greater value upon having a high old time in the sack every night than she ever did on Lucy's welfare.

9.)  Gypsy Survives Both an EF5 Tornado and Being Deserted by Her Guardian.

Gypsy and Misty Satterlee

"There's a tiny part of me that just wanted to hang on and keep looking for her because she's our family."
-- Misty Satterlee

Absolutely no one even cares enough to speculate as to how many cats and other animals are killed each year by tornadoes but the unsung and unmourned death toll surely must be off the charts. It therefore is anything but an overstatement to declare as miraculous Gypsy's survival of an EF5 tornado that roared through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on May 20th.

The extremely attractive, multicolored female did so by taking refuge underneath a sink after the roof of the house that she had lived in for the past eight years had been blown away by the three-hundred-twenty-one kilometer winds and the walls had collapsed around her. Being either unable or too traumatized to come out, she remained hidden in that hole for the following three weeks while subsisting upon rain water, insects, rodents, and possibly scattered bits of food.

The specifics never were revealed by the media but apparently her guardian, Misty Satterlee, simply ran off and callously left her behind in order to fend for herself. Even more outrageously, she did not return home again until June 10th and even then it was not to search for Gypsy but rather to show off the damage to a brother of hers who just happened to be visiting from out of town.

"When I got back over there I decided to call one more time for her and I just barely heard a little meow," she later related. The local fire department was summoned and Gypsy shortly thereafter was pulled to safety emaciated and dehydrated but otherwise unharmed.

As a precautionary measure, she was taken to a veterinarian who administered intravenous fluids so as to rapidly replace some of the liquids that she had lost during her long and grueling ordeal in the aftermath of the twister. Best of all, she was expected to have made a full recovery.

"There's a tiny bit of me that just wanted to hang on and keep looking for her because she's our family," Satterlee added. "We've had her eight years and she's part of us and we aren't complete without her."

Although that may sound genuine, a good argument could be made that Gypsy owes her deliverance, not to Satterlee, but rather to her brother. If he had not shown up when he did, she in all likelihood would have starved to death all by her lonesome underneath that forlorn and desolate sink.

Owing to their diminutive size cats, such as Spinner of Albert Lea, Minnesota, are easily transformed into the playthings of tornadoes. (See Cat Defender post of August 31, 2010 entitled "Picked Up Off the Ground by a Tornado and Slammed into a Board, Spinner Sustains a Broken Leg but Survives Muddy and Unbowed to Live Another Day.")

They additionally are in grave danger of being crushed to death by falling buildings, trees, electrical lines, and miscellaneous flying debris. Most alarming of all, they do not, as far as it is known, have any way of anticipating the arrival of such cataclysmic events.

All of those perils pale in comparison, however, with being saddled with callous owners, such as Satterlee, who not only desert them when tornadoes strike but also lack the prerequisite compassion and sense of responsibility to even bother to look for them once the deadly winds either have abated or gone off in search of new victims to torment. (See Cat Defender post of August 24, 2013 entitled "Gypsy Is Discovered Alive and Well Hiding in a Hole Underneath a Sink Three Weeks after an EF5 Tornado Destroys an Oklahoman City.")

10.)  Miss Kitty Celebrates Her Twenty-First Birthday at a Pennsylvania Nursing Home.

Miss Kitty with Pam Kleckner and Resident Elaine Kwedder at the Party

"Everyone lives a long time at Phoebe. Even the cats."
-- Trina Johnson-Brady

Although they are still largely verboten at most hospitals, more and more nursing home are belatedly recognizing the therapeutic value of keeping cats. For example, the Phoebe Health Care Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, has fourteen of them.

It therefore was entirely appropriate when on April 11th staffers, volunteers, and residents at the facility's dementia care unit, Bridgeways, threw a party for a skinny calico named Miss Kitty in order to celebrate her twenty-first birthday. Led by local musician Lorenzo Branca, they serenaded her with a rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" while she scarfed tuna from a martini glass.

"The residents love her and the families do, too," nurse Gina Shupp told The Morning Call of Allentown on April 11th. (See "In Allentown, a Senior Cat Gets the Royal Birthday Treatment.")"They look for her, and when she's not up on the counter they say, 'Where is she?'"

In addition to boosting the morale of residents, Miss Kitty's presence also is therapeutic. "When we put a cat in their lap (sic),  that's when the magic begins," staffer Pam Kleckner added to The Morning Call."She responds well to all the attention, and they feel like they're caring for something."

It has not been disclosed how long that Miss Kitty has been living at the institution but she certainly did not arrive there of her own volition. Rather, she accompanied Kleckner's father, Fred Navatier, when he relocated from his home in Lehighton, forty-five kilometers north of Allentown, some years ago. "He spoiled her and she's spoiled here," Kleckner pointed out.

Considering that the nursing home is operated by Phoebe Ministries, which is affiliated with the United Church of Christ, it is refreshing to see that it has broken ranks with mainstream Christianity and opened up both its doors and hearts to cats. Serious question remain, however, concerning the quality of care that the facility metes out to Miss Kitty and her mates.

That is because all cats deserve good quality food and water, warm and dry shelter, top-notch veterinary care, and protection against their sworn enemies. Above all, their inalienable right to live out their lives to the very end and only then to die natural deaths must be, above all, respected.

Still, given Miss Kitty's longevity coupled with the petit fait that one resident of the facility lived to be a staggering one-hundred-nineteen-years-old, it surely must be doing something right. "Everyone lives a long time at Phoebe," community relations coordinator Trina Johnson-Brady proudly proclaimed to The Morning Call."Even the cats."

It additionally is highly commendable that more than forty per cent of the residents at the four nursing homes that Phoebe operates are indigent. "Phoebe Ministries is guided by its mission to provide compassionate care to residents in our communities, regardless of their ability to pay," the organization declares on its web site.

That stands in stark contrast not only to the simply abhorrent mistreatment that PennVet, one-hundred kilometers to the south, metes out to cats but also that of its competitors who are showing the door to the poor and mentally ill in droves. (See The Star Ledger of Newark, May 9, 2016, "Nursing Homes Use Eviction to Drop Difficult Patients.")


11.)  Garrison Keillor Kills Off His Cat, Meiko, and Then Goes on the Air in Order to Capitalize on His Foul Deed.

Garrison Keillor

"Lullabye little cat, wherever you're at
May you lie in the sun and be loved by someone
May you curl up and rest, with a quilt for a nest
May you run, may you leap, and be young in your sleep."
-- Garrison Keillor

Those individuals who commit atrocities against cats are bad enough in their own right but those who take pride in such behavior are the worst of all and that description certainly applies in spades not only to the representatives of PETA but to Garrison Keillor, the longtime host of National Public Radio's "A Prairie Home Companion," as well. During a June 7th show from the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles' Griffith Park, this loud-mouthed, pompous buffoon took to the microphone in order to proudly declare that he had paid a veterinarian to kill off his seventeen-year-old cat, Meiko.

In a long-winded, self-congratulatory poem entitled, Meiko Tribute," he wrote:

"And then this delicate creature
Of an affectionate nature
Had to be carried outside
And taken for a short melancholy ride
To the vet's office where with gentle affection
She was given a merciful injection."

In doing so, he was careful not to disclose either when she was whacked or the name of her killer. Much more importantly, he failed to make any mention of either what ailed her or the treatment options available to her.

That in turn has led to speculation that he had her killed off simply because he was too cheap to pay for her treatment and too lazy to have had someone to attend to her needs. That conclusion is buttressed by the fact that he conveniently omitted any reference whatsoever to what ultimately was done with her remains.

Once he had finished relishing in his criminality, Keillor then proceeded to denigrate the entire species. For instance:

"A cat has not much utility
But beauty is beauty: that's
Why the Lord created cats."

Some years earlier he had put the matter even harsher by declaring that "cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose." No one ever will be able to say the same thing about him because he, quite obviously, has found his raison d'être in defaming and killing cats.

Even the snuffing out of Meiko's precious life has not proven to be sufficient in order to slake his thirst for feline blood. For example, during a May 2, 2015 broadcast from Goshen College in Indiana he declared that every cat kills on the average fifty birds each summer.

In keeping with his long and checkered history of being a cheap shot artist, Keillor failed to mention where he had picked up that statistic and he certainly was not about to provide his critics with an opportunity to respond. He also is acutely aware that not only do birds kill cats but that ornithologists and wildlife biologists exterminate them in the millions each year, as they are currently doing in Australia.

By finally coming out and publicly aligning himself with the worldwide cat-killing fraternity, Keillor additionally has called into question the quality of care that he provided Meiko while she was still alive. First of all, although he never specified whether she lived at his residence in St. Paul or his swanky digs on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, if it were the latter it is certain that she was forced into spending her entire existence cruelly cooped up indoors and without either an iota of freedom or the fellowship of her fellow felines.

Secondly, since he spends just about all of his time on the road chasing shekels, women, and fame, he obviously never devoted very much of his time to her care. Yet, he was johnny-on-the-spot once her health deteriorated and wasted no time in getting rid of her.

Thoroughly lacking in all morality, knowledge, and appreciation of the species, he not only was far too uncharitable to allow her to have gone on living in this world but he also categorically denied her entry into his Lutheran heaven by consigning her to spend eternity in the arms of the Sandman. For example:

"Lullabye little cat, wherever you're at
May you lie in the sun and be loved by someone
May you curl up and rest, with a quilt for a nest
May you run, may you leap, and be young in your sleep."

Although he has announced that this is going be his last season as host of "A Prairie Home Companion," he has quit before only to sooner or later turn up again in much the same fashion as a bad penny. Regardless of wherever his future rambles take him, the only thing for certain is that cats are destined to continue to be on the receiving end of his outrageous slanders and libels. (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.")

Photos: Jim Carlton of the Wall Street Journal (Stubbs), Dylan Stone of the Independent Record of Helena (Tabor and King), The Swansea Public Library (Penny), Lexington Humane Society (Freckles), The New York Times (Williams), The Digital Texan of Austin (Moody), Bastrop County Sheriff's Department (Bartlett), University of Pennsylvania (Ryan Veterinary Hospital), Northwest Florida Daily News (Dante), KWTV (Gypsy and Misty Satterlee), April Bartholomew of The Morning Call (Miss Kitty), and National Public Radio (Keillor).

Cooper's Mouth,Gums, and Teeth Were Left a Bloody Mess

"I can't say what happened, but when he went back to get microchipped he was fine. He came back with a fractured jaw."
-- Debbie Orbison

Animal Control officers, shelters, and veterinarians always have made a pretty penny by defaming, abusing, and killing cats but no matter how much that they have raked in it never has been enough for them. As a consequence, they are constantly on the lookout for newfangled means of exploiting these already horribly abused animals.

Aside from the administration of a litany of needless inoculations, the implantation of thoroughly worthless and harmful microchips has become one of their most lucrative money-making rackets. As if that were not bad enough in itself, many of these professionals are either incompetent or unwilling to even properly insert these odious devices.

For example, on March 8th a pair of unidentified Animal Control officers at the Rowan County Animal Shelter (RCAS) in Salisbury, seventy-seven kilometers north of Charlotte, broke the jaw of a handsome gray and white tom named Cooper in two places and inflicted unspecified damage to his mouth, gums, and teeth during a microchipping exercise that went terribly awry. In its defense, the RCAS has, not surprisingly, placed all of the blame for the retaliatory beating that it meted out to him on Cooper's tiny shoulders while simultaneously pretending to be every bit as innocent as a newborn lamb.

"He acted up when they were doing the microchipping and that's why he was bleeding," his current foster mother, Debbie Orbison, told WBTV of Charlotte on March 11th. (See "Employee on Leave, County Paying Vet Bills after Cat Injured During Microchipping.")

An investigation into the incident spearheaded by Patricia "Porous" Norris of the Veterinary Division of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in Raleigh failed to shine any light whatsoever on what actually occurred. For starters, she claims that Cooper received a bloody mouth when the Animal Control officers chased him into the Plexiglas® window of a pet carrier.

Although "Porous" Norris insists that the Plexiglas® window of this so-called "feral cat den" had been raised so as to allow Cooper ingress, she conveniently fails to disclose how it was that Cooper came to break it. After all, Plexiglas® is exceedingly difficult to shatter and cats certainly are neither blind nor do they, like birds, make a habit of attempting to go through glass.

If, on the other hand, there is so much as a smidgen of truth in her conclusion the window surely must have broken when the Animal Control officers either threw him against it with tremendous force or attempted to forcibly stuff him into the carrier. Leaving aside the rarity of such contraptions, it also is rather odd that the RCAS would use them in order to move around cats in that even conventional pet carriers with steel grilles for doors are usually covered with either blankets or towels so as to reduce the level of stress on the cats incarcerated inside; c'est-à-dire, the goal usually is to shield them as much as possible from the frightening sights and sounds of the outside world, not to provide them with a front row seat to them.

Most damning of all, "Porous" Norris fails to disclose how it was that Cooper's jaw came to be broken. Although it is remotely possible that the fractures occurred when the Animal Control officers slammed him headfirst into the Plexiglas®, a far more plausible explanation is that they used either their fists or the back of their hands on him. It also cannot be completely ruled out that they beat him with some sort of blunt object, such as either a night stick or a metal flashlight.

In spite of what "Porous" Norris alleges, that likely is how that he wound up with a bloody mouth in that it stands to reason that a blow powerful enough to have broken his jaw also would have inflicted severe damage on his lips, gums, and teeth. In all likelihood, she simply concocted that sottise about the Plexiglas® in order to hoodwink a naïve and uncaring public.

Although by this time Cooper already was not only bloodied and injured but frightened to death and fighting for his very survival, none of that in any way deterred the Animal Control officers from administering a rabies vaccination and ramming home the microchip. With their tasks now completed, they were so derelict in their responsibilities that they did not even bother to verify that the chip had been properly inserted and was functioning.

Even more shockingly, no one affiliated with the RCAS even so much as looked at Cooper's injuries, let alone attended to them. Instead, he was manhandled into yet still another pet carrier, this one provided by an unidentified rescue group, and left to lick his wounds.

The exact timeline of events never has been disclosed so it is not known exactly when Cooper was assaulted by the Animal Control officers other than that it was at either around lunchtime or shortly thereafter. Likewise, it has not been made public exactly when he was collected by the rescue group which had so magnanimously ransomed him off of death row.

All that is known for certain is that he was admitted to the China Grove Animal Hospital at 2001 US-29, eighteen kilometers south of Salisbury in the town of the same name, at 3 p.m. on that day. Although the attending veterinarian, Scott Vaughan, immediately recognized that his jaw was swollen and that his tongue was hanging out, a sure sign of a cat in extremis, he categorically refused to either examine him or to even prescribe any analgesics.

The official explanation given for this trained member of the veterinary medical profession's shocking abdication of responsibility was that he was too scared to go near Cooper. Given that just about all cats that wind up at a veterinarian's office are frightened out of their wits and the majority of them are either injured or sick, it is no small wonder that a rank coward such as Vaughan is able to stay in business.

The level of ignorance, inexperience, and callousness demonstrated by both the Animal Control officers and Vaughan is simply shocking in that someone, presumably Cooper's original owner, already had trapped and delivered him up to the RCAS on a silver platter and that constituted ninety-nine per cent of the job of microchipping him. Furthermore, experienced shelter and veterinary personnel possess the prerequisite savoir-faire in order to properly restrain a cat so that it can be medicated and microchipped without having to resort to the expedient of using their fists on it.

As Miguel de Cervantes once observed, "those who will play with cats must expect to be scratched" and that admonition applies not only to veterinarians like Vaughan but to the Animal Control officers as well. Knowledge and patience are the keys when it comes to dealing with cats and, above all, anyone who is either afraid of them or detests them is in the wrong line of work.

Patricia "Porous" Norris

As the result of Vaughan's utterly disgraceful abdication of his professional responsibilities, Cooper once again was locked up in some type of enclosure for the night and left to suffer all alone. On the following day, March 9th, either Vaughan or someone made of sterner stuff from the clinic was able to muster enough moxie in order to sedate and, not treat, but rather sterilize him.

Photographs were taken of his broken jaw but not radiographs because, believe it or not, the surgery claims not to own an x-ray machine. If that indeed is the case, China Grove surely must have either a CT or an MRI machine otherwise it could not properly treat animals with internal injuries and ailments. This is mere supposition but the solution to that conundrum is most likely to be found in the rescue group's either unwillingness or inability to pay up front for either of those two considerably more expensive alternative diagnostic tools.

It therefore was not until March 10th when Cooper was uprooted once again and hauled to the Carolina Animal Hospital in Charlotte that he received any kind of treatment whatsoever for either his twice-broken jaw or badly injured mouth. Specifically, he was anesthetized, his jaw radiographed, and the fractures of the mandible (lower jaw) surgically repaired.

That also marked the first time since he had been beaten by the Animal Control officers that he was administered any painkillers and antibiotics. In addition to his prolonged suffering, his mouth easily could have become infected and he could have even strangled to death on his own blood, mucus, and the fragments of any broken teeth.

Normal veterinary protocol in such cases calls for cats to be immediately evaluated for shock and, if necessary, to be placed on intravenous fluids and oxygen. Secondly, any broken teeth and foreign debris should have been promptly removed and rents in the soft tissue treated so as to ward off the onset of infection.

Thirdly, splints should have been inserted in order to have stabilized his jaw and a complete neurological examination conducted in order to have determined if he had suffered any damage to either his brain or the nerves in his head. Above all, antibiotics and analgesics should have been administered long before he ever left RCAS.

Nevertheless, in spite of the unassailable fact that Cooper was forced to go without veterinary treatment for his broken jaw and injured mouth for at least two days, "Porous" Norris was not about to admit to any of that under any circumstances. "This review concludes that as (sic) Cooper was provided with access to veterinary care within thirty minutes of injury," she proclaimed in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary in a March 21st epistle addressed to Rowan County Manager Aaron Church. "Therefore veterinary care was provided as required by 02 North Carolina Code .0210(c). Consequently, the findings of this investigation do not substantiate a violation of the North Carolina Animal Welfare Act."

Even more outrageously, this bare-faced liar and highly paid apologist for cat abusers was totally unwilling to even consider the plainly obvious conclusion that Cooper had been hideously abused by the Animal Control officers in retaliation for his allegedly uncooperative behavior. "Veterinary review of the fractures show that the injury is most consistent with a recent accidental type injury," she wrote to her bosom buddy Church.

In hindsight, it is not all that surprising that she arrived at such an absurd conclusion in that her inquiry was strictly limited to visiting the RCAS, interviewing staffers, rescue personnel, and veterinarians in addition to a cursory review of shelter and veterinary records. There accordingly is absolutely nothing in her report to even remotely suggest that she used her gray cells for any purpose other than to completely exonerate the RCAS of all wrongdoing.

The shelter and its Animal Control officers certainly were not about to admit the truth and since Cooper is unable to speak up in his own defense, inferences and logical conclusions therefore must be drawn based upon experience, knowledge, and the totality of the circumstances. In "Porous" Norris' case, she had absolutely no interest whatsoever in getting at the truth and that petit fait is clearly discernible throughout her report.

It would have been utterly laughable for any trained veterinarian to have arrived at such a ludicrous conclusion but in her case the offense is compounded in that she previously has investigated cases of animal cruelty for the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and as a consequence should be intimately acquainted with the telltale signs of abuse. (See undated press release of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services entitled "Norris Named North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Animal Welfare Director.")

First of all, the vast majority of all cats that sustain broken jaws do so at either the hands of motorists or as the result of falling out of windows and subsequently landing on their faces. Even more telling than that, it is extremely difficult to break a cat's jaw.

"The mandible is one of the hardest bones in the body and a great deal of force is necessary to break the bone," veterinarian David Diamond wrote in a July 4, 2015 article for PetPlace. (See "Fracture of the Mandible in Cats.")

That in turn does not leave much room for any doubt that Cooper was the victim of a simply horrific beating meted out by the Animal Control officers. Even "Porous" Norris was astute enough not to even attempt to explain how that his jaw was broken.

If, for instance, she had claimed that he either had been run down by a motorist drag racing through one of the examining rooms or had fallen from one of the upper floors at the single-story facility she would have been laughed out of even a town as humorless as Raleigh. (A link to her report can be found at the Greenville Examiner, March 21, 2016, "Rowan County Animal Control Cleared of Wrongdoing Following Investigation.")

"Porous" Norris' whitewashing of a simply barbaric act of animal cruelty that was made even worse by wholesale veterinary malfeasance may have been far from convincing as far as the outside world was concerned but it proved to be more than sufficient in order to let the RCAS off the hook. Although there were two Animal Control officers involved in beating Cooper, only one of them was even singled out for investigation.

Not only was that individual's name and photograph shielded from public scrutiny by the RCAS and a obliging local media, but the only disciplinary action that the abuser received was to be placed on paid administrative leave for about ten days. The media likewise has refused to divulge that individual's current status but more than likely either he or she is back on the job and abusing other cats not only with impunity but renewed vigor as well.

Cooper Was Forced to Wear an Elizabethan Collar Following Oral Surgery

As utterly risible as "Porous" Norris' conclusions turned out to be, it is nonetheless somewhat surprising that an investigation was even undertaken in the first place. Of course, that could be explained by the fact that the fix was in from the start.

Besides that, Church's first inclination was to attempt and pack off all the blame on Orbison and he did so by asking her point-blank in a telephone conversation if Cooper's injuries could have been sustained after he had departed the RCAS.

"There's no way this was not done by Animal Control," she responded by telling the Salisbury Post on March 11th. (See "County Employee Placed on Leave after Cat Injured.")"It's just so sad because he didn't deserve this."

She certainly was in a position to know what she was talking about because earlier on March 8th she had selected Cooper to be transferred to her custody and he most definitely was as healthy as a horse at that time. "I can't say what happened, but when he went back to get microchipped he was fine," she added to Salisbury Post."He came back with a fractured jaw."

Even though it is strongly suspected that Cooper's early days were anything but blissful, his travails began in earnest on February 29th when he a trio of other cats were fobbed off on the RCAS by their unscrupulous and uncaring owner. Although on that occasion he was administered unspecified intake vaccinations and prescribed an oral deworming drug without any apparent difficulties, Cooper nevertheless was immediately segregated on death row with other cats deemed to be unsocialized. His mates meanwhile were put up for adoption but it is not known what has become of them.

In making such a distinction, the RCAS is guilty of perpetuating the age-old myth that there is any discernible difference between homeless and domiciled cats, those that are unsocialized vis-à-vis those that are, or between those that are wild and those that are considered to be tame. "A cat is a cat and that is that" as an old American Sprichwort stipulates and that point is best illustrated by comparing, not those who are homeless with those that are domiciled, but rather by examining only those that are regarded as being domesticated.

That is because cats that are born into and spend their entire lives in residential settings can exhibit not only radically different personalities but some of the same behavioral traits that ignorant and dishonest individuals insist upon labeling as feral. That phenomenon is first and foremost attributable to genetic differences occasioned by females who mate with several males.

Secondly, their guardians often accentuate those differences by unwittingly lavishing more time and energy on those kittens that are already disposed by nature to be friendlier and more affectionate. Contrariwise, those that by nature are more skittish and standoffish became even more so in such households.

Thirdly, some kittens commandeer a disproportionate amount of their mothers' milk and attentions and that can have adverse consequences on both the physical and psychological development of their litter mates who get shortchanged in the competition. All of these and other differences in genetics and nurturing therefore cannot help but to produce cats with radically different outlooks upon life.

All animals in fact have different personalities and Aristotle recognized that more than twenty-four-hundred years ago but modern man is totally unwilling to concede the point. That is because if he ever were forced into acknowledging that they are not all that different from himself such an admission would completely repudiate the Jews' self-serving nonsense as expounded in the Dominion Mandate of Genesis I:26-28 and elsewhere in the Bible. That in turn would have nothing short of revolutionary implications in the fields of economics, politics, and law.

There accordingly is a very good chance that Cooper grew up in a household under similar circumstances and that as a result he is nowhere nearly as friendly and outgoing as his former mates. That does not, however, automatically transform him into being an unsocialized cat and it most definitely does not provide a valid excuse for maligning, abusing, and segregating him on death row.

Much more poignantly, the unmitigated hell that he has been put through once again demonstrates writ large that cats do not belong in shelters under any conceivable circumstances. Residential homes, sanctuaries, managed TNR colonies, barns, and even sleeping rough are the only humane and morally acceptable alternatives. (See The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 11, 2011, "Shelter Shock. Cats Can Get Sick from Stress. One Proposed Remedy? Keep Them Out.")

Cooper's unhappy plight does, however, focus attention on the need for guardians not to neglect the proper socialization of their cats. That is important principally owing to the fact that it is far easier to medicate an ailing cat that is accustomed to being handled as opposed to one who shies away from being touched. The results can be quite staggering in that severely ill and injured ones that are amenable to treatment often recover whereas those that resist their owners' ministrations sometimes succumb to even minor injuries and maladies.

Also, a socialized cat has a far greater chance of surviving a trip to the death house than does one that is afraid of people. That is far from being the entire story, however, in that those that trust humans also are more easily victimized by ailurophobes than those that know to keep their distance.

To make a long story short, there are not any easy answers as far as cats are concerned. Even more depressingly, the vast majority of them are damned regardless of either their personalities or behavior.

Cooper Was Repeatedly Caged, Bandied About, and Anesthetized

That is attributable to the fact that the only use that the vast majority of people have for all of creation, their fellow citizens included, is strictly limited to what they can get out of it. (See Cat Defender post of May 27, 2016 entitled "Snubbed by an Ignorant, Tasteless, and Uncaring Public for the Past Twenty-One Years, Tilly Has Forged an Alternative Existence of Relative Contentment at a Sanctuary in the Black Country.")

Whereas the RCAS, "Porous" Norris, Church, and their fellow liars have long since gone on their merry ways, the road back to health has been a lengthy and arduous one for Cooper. For instance, on March 11th he was moved to a third unidentified veterinary hospital where he once again was anesthetized and a complete blood count and a general serum biochemistry analysis conducted. He was orally examined again and forced to submit to still more radiographs.

All of that was only a prelude to the insertion of orthodontic buttons and wires in his jaw, the closing of a wound in his oral soft tissue, and the making of unspecified repairs to his oral cavity with a laser. He additionally was administered more antibiotics and analgesics but a fragment of his right jaw was deemed to be too small in order to be reattached.

After that he was put in an Elizabethan collar and placed on a liquid diet before being returned to Orbison. It never was revealed if he had suffered any broken teeth as the result of the violent assault.

To sum up, not only was he forced to go without treatment for two days but once he was provided with access to it he was shuttled between three surgeries like the Flying Dutchman of yore where he was sedated once, anesthetized twice, and radiographed twice. Regardless of how the quality of the care that he ultimately received is analyzed, that still constitutes an inordinate amount of barbiturates and radiation for such a diminutive animal to absorb.

On top of all of that, he was put through no less than three oral examinations and a pair of oral surgeries as well as having been sterilized. Nonetheless, neither "Porous" Norris nor anyone else involved in this sordid affair seems to have an issue with either the tardiness or the redundancy of the care that Cooper received.

If the rigmarole that he was subjected to accomplished little else, it did succeed in saddling Orbison with an enormous bill. "The county has contacted the Carolina Animal Hospital of Charlotte to convey that we will be covering all the vet bills," Church swore to WBTV in the article cited supra.

Conspicuously omitted from that declaration was any mention of the not inconsiderable tabs that Cooper has run up at the China Grove Animal Hospital and the dental specialists. As a result, Orbison has been forced into begging online for donations which, at last word, had totaled only a measly few hundred simoleons.

Nevertheless, she has been delighted with even that limited amount of support. "When I first started, in my mind I was thinking I'd ask my friends to help cover the costs, raise $10 or $20 and then do the best I could," she confided to the Salisbury Post in the article cited supra."Never in a million years did I think this would happen."

Lost in the uproar over what was done to Cooper has been the salient fact that the RCAS did not have any business microchipping him in the first place. Since its Animal Control officers already knew that he did not cotton to being handled by strangers, they should have left that task to Orbison. If she had wanted him chipped, she could have either arranged for the procedure to have been performed at a later date or, better still, left that decision to his eventual new guardian.

Besides, neither the RCAS nor Orbison had a valid reason for being in such a hellfire hurry because microchips are a complete fraud in that they not only fail to afford cats any protection whatsoever against the machinations of their enemies but they additionally have been linked to cancer. (See Cat Defender posts of May 25, 2006, September 21, 2007, and November 6, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats,""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.")

They additionally are sometimes difficult to both locate and decipher. Even if that is not a problem, they are totally worthless if the cats' owners have not kept their contact information up-to-date in the databases that link up to them. (See Cat Defender posts of March 31, 2010 and August 26, 2015 entitled, respectively, "Winnipeg Family Is Astounded by Tiger Lily's Miraculous Return after Having Been Believed Dead for Fourteen Years" and "A Myriad of Cruel and Unforgivable Abandonments, a Chinese Puzzle, and Finally the Handing Down and Carrying Out of a Death Sentence Spell the End for Long-Suffering and Peripatetic Tigger.")

Although the beating doled out to Cooper at the RCAS is the first time in memory that a cat has been so horribly abused during a microchipping procedure, it is fairly common for these devices to be surgically implanted on top of spinal cords and at vaccination sites. (See Cat Defender post of April 28, 2016 entitled "Sassie Is Left Paralyzed as the Result of Yet Still Another Horribly Botched Attempt to Implant a Thoroughly Worthless and Pernicious Microchip Between Her Shoulders.")

If she has not done so already, it would be a good idea for Orbison to have Cooper examined by a competent veterinarian in order to determine that the microchip the Animal Control officers so brutally rammed between his shoulders has not caused any damage to either his spinal cord or surrounding tissues. After all that he has been put through, it would be doubly tragic if something should turn out to be amiss with it.

The reason that the officers so stubbornly insisted upon going through with the procedure is in all likelihood attributable to financial considerations. C'est-à-dire, cats with implanted microchip are, supposedly, easier to sell back to both rescue groups and the general public than those that so not have them.

Bob Pendergrass Delivers the Coup d'Grâce to Another Innocent Kitten

That is far from being the only oddity, however, in the RCAS' perverted business model. For instance, whereas it has not been publicly disclosed how much that it charges rescuers like Orbison for its cats, the cost to the general public is $80. Most surprising of all, although it microchips, deworms, and vaccinates them, it does not automatically sterilize them.

Instead, it provides members of the public, and supposedly rescuers as well, with $70 vouchers for sterilizations to be performed at a later date. Not only is that policy at odds with those in situ at the vast majority of American shelters who will not allow any intact animal out the front door, but it serves to exacerbate the overpopulation crisis in that some adopters choose not to redeem the vouchers.

The point is largely moot, however, in that the RCAS freely admits that ninety per cent of the animals that make it out of its death house alive are adopted by rescue groups and that leaves only the ten per cent that are taken in by the general public for it to sterilize. It therefore would appear that in most cases it ends up pocketing the entire $80.

Moreover, it is not even known if rescuers like Orbison use the RCAS to sterilize the cats that they take off of its hands. That certainly did not turn out to be the case with Cooper.

It thus seems to be clear that the RCAS functions as little more than a roundup and drop off location for unwanted cats. It puts almost no money and effort into adoption services and instead liquidates just about all of them that rescue groups and the general public fail to ransom.

It is sans doute a profitable racket, however, in that the death house and its ancillary bodies employ twenty full-time and forty part-time cat killers. Its hideous crimes additionally help to sustain, inter alia, the manufacturers of lethal drugs, superfluous vaccines, microchips, and cages as well as any number of corpse burning and disposal services.

As it shortly thereafter was made manifestly clear, the beating meted out to Cooper proved to be merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg as far as the crimes of the RCAS are concerned. Most prominently, up until less than two years ago the shelter was still gassing cats and dogs. (See The Charlotte Observer, March 4, 2014, "Rowan to Stop Using Gas Chamber at Animal Shelter.")

Although it claims to have washed its hands of that wretched business, shelter personnel in particular and Rowan County politicians in general have told so many lies in the past that they have squandered all of their credibility. "Again, we regret that this (Cooper's beating) occurred," Church told WBTV of Charlotte on March 21st. (See "Animal Shelter Cleared after Cat's Jaw Broken During Microchipping.")"And we will continue to make every effort to treat all animals humanely as we improve our policies and the care that animals receive at our facility."

County Commissioner Craig Pierce echoed those sentiments. "We want to see it (RCAS) become the best county shelter possible," he blowed to the Salisbury Post on April 13th. (See "Locals Heap Criticism on Rowan County Animal Shelter.")"Are we going to be perfect? No, but are we going to be better? Absolutely."

Besides the expulsion of a tremendous amount of meaningless hot air and double talk, Church and the commissioners did remove Clai Martin as shelter director but that was only so that they could reassign him as manager of its animal enforcement division. Even that only occurred after five-thousand-one-hundred-fifty-nine critics of his stewardship took to the petition site www.change.org in order to demand that he be fired.

The exercise in cosmetics continued with the creation of a new layer of bureaucracy called Rowan County Animal Services with a zookeeper named Bob Pendergrass appointed as its head. As if his professional calling were not ominous enough in its own right, he additionally has substantial ties to both the cat-hating fiends at the diabolical United States Fish and Wildlife Service and bird enthusiast groups. (See the Salisbury Post, March 22, 2016, "County's Consolidation Means Martin Won't Oversee Animal Shelter.")

"I have to be very careful not to get too attached because hopefully they're (the cats) going to go to good homes," he declared right out of the starting gate to WJZY-TV of Charlotte on June 8th. (See "Influx of Cats in Rowan County, Desperately Need Forever Homes.")"It's kind of nice to have something crawl up into your lap wanting attention when it's the end of the day."

He almost overnight became the darling of the media and even many of the rescue groups were taken in by his palaver, especially when it came to his declaration about not wanting to kill cats. "We do have kind of policies that we follow of not having things so full that we can't be ready to take in something that comes in the next day, but we certainly are doing everything we can to avoid euthanizing any animal," he added.

His use of the word "something" in reference to cats should have been enough to have given the game away right then and there because absolutely nobody who cares the tiniest bit about them ever would refer to them in such a callous and derogatory vein. That likewise sans doute is how that he looks down upon the unjustly incarcerated inmates under his care at the Nature Center in Dan Nicholas Park, sixteen kilometers east of the RCAS.

That is a rather minor point in comparison with the fact that his lofty rhetoric was a complete fabrication. Most notably, the RCAS' latest cat killing spree began shortly after March 8th when it snuffed out the lives of nine felines allegedly in retaliation for Orbison's making a stink about the beating that was meted out to Cooper.

Cooper Is Still Living with Debbie Orbison but He Needs a Home of His Own

Regardless of whatever else can be said about Pendergrass, there can be no denying that the old fraudster has the chutzpah of Old Nick himself. That is because on the very same day that he was pulling the wool over the eyes of the viewers of WJZY-TV he simultaneously was ordering the liquidation of ten more cats. The killings continued on June 10th with the cold-blooded murders of thirty-two additional felines.

Thirteen others were killed on June 11th and June 12th and another twenty of them were slated to have been exterminated on June 13th. Even more appallingly, all of these cats were vanquished while a number of individuals and rescue groups were telephoning the shelter to inquire about adopting them. (See the Greenville Examiner, June 10, 2016, "Dozens of Cats Killed after Rowan County Shelter Asks Public to Adopt Them," the Salisbury Post, June 12, 2016, "Warm Weather (sic) Overflows Animal Shelter Again," plus 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.")

For years Orbison and other rescuers have been attempting to work with the RCAS despite its obstructionist and uncooperative activities, such as limiting the number of animals to eight that could be taken out of their cages and photographed for adoption purposes, refusing the answer the telephone, and failing to adequately staff the new cat wing. Only time will tell for sure, but perhaps the light has finally begun to dawn on her.

"Please, please, please spread the word so the public is aware. Do not take animals to the RCAS," she wrote June 11th on the Facebook page entitled Saving Cooper and Friends. "People need to know that the chances of them getting out of there are slim to none!!! People need to know this is not a safe haven for them. It is a slaughterhouse."

If there were so much as a smidgen of justice in this world, the Animal Control officers, Martin, and Pendergrass would not only be fired but arrested, convicted of animal cruelty, and thus forced to spend the remainder of their days behind bars. Church, Pierce and his fellow county commissioners, Greg Edds, Jim Greene, Mike Caskey, and Judy Klusman, are quite obviously not fit to be entrusted with cleaning toilets let alone caring for cats and accordingly should be sent packing on the next election day.

Cooper's utterly disgraceful owner who not only initialed his death warrant but also has no far refused to come to his assistance, should at the very least be barred from ever owning another cat. Plus, although there is not anything in the public record to even so much as to suggest that either the Carolina Animal Hospital or the veterinary dentists treated him in any way other than admirably, the same most definitely cannot be said for the China Grove Animal Hospital which most definitely should be avoided at all costs.

With the notable exception of the Greenville Examiner, the local media has functioned throughout this affair more as the department of agitprop for the Rowan County establishment than as a supposedly impartial gatherer of the news. Consequently, rescue groups are living in dream world if they ever expect to make them their allies in their fight against the RCAS.

The harshest criticism however falls squarely upon the misshapen noggin of old "Porous" Norris and in her case simply firing and jailing her would be far too lenient. Rather, she richly deserves to be kicked all the way back to New Mexico and then to be abandoned to the mercy of the Gila monsters in the remote desert. Although she could have made a huge difference in the lives of millions of cats by simply being honest, fair, telling the truth, and revoking the RCAS' license to operate, she instead chose to cover up the crimes of her fellow bureaucrats. As per usual, the elites once again have chosen to stick together much like congealed feces.

Above all, this case vividly demonstrates once again the utter impossibility of ever reforming to any positive degree the Animal Control profession, shelters, and the practice of veterinary medicine. That sobering reality is attributable to the fact that the RCAS is anything but an anomaly; au contraire, the way that it conducts business is pretty much the norm with similar institutions all around the world. (See Cat Defender post of July 31, 2015 entitled "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.")

The only conceivable solution is the abolition of all three professions in favor of private initiatives undertaken by individuals and groups, such as the managers of TNR colonies, who truly love and care about cats. It is one of life's hardest lessons to learn but there is not any substitute for self-help.

Above all, cat lovers must somehow come up with their own financing, even if that entails selling lemonade on the corner. Governmental initiatives, at least in the land of the dollar bill, are no longer the answer to much of anything.

As far as Cooper is concerned, it was expected to have taken anywhere from four to twelve weeks for his broken jaw to have healed. If, on the other hand, the fractures either were not properly mended or, for whatever reason, failed to heal, he could have been left with a condition known as malocclusion where the teeth do not fit together correctly. That in turn would have made chewing difficult and in all likelihood necessitated additional oral surgeries.

Then there is the problem of his skittishness and the beating doled out to him by the Animal Control officers can only have served to further reinforce his fear of people. The easiest way for Orbison to have combatted that problem would have been for her to have spent tons of time on his turf and under his conditions. There are, of course, other more efficient means of remedying such difficulties.

Most troubling of all, he desperately needs a permanent home and since she has not publicly expressed any desire in adopting him, his fate is still very much up in the air. Moreover, uprooting him again is not only destined to be traumatic, but it also could prove to be deadly should he, once again, fall into the wrong hands.

"My first initial reaction was I was irate," she said of the beating in the March 11th interview with WBTV. "Who could hurt an animal like this?"

She now fully realizes that all sorts of individuals, professionals, and institutions not only horribly abuse but kill cats as well. Already during his brief sojourn upon this earth he has had one owner who signed away his inalienable right to live, a shelter that unjustly and prejudicially consigned him to death row, a pair of Animal Control officers who savagely beat him halfway to death, and a veterinarian that sadistically allowed him to needlessly suffer by withholding treatment.

Cooper accordingly has every reason in the world for fearing and distrusting people but that in no way provides a solution to any of his pressing difficulties. Moreover, barring the last-minute arrival of a knight in shining armor astride a white horse his fate, whether she likes it or not, rests solely in Orbison's hands.

Photos: Dedrick Russell of WBTV (Cooper's bloody mouth and him in an Elizabethan collar), The Link New Mexico (Norris), the Greenville Examiner (Pendergrass), and Facebook (Cooper at home).

Missy Lives on in a Wooden Replica of Her at the Bus Stop in Leigh Park

"Missy was always at the bus stop. Everyone that caught a bus from there knew her. Missy loved attention and was so friendly toward people who were waiting for the bus. I'm sure people liked stroking her as they waited."
-- Richard McCormick

It was a sad day back in early June when an aggrieved owner, local dignitaries, and assorted well-wishers gathered at the bus stop on Dunsbury Way outside the Leigh Park Housing Estate in Havant, one -hundred-thirteen kilometers south of London in Hampshire, in order to commemorate the life and times of a thirteen-year-old brown and white female named Missy. For somewhere between nine and ten years, she was a regular fixture at the bus patron shelter in front of the Leigh Park Community Centre which serves riders of Stagecoach South's number thirty-nine route.

She would bide her days there sleeping on either the bench or in the laps of obliging commuters. It therefore was not long before she had earned the sobriquet of being the "Bus Stop Cat."

All of that is now in the rearview mirror and those that assembled at the old familiar bus stop on that solemn occasion were not there to take either a trip or even to socialize with her; rather, they had come in order to be on hand for the unveiling of a life-sized replica of her that had been carved out of sequoia. It rests slightly to the side of the shelter on top of a new oaken bench that was constructed by local chainsaw sculptor Chris Bain. A metal plaque fastened to it reads: "Missy the Cat Loved by All at 39 Bus Stop."

"Missy was loved by everyone in Leigh Park and now they have something to remember her by," Mayor Faith Ponsonby told The News of Portsmouth on June 7th. (See "Missy the Cat's Memory Lives on in New Sculpture.")"It's great to see how Missy brought this community together. It is typical of the people of Leigh Park."

There cannot be any disputing that she, for a variety of reasons, meant a great deal to so many people in the community. "Not a lot of people are allowed to have pets and I have concerns that we need to look out for elderly lonely people," she added to the BBC on June 7th. (See "Memorial Unveiled in Havant for 'Bus Stop' Cat Missy.")"For children, to stroke her was something they could look forward to every day."

Missy's owner, seventy-three-year-old retired railway worker and ex-serviceman Richard McCormick, was not only pleased that she had been immortalized but he also was humbled by the outpouring of support that the project had engendered. "After I had fed her every morning she would be out there on the bus stop welcoming everyone and being her friendly self," he told The News."I can't thank everyone enough. We've been overwhelmed by the support, with donations coming from as far as America."

Bain, Ponsonby, Cockram, and McCormick at the Unveiling

Contributions additionally came in from as far afield as China and Australia so that in the end more than £5,000 were donated to the project. Since slightly less than £2,000 of that total were required for both the sculpture and the bench, McCormick and his sixty-nine-year-old spouse, retired factory worker Clara, have designated that the remainder be given to the RSPCA and The Cat and Rabbit Rescue Centre in Chichester, eighteen kilometers to the east in West Sussex.

It was not the McCormicks, however, who initiated the fundraising appeal but rather forty-nine-year-old Leigh Park resident Craig Cockram who came to know Missy through his rôle as one of Stagecoach South's drivers on the number thirty-nine line. "It's been amazing just how much money was raised, which allowed the bench to be built, and even raise some extra money for charity," he exulted to The News.

She not only made quite an impression upon him but she had an equivalent affect on many other drivers as well. "Missy was always there at the bus stop come rain or shine. I have been with Stagecoach for three years and Missy was there long before me, about ten years," he added to the London Metro on June 8th. (See "Animal-Lovers Raise £5,000 for Memorial of Beloved Bus Stop Cat Killed in Hit and Run (sic).")"People still talk about her. A few of the drivers talk about how she would sit with people and sometimes she would follow the bus before going back to sit down again."

Thanks to his efforts and those of others, Missy is therefore destined to live on in considerably more than just the memories of the riders of the number thirty-nine bus. "I shall look forward to sitting in the sun on the bench, alongside the carving of Missy, and chatting to Missy's friends," Ponsonby declared to the London Metro.

As halcyon as all of that may be, it never will be able to completely obliterate the horrifying reality that she would still be alive today and greeting commuters as usual if she had not been victimized by a simply diabolical act of animal cruelty. Specifically, back on January 29th one or more individuals are believed to have repeatedly kicked her about the face in a brazen daylight attack.

Rushed to an unidentified local veterinarian, she was diagnosed to have suffered not only a fractured skull but her jaw had been broken in two places. All of her teeth, except two, had been knocked out and she was hemorrhaging from both her mouth and one of her eyes.

Commuters Left Flowers and Messages at the Impromptu Memorial

As it almost always turns out to be the case with such attacks, the McCormicks elected to have the attending practitioners to snuff out her life as opposed to mounting a last-ditch effort to have saved her. "The vets did not know whether they could save the eye and she was in a lot of pain and the best thing was to put her to sleep but my mum and dad were distraught," their forty-eight-year-old daughter, Karen Wells of Waterlooville, nine kilometers north of Havant, told The Mirror of London on February 1st. (See "Heartbroken Commuters Pay Tribute to 'Bus Stop Cat' as She Dies after Brutal Attack.")

It therefore is impossible to know if she could have been saved. The only thing known for certain is that doing so would have been terribly expensive and that usually is a deal breaker for the vast majority of cat owners. Missy also would have been forced to have undergone not only multiple surgeries but an extensive convalescence as well.

It likewise never has been revealed either what was done with her remains or if a memorial service was held for her. That is not any trifling matter in that all cats deserve far better than to have their remains casually thrown out in the trash.

In the aftermath of her murder, commuters and residents of Leigh Park responded by erecting an impromptu roadside memorial in her honor that consisted of bouquets of flowers, messages of condolence, paintings, and children's drawings. Others turned to social media in order to express their grief and that in turn led to Cockram's effort to establish a lasting memorial in her honor.

Predictably, neither the pleadings of either the McCormick clan nor those of Missy's dozens of admirers were sufficient in order to stir either the police or local animal protection groups to go after her killers. For instance, the Hampshire Police contented itself by appealing to the public to intervene and thus do its job for it.

Initially, it was unclear whether she had been kicked to death or run down by a motorist, but the severity and nature of her injuries quickly settled that issue in Wells' mind. "That cat was not run over, somebody has kicked her or done something," she declared to The Mirror.

One of the More Poignant Condolences Left in Memory of Missy

The galling reality that the culprits have gotten away scot-free with their hideous crime, quite understandably, still rankles Wells. "It is horrible. The person or people who did this need to be brought to justice," she added to The Mirror."I know there will be people saying 'get a grip, it's a cat' but it's a living creature. You do not kick and attack a defenseless animal."

Her father was considerably less diplomatic. "The swine, how can anybody do that to a poor little animal?" he exclaimed to The Mirror.

It goes almost without saying that Missy's murder has had a traumatic effect upon the elderly McCormicks who cared for her the last nine years of her life. "It is not acceptable behavior, it makes me so cross to know not only what was done to Missy but how it has impacted on my mum and dad," Wells added to The Mirror."I just want somebody held accountable."

Quite obviously, that is not about to happen. Even more deplorably, there does not appear to be any power on earth strong enough in order to persuade either the police or phony-baloney animal rights groups to take cruelty to cats seriously.

Although socialization is generally considered to be a good character trait for a cat, it also is indisputable that it is precisely the friendly ones, such as Missy, that are subjected to the most persistent and horrendous forms of abuse. "Missy was always at the bus stop. Everyone that caught a bus from there knew her," McCormick averred to The Mirror."Missy loved attention and was so friendly toward people who were waiting for the bus. I'm sure people liked stroking her as they waited."

It thus would appear in hindsight that her attackers were laying for her. They waited until no one was around and then they methodically proceeded to kick her to death.



Missy

Cat owners and lovers in the neighborhood accordingly need to be vigilant, especially when it comes to the nefarious activities of young males. They have gotten away with killing Missy but that does not necessarily have to be the case with other cats.

Missy's murder also refocuses attention once again on the perplexing dilemma of allowing cats to go unsupervised while outdoors. Although there is not any satisfactory answer to this problem, the mere fact that Missy was able to have spent her days at the bus stop for the past decade without, as far as it is known, having been previously attacked attests to the fact that the area used to be a safe haven for cats.

All of that has changed with her murder, however, and residents therefore need to rethink the wisdom of allowing their cats outside without supervision. The situation would be entirely different if the police somehow could be prevailed upon to bring those responsible for Missy's death to justice but that is not in  the cards.

As far as she is concerned, only McCormick and his wife know for sure if they did all that was in their power in order to have safeguarded her fragile life. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that they had a difficult time of keeping tabs on her. "She was a very friendly cat, so friendly that sometimes my dad couldn't get her indoors because she liked getting all the fuss outside," Wells disclosed to The Mirror.

The Genuine Article Is Always Far Superior to Any Artifice

Along that same line, many devout cat lovers gladly would part with a small fortune in order to know exactly what their beloved companions want out of life. The only thing that can be deduced from Missy's behavior is that she obviously was getting something at the bus stop that was missing from her life at home.

Generally speaking, cats that are fortunate enough to have owners who not only dote on them but also feed them well want to spend considerable time at their sides. Hopefully, the McCormicks did not either ignore or neglect Missy's pressing needs but only they know the answer to that riddle.

Even though the English dearly cherish their bus-riding cats, neither their motor coaches, depots, nor bus stops are safe venues for them. In addition to the risk of being run down and killed by bus drivers and other motorists, cats also easily can be either lost or stolen once they are abandoned to their own devices under such perilous circumstances. (See Cat Defender posts of April 19, 2007, August 27, 2009, January 30, 2010, January 25, 2012, and August 27, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Bus-Hopping Macavity Earns High Praise from His Fellow Commuters for Being the 'Perfect Passenger',""Casper Treats Himself to an Unescorted Tour Around Plymouth Courtesy of the Number Three Bus,""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,""The Innocence of the Lambs: Unaware of the Dangers That Threaten His Very Existence, Dodger Charms Commuters on the Bridport to Charmouth Line," 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.")

It is all well and good that the residents of Leigh Park have chosen to keep Missy's memory alive but at the same time it is important to bear in mind that a wooden sculpture is a poor substitute for the genuine article. Such acts, no matter how well intentioned, also serve to both camouflage and to ultimately dismiss from public consciousness other disturbing realities.

The most glaring of which is the inexcusable failure of all societies to take cruelty to cats seriously. The second equally disturbing truth is the abject failure of owners, such as the McCormicks, to properly provide for the personal safety of their resident felines.

In that light, the extra £3,000 that were raised for Missy's memorial could have been, arguably, better spent employing a private detective to have looked into her death as opposed to having gone into the coffers of do-nothing animal protection groups, such as the RSPCA. Such an undertaking, if successful, would have perhaps not only spared the lives of other cats but it also would have sent a clear and unmistakable message to all cat abusers that such heinous acts are no longer going to be tolerated.

Photos: the London Metro (the memorial), Sarah Standing of The News (attendees), The Mirror (impromptu roadside memorial and Missy up close), and Craig Cockram (Missy asleep at the bus stop).

Larry Is Still Hanging His Hat at 10 Downing Street

"Larry is staying. He's very much the Downing Street cat, not the Camerons' personal cat. He is a Downing Street legend."
-- a spokesman for the Cabinet Office

The momentous decision of the English people to bid a not so fond farewell to the European Union in a June 23rd national referendum sent shock waves throughout not only Whitehall but the world as well and that in turn culminated in the departure of Prime Minister David Cameron on July 13th. Numerous other heads rolled throughout the political establishment but the most unlikely survivor of all turned out to be the prime minister's much maligned nine-year-old brown and white resident feline, Larry.

"Larry is staying. He's very much the Downing Street cat, not the Camerons' personal cat," a spokesman for the Cabinet Office told the print edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer on July 13th. (See "Larry Stays at 10 Downing.")"He is a Downing Street legend."

Cameron who, at least for the time being, plans on remaining in the House of Commons as a backbencher, wholeheartedly agreed with that decision. "He belongs to the house and the staff love him very much as do I," he declared to the Daily Mail on July 13th. (See "Mice Watch Out: Larry the Cat to Stay at 10 Downing Street.")

As nonsensical as both Cameron's and the Cabinet Office's reasoning appear to be au premier coup d'oeil, it is not without some small measure of precedent. For instance, when Humphrey wandered into 10 Downing Street back in 1989 he was allowed to remain there throughout the tenures of both Margaret Thatcher and John Major but neither of them was willing to provide him with a permanent home after their political careers went up in smoke.

The similarity in the treatment meted out to him and Larry ends there however because once the old snake charmer Tony Blair and his resident witch, Cherie, had gained control of the levers of powers all the benevolence lavished upon Humphrey by both 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office went out the window much like a baby with the bath water. Almost as appalling, there was not any hue and cry of protest to be heard anywhere on Whitehall concerning either the fact that the prime minister's residence was, most likely, the only home that he ever had known or his right to have lived out his remaining days there.

Instead, he was unceremoniously packed off to an undisclosed private residence in south London where he later died in obscurity in 2006. (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.")

As utterly reprehensible as all of that was, Humphrey is far from being the only cat to have been hideously used, abused, and then discarded like yesterday's newspapers by the politicians and bureaucrats who attempt to boss around the world from their palatial residences on Whitehall. For example, in early 2008 cat and animal hater Gordon Brown ordered Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling to get rid of his cat, Sybil, who earlier had been brought down from Edinburgh.

Regrettably, she died shortly after her cruel exile at the undisclosed location of one of Darling's acquaintances. (See Cat Defender posts of September 19, 2007 and August 13, 2009 entitled, respectively, "After a Dreary Ten-Year Absence, Number 10 Downing Street Has a New Resident Feline and Her Name Is Sybil" and "Sybil, 10 Downing Street's Former First Feline, Dies Unexpectedly from an Undisclosed Illness.")

As recently as 2014, former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who also fell from power with Cameron on July 13th, gave the boot to his long neglected cat, Freya, after she had lost out in a battle for his affections to his Bichon Frise, Lola. The good news is that there is, apparently, life after Downing Street for some cats in that she is still alive today and believed to be residing somewhere in Kent. (See Cat Defender posts of November 10, 2014 and November 13, 2014 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" 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.")

The So-Called "Proof" of Cameron's Love for Larry

The deafening silence of the Cabinet Office in regard to the ousters of both Sybil and Freya can perhaps be explained by the fact that both of them, unlike Larry, were privately owned felines. That does not account in any way, however, for its acquiescence in the Blairs' machinations against Humphrey.

When all is said and done, the distinction that both Cameron and the Cabinet Office is making between privately owner and governmental cats appears to be more contrived than real. It does furnish, however, a rather convenient rationale for allowing both politicians and bureaucrats to shirk their solemn responsibilities to them.

More broadly speaking, the thinking and behavior of Cameron, Darling, and Osborne is radically at adds with that of all genuine fans of the species who never under any conceivable circumstances would even so much as countenance the very thought of abandoning their beloved companions. In his defense, Cameron insisted to the bitter end that he cares deeply for Larry.

"(I want to end speculation that) I somehow don't love Larry," he told the Daily Mail in the article cited supra. "I do, and I have photographic evidence to prove it."

The proof of his affection consisted, however, of only a single photograph of Larry sitting in his lap. Besides the rather obvious possibility that the photograph could have been staged for propaganda purposes, one tender moment spent with a cat does not prove fidelity any more than the cameo appearance of a solitary robin is a harbinger that spring is just around the corner.

Even more telling, there is considerable evidence to support the contention that Cameron never wanted a cat in the first place and he demonstrated that antipathy as far back as 2009 when he and the Tories were still in opposition by nixing the idea of adopting one. (See the BBC, July 29, 2009, "No Plan for Number 10 Cat -- Cameron.")

Once he had come to power, however, he and his cronies immediately recognized the public relations bonanza to be reaped by bringing on board a resident feline and as a result the then four-year-old Larry was adopted by 10 Downing Street on February 16, 2011. "I'm sure he will be a great addition to Downing Street and will charm our many visitors," Cameron proclaimed upon his arrival.

Despite the unassailable fact that Larry's acquisition had been motivated by the basest of political motives imaginable, both Cameron and the media insisted upon perpetuating the myth that he had been brought in to catch mice. That was a ruse that the sniveling buttlickers at the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in south London, who earlier in January of 2011 had arrested him in the street and unjustly incarcerated him, were only too happy to go along with for, quite naturally, a price. "Larry should not have any problem getting the mice under control," the organization's Kristy Walker ballyhooed at that time. "I can definitely see Larry holding his own."

As things eventually turned out, the rodent infestation allegedly plaguing 10 Downing Street turned out to be the least of Larry's worries in that no sooner had he set his paws inside the premises than the back-stabbing, character assassinations, and general disparagement commenced with a vengeance foreign to even Whitehall standards. The trouble all began when ITV reporter Lucy Manning made a stink about being scratched after she idiotically had forcibly attempted to get Larry to pose for her.

Larry Warily Eyes Theresa May as She Arrives at 10 Downing Street

Soon thereafter a peeler posted outside the world's most famous black door was photographed abusing Larry with his foot. That was quickly followed up by a seemingly never-ending stream of press reports calling into question his prowess as a mouser.

Cameron reportedly became so disgusted with Larry's alleged propensity to sleep while the mice played that he resorted to throwing cutlery at the intruders. (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 even was feared for a while that he was about to be sacked. Thankfully, that never occurred but life did not get all that much easier for him.

There also were persistent complaints from staffers who had been scratched when they sat down on top of him. Being quite obviously either blind or every bit as mindless at Manning, they only got what they richly deserved but being totally unwilling to acknowledge their own faux pas they lamely attempted to pack off all the blame on Larry who, unfortunately, is unable to speak up in his own defense.

He later on was reportedly banned from the Camerons' refurbished flat following a £64,000 makeover because he allegedly was leaving cat hairs all over the place. "Poor Larry is being treated like some servant from Downton Abbey," Labor MP Kerry McCarthy of Bristol East complained in 2011. "It is shocking that after all the publicity he is not even allowed to set paw inside the prime minister's flat."

As if all of that unfounded criticism were not reprehensible enough, the baying hounds of Fleet Street even have begrudged him those few stolen moments that he has been able to spend in the company of Mark Wasil-ewski's cat, Maisy, of the nearby St. James's Park neighborhood. (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.")

The torch has now been passed from Cameron to new prime minister Theresa May who will serve as Larry's nominal caretaker. Not a good deal is known about the fifty-nine-year-old clergyman's daughter who has represented Maidenhead in Berkshire in the Commons since 1997 and who most recently served as Home Secretary since 2010. (See The Philadelphia Inquirer's print edition of July 14, 2016, "It's an Upbeat Entrance by British Leader May" and The New York Times' print edition of July 21, 2016, "On a Day of Firsts, May Holds Her Own at Home and Abroad.")

The only thing that can be said for certain is that the aftermath of the Brexit vote is destined to consume a lion's share of her time and energies well into the foreseeable future and that could prove to be either a good thing or an ominous development as far as Larry is concerned. Most disquieting of all, the English media has been uncharacteristically reticent when it comes to May's views on Larry in particular and cats in general.

Qué será será. Larry Is Content to Live in the Present

As best it could be determined, the only recent public comment on the matter has come courtesy of the Tories' leader in the Commons, David Lidington of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire who told his colleagues last month that he could "completely reassure" them about May's good intentions toward Larry. (See The Telegraph of London, July 21, 2016, "Larry the Cat Treated by Vet Amid Turf 'Fracas' with Rival Palmerston at Number 10.")

Only time will tell how well that he is able to get on with the new tenants of Number 10 but if the nine-year-old moggy has demonstrated anything during his time spent in the political spotlight it is that he is a survivor. Hopefully, May will have the bon sens to realize that he is, arguably, the number one asset that she has going for her in the turbulent and uncertain days and years that lie ahead.

Although Larry in all likelihood is provided with an adequate supply of food and water, shelter, and access to veterinary care whenever he needs it, the proper care of a cat entails considerably more than those basics. Of particular concern in his case is his personal safety in that Whitehall, like virtually everywhere else nowadays, has its fair share of cat-murdering motorists, poisoners, thieves, and other assorted ailurophobes.

In that light, it is especially disturbing that, as far as it has been revealed, the Cabinet Office does not assign any particular individual the daunting task of looking out for his personal safety. Consequently, he is left to wander the perilous streets of Whitehall both night and day without the benefit of a chaperone and that can only be a prescription for disaster, if not death itself.

No matter how that his living arrangement is analyzed, it is impossible to come away with any other conclusion than that a gaggle of uncaring bureaucrats with their own political axes to grind are poor substitutes for a loving and conscientious guardian. Then there is the troubling question of what is going to happen to him once he has outlived his usefulness to both the Cabinet Office and the occupants du jour of 10 Downing Street.

In addition to the naked exploitation of cats like Larry by the politicians and bureaucrats of Whitehall as well as the media, the conduct of Battersea in this shabby business is simply abominable. Whereas any legitimate rescue group would put the needs, safety, and happiness of its cats first, it is only concerned with feathering its own nest by currying favor with the political elites.

Tant pis, absolutely no one involved in the least little way with Larry is willing to even acknowledge that sacred responsibilities accompany all forms of cat ownership. In addition to that, everyone involved is setting a simply disgraceful example of how a cat should be treated.

To put the matter succinctly, the politicians, bureaucrats, media and, above all, Battersea, either should face up to their responsibilities to cats like Larry or otherwise get out of the feline exploitation business once and for all time. That is not about to happen, however, because absolutely none of them are capable of even truthfully acknowledging that cats are morally sentient being whose lives are worthy of being treasured and safeguarded; instead, they look down their disjointed schnozes at them as being little more than an endless supply of inexpensive political props to be exploited to the hilt and then afterwards to be gotten rid of in the quickest and most expeditious manner available.

It therefore does not seem unfair to consign all of those rotten apples to the same barrel that is currently overflowing with those coarsest of all souls who know the cost of everything but the value of absolutely nothing. Even more lamentably, Larry's distinguished service on behalf of 10 Downing Street and the nation remains to this very day both largely underappreciated and in vain.

Photos: Frank Augstein of the Associated Pres via the Daily Mail (Larry on the steps of 10 Downing Street and lying on the concrete), Twitter via The Telegraph (Larry and Cameron), and the BBC (Larry and May).

Young Palmerston Cuts Quite a Dash as a Diplomat

"He is definitely not a mole and I can categorically assure you that Palmerston has been regularly vetted. As for being a sleeper, he is definitely a sleeper, I am told very often in my office."
-- former Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond

Is the tiny section of Whitehall that is bordered by Downing and King Charles streets in the City of Westminster a sufficiently large enough area in order for two alpha tomcats to peacefully coexist? The world is about to find out one way or the other pretty soon now that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has adopted a two-year-old tuxedo named Palmerston to serve as its resident feline.

Named, appropriately enough, in honor of Viscount Palmerston (né Henry John Temple) who not only once served as Foreign Secretary but also twice as prime minister during the mid-nineteenth century, he arrived at the Foreign Office in early April courtesy of the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in south London. No other monikers were reportedly even so much as entertained.

Considering the utterly disgraceful manner in which English politicians historically have pissed away trillions of pounds on both foreign misadventures and domestic special interests, it certainly would not have been any great crime for them to have invested a few taxpayer sovereigns in Palmerston's upkeep and maintenance but the diplomats would not hear of that. "Palmerston's domestic posting will have zero cost to the public purse as a staff kitty will be used to pay for him and all aspects of his welfur (sic)," a spokesperson for the Foreign Office confided to BuzzFeed on April 11th. (See "The Foreign Office Is Getting Its Own Cat and It's Called Palmerston.")

In fulfillment of that objective, a cake sale was held April 12th at the Foreign Office. Apparently, it never so much as crossed the minds of any of the highly-paid civil servants to take personal responsibility for Palmerston's minimalist financial needs; instead, they have insisted upon behaving like down-at-the-heel bums who cannot even afford to so much as part with bus fare to the office.

As it invariably always turns out to be the case, cheapness and callousness only beget more of the same and the proof of that is to be found in the bargain basement housing arrangement that the Foreign Office has lined up for its newest and most famous staffer. For instance, whereas he initially was allowed to bunk in the office of Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Simon McDonald, who also gave him his name, he now has been exiled to some kind of undefined makeshift shelter in the Foreign Office's courtyard. Unless this facility is at the very least located in a safe area, commodious, enclosed, heated, and waterproof, McDonald and the entire Foreign Office bureaucracy should be charged with animal cruelty and promptly jailed.

Palmerston and Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Simon McDonald

Even as such, to adopt a cat and then turn around and treat it far worse than bloodsucking farmers in the United States do their itinerant seasonal laborers is nothing short of shameful. On the contrary, Palmerston deserves to be afforded unfettered access to the indoors, either an office or a house, where he can feel safe, warm, and dry at all times and is not completely cut off from all human contact.

Predictably, this totally outrageous living arrangement has been wholeheartedly approved of by Battersea which has demonstrated time and time again that it will gladly sell any cat down the river for as little as a farthing. "We have worked closely with Battersea Dogs and Cats Home on Palmerston's deployment and they have inspected his new home, as they do for all pawtential (sic) new owners of their rescue cats," the Foreign Office spokesperson preened to BuzzFeed.

The Foreign Office's shabby treatment of Palmerston is made all the more unconscionable in light of the fact that his life to date has been anything but a bowl of cherries. The public record is far from complete but he was found hungry and underweight wandering the forlorn streets of London sometime last year.

Initially christened as Leonard, possibly because he was found on the street that bears that name, he immediately was handed over to Battersea where he, presumably, remained until he was taken in by the Foreign Office. Based upon his prolonged incarceration, it would appear that the rescue group never broke so much as a sweat in an effort to place him in the loving, permanent, and secure home that he so richly deserves. (See the BBC, April 13, 2016, "Palmerston the Stray Cat Is New 'Chief Mouser' at Foreign Office.")

Now, his life has come full circle in that he has traded a meager existence on the mean streets for makeshift quarters in a courtyard. While it is always conceivable that he will recognize a discernible improvement in his circumstances, the odds bode against that happening and that is going to be even more so the case on all of those interminably long, cold, foggy, and rainy London nights when he is left to tough it out by his lonesome.

Although it is entirely possible that the Foreign Office has had cats before, it certainly has not publicly admitted to sheltering any of them in recent memory. Plus, with Larry firmly ensconced next door at 10 Downing Street there would scarcely appear to be much of a need for it to add one of its own. (See Cat Defender post of August 1, 2016 entitled "Unmercifully Maligned and Treated Like Dirt for So Many Years, Larry Nevertheless Manages to Stick Around Long Enough in Order to See the Last of David Cameron and His Uncaring Family.")

Palmerston Has Reportedly Picked Up a Little Nipponese

For whatever it possibly could be worth, the Foreign Office is adhering to the old familiar bromide that its premises are so overrun with mice that even professional exterminators are not up to the task of keeping them in check. "Palmerston is Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service's newest arrival and in the role of Foreign and Commonwealth Office Chief Mouser will assist our pest controllers in keeping down the number of mice in our King Charles Street building," its spokesperson told BuzzFeed.

In that respect, Palmerston has gotten off to a roaring start in that after little more than a month on the job he already had been credited with three kills. That in turn earned him a "more than satisfactorily" rating from then Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond who since that time has moved on to become Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of new prime minister Theresa May.

Hammond's decision to recruit Palmerston also has garnered him high praise from the speaker of the House, John Bercow, who has his own mouser. "For five years we had had a first-class cat who has done the necessary (and) its name, of course, is Order," he crowed like a proud new papa to BuzzFeed on May 24th. (See "The Foreign Secretary Just Denied That the Foreign Office Cat Is an EU Spy.")

Nevertheless, Order's fine work has failed to silence some parliamentarians who still insist that both the Commons as well as the House of Lords are overrun with mice. (See Cat Defender post of November 24, 2014 entitled "Tory MP Anne McIntosh Calls for Cats to Be Brought Back to the Palace of Westminster in Order to Get the Rodent Problem Under Control.")

Another, albeit considerably less plausible, explanation could be that the diplomats simply like cats. "Freya's been missed so much and everyone's looking forward to having a cat around the place again," an unidentified governmental staffer confided to BuzzFeed in the April 11th article cited supra.

She, of course, was former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne's peripatetic brown cat who lived with him and his family at 11 Downing Street from roughly June of 2012 until November of 2014 when she was exiled to Kent. (See Cat Defender posts of November 10, 2014 and November 13, 2014 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" 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.")

An Excerpt from Palmerston's Diary

Even if credible, the explanation afforded by the governmental source would tend to imply that Larry either seldom visits the Foreign Office or that is presence there is unwelcome. Furthermore, since he has lived next door for the past five and one-half years the diplomats certainly have had more than ample time in order to have put out the welcome mat for him.

The most plausible explanation therefore is that Palmerston, like Larry and all other cats shanghaied into the rough and tumble world of English politics, is being exploited by the Foreign Office in an effort to deflect criticism of its policies as well as to cast the diplomats in a far more favorable public light than otherwise might be the case. It also is likely that he was brought on board in anticipation of England's exiting of the European Union (EU) and thus assuming a much larger role on the world stage as an independent nation.

Besides sufficing as a more than able-bodied mouser in his species' oldest calling, Palmerston already has established himself as being very much the epitome of a modern-day cat. For example, he not only is adept at using Twitter but also authors a diary in an internal newsletter that is published by the Foreign Office.

Most amazing of all, he reportedly is attempting to pick up a little Japanese which, sans doute, will serve him and the diplomats well whenever guests from the land of the rising sun come to visit. (See the Daily Mail, June 8, 2016, "'Hello People of Japan! Are There Any Mice Around?': Palmerston the Foreign Office Cat Hones His Diplomacy Skills by Speaking to His Twitter Followers in Japanese.")

Although generally speaking Palmerston has gotten off to a good start in his new job, it has not been all smooth sailing. In particular, ever since no less than five dons from Cambridge University were unmasked as KGB spies during the last century, the English have been, quite justifiably, obsessed with moles. Owing to her frequent visits to the Foreign Office, even Freya became unwittingly enveloped in a cloud of suspicion and the same baseless accusations have dogged Palmerston almost from the start of his first day on the job.

"Has Palmerston been positively vetted by the security service (MI5) and scanned for bugs by Government Communications Headquarters," Tory MP Keith Simpson of Broadland in Norfolk pointedly asked Hammond on May 24th according to the BuzzFeed article of the same date cited supra."Can you assure the House, and the more paranoid elements of the Brexiters, of Palmerston's provenance and that he is not a long-term mole working for the European Commission?"

Palmerston and Larry Duke It Out

That was one concern that Hammond certainly was well prepared to put to rest. "He is definitely not a mole and I can categorically assure you that Palmerston has been regularly vetted," he averred to BuzzFeed."As for being a sleeper, he is definitely a sleeper, I am told very often in my office."

While he was at it, he also took full advantage of the moment in order to take yet still another whack at an ax already ground down to the handle by the likes of Nigel Farage, who has represented southeast England as an MP in the European Parliament in Brussels ever since 1999, and he did so by ridiculing the work ethics of the Commission. "But unlike Freya, who went missing for two years, his attendance has been one-hundred per cent," Hammond crowed. "My experts tell me that pretty much rules out the possibility of him being a Commission employee."

It was not long after he had been exonerated of being a spy that Palmerston became embroiled in a series of well-publicized street brawls with London's most famous feline, Larry. The first one occurred on July 17th when the latter ventured onto the grounds of the Foreign Office.

The two toms scuffled briefly before Larry managed to pin Palmerston to the pavement. The victor then padded back to 10 Downing Street while Palmerston retreated to the inner recesses of the Foreign Office. (See The Telegraph, July 17, 2016, "Claws Out in Whitehall as Larry the Cat Takes on Palmerston, His Foreign Office Rival.")

There was not any apparent bloodshed although Larry later received veterinary treatment on July 20th for a limp that he had developed in his front right leg. For his part, Palmerston later was photographed with a patch of fur missing from his back.

It is by no means clear, however, if the injuries suffered by both combatants were the result of their misunderstanding. (See The Telegraph, July 21, 2016, "Larry the Cat Treated by Vet Amid Turf War 'Fracas' with Rival Palmerston at Number Ten.")

Palmerston Is Pinned to the Concrete by Larry

Later on July 25th, Palmerston attempted to gain entry into the prime minister's residence but was thwarted by a bobby stationed outside who promptly gave him the bum's rush. A long-distance standoff between him and Larry ensued but it ended peacefully without violence. (See the Daily Mail, July 26, 2016, "Another Eviction from Number Ten! Boris Johnson's Cat Palmerston Is Shown the Door as He Tries to Sneak into the Downing Street Lair of His Arch-Enemy Larry.")

Although the Fleet Street crowd had characterized the scuffling between Palmerston and Larry as a turf war, that may not be a completely accurate description of it. Given his past history and especially his cruel eviction from the cozy confines of the Foreign Office, it is entirely possible that Palmerston is merely searching for the secure, indoor home that he has been denied for all of his existence.

If there is any truth in that surmise, the simple solution to this dilemma would be for the Foreign Office to now do what it should have done in the first place and that would be to provide Palmerston with living quarters somewhere inside its sprawling complex. If such a policy change accomplished nothing else, it would significantly reduce the number of chance, and potentially violent, interactions with Larry.

That does not appear, however, to be among the options currently being considered by the politicians. "I have to say, I saw some reports in the media that (Larry) had been involved in a fracas with the Foreign Office cat, but I hope that they have now established a modus vivendi," the Tories' leader in the Commons, David Lidington of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, told The Telegraph in the July 21st article cited supra.

As far as it is known, that has yet to happen and, besides, intelligence and due diligence have shown themselves down through time immemorial to be much better palliatives than wishful thinking when it comes to resolving difficulties. The good news is that the fights so far have not amounted to much and that augurs well that the cats eventually will be able to work things out amongst themselves.

Since Battersea never would allow any intact cat to escape from its penitentiary, both of them most assuredly have been neutered and that expedient, in most cases, significantly curtails the aggressive tendencies of males. There likewise are not any known fertile females in the neighborhood for them to fight over even if they should be so inclined.

Palmerston Is Denied Entry to 10 Downing Street by a Bobby

Nevertheless, the interactions between them need to be closely monitored in order to ensure that they do not turn into life and death struggles. Should that occur, the safest way to separate them would be with a water pistol.

In extremely violent cases, it sometimes is necessary to physically separate fighting toms even though that involves risks. In that regard, scratches are not anything to be overly concerned about even though they certainly can sting for a while.

Bites on the other hand can result in painful, debilitating infections that have been known to drag on for more than a month. Sometimes a prompt and thorough application of hydrogen peroxide that is accompanied by over-the-counter antibiotics will suffice but at other times only prescription antibiotics are strong enough in order to ward off serious problems.

The key therefore when it comes to separating warring toms is not to get either bitten or scratched in the eyes. In furtherance of that objective, protective goggles and long, padded gloves often are necessary.

Although sporadic outbursts of this type of aggression may sometimes appear and sound as if murder and mayhem are being committed, it usually is best for both guardians and onlookers not to intervene unless blood is spouting and the fur is flying. It is entirely permissible, however, to attempt to distract the belligerents with either treats or some other alternative method.

None of those expedients may be necessary in this case owing to the fact that there is not any obvious reason why that Palmerston and Larry cannot eventually learn to peacefully coexist. They might even some day become friends.

Palmerston and Larry in a Standoff Outside 10 Downing

They were not, after all, always enemies in that Larry sent him a package of Dreamies® and a toy mouse when he first arrived at the Foreign Office. (See BuzzFeed, June 19, 2016, "Palmerston the Foreign Office Cat Was Originally Called Leonard.")

Furthermore, it is nothing out of the ordinary for cats to get off on the wrong foot any more than it is for individuals to do likewise. For instance, Larry and Freya once duked it out shortly after her arrival at 11 Downing Street back in 2012 but, as far as it is known, there were not any further hostilities between them. (See The Telegraph, October 16, 2012, "Police Called to Break Up Violent Cat Fight in Downing Street.")

Transcending all of those concerns, Palmerston and Larry are pretty much in the same boat and need each other. In the newcomer's case, his original benefactor has been replaced by Boris de Pfeffel Johnson who now reigns as Foreign Secretary. Unfortunately, absolutely nothing is known about the transplanted New Yorker, who earlier this year completed his second four-year term as mayor of London, and his views regarding cats.

Larry likewise lost his protector, David Cameron, in July and his fate is now in May's hands. Although there have been some indications that both his position and home are safe for the time being, things can change in the twinkling of an eye at 10 Downing Street.

The lot of all cats is an outrageously unfair one. First of all, they are denied any say whatsoever in either where they live or under what conditions. Secondly, they never are given so much as an inkling whenever those who have assumed dominion over them are about to pull the plug on their earthly existences.

Those sad realities are facts of life for both those that are famous, such as Palmerston and Larry, as well as for those who live out their brief existences in obscurity. Rather than striving to enhance their lives and status and thus to set an example of how that all cats should be treated, the cruelties meted out to those of the rich and famous serve only to underscore once again the sobering reality that in this world cats have almost no rights at all.

Photos: BBC (Palmerston up close and with McDonald), Twitter via the Daily Mail (Palmerston with a Japanese language book), BuzzFeed (Palmerston's diary), Paul Grover of The Telegraph (Palmerston and Larry fighting), and the Daily Mail (Palmerston being evicted from 10 Downing Street and his standoff with Larry).

Gladstone Arrives at the Exchequer along with Hammond's Red Box

"Gladstone can look forward to poring over budget scorecards, greeting visitors from around the world, but most importantly, setting his sights on the rodent population of the Treasury and assisting our pest controllers in keeping down the number of mice in our Horse Guard Road offices."
-- a spokesperson for the Exchequer

From the time of Humphrey's cruel banishment in 1997 until the arrival of Larry on February 16, 2011, not only was 10 Downing Street pretty much free of cats but all of Whitehall as well. (See Cat Defender posts of April 6, 2006 and July 21, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Humphrey, the Cat from 10 Downing Street Who Once 'Read' His Own Obituary, Passes Away at 18" and "Larry Faces Many Challenges and Dangers in His New Rôle as 10 Downing Street's Resident Feline.")

The one exception to that rule was a pretty black female named Sybil owned by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling who spent an all-too-brief six months at 11 Downing Street back in 2007 and 2008 before she was given the bum's rush by cat-hating prime minister Gordon Brown. (See Cat Defender posts of September 19, 2007 and August 13, 2009 entitled, respectively, "After a Dreary Ten-Year Absence, Number 10 Downing Street Has a New Resident Feline and Her Name Is Sybil" and "Sybil, 10 Downing Street's Former First Feline, Dies Unexpectedly from an Undisclosed Illness.")

Larry, who toughed it out for five and one-half long and trying years as David Cameron's sorely neglected, unloved, and unwanted companion, was joined in April by Palmerston when the latter was adopted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. (See Cat Defender posts of August 1, 2016 and August 8, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Unmercifully Maligned and Treated Like Dirt for So Many Years, Larry Nevertheless Manages to Stick Around Long Enough in Order to See the Last of David Cameron and His Uncaring Family" and "Palmerston Is Recruited for a Prestigious Post in Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service but Then Disgracefully Relegated to Makeshift Living Quarters Out in the Cold.")

The sometimes quarrelsome duo now have been joined by yet still another moggy in the form of an eighteen-month-old, black domestic shorthair named Gladstone who arrived at the Exchequer on June 27th. The decision to bring him on board was made by the department's John Oliver Frank Kingman who since that momentous undertaking has left public service in order to return to the private sector.

What, if any, impact his departure will have on Gladstone's future is unclear at this stage. The only thing that can be said so far is that the new chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, has heralded his arrival. "Looks like I'm not the only new arrival @hmtreasury -- welcome Gladstone!" he tweeted according to The Telegraph's July 29th edition. (See "Gladstone the Cat Comes to Whitehall -- but Will He Get Along with Larry and Palmerston?")

It also is conceivable that he may have played a role in the naming the Treasury's newest arrival in that while he was Foreign Secretary he supplied Palmerston with his moniker. The similarity in the the two cats' names could not possibly have been a coincidence in that whereas the Foreign Office's resident feline was named in honor of Viscount Palmerston III, who twice served as prime minister during the nineteenth century, the Exchequer's new cat is named in honor of William Ewart Gladstone who later followed in Palmerston's footsteps by serving as prime minister for no less than four times between 1868 and 1894.

Gladstone Formerly Was More Fittingly Known as Timmy

The political rivals often were at loggerheads and for that reason, among others, it is going to be interesting to see how well that the two toms get along with each other. So far, however, it has been all smooth sailing for Gladstone, even if the name bestowed upon him is more properly suited for a cat employed by Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service as opposed to one engaged in the vagaries of high finance.

Be that as it may, Gladstone is certainly a far more dignified name for a cat than either Adam Smith or Barclays ever would have been. Much more pertinently, no self-respecting feline ever has given so much as a tuppence for all the moola in Her Majesty's Treasury; a school of tuna would be an entirely different proposition.

"We are delighted to introduce our new cat, Gladstone, to the heart of British politics," a spokesperson for the Exchequer is quoted as declaring in a July 29th press release issued by the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in south London. (See "Westminster Welcomes Its Third Battersea Mouser.") "We are confident that Gladstone will live up to the legacy of his namesake... and go down in history as one of the most impressive cats to roam Whitehall."

In that regard he certainly has his work cut out for him in that preliminary indications are that the slave drivers at the Exchequer plan on working him damn near to death. "Gladstone can look forward to poring over budget scorecards, greeting visitors from around the world, but most importantly, setting his sights on the rodent population of the Treasury and assisting our pest controllers in keeping down the number of mice in our Horse Guard Road offices."

Battersea, which earlier unloaded both Larry and Palmerston on the politicians, echoed those sentiments. "He's a confident cat who absolutely loves people so he'll have to tear himself away from his cat cuddles to get down to business becoming a marvelous mouser," the organization's Lindsay Quinlan said in the press release cited supra."Staff at Battersea fell in love with Gladstone during his stay here, his big cheeks and big heart match his big personality and we think the staff at the Treasury will quickly fall for his charm too."

During his first few weeks at the Exchequer Gladstone, who sports an attractive red ribbon around his neck, was confined to an office with six bean counters. During that period, he bided his time by playing in Hammond's Red Box (used for transporting official documents), scampering across tables, desks, and computers, chasing flies, staring longingly out the window and, of course, resting up before tackling the long laundry list of chores that have been assigned to him. By this time, however, he should have been fitted with an electronic tracking device and turned loose to patrol the sprawling grounds of the Treasury.

In the precious few snatches of free time that has been left to him, Gladstone has turned to Twitter and Instagram for his amusement as well as to keep in touch with his ever-growing legion of fans. Other than that, almost nothing has been disclosed about his personal care and living arrangement.

Gladstone Initially Was Cooped Up Indoors with the Bean Counters

The only thing known for certain is that he will not be bunking with Hammond and his family at 11 Downing Street as Sybil did with Darling and his wife during her tenure at the Exchequer. A facilities and security team will, supposedly, look after his needs on weekends with Treasury staffers doing likewise on the days that they turn up for work.

Conspicuously absent from all the hoopla generated by his unexpected arrival upon the political scene has been any mention whatsoever of where exactly he is going to hang his hat and that in turn has led to speculation that he very well could wind up sleeping out in the elements like Palmerston. His personal safety is an even greater concern but, as best it could be determined, no one at the Treasury has been assigned the herculean task of making doubly sure that he is neither run down by a motorist nor meets with foul play.

Although the Treasury has been inexcusably reticent on both those issues, it has responded with alacrity whenever the subject of who is going to foot the bill for his upkeep has been broached. "He will not cost taxpayers anything," a spokeswoman for the Exchequer vowed to The Guardian on July 29th. (See "Gladstone the Cat Gives Treasury Some Purr-fect PR.")

That entire arrangement is so shameful that it borders on being criminal. If the Exchequer insists upon keeping a cat, a far more humane arrangement would be for it to invest a few taxpayer crowns in providing Gladstone with a warm, secure, and dry permanent place to live instead of forcing him to rely upon handouts from staffers for his daily sustenance. It also ought to appoint a paid guardian to attend to his needs and personal safety.

Any individual or group who not only would condemn a cat to live out in the cold but to callously turn him loose to roam the perilous, traffic-clogged streets of Westminster richly deserves to be arrested, charged with animal cruelty, and then jailed for a long time. The petit fait that it is precisely politicians and bureaucrats who are engaging in such reprehensible and inexcusable behavior only serves to make it all the more contemptible.

As if all of those very real fears were not daunting enough in their own right, Hammond is reportedly considering installing his Welsh Terrier, Rex, at 11 Downing Street in order to bedevil not only Gladstone but Larry and Palmerston as well. (See The Telegraph, July 29, 2016, "Is Philip Hammond About to Move His 'Cat-Hating' Dog in Next to Larry and Palmerston?")

If accurate, that certainly would explain why he has so adamantly refused to both take personal responsibility for Gladstone's care and to allow him to live with him at 11 Downing Street. Predictably, the uncaring and totally irresponsible feline exploiters at Battersea have so far not had a blessed thing to say regarding this potentially ominous development.

Ruthless Rex the Cat-Hating Welsh Terrier

As soon as Rex either chews up one of the cats or chases one of them out into the street and to his death underneath the wheels of a motorist there most assuredly is going to be an international backlash against both Hammond and Battersea. Cruelty, neglect, and the naked exploitation of cats on any level leads only to more of the same on other levels and in that regard it is long overdue that the politicians and bureaucrats of Whitehall and phony-baloney rescue groups such as Battersea were held legally accountable under the anti-cruelty statutes.

Contrary to what the Fleet Street crowd earnestly believes, this is not any joking matter; rather it is an issue of life and death as far as Gladstone, Larry, and Palmerston are concerned. Moreover, their precious lives most assuredly are not worth any less than those of the Hammonds and the representatives of the Batterseas of this world; au fait, those of the former are a million times more valuable than those of the latter.

Gladstone's predicament is made all the more deplorable in that he, like Larry and Palmerston before him, has had a rough life. In particular, he was found back in May hungry and wandering the streets of London where almost anything terrible can, and usually does, befall homeless felines.

Even more outrageously, his previous caretaker made absolutely no effort whatsoever to reclaim him after he, originally known as Timmy, had skyrocketed to international fame with his appointment to the Treasury. There is not any way of knowing for sure, but that certainly makes it appear that he was intentionally abandoned to either sink or swim on his own.

Instead of demonstrating compassion and understanding for all the deprivations that he was forced to endure while roughing it, Battersea libeled him as "a quite greedy" cat who needs to be fed in moderation in an interview that it gave to the Daily Mail on July 29th. (See "It's Pussy Galore! Now the Treasury Recruits Gladstone the Cat to Chase Out the Mice -- but Will He Join the Turf War Between Number Ten's Larry and Palmerston of the Foreign Office?")

Gladstone is most definitely anything but a "greedy" cat; au contraire, his seemingly insatiable appetite is merely a leftover side effect from the time that he spent starving on the street. Once he becomes accustomed to receiving regular and timely meals his eating habits should return to pretty much normal.

Provided that Hammond belatedly comes to his senses and does not proceed with his outrageous plan to install Rex at 11 Downing Street, Gladstone should be able to look forward to, hopefully, many happy years at the Exchequer. There also is not any obvious reason why that he should not be able to get along famously with Larry and Palmerston.

There may be a few spats here and there along the way but that is only normal where cats are concerned. Nevertheless, the interactions between all three toms need to be closely monitored in order to ensure that none of them gets seriously injured.

Photos: Battersea Dogs and Cats Home (Gladstone with Hammond's Red Box and on top of a table), Your Local Guardian of Sutton in Surrey (Gladstone up close), and Twitter (Rex).

Sugar Will Be Forever Six Years Old

"She was not sick, aggressive, or dangerous. He (Pursell) never made any attempt to catch her. She was shot in the neck within hours of getting out of her home. He then disposed of her body in a Dumpster without making any attempt to locate her owners."
-- attorney Jenna M. Fliszar

Another totally innocent and unsuspecting cat has been murdered in cold blood by a trigger-happy American cop in search of any excuse, no matter how bogus, to shed some feline blood. This time around the victim was a six-year-old, orange-colored female named Sugar from the borough of North Catasauqua, one-hundred-four kilometers north of Philadelphia in the Leigh Valley.

The chain of patently criminal and immoral events that culminated in her killing began to unfold sometime during the daylight hours of December 6th when she either escaped or was intentionally let out of the house that she shared with Tom Newhart and his wife at 733 Hunter Street. Unbeknownst to her owners, she then for some unknown reason traveled five doors from home where she eventually wound up in the yard of Mike Lienert at 1100 American Street.

Horrendously bad luck seems to so often be the constant companion of cats and that proved to be the case once again on this tragic occasion as well in that she could not possibly have chosen a worst place to have paid an impromptu visit. That is because as soon as Lienert learned of her presence he immediately undertook measures in order to have her evicted.

He first of all reportedly made a half-hearted effort to corral her but quickly abandoned that plan after she allegedly hissed and clawed at him. What he planned on doing with her if he had been successful in that endeavor is a subject that the media have conspicuously refused to broach.

When that ploy failed, he wasted no time in ratting her out to the authorities. "There's an injured cat in my yard," he informed the North Catasauqua Police Department (NCPD) via the telephone according to a recording later released to the public. "I have three dogs. This cat does not belong to me."

It is difficult to decipher from the audio exactly what thoughts were coursing through his gourd at the time that he placed that call but just a touch of irritation and possibly even annoyance are clearly distinguishable in his voice. By contrast, he never specifies exactly what is ailing the cat or, even more telling, expresses any concern whatsoever for her well-being.

The equally callous police dispatcher likewise did not even ask about the cat's condition. Instead, he dispatched officer Leighton Pursell who had already made up his mind on how that he was going to handle the situation long before he ever arrived on the scene. "It may not be politically correct, but if it's injured, I'm going to put it down," he immediately informed Lienert according to a December 21, 2015 article posted on the Facebook page entitled Justice for Sugar. (See "Cat's Owner, Attorney Demand Cat-Killing Cop Be Fired, Charged.")

Pursuant to that objective, he then poked and prodded at Sugar with some type of object, most likely his night stick, as she cowered underneath what is believed to have been an outdoor barbecue grill. Once he had managed to flush the terrified cat out into the open, he reiterated to Lienert his intention to kill her.

As far as it is known, the homeowner did not raise any objections whatsoever to what Pursell had in mind and that more than anything else lays bare his true reason for contacting the police in the first place. After all, it is well established that many dog owners do not have any use for either cats or their owners. (See Cat Defender post of July 18, 2015 entitled "Blackpudlian Thrill Seeker Who Sicced Her Pit Bull on Regi and Then Laughed Off Her Fat Ass as He Tore Him Apart Receives a Customary Clean Bill of Health from the Courts.")

True to his word, Pursell wasted no time in dry-gulching Sugar in the neck with his .38 caliber service revolver as she attempted to flee and as a consequence she never knew what hit her. Then after ordering Lienert to clean up the blood, he nonchalantly tossed her corpse in a nearby Dumpster so that it along with any incriminating evidence that it might contain pertaining to him and his partner in the commission of this heinous crime, Lienert, could be collected in the morning by the garbagemen.

At no point after his arrival on the scene did Pursell make any effort to humanely trap the cat. Also, although she was not wearing a collar, she could have been carrying around inside of her an implanted microchip which could have been deciphered by staffers at either a shelter or a veterinary office using a scanner and due diligence. Although Pursell is sans doute familiar with these modern, high-tech identification devices, his craving for feline blood was so powerful that he went right ahead and shot her without even bothering to have had her scanned.

Although a cat's socio-economic status should not have any bearing whatsoever on its inalienable legal and moral right to live, Pursell simply assumed that Sugar was homeless and that in turn supplied him with yet still another rationale for executing her on the spot. His brand of perverted logic whereby facts are fabricated out of this air and made to fit the circumstances demonstrates conclusively that he is not only a cold-blooded killer but an inveterate liar who has absolutely no regard for either morality, justice, or the truth.

More to the point, given that Sugar had been found in a purely residential area any rational and halfway honest individual would have assumed that she either had an owner nearby or was being cared for by someone or some humane group. Pursell accordingly must have known that he was killing an area resident's beloved cat; he simply did not care and, more likely, even reveled in the pain and sorrow that he was inflicting upon the cat's guardians. After all, there always has been a deep and abiding streak of sadism throughout American society.

For his part, Newhart did not learn of what had happened to Sugar until sometime late the following day, December 7th, when he came home from work and discovered that she had not returned. He telephoned the NCPD in order to report her missing and that was when he was informed that she had been executed by one of its bloodthirsty officers.

Another unidentified officer then came over and retrieved Sugar's body from the Dumpster and returned it to Newhart. For some unknown reason, the trash had not been collected that day and that turned out to be doubly fortuitous for Newhart.

First of all, the retrieval of her body allowed him the opportunity to not only say goodbye to her but also to have her remains cremated. It also foiled Pursell's carefully laid plan to have the evidence of his crime disappear.

While She Was Still Alive, Sugar Often Could Be Found in Her Box

As things eventually turned out, that proved to be the extent of the cooperation that Newhart was ever going to get out from the NCPD. "I called and I was told it was a judgment call," he related to WFMZ-TV of Allentown on January 4th. (See "Community Calls for 'Justice for Sugar'.")"He don't know nothing about it and that's all they end up doing and hung up."

It therefore goes almost without saying that to have had the cat that he adopted as a four-week-old kitten and whom his wife had bottle-fed taken from him in such a cruel and violent manner has all but destroyed Newhart's life. "Sugar was more than just a cat," he told Justice for Sugar on December 21st. "My pets are like my kids."

Sugar also was an intelligent cat. "She knew her name," he added to the San Francisco Chronicle on May 4th. (See "Wrist Slap for Cop Who Shot Sugar the Cat.")"If you'd call her, she'd come to you."

In most such instances, that would have been the end of the matter. Newhart would have been left with his grief and Sugar simply would have joined the ranks of the countless cats that are gunned down each year in the United States by cops and Animal Control officers who operate outside the purview of all morality and law and as such are accountable to absolutely no one. Newhart, however, is a man who not only cared deeply about Sugar but also one who is not easily cowered.

As a consequence, once the shock of what had been done to Sugar began to dissipate somewhat he courageously decided to take on the political and legal elites in North Catasauqua and to seek a measure of justice for Sugar. In furtherance of that objective, he and his supporters protested outside a meeting of the North Catasauqua Council on January 4th, and possibly at other times as well, while those lucky enough to have been admitted inside attempted in vain to get the politicians to act.

A petition calling for Pursell not only to be fired but charged with animal cruelty as well quickly garnered two-hundred-thirteen-thousand signatures at Justice for Sugar. Most of them, however, came from outside the area given that the stated population of North Catasauqua is only two-thousand-eight-hundred-fourteen. There were even calls for the head of his boss, derelict Chief of Police Kim Moyer.

All of those entreaties fell upon deaf ears, however, as the political and legal establishment in North Catasauqua closed ranks and dug in its heels in an all-out effort to save the job and freedom of a low-life, cat-murdering scumbag like Pursell. The only positive thing to have come out of Newhart's efforts was that he eventually was able to prevail upon Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli to belatedly open an investigation into Sugar's murder.

His most astute move, however, was to retain the services of attorney Jenna M. Fliszar of nearby Allentown to represent him and his family and she so far has proven herself to be not only a tireless advocate for justice but also someone who is not easily intimated by her fellow legal eagles. "She (Sugar) was not sick, aggressive, or dangerous. He (Pursell) never made any attempt to catch her," she is quoted in the December 21st Justice for Sugar article cited supra as saying. "She was shot in the neck within hours of getting out of her home. He then disposed of her body in a Dumpster without making any attempt to locate her owners."

Based upon those unimpeachable facts, she arrived at the only logical and just conclusion that presents itself to any halfway honest individual. "It is hard to imagine a more willful or malicious act than this," she continued. "The only reasonable and acceptable outcome here is to charge Officer Pursell with cruelty to animals and to terminate his employment."

In addition to the lawlessness and immorality of allowing cops to kill cats at their discretion, such precipitate behavior is dangerous to the public as well, especially when undertaken in residential neighborhoods. "It's scary to have a guy (like Pursell) out there on the street," Newhart added to WFMZ-TV in the article cited supra."He shouldn't be carrying a gun in my opinion."

Once that his actions had come under both legal and political scrutiny, Pursell and his numerous supporters significantly enlarged upon his original lies that Sugar was feral, injured, and aggressive. Before they had finished reshaping the facts in order to suit their own perverse objectives she also allegedly was hissing, dragging her rear legs, bleeding, suffering from either the mange or hair loss and, above all, mysteriously had contracted that old bugaboo known as rabies and therefore posed an imminent threat to the community at large.

Finally, after procrastinating for more than four months, Morganelli descended from Mount Olympus on May 2nd to insanely proclaim that Pursell's actions were not malicious but rather humane. "Officer Pursell made a decision in his judgment to humanely end the cat's life and suffering," he held forth to the Philadelphia Metro on May 4th. (See "'Justice for Sugar' Movement Keeps Growing after District Attorney Declines to Prosecute Cop Who Killed Cat.")"Officer Pursell fired a single shot...instantly killing the cat."

Pursell therefore was allowed to escape justice without being charged with either criminal or misdemeanor animal cruelty. Devious old Morganelli was not quite finished just yet however and in an act of outrageous beau geste to cat lovers everywhere he issued him a citation for, as best it could be determined from the local media's slipshod and elliptical coverage, failing to seek veterinary care for Sugar.

"I cannot conclude that (Sugar) should have been summarily killed without more of an effort to isolate the animal and, perhaps, obtain veterinary care," he told The Morning Call of Allentown on May 2nd. (See "District Attorney Cites North Catasauqua Cop Who Shot Sugar the Cat.")

Morganelli's behavior is odd in itself in that it is usually police officers, not prosecutors, who issue citations; the latter usually restrict their actions to either lodging or dismissing complaints. In any event, such a citation has been likened in the media to being the legal equivalent of a parking ticket and as such would have ended up costing Pursell at the most a minuscule fine.

All of that would have been shameful enough in its own right if only he had had the bon sens to have stopped there but rather than doing so Morganelli plowed ahead and shot off his big mouth about several topics that not only left little doubt about his ingrained prejudices but also called into question his own personal integrity. He began his tour de force by lambasting Newhart for failing to report that Sugar was missing to the police.

Jenna M. Fliszar

"It was not known to the police officer...that a domestic cat was missing in our jurisdiction," he declared to the Philadelphia Metro."The owner of the cat...did not report that his cat, Sugar, was missing."

From there he proceeded to censure Newhart for having allowed his cats to roam freely without collars on three separate occasions in the past. Sugar was the culprit in one of those incidents but the details of it and how it was handled have not been divulged in press reports.

Nevertheless, that is one argument that Morganelli would have been better off not making because it actually works against both him and his buddy Pursell. That is because the NCPD not only was familiar with Sugar but also with Newhart's other cats and the neighborhood as well and as such Pursell should have suspected from the outset that the cat he encountered in Lienert's yard belonged to the homeowner five doors down at 733 Hunter Street.

While he had the wind up, Morganelli not only had the temerity to call Fliszar a liar but he also accused her of contributing to a "mob mentality" around the case. Au contraire, a close examination of not only the facts but Morganelli's statements themselves point to the exact opposite conclusion.

Most prominently, in his report he not only endorses Pursell's lies that Sugar was injured, bleeding, and suffering, from the mange and hair loss, but he also contends that Northampton County has a significant number of homeless cats and that some of them have rabies. Such unsupported sottise, quite naturally, evoked a spirited rebuttal from Newhart's attorney.

"It is beyond my comprehension that he can say that we are putting out misinformation related to there not being any injuries when the veterinary report backs up what we're saying," she responded to the Philadelphia Metro. "He (Pursell) is saying that the cat was so injured he (sic) was dragging his (sic) back leg, and couldn't walk and was leaving a trail of blood. There'd be something significant on the veterinary exam and there wasn't anything -- other than the bullet hole."

That certainly is true enough in that after he had retrieved Sugar's body from the Dumpster, Newhart took it to the Stanglein Veterinary Clinic (SVC) in the borough of Northampton where it was radiographed and examined by Nate Stanglein. Not only was he unable to find any visible signs that she had been suffering from rabies but there were not any other injuries to her body other than the bullet hole put in her neck by Pursell.

It therefore should be clear to one and all, that the allegation that Sugar was injured was a complete fabrication that was started by Lienert as an excuse to get her removed from his yard. Pursell embellished it in order to excuse his killing of her and, like sheep to the slaughter, Morganelli followed suit in an attempt to exonerate him of all wrong doing.

As it was to have been expected, Morganelli's decision pleased neither side in this heated dispute. "He (Newhart) feels like there is no justice here," Fliszar told the Philadelphia Metro."He feels like they put all the blame on him."

Although he was glad to have prevailed in court, Pursell's attorney, Gary Asteak of Easton, immediately announced his intention to appeal the minuscule fine handed down to his client. While he was at it, he could not resist the overpowering temptation to heap scorn on both cats and their owners.

"Based upon the fact that it was injured, the officer followed the use of force directives provided him by the police department," he pontificated to The Morning Call in the May 2nd article cited supra."My sense is that the prosecution is based more on public sentiment from the 'Cat Lives Matter' movement than it is based on the prosecutor's examination of police practices."

In that light it would be interesting to know if he likewise looks down his long, dirty schnoz at the "Black Lives Matter" movement with the same sneering condescension. As a highly-paid defense attorney, he at the very least should be cognizant of the fact that the courts are open to all aggrieved parties provided, of course, that they have a certain amount of money.

Besides, if the situation were otherwise there would not be anywhere nearly as many criminals, such as Pursell and the NCPD, to maintain him living in the lap of luxury. He therefore should be concerned that his buddies in blue are going to eventually erode his client base by executing them in the street.

In between his blustering, ad hominen attacks, and blatant lies, Asteak did, most likely inadvertently, make one point worth considering. "The decision by the district attorney sends a message to police officers statewide that it is not their job to deal with feral animals," he pointed out to The Morning Call."They should tell their municipalities to hire an Animal Control officer."

As best it could be determined, neither North Catasauqua, Northampton County, nor the borough of Northampton have either an animal shelter or employ an Animal Control officer. North Catasauqua apparently does operate a kennel but it is exclusively for dogs.

Even though all shelters and Animal Control officers are little more than thinly disguised cat exterminators, they are still preferable to turning loose police officers to take the law into their own hands and thus to mete out their own perverted versions of curbside justice. With that being the case, both North Catasauqua and the county are partially to blame for Sugar's death.

Furthermore, there are innumerable veterinary practices in the area, including the SVC which is located only 3.7 kilometers north of Newhart's home in the borough of Northampton. Since both the borough and the county are too cheap to operate either a shelter or to hire an Animal Control officer, they at the very least should be willing to foot the bill for the veterinary care of all sick, injured, and impounded cats. It also likely would be considerably more economical than paying shysters like Asteak to defend rogue cops.

John Morganelli

Far from putting an end to this legal tug-of-war, Morganelli's ruling served only to throw additional business to the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas, sitting in Easton, which convened on August 8th in order to hear Pursell's appeal of the citation. Both Newhart and Stanglein testified in the one-day trial but they did not have anything new to say.

Pursell took the stand in his own defense in order to reiterate the same old lies that he had told earlier about Sugar being, inter alia, feral, rabid, limping, bleeding, and suffering from the mange. The only new twist that he added this time around was to declare that he did not have any gloves, blankets, or a cage in order to have trapped Sugar.

On all of those points he clearly was lying because all cops are issued gloves and they most likely carry blankets in the trunks of their cruisers. Cages can be easily and inexpensively purchased at any pet store and whenever such retailers are not readily available makeshift ones can be improvised out of boxes, trash cans, and other devices. Bait, such as tuna, can be found at almost any retailer that sells either human or cat food.

He also lied when he told the court that there were not any nearby veterinary surgeries open on a Sunday, the day that he shot Sugar. On the contrary, the Valley Central Veterinary Referral and Emergency Center, located at 210 Fullerton Avenue in Whitehall, is open twenty-four-hours a day, seven days a week. Best of all, it is located less than six kilometers from Newhart's house and Pursell could have driven Sugar there in twelve minutes.

The Quakertown Veterinary Clinic, located at 2250 North Old Bethlehem Pike in Quakertown, also never closes its doors. Although not quite as conveniently located as Valley Central, it nonetheless is slightly less than thirty kilometers from Newhart's house and Pursell come have driven there in thirty-seven minutes.

Moyer then took the stand in order to testify under oath that his officers are free to do with cats as they see fit. He also backed up Pursell's claim that Sugar surely must have been feral and rabid because, believe it or not, cats of that description had been reported in the neighboring borough of Catasauqua.

On both counts his testimony not only appears to have been erroneous but perjured as well. First of all, although local ordinances in Pennsylvania allow police officers to kill injured cats, two individuals must confirm that such drastic action is warranted.

The legal yardstick possibly could be different in cases where rabies is suspected but just the making of such a determination requires that cats suspected of carrying the deadly disease be trapped and held for observation for between ten and fourteen days. The only other way to make such a diagnosis is to kill the cat and then to send brain tissue samples to a laboratory for analysis.

Since Pursell not only did not do any of that but also nonchalantly handled Sugar's corpse after killing her, he quite obviously never in his wildest dreams believed for one minute that she had rabies. The same is equally true for the big liar Moyer.

That assessment of his credibility is buttressed by a report from an unidentified resident of North Catasauqua who telephoned him after Sugar's murder in order to express his concerns about rabies. On that occasion, Moyer told him pointblank that there was not any "reason to believe there were any rabid cats in North Catty."(See Justice for Sugar, untitled article dated August 8th.)

In spite of all of that and more, Judge Jaqueline Taschler turned a deaf ear to all truth, justice, and logic and issued Pursell a clean bill of health. "But what you did was not right," she lectured him according to The Morning Call's August 8th edition. (See "Judge to North Catasauqua Cop on Killing Cat: 'What You Did Was Not Right'.")"It just wasn't criminal."

She quite obviously takes an extremely narrow view of a Pennsylvania ordinance which defines animal cruelty as "willfully and maliciously killing...any dog or cat belonging to himself or otherwise." Moreover, if what Pursell did to Sugar does not qualify as "willful and malicious" behavior it is difficult to see how that the courts in the Keystone State ever could be prevailed upon to convict anyone, either cop or civilian, of animal cruelty no matter how heinous the crime.

Pursell, who showed up in court accompanied by Asteak, his witnesses, and a contingent of NCPD bigwigs decked out in full departmental regalia, quite obviously thought that the entire proceeding was nothing but a big joke and that provided Taschler with the excuse that she had been waiting for in order to not only confirm his suspicions but those of the entire world as well. "You can sit there and smirk because you won," she scolded him according to the version of events rendered in The Morning Call.

Nate Stanglein

Like Morganelli's earlier issuance of the puny citation, Taschler's tongue lashing was pure theatrics. In fact, it can only be characterized as an amateurish attempt on the part of a third-rate thespian and an even worst jurist to amuse her colleagues as well as to hoodwink a gullible public into falsely believing that she possesses so much as a smidgen of either justice or decency in her rotten, black soul.

While she was busily ladling the sugar on a simply disgraceful ruling that stinks all the way to high heaven, Taschler also admitted to Pursell that she believed his claim that Sugar had rabies was a "red herring." If she truly believed that, she not only would have handed down an entirely different verdict but she also would have convicted him and his buddy Moyer of perjury.

If her ludicrous ruling accomplished nothing else it provided Asteak with yet still another golden opportunity in order to strut his stuff and to tell more lies. "He was acting as a police officer must," he preened to The Morning Call on August 8th. "He was not provided with the tools to do anything else other than what he did. He did what he had to do."

If any civilian walked into court and his shyster stood up and blabbed such utter nonsense that individual would be laughed at and his client would be put underneath the jail as opposed to in it and for a bloody long time.

The members of the legal profession, quite obviously, operate on two separate sets of rules. C'est-à-dire, they not surprisingly screw all outsiders to the wall every opportunity that they get but let off their own members scot-free no matter either how numerous or heinous the crimes that they commit.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons that lawyer jokes so often fall flat. Lawyers do not think that they are funny and no one else ever can be quite convinced that they are jokes.

So, once all was said and done Pursell, still smirking and jerking, strutted out of court not only as a free man but also as a hero to his fellow officers and cat killers everywhere. Best of all, since the NCPD footed the bill for Askeak's disingenuous blatherings, the entire affair did not cost him so much as a red cent.

Although the police department in Coplay, three kilometers northwest of North Catasauqua, has offered him a job of murdering cats for it, his present employer may not be quite so eager to see him to go and therefore could be sweetening the pot for him to stay. A promotion could be in the offing and Mayor William Molchany Jr. may even be contemplating the commissioning and erecting a statue in his honor.

Even a ticker-tape parade through the streets of North Catasauqua may not be entirely out of the question. As a people, Americans always have exalted the base, criminal, and patently immoral at the expense of their polar opposites.

The NCPD also has escaped unscathed. Moyer not only still has his job but, more importantly, he has not announced any deviation from his department's policy of shooting cats on sight. Even more indicative of the force's moral depravity that thrives in the borough, neither he nor Pursell has had so much as the common decency to have issued an apology to Newhart and his family.

Molchany and Council members, both of whom have fully supported Pursell and Moyer throughout this sordid affair, are likewise still sitting pretty with no intention of either going anywhere any time soon or reigning in the city's rogue police force. Likewise, they are not about to authorize either the building of a shelter or the hiring of an Animal Control officer. That, in one respect, is good news as far as homeless cats are concerned but it still leaves them and domestics, such as Sugar, at the mercy of bloodthirsty, trigger-happy cops.

Worst of all, they are not about to make any provisions for the veterinary care of cats so much as suspected of being injured, sick, or simply homeless. The best therefore that can be said for them is that they are consistent in their pigheadedness and niggardliness.

Although it is not known if Sugar had visited his yard on previous occasions, Lienart has gotten rid of her for good and now knows exactly what to do the next time that any cat trespasses on his turf. As far as the pompous blowhard Asteak is concerned, he has another feather for his cowboy hat to go along with the bushel basket full of taxpayer shekels that the earned for helping a merciless killer of a defenseless cat to escape justice.

Both Morganelli and Taschler have cemented their standing within Pennsylvania's notoriously corrupt legal establishment by proving themselves once again to be solid and reliable members who will do almost anything in order to protect and promote their fellow partners in crime. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would be sorely remiss if it failed to recognize them with Academy Awards for pretending to care about cats, their owners, and the eternal requirements of justice all the while pimping and whoring on behalf of a cold-blooded cat murderer and his superiors.

Even those individuals and organizations that line their pockets while supposedly defending and protecting cats and other animals have categorically refused to come to Sugar's and Newhart's defense. Even more outrageously, the Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania SPCA (PSPCA) has sided with Pursell.

"We cannot determine whether this animal's condition would warrant this type of action as we do not know what injuries it may have had prior to its shooting," the group's Gillian Kocher equivocated to the Philadelphia Metro in the article cited supra.

Brokenhearted Tom Newhart Is Trying to Cope with a Devastating Loss

That is pure baloney in that the PSPCA is every bit as familiar with the SVC's post-mortem examination of Sugar as well as everyone else. Secondly, it is totally unforgivable that any allegedly humane organization would endorse shooting, as opposed to treating, any injured or sick cat. The petit fait that Sugar was a completely healthy cat makes Kocher's reasoning all the more odious.

The capitalist media, both local and national, once again have left little doubt that they function primarily as a department of agitprop for the legal and political establishment. This ingrained prejudice manifested itself most vividly in the limited amount of both ink and air time that they devoted to this all-important issue as well as their unwillingness to investigate this crime themselves in an effort to arrive at the facts and the truth.

None of them likewise was willing to divulge any information concerning Pursell's prior record with the NCPD or even to display a photograph of him. By contrast, these rotters plaster the photographs, personal data, and even unfounded malicious gossip about civilians charged, but not convicted, of even minor infractions all over the Internet, their television channels, radio stations, and newspapers.

It therefore is impossible to arrive at any other conclusion than that the legal and political establishment in both North Catasauqua and Northampton County has sold out, and rather cheaply at that, in order to protect a merciless and totally unrepentant cat killer. In doing so, it has squandered whatever vestiges of legitimacy and integrity that it once may have enjoyed and as a result it is no longer any better than the criminal Pursell

Even more appalling is the across-the-board unwillingness of any of the legal and political elites to ever speak the unvarnished truth about anything. The public instead is treated to a never-ending litany of legal double-talk, obfuscations, and outright blatant lies.

"You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie; not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me," Joe Conrad proclaimed in his 1899 novel, Heart of Darkness."There is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies -- which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world -- what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do."

That certainly is a more than apt description of the conditions that prevail today in North Catasauqua in that the legal and political establishment is definitely rotten to the core. Moreover, Sugar is far from being the borough's only casualty in justice and truth dies a long time ago.

On the other side of the equation, there is undeniably some small measure of truth in Morganelli's contention that Newhart is not completely guileless in Sugar's death. Although it is almost impossible to anticipate the numerous dangers that lurk for cats in any neighborhood, he perhaps should have been more watchful of her and his other cats, especially given that he had had three prior runs-ins with the police concerning their tendency to roam.

Apparently, the borough does not have in situ either an anti-roaming ordinance or a requirement that cats must wear collars and that, coupled with the fact that it does not employ an Animal Control officer, makes it all but certain that these complaints were lodged against Newhart by disgruntled neighbors. Lienert possibly even could have been one of them.

At the very least, Newhart therefore is guilty of ignoring these complaints. Neighbors who confine their behavior to merely complaining are actually, in an imperfect world, doing cat owners a favor in that many of their fellow despisers of the species elect to take the law into their own hands and therefore strike without warning. (See Cat Defender posts of September 24, 2007, July 8, 2010, June 30, 2011, August 17, 2011, March 9, 2012, and January 10, 2014 entitled, respectively, "California Man Who Slew His Neighbor's Cat with a Bow and Arrow Is Sentenced to Three Years in Jail,""North Carolina State Trooper Who Illegally Trapped and Shot His Next Door Neighbor's Cat, Rowdy, Is Now Crying for His Job Back,""No Cat Is Safe Any Longer in New Hampshire Resort Town after a Local Court Sets Free Molly's Shotgun Murderer with a Trivial $200 Fine,""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,""Amateur Ornithologist Guns Down Hartley with an Air Rile, Feigns Remorse, and Then Cheats Justice by Begging and Lying," and "Texas Judge Idiotically Allows Pastor Rick Bartlett to Get Away with Stealing and Killing Moody but a Civil Court May Yet Hold Him Accountable.")

Other individuals steal their neighbors' cats, dump them at remote, undisclosed locations, and then resort to taunting them with anonymous letters. (See Cat Defender posts of October 30, 2007, November 16, 2007, and December 24, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Crafty Bird Lover Claims Responsibility for Stealing Six Cats from a Southampton Neighborhood and Concealing Their Whereabouts,""Fletcher, One of the Cats Abducted from Bramley Crescent, Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton," and "Prominent New Zealand Physician Who Ludicrously Claims to Be an Ailurophile Gets Away with Stealing and Dumping His Neighbor's Cat.")

Yet still other ailurophobes steal their neighbors' cats and give them to shelters and rescue groups to exterminate. (See Cat Defender posts of October 30, 2006, March 9, 2007, August 19, 2010, and January 11, 2012 entitled, respectively, "A Collar Saves a Cat Named Turbo from Extermination After He Is Illegally Trapped by Bird-Loving Psychopaths,""Long Island Serial Cat Killer Guilty of Only Disorderly Conduct, Corrupt Court Rules,""Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and an Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw," and "A Deadly Intrigue Concocted by a Thief, a Shelter, and a Veterinary Chain Costs Ginger the Continued Enjoyment of His Golden Years.")

In Newhart's case, he quite obviously was unaware of the dangers that awaited Sugar outside his door and that makes it imperative that he keep a closer eye on his remaining felines. It is not only cruel but exceedingly difficult to coop up cats indoors all the time but with neighbors like Lienert and monsters such as Pursell on the prowl their personal safety must be his primary concern.

The only other option open to him would be to pull up stakes and relocate elsewhere. That would not be a bad idea in that Pennsylvania is one of the most repressive and dangerous places in the country for cats. Not only do all sorts of private individuals, public officials, and organizations commit wholesale atrocities against the species all the time but they do so with the blessings of the courts. (See Cat Defender posts of March 5, 2007, March 19, 2010, April 24, 2010, May 10, 2010, and October 30, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Roo Is Saved by a Caring Woman,""Trapped and Killed by the Delaware County SPCA, Keecha's Life Is Valued at Only $1 by a Pennsylvania Arbitration Panel,""Holly Crawford Hits the Jackpot by Drawing Judge Who Simply Adores Kitten Mutilators and Dope Addicts,""Lunatic Rulings in Cats With No Name Cruelty Cases Prove Once Again That Pennsylvania Is a Safe Haven for Cat Killers and Junkies," and "Drunken Bum Is Foiled in a Macabre Plot to Make a Meal Out of Kittens, Nirvana and Karma, That He Allegedly Run Down Earlier with His Truck.")

One of the principal reasons that cats count for so very little with the authorities are the horrendous examples set for them and the anti-cat propaganda dished out to them at the state's disgraceful and revolting degree mills. (See Cat Defender posts of February 12, 2007, June 9, 2008, and March 19, 2014 entitled, respectively, "God-Fearing Baptists at Eastern University Kill Off Their Feral Cats on the Sly while Students Are Away on Christmas Break,""Pennsylvania College Greedily Snatches Up Alumnus' Multimillion-Dollar Bequest But Turns Away His Cat, Princess," and "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.")

Then to talk about fish rotting from the head, the state's legal establishment is rotten and corrupt to its core. For example, not only have several of its Supreme Court justices been forced out of office in recent years but on August 15th a Montgomery County court convicted state attorney general Kathleen G. Kane of two counts of perjury and seven misdemeanor counts of abusing the power of her office. (See The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20, 2016, "Kane Impeachment Still a Possibility.")

It often has been observed that misery loves company and in that respect the residents of the Keystone State can take comfort, albeit a chilly one at that, in knowing that their legal and political system is far from being the only corrupt one in the country. For instance, back in 2011 and 2012 the elites in Virginia banded together and in doing so pulled out every underhanded and devious trick known to their ignoble class in order to save the career of Jonathan N. Snoddy of the Harrisonburg Police Department (HPD) after he had bludgeoned to death an injured cat.

In circumstances that bear an eerie resemblance to those that befell Sugar, a cat of unspecified age, pedigree, and sex was run down and left for dead by a hit-and-run motorist on Settlers lane on November 11, 2011. It was found by kindhearted area resident Wayne Meadows who first attempted to secure assistance for it by telephoning the Harrisonburg SPCA, Animal Control, and several veterinarians.

Sugar at Play

When all of them, characteristically, stiffed him he then committed the faux pas of telephoning the HPD. Twenty-five-year-old hotshot Snoddy promptly arrived on the scene and although veterinary assistance was only thirty minutes away he promptly killed the cat.

The manner in which he did so was not either particularly pretty or humane. In particular, he took his night stick to its head and just to make doubly sure that it was dead he bashed its head against Meadows' townhouse.

Although the homeowner by that time had gone back inside, he later testified in court that he had overheard at least twenty blows having been administered to the cat. True enough, the bloodstains left on Meadows' porch and the damage done to the rock work testified to the savagery of Snoddy's attack.

To condense the rather lengthy legal wranglings to a few words, the HPD, mayor, City Council, the Virginia State Bar, and multiple prosecutors and judges all put their misshapen gourds together and as a result of their legal shenanigans Snoddy walked away scot-free after having been forced to stand in the dock twice. He and his supporters also received a big assist from the slimy capitalist media and all the phony-baloney animal rights groups that refused to come to the cat's defense.

From start to finish, the legal proceedings against Snoddy were not only a farce but represented one of the darkest and most shameful moments in the history of American jurisprudence. (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.")

The one thing that Snoddy and Pursell share in common is that out of the hundreds of cops who murder cats each year in the land of the dollar bill they are the only ones that, as best it could be determined, ever to have been either publicly identified or prosecuted in any form. The remainder of them commit their dastardly deeds with impunity.

For example on March 22, 2008, an unidentified twenty-five-year veteran of the police force in the Pittsburgh suburb of Cecil, four-hundred-seventy-six kilometers west of North Catasauqua, executed Roger Oldtaker's ten-year-old Persian, Elmo. As was the case with Sugar, the wheels that led to his demise were set in motion when an unidentified neighbor telephoned the police in order to report a clowder of cats loitering on either his or her property. As an inducement in order to get them to act, the complainant alleged that one of them had rabies.

The gunslinger arrived promptly on the scene, trapped the expensive-looking tom and then shot him. (See Cat Defender post of March 31, 2008 entitled "Cecil, Pennsylvania, Police Officer Summarily Executes Family's Beloved Ten-Year-Old Persian, Elmo.")

An almost identical scenario featuring a new cast played out to an entirely different audience on September 9, 2007 in Raymore, Missouri, when the police murdered Kelly Wesner's nineteen-year-old cat, Tobey. Once again, a cat-hating neighbor was the instigator of the police's machinations against him.

In this case, the neighbor first turned a garden hose on him before telephoning the gendarmes in order to report that a "large, vicious feral cat with rabies had scratched a girl." The supposedly defenders of law and order arrived johnny-on-the-spot whereby they snared Tobey with a catch pole and then pumped two shotgun blasts into his tiny head. After they had completed their dirty work, they then stuffed his body into a plastic bag and deposited it in a Dumpster.

In the uproar that followed, the police enlarged upon their totally unfounded allegation that Tobey had had rabies by claiming that he had his claws extended and that it had taken three of them in order to wrestle the scratching and clawing cat into a box.

As it shortly was revealed, not only was he anything but a large and vicious tom who suffered from rabies, but rather he was deaf and weighed only six pounds. Most important of all, he also had been cruelly declawed and therefore was not in any position to either have extended his claws or to have scratched anyone even if he had been so inclined. (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.")

Later on August 20, 2011, the police in Lebanon, Ohio, executed Dori Stone's beloved cat, Haze, and then tossed his bloody corpse into a Dumpster. Like just about all of these incidents, Haze's road to doom began when an unidentified neighbor called the police to report a stray cat with rabies loitering either on or near his or her property. Despite the fact that Haze weighed twenty pounds and was obese and had been found in an exclusively residential area, the police afterwards stood by their outrageous lie that he was a stray suffering from rabies.

"We (she and her family) 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 asked in much the same fashion that Newhart was destined to later do immediately following Haze's murder. "It's so violent that they did this to our animal and made no effort to call the humane society to find his owners." (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.")

More recently on August 20, 2014 a five to eight year old tuxedo named Clark from Gorham, Maine, found out firsthand just how injurious the lies of cat-haters can be when he narrowly escaped a deathly encounter with the local police. The trouble all began when, once again, an unidentified neighbor telephoned the Gorham Police Department (GPD) to report that a limping and rabid cat had either bitten or scratched a seven-year-old girl

Part-time Animal Control officer and part-time traffic cop Paul Dubay arrived on the scene where he made a half-hearted attempt to trap Clark. Once that ploy had failed, he telephoned his department to request that a death squad to be dispatched to the scene. In order to make doubly certain that the cavalry arrived and relieved him of his responsibilities, he told his dispatcher that Clark not only had attempted to bite him but that he was staggering, weeping, and vomiting.

Two marksmen from the GPD showed up shortly and one of them wasted no time in blasting Clark with a sixteen-gauge shotgun. The blast shattered multiple bones in both of Clark's front legs but he, miraculously, escaped with his life by fleeing into the woods and the bone-lazy cops were not about to chase him.

Even Eric Sakach of the phony-baloney Humane Society of the United States was left incredulous at the level of incompetence demonstrated by Dubay. "This may be the first time I've ever heard of a police officer responding to help an Animal Control officer with a cat," he later swore. "Animal Control officers should be trained and have the equipment to properly trap a cat."

Sugar's Box Is Now Empty and Destined to Remain So

Jeana Roth of the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland, which later took in and treated Clark, echoed those sentiments. "We hope the message here is that if you have a stray animal in your neighborhood use your shelter as a resource," she counseled. "This is not a typical way (shot up) for a cat to be brought to us. We never want to see a situation like this again." (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.")

Even when cops are not actually shooting cats they are either running them down with their cruisers or siccing their dogs on them. (See Cat Defender posts of June 18, 2015 and July 2, 2015 entitled, respectively, "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" and "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.")

The pattern that emerges from an examination of all of these cases is every bit as unmistakable as it is undeniable. First of all, the catalysts for all of these shootings have been disgruntled cat-haters.

They are unquestionably ailurophobes because they do not respond in a similar fashion whenever deer, raccoons, squirrels, and other animals encroach upon their Grundstücks;im Gegenteil, it is only cats that provoke such animus.

To put the matter succinctly, whereas some of these fiends historically have either killed or stolen their neighbors' cats, others have turned them over to shelters to do their dirty work for them. Of late a third school of thought, led by proponents such as Lienert, has emerged which inveigles police officers into doing their bidding.

Secondly, cops for their part are only too willing to be of service because there is absolutely nothing in this big, wide world that they enjoy more than spilling innocent blood. Like all criminals, however, they are in constant need of an endless myriad of excuses in order to justify behaving as they do and that is why that every single cat that they summarily execute is, inter alia, sick, injured, aggressive, feral, rabid, mangy, and a threat to society. Moreover, most of them are such outrageous liars that they would swear upon a stack of Bibles that every single one of the immaculately groomed and pampered felines on display each year at the Westminster Cat Show was mangy, feral, and rabid and therefore should be shot if they believed for one minute that they could get away with doing so or the right opportunity presented itself to them.

Thirdly, it is long overdue that the legal and political community finally acknowledged just how widespread and deep-seated ailurophobia is in this society and undertook concrete measures in order to remedy this intolerable situation. Cats are entitled to the full exercise of the protections afforded them under the anti-cruelty statutes and their aggrieved owners most definitely deserve fair hearings by impartial courts as opposed to the trumped-up, biased proceedings that Newhart and the supporters of the forever nameless Harrisonburg cat have received in return for their efforts.

Fourthly, neither rescue groups nor veterinarians are of any use whatsoever when it comes to saving feline lives. The only time that most of them can be prevailed upon to intervene is when cats are delivered to their doorsteps and even then they must be paid in advance for their services. If not, the only thing that they are good for is behaving like police officers.

Fifthly, in addition to the myriad of other problems that surround their usage, implanted microchips are not only useless but dangerous when it comes to protecting cats against the murderous urges of cops. Although they have the liabilities, conventional collars and tags are a far better option in that they just might succeed in certain circumstances in deterring cops from resorting to the use of lethal force. (See Cat Defender posts of May 25, 2006, September 21, 2007, November 6, 2010, and April 28, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats,""FDA Is Suppressing Research That Shows Implanted Microchips Cause Cancer in Mice, Rats, and Dogs,""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," and "Sassie Is Left Paralyzed as the Result of Yet Still Another Horribly Botched Attempt to Implant a Thoroughly Worthless and Pernicious Microchip Between Her Shoulders.")

"Although the criminal case may be over, we are still seeking justice," the author of an untitled article posted August 9th on Justice of Sugar has vowed. "There are a few things going on that we're not able to discuss yet, but please trust us that we are still working hard behind the scenes."

Most likely the author is referring to a wrongful death civil lawsuit against Pursell and the borough of North Catasauqua. Although some cat owners actually have won civil judgments against private individuals who have killed their cats, no known cases come of mind of whereby that they have even sued, let alone prevailed, against police officers.

It nevertheless certainly would be worth trying but even then the case would have to be tried in Pennsylvania's draconian court system and before judges and juries that have little regard for the sanctity of feline life. Besides, the cost, time, and exertion involved is destined to be considerable.

Another possibility would be for Newhart to go after Lienart. It was him after all who initialed Sugar's death warrant by ratting her out to the police in the first place.

It now appears in hindsight that he purposefully lied to the police when he reported that Sugar was injured and the reason that he did so was to make certain that they took action; if he had not done so, they simply might have told him to have handled the matter himself. Plus, his telephone call has been preserved and there are laws against filing false police reports.

More than likely, however, Lienert would simply counter by arguing that he was mistaken about Sugar having been injured if the matter ever came to court. The difficulties involved in holding individuals like him accountable under the law in no way detracts from the realization that something desperately needs to be done about them and now.

The nexus between the lies and unfounded allegations disseminated against cats by despisers of the species and the corresponding malice aforethought shown them by officers of the law is simply too obvious for either society or the courts to ignore any longer. Even if Newhart ultimately should fail to prevail in a damage suit against Lienert, such an undertaking just might possibly deter other cat-haters from concocting lies in order to inveigle the police into killing cats.

Regardless of whatever happens in civil court, none of that is ever going to bring back Sugar. Her tiny box at home is empty and is destined to remain so forever.

Newhart, meanwhile, has been left with a hurt that stubbornly refuses to abate. "When you look at pictures you cry as if it were your own child," is how that he summed up this heartbreaking tragedy and outrageous miscarriage of justice to WFMZ-TV.

Photos: Tom Newhart (Sugar up close and at play), Justice for Sugar (Sugar in her box), The Fliszar Firm (Fliszar), John Morganelli.com (Morganelli), Stanglein Veterinary Clinic (Stanglein), and April Bartholomew of The Morning Call (Newhart and Sugar's empty box).

Ill-Fated Lacey

"It breaks my heart seeing her (and) knowing she is dying slowly inside having her immune system being attacked. She's a strong Maine Coon fighter who means everything to me. I just want her to have a chance in life and to get back to being the lively kitty."
-- Sarah Addley

The number of unforeseen tragedies that seem to materialize out of the blue in order to destroy the lives of unsuspecting felines continues to both distress and sadden. With that being the case, it is not any small wonder that any cat even so much as manages to survive. Long lives, good health, and loving guardians are in even shorter supply.

For instance, in February of this year Sarah Addley adopted from either a shelter or a cattery a beautiful six-month-old Maine Coon kitten with luxurious fur. She named her Lacey and, delighted with her good fortune, she took her home to live with her and her other resident felines on the island of Foulness, located off the east coast of Essex.

All went swimmingly at first but it was not long before her elation was replaced with concern when Lacey started to inexplicably lose weight. Toward the end of April, Addley took her to see a veterinarian who discovered a lump in her stomach.

Blood tests and a biopsy later confirmed her and the practitioner's worst suspicion: Lacey was suffering from the Feline Infectious Peritonitis Virus (FIPV) which, with the assistance of a cat's own antibodies, attacks the white blood cells thus enabling the disease to spread throughout the body. In addition to a loss of both weight and appetite, other common symptoms include depression, fever, and unkempt fur.

Severe inflammation of either the abdomen, kidneys, or brain soon follows. Most heartbreaking of all, the disease progresses rapidly and is almost always fatal.

The most common form of transmission is from a mother cat to her kittens but the disease also can be contracted in environments where large numbers of cats are forced to cohabitate, such as at shelters and breeding mills. Not surprisingly, it is precisely kittens, elderly cats, sufferers of Feline Leukemia (FeLV), and those with compromised immune systems that are most susceptible to contracting the disease.

To say that the veterinarian's dire diagnosis left Addley devastated would be an understatement. "It breaks my heart seeing her (and) knowing she is dying slowly inside having her immune system being attacked," she disclosed to the Echo of Basildon in Essex on August 11st. (See "Fundraising Campaign to Help Dying Kitten.")"She's a strong Maine Coon fighter who means everything to me. I just want her to have a chance in life and to get back to being the lively kitty."

Although many cat owners like to shout their fidelity to their charges from the rooftops, the sad fact of the matter is that relatively few of them are willing to go to either the bother or the expense of caring for them once they become ill. Rather, they fob them off on unscrupulous veterinarians to rub out.

Included in that annually high death toll are a large number of cats that have grown old, suffer from such minor ailments as common colds, and those whose presence is simply no longer wanted. (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.")

Addley's heart, however, answers to the beat of an entirely different drummer in that she is a woman who not only cares deeply about her cats but one who was not about to give up on Lacey without a fight. She accordingly started looking around in order to determine what, if anything, there was that could be done for her dying kitten.

"It is attacking her inside causing her lymph nodes to be severely inflamed and sadly they say it is incurable but in the United States of America there's a drug called polyprenyl which had some very successful results in helping felines," she added to the Echo.

By that she was referring to Polyprenyl Immunostimulant (PI) that is manufactured and distributed by Sass and Sass of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Originally intended to treat common head colds (Feline Herpesvirus 1), it has had some rather limited success in treating cats suffering from the noneffusive, or dry, form of FIPV.

Lacey Playing in a Box

For example, Alfred M. Legendre and Joseph W. Bartages of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville treated three cats that were suffering from noneffusive FIPV with PI and two of them were alive and well two years later. The third one survived for fourteen months and perhaps would have lived longer if her owners had not prematurely discontinued treatment. (See the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, December 12, 2008, "Effect of Polyprenyl Immunostimulant on the Survival Times of Three Cats with the Dry Form of Feline Infectious Peritonitis," pages 624-626.)

In a 2010 trial study of one-hundred-two cats suffering from the noneffusive form of FIPV, the Winn Feline Foundation of Wyckoff, New Jersey, found that twenty-two per cent of them were still alive six months later and that five per cent of them lived for at least a year. (See Veterinary Practice News, August 15, 2012, "Progress in Treating FIP Reported," and an undated article entitled "Research on Feline Infectious Peritonitis, FAQ by Al Legendere at www.vet.utk.edu.)

Unfortunately as far as Lacey was concerned, PI is not readily available in England but that did not in any way dissuade her determined owner who kept right on searching until she was able to secure a provider. "I have finally found a specialist veterinarian...and she's American and has treated Maine Coon cats and others for this evil nasty disease," she rejoiced to the Echo.

That offer of eleventh-hour assistance came from oncologist Susan North of VRCC Veterinary Referrals of Laindon, thirty-nine kilometers south of Foulness in Essex. Even then Addley was forced into ponying up £36 for a special license so that VRCC could legally import the drug.

Then there was the staggering cost of it to take into consideration. "I have to find funds as the drug works out to an average of £600 for a two months' supply but she has to stay on it for life," is how that she summed up the depressing financial scenario to the Echo."If the drug works well over time they (the veterinarians) can reduce how many days and dose per week she has."

In furtherance of that worthy objective, she established the Saving Lacey page at www.gofundme.com on June 19th but, sadly, she was able to raise only £620 of her initial goal of £4,000. That is because only twenty-three individuals could be prevailed upon to help Lacey and none of them was willing to commit to more than £100.

"She is a very special kitten which (sic) is my friend Sarah's world," Sheila Fordham beseeched readers of the Echo."If you feel you can help prolong Lacey's life you can donate by going on her web site. It (PI) can enhance the quality of life and may add months even years to the feline patient's life span."

It is not entirely clear why the response from the usually generous international cat community was so measured but perhaps the lateness of the hour in which the appeal was issued coupled with the limited amount of news coverage that Lacey's desperate plight received outside of Essex were contributing factors. It additionally is conceivable that potential donors were put off by her dismal prospects.

If that indeed were the case, it is all the more lamentable because in this world it is not always a good idea for individuals to calmly sit back and rationally choose which cats that they are going to support with their compassion and financial largess. That is because the heart is often a far better guide than the mind under such circumstances.

Although it may have been considerably less heart-wrenching if cat lovers never had been apprised of Lacey's struggle, once they became cognizant of it their sole remaining consideration boiled down to what, if anything, they were going to do in order to help her. Moreover, procrastination and indecision were not viable options in that tomorrow is not guaranteed to either them or, especially, Lacey.

Ignoring her predicament also reeked too much of the blatant hypocrisy demonstrated so often by those well-known philanthropists who lavish their tears and shekels upon faceless and nameless strangers in foreign lands while simultaneously turning blind eyes and deaf ears to the moans and groans that emanate from the prostrate bodies in the street outside their palatial estates. Alleviating suffering in the here and now should, whenever feasible, always take precedent over the pursuit of either future objectives or ideology.

In practice, however, that is seldom the case as David Livesay found out on July 8, 2010 when he rescued a five-week-old, orange and white kitten that had been thrown from a speeding automobile on Interstate-24 in Chattanooga. "It's a life! It's a life!" he pleaded on its behalf. "Anything alive is worth saving."

He then devoted the next four hours in a futile search to find a veterinarian willing to treat it gratis. In frustration, he finally surrendered it to McKamey Animal Care and Adoption which, predictably, wasted no time in killing it. (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.")

Lacey with One of Her Playmates

Regardless of either the historical epoch, the venue, or the circumstances, most individuals never have had much respect for the sanctity of life whether it be animal, plant, or human. In addition to just plain callousness and cheapness, man usually is far too busy exploiting his fellow creatures in order to care so much as one whit about preserving their lives.

Although woefully inadequate in respect to what was needed, the donations were sufficient in order to have gotten Lacey started on the drug sometimes during the middle of June. After that it became a tedious and terrifying game of watch and wait, hope, and pray.

It initially appeared that the drug was having the desired effect and the evidence of that was contained in an August 14th photograph of Lacey posted online wherein she appeared to be the very epitome of feline health and well-being. That impression turned out to be not only short-lived but totally erroneous, however, in that Addley announced two days later on Saving Lacey that she was suffering from the effusive, or wet, form of FIPV.

With that distressing revelation, all hope quickly evaporated only to be replaced with an inescapable and sickly sense of doom and gloom. That is because PI is only effective in treating the noneffusive variety of FIPV.

"Our experience in the treatment of wet form FIP with Polyprenyl Immunostimulant has been dismal probably because the rapid progression of the disease process does not allow time for an immune response to modify the course of the disease," Legendre and Bartages wrote in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery article cited supra.

That makes it curious as to why North and VRCC placed Lacey on PI in the first place. One possible explanation is that FIPV is so difficult to diagnose that cats suffering from it may at first exhibit symptoms commonly associated with the noneffusive variety when they actually are afflicted with the effusive form.

A second possibility is that Addley and North simply were grasping at straws and therefore willing to try almost anything in order to have kept Lacey alive. In that respect, even wagering all the gold in Fort Knox would have been a small price to have paid provided that it had kept her alive for just a little while longer.

Other than the disclosure that Lacey was suffering from a bloated abdomen, no other details of her condition have been divulged. Her stomach could have been periodically drained and that would have made her breathing considerably easier but it is not known if that procedure was attempted.

In addition to PI, Lacey also likely was administered antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs as well as being placed on dietary supplements and vitamins. It also is possible that she was given intravenous fluids and blood transfusions.

Corticosteriods and cytotix drugs were two additional options at the disposal of North and VRCC. Above all, Addley sans doute was instructed to have maintained her in a stress-free environment at all times.

Although not totally unexpected, the heartbreaking announcement came on September 1st that Lacey had died fifteen days earlier on August 17th. Thus, all the hoping, praying, and ransacking of already sorely depleted coffers in search of a few spare bob in order to send her had been in vain.

Since no other details have been disclosed, she could have died on her own or been killed off by North. Another possibility is that Addley simply ran out of money.

In the September 1st posting on Saving Lacey, wherein she announced her death, Addley also renders a full accounting of the donations.

Lacey Still Looked Well on August 14th

In addition to the £36 that she paid for the license so that VRCC could import PI, Addley shelled out £404.08 for the drug itself plus £86.22 in taxes and that came to a whopping £526.30. The remaining £93.70 plus £63.30 out of Addley's pocket were donated to the Winn Feline Foundation's Bria Fund which is working to find a cure for FIPV.

The latter total amounted to only £154 and, needless to say, it would not have sustained Lacey for much more than a fortnight even if PI had proven to be effective in treating her. Unless Addley should choose to be considerably more forthcoming on this matter in the future, the world never will know if Lacey's precious life could have been indefinitely extended if only donors had opened up their hearts and bit wider.

In spite of having been left in the financial lurch, Addley is not holding any grudges. "Many thanks to you all and I hope you never have to go through this with your kitties," she wrote September 1st on Saving Lacey. "It's cruel. Let's hope they find a cure as they have found drugs to help prolong life. I will be forever grateful to you all."

It additionally is highly commendable that in her hour of bereavement she was willing to pause long enough in order to make a public accounting to her donors. In that respect, her forthrightness stands in stark juxtaposition to the conduct of just about all shelters and animal rescue groups who never reciprocate in kind.

Instead, they cadge obscene amounts of money from the public allegedly in order to treat abused, sick, and injured animals which they then turn around and appropriate for all sorts of nefarious uses, such as pay raises and salary perks. Tant pis, some of these wretched organizations even use these donations in order to kill off the very animals whose lives they were intended to save.

Looking ahead, there does not appear to be much in the way of hope on the horizon for cats afflicted with the noneffusive variety of FIPV and absolutely none at all for cats like Lacey who suffer from the effusive form of the disease. The only good news is that those fighting the disease have not as of yet thrown in the towel.

Legendre continues to experiment with PI while other scientists are attempting to develop an antiviral that could be used in conjunction with it. Others, such as Niels Pederson of the University of California at Davis, are attempting to isolate genetic markers that indicate both greater susceptibility as well as resistance to the disease.

At the other end of the veterinary spectrum, there is yet to be developed any proven vaccine for the disease. Pfizer touts Primucell FIP but it is regarded as being all but worthless. (See Cornell University, undated article entitled "Feline Infectious Peritonitis" at www.vet.cornell.edu.)

The world at large knew little or nothing concerning the life and death battle that was waged on the island of Foulness between April and the middle of August and even if it had known very few of its inhabitants would have cared one way or the other. The hoi polloi's callous indifference to suffering on the one hand and the loss of such exquisite beauty and elegance on the other hand does not in any way however diminish either Lacey's intrinsic value or the enormity of the heartbreak felt by those who know and appreciate cats of her caliber.

The only positive development to have come out of this tragic affair has been Addley's superlative behavior. She not only faithfully stood by Lacey but even went online in order to beg for her deliverance. That is not worth a whole lot, especially when measured against what she has lost, but at the very least she can now go forward in life with a clear conscience knowing in her heart that she did everything in her capacity to have saved Lacey.

As for the latter, it is always a sad occasion whenever any cat dies and the fact that she was a beautiful Maine Coon with her entire life ahead of her makes her premature passing all the more difficult to accept. Anyone who ever has enjoyed the love of such cats or merely sought out the warmth provided by their long fur on a cold winter's night will readily testify to the indelible impression that they leave behind on their owners' hearts.

It has not been revealed what Addley did with her remains and although it would be comforting to think that they lie in a properly-attended grave in her garden with an appropriate marker on the top, that probably is just wishful thinking. If so, then all that is left of Lacey are the photographs and the memories and they are poor substitutes for what was and could have been if only The Fates could have been prevailed upon to have behaved in a kindlier fashion toward her.

Photos: the Echo (Lacey), Saving Lacey (Lacey in a box, with another cat, and on August 14th).

Milkie Recuperates in a Rest Stop Toilet

"Unfortunately the family had to leave their beloved pet behind that day and continue their trip. As you can imagine, the family was heartbroken."
-- Alyson Payne of the State of Michigan Welcome Center

How much is the life of a family cat worth? As far as Graham Skelly and his ten-year-old son, Simon, are concerned, the life and well-being of their fourteen-year-old cat, Milkie, was worth only about two hours of their precious time.

Back on August 21st, the duo were en route from Seattle to their new residence in Arlington, Virginia, when they decided to stop at the State of Michigan Welcome Center in New Buffalo, just across the Indiana and Michigan stateline and one-hundred-twenty-two kilometers east of Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan. In an apparent effort designed to give Milkie some fresh air, they took him out of their truck and tethered him outside and that was when disaster struck without warning.

A dog, presumably belonging to another motorist, spooked him and he broke free of his tether and ran into the woods of the sixty-five-acre rest area. Even though staffers magnanimously agreed to help the Skellys search for Milkie, the father and son were willing to devote only about two hours to the effort before shamelessly saying the hell with him and continuing on their merry way.

"Unfortunately the family had to leave their beloved pet behind that day and continue their trip," the rest area's Alyson Payne told the Harbor County News of New Buffalo on August 30th. (See "Wayward Tabby Retrieved at New Buffalo Welcome Center for Long Drive Home.") "As you can imagine, the family was heartbroken."

Au contraire, the Skellys' cared almost nothing at all about Milkie's fate or they never would have cruelly abandoned him to fend for himself; rather, if they had felt differently they would have stayed there until they found him no matter how long that exercise entailed. Furthermore, Payne is guilty of attempting to whitewash the ugly truth by ludicrously claiming that they were "heartbroken." What matters, after all, is not what they felt, but rather what poor Milkie was thinking after they ran off and left him in a strange land.

Besides, the Skellys did not have anything going on in Arlington that could not have waited for a few days. The city, no big deal in its own right, was not going anywhere and would have still been waiting for them.

To her and her co-workers' credit, however, Payne never gave up on Milkie and that in itself stands in stark contrast to the Skellys' unconscionable conduct. "Members of our staff spotted him over the course of the next few days, but he would run from us," she disclosed to the Harbor County News."I was able to grab him one day, but he scratched me and ran back into the bushes."

That in itself would have dissuaded most individuals from continuing their rescue efforts but that was not the case with Payne. Instead, she contacted Animal Lovers Incorporated, a no-kill shelter located eleven kilometers east of New Buffalo in Three Oaks, which graciously provided her with a humane trap that was baited and set out near the rest area's lighthouse on August 25th. All of her good work paid a huge dividend the following morning when Milkie was found to be safe and sound inside the enclosure.

The elder Skelly, who was promptly notified by telephone, then devoted ten hours to retracing the one-thousand-thirty-three kilometers that separate Arlington from New Buffalo in order to collect Milkie on August 28th. In the aftermath the Skellys were said to have been "ecstatic" and "grateful" for Milkie's safe return, but then again they very well could not have told Payne anything differently without exposing themselves to be even worse monsters than their original abhorrent behavior had demonstrated them to be.

That is because there can be little doubt that Milkie would not have lasted for very long if Payne and her co-workers had not intervened. First of all, the service area and Interstate-94 which runs alongside it are extremely busy pieces of real estate and few motorists are willing to brake for cats; on the contrary, most of them go out of their way in order to run them down.

Secondly, the surrounding woods are chock-full of predators such as raccoons, skunks, coyotes and even wolves and cougars are not unknown to pass through that part of the country. Thirdly, food soon would have become a major problem for him and without shelter there is not any conceivable way that he ever could have survived even one of Michigan's notoriously cold and snowy winters.

If he had been cruelly declawed, Milkie not only would have been unable to have scaled trees in order to evade predators but he also could not have either hunted or defended himself. As a domesticated cat, he also in all likelihood lacked the prerequisite savoir-faire in order to have fended for himself in the wild.

His age was also against him in that no fourteen-year-old cat ever should be abandoned under any conceivable circumstances. (See Cat Defender post of February 2, 2015 entitled "Cruelly Denatured and Locked Up Indoors for All of His Life, Nicky Is Suddenly Thrust into the Bitter Cold and Snow for Twenty-One Consecutive Days with Predictably Tragic Results.")

Every bit as predictable as clockwork, the slimy capitalist media got the gist of the story all wrong once again by choosing to portray Milkie's travails as just another happy cat rescue when instead they should have been outraged by the elder Skelly's irresponsible behavior. The same criticism applies in spades to Animal Lovers and every other animal protection group in the New Buffalo vicinity.

First of all, the elder Skelly should have been charged with both abandonment and animal cruelty. Hopefully, he then would have been convicted and sentenced to, at the very minimum, ten years of hard labor at some hellhole penal institution.

Above all, Payne and Animal Lovers never under any circumstances should have returned Milkie to him. Anyone who would abandon an elderly cat in the wilds of Michigan is most definitely not a fit guardian.

Worst still, Skelly's behavior toward Milkie does not bode well for his long-term prospects. In particular, he likely will not even think so much as twice about having him killed off at either some shelter or surgery once he becomes either ill or his presence is no longer desired.

It is not too late, however, for animal cruelty investigators in Arlington to look into this disturbing matter. If only they could be prevailed upon to stir their lazy, worthless bones, they just might for once succeed in saving a life.

None of that is meant in any way to imply that traveling with cats is ever easy. It is not and mishaps occur all the time. (See Cat Defender posts of July 16, 2007 and May 8, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Accidentally Trapped in a Shipping Crate, Calico Cat Named Spice Survives Nineteen-Day Voyage from Hawaii to San Bernardino" and "Domino, Feral and All Alone, Faces an Uncertain Future in Wisconsin Following an Unplanned Trip to Arizona.")

The crime therefore lies not in losing a cat, but rather in being too callous and derelict as an owner in order to even look for it. To make a long story short, if Skelly had intentionally left his son at the rest center he unquestionably would have been arrested and charged with child abandonment and what he did to Milkie was far worse.

That is because either someone or some group sooner or later would have come to Simon's rescue whereas the odds that someone like Payne would have intervened on Milkie's behalf are infinitesimally smaller. In that respect, he is extremely fortunate to even be alive.

Photo: Alyson Payne.

Gus

"I thought I was hallucinating when I saw Gus in the kitchen. I had to pinch myself."
-- Matt Strong

Gus was a victim of the worst kind of mistaken identity imaginable but both he and his owner are eternally grateful that the blunder was one that was easily rectified. The confusion began at around 10:30 a.m. on January 25th when thirty-five-year-old Matt Strong, who represents the ward of Chorlton as a Laborite councilor in Manchester City, left his house and set out on Barlow Moor Road.

"I was walking along the main road outside my house on my way to get my hair cut and there was this woman with what looked like Gus," he later told The Telegraph on that same date. (See "'Well this Is Awkward': Labor Councilor Realizes He Has Buried Someone Else's Cat.")"I just cried: 'Oh my God, that's my cat.' I was hysterical. We both were."

As he was soon to learn, the cat had been mowed down a scant ten yards or so outside of his house and the unidentified woman had compassionately collected it from the street before other motorists could have had another go at it. Her intervention, sadly, came too late however.

"I sat with the cat until its days had ended and it looked exactly like Gus, right down to the bits of fur it had missing from fighting," Strong averred to The Telegraph."I was absolutely distraught in the morning and clearly convinced that it was Gus who had been run over."

He then took the cat's corpse home and buried it in his garden. After that he took to Twitter in order to first eulogize Gus and then to justifiably excoriate his killer. "And if you drove a silver (Volkswagen) Golf along Barlow Moor Road and didn't bother to stop after hitting him then you really are a scumbag," he tweeted according to the account rendered in The Telegraph.

He next left home once again to, presumably, keep his appointment at the barber shop before returning several hours later. It was then that he received the shock of his life when the three-year-old brown rescue cat, accompanied by his brother Ralph, miraculously turned up for lunch.

"I thought I was hallucinating when I saw Gus in the kitchen," he told The Telegraph. "I had to pinch myself."

Although he was delighted that Gus was still amongst the living, the incident did give Strong pause to bemoan the spontaneity afforded by modern-day forms of communication. In particular, he was forced to return to Twitter in order to alert his followers to this startling, albeit joyous, turn of events.

"Well this is awkward, the cat buried in the garden isn't mine," he tweeted with a red-face. "Looks exactly like him but Gus is alive and well."

Besides being publicly embarrassed by his colossal blunder, the event left Strong duly chastened. "I made an honest mistake," he told The Telegraph."I'm a bit upset by it all."

Since press reports have failed to divulge the nature of the injuries sustained by the cat, it is difficult to know how that Strong could have made such a glaring mistake. For instance, if the dead cat's head had been severely disfigured that certainly would have extenuated the difficulty of making a positive identification.

If that was not the case, that leads to speculation that Strong is not an attentive caretaker because under such circumstances he should have been capable of recognizing his own cat. Although it is not known how many cats that he owns, guardians of multiple felines are by necessity unable to devote quite as much attention to each of them as owners who only care for one animal and that could have been another factor that contributed to his faux pas.

He additionally could have been too distraught to have thought the matter through clearly. In that respect there cannot be any denying that retrieving and burying the mangled and often bloody corpse of a cat is not only a traumatic but gruesome task as well.

Most individuals who find themselves saddled with such an unpleasant job accordingly only want to get it over and done with as quickly as possible and therefore are unwilling to devote the time and due diligence necessary examining the corpse in order to make a positive identification. The fact that Strong is a busy local politician with a considerable amount on his plate doubtlessly contributed to his error in judgment.

Most inexcusably of all, he may have been guilty of halfway expecting that Gus one day would be run down and killed. That is especially the case considering the volume of speeding motorists that Barlow Moor Road attracts. He therefore took those two factors and combined them with the close proximity of the accident to his house and came up with the most probable, albeit erroneous, conclusion that first occurred to him.

In his defense, he is far from being the only cat owner in recent memory to have done likewise. For example in May of 2013, forty-eight-year-old Karen Jones of Mardol Road in Ashford, Kent, scooped up the lifeless body of a black cat on Beecholme Drive in the Kensington section of Kent that she believed to have belonged to her two-year-old resident feline, Norman.

She based that reasoning upon the observation that the cat not only was the same size and color as Norman but also had the same facial features and length of fur. The fact that it was found only three kilometers from her house cinched the matter as far as she was concerned.

Matt Strong

"I hadn't seen Norman all morning because he often goes roaming around," she later disclosed. "So I had a feeling it was him when I saw the cat by the side of the road."

As Strong was destined to later do with the remains of what he believed to have been Gus, Jones took the cat home and buried it in her garden. Imagine then the shock that she received when Norman nonchalantly showed up for breakfast the very next morning!

"I said 'Is that you, Norman?' and he meowed back," she later revealed. "At first I thought he had been resurrected from the dead but he didn't know what all the fuss was about. Then I realized we must have had the wrong cat."

Even then she was unable to completely believe what her eyes and ears were telling her until a hurried trip to her garden finally convinced her that Norman had not revived and crawled out of his tomb. (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.")

Both Jones and Strong are indeed fortunate that Norman and Gus bailed them out by returning home safe and sound. That undoubtedly is not always the case, however, and that raises at least two troubling conundrums.

The first of which concerns the fate of those cats that vanish under such confusing circumstances unbeknownst to their owners. Secondly, by confiscating and burying the corpses of cats that do not belong to them individuals such as Jones and Strong are foreclosing any and all opportunities for their legitimate owners to reclaim their remains and therefore to ever gain any measure of closure.

On the other hand, such behavior is far preferable to allowing them to be either torn apart by scavengers, left to rot in the sun, or to be collected and disrespectfully disposed of by garbagemen. Doing so also precludes any mischief on the part of dissectors, devil-worshipers, and misguided and ignorant lads such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

To his credit, however, Strong did not forget about the anonymous feline mistakenly buried in his garden. Rather, he went to the trouble of exhuming it and taking it to the Ashleigh Veterinary Centre in Chorlton so as to give its owner a chance to reclaim its remains.

"I feel really bad for whoever it belongs to," he told the Manchester Evening News on January 25th. (See "'This Is Awkward': Councilor Accidentally Buries the Wrong Cat.")"I know exactly how they will feel."

Unfortunately, it has not proven possible to ascertain what became of that cat. The only two things known for certain are that its killer is still at large and that the authorities, both the gendarmes and local do-nothing animal protection groups, never so much as bothered to even open an investigation into its senseless killing.

Strong it would appear is a man who cares deeply about Gus and considering how shaken up he was when he thought that he had lost him forever, it would be only logical to assume that he would be willing to take far better care of him henceforth but that has not turned out to be the case. Au contraire, the only proactive measure that he has taken to date was to ground him for a few days.

That is totally inexcusable in light of the myriad of dangers that he faces every time that he ventures anywhere near motorists. "It (the killing of the cat) goes to show how fast cars go along Barlow Moor Road," he fully acknowledged to the Manchester Evening News.

He accordingly fully realizes that the dead cat easily could have been Gus. "There was every chance Gus could have been out playing near the road at that time," he theorized to The Telegraph."There's a cemetery across the road and they (Gus and Ralph) get attracted by the long grass."

If that is indeed the case, a far more prudent course of action would be for him to either cage or put them on leashes and then carry them across the street to the graveyard. He then could set them free to roam for a while provided that he kept a close eye on them.

Following that, he would need to capture and restrain them once again before transporting them back across the street and home. Under no circumstances should he allow them to cross Barlow Moor Road on their own.

As a member of city council, there is much that he could be doing in order to not only better protect the lives of his own cats but all cats as well in Manchester City. First of all, he could introduce legislation that would significantly reduce the speed limits in all residential neighborhoods throughout the city.

For instance, petition drives to do likewise in sections of Sheffield in South Yorkshire and the ward of Deighton in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, are currently under consideration. (See the Sheffield Telegraph, April 17, 2012, "'Speeding Motorist Killed Our Pet Cat,' Says Sheffield Man" and The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, February 11, 2013, "Deighton Sisters' Anti-Speeding Campaign After Kitten's Tragic Death.")

The installation of "Cat Crossing" signs is another idea worth exploring. (See Cat Defender posts of January 26, 2007 and November 27, 2007 entitled, respectfully, "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.")

The only real solution, however, would be for the world at large to do what it should have done long ago and that would be to enact an across-the-board ban on the public use of all automobiles by private individuals. The petrol that is required in order to power them is the cause of simply too many wars, environmental degradation, and pollution as to any longer make them a sustainable option; buses, trains, and street cars are a far better solution.

Trumping all of those concerns, the vast majority of motorists no longer have any regard whatsoever for the lives and safety of cats, other animals, pedestrians, and bicyclists and taking away their lethal killing machines is the only conceivable way that innocent lives ever can be spared. If they were in any way worthy of continuing to enjoy the convenience and freedom afforded by passenger vehicles, motorists at the very least would be willing to obey the rules of the road but that quite obviously is not the case and, tant pis, the thoroughly worthless and murderous law enforcement community, a tool no less of entrenched economic interests itself, is not about to force them to do so in a million years.

As far as Gus is concerned, the only hope that he has for a long life rests with Strong quickly coming to his senses and taking far better care of him before it is tragically too late. If not, the only purpose that the events of January 25th will have served was to have acted as a dress rehearsal for Gus's eventual death and burial and next time around it most definitely will not be another case of mistaken identity.

Photos: the London Metro.

Just Some of the Damage That the Hit-and-Run Motorist Inflicted Upon Bart

"If somebody tells you the cat is still breathing and it's alive, the cat shouldn't have been buried."
-- Sherry Silk of the Humane Society of Tampa Bay

The lives of just about all cats are not only terribly brief but filled with all sorts of unspeakable deprivations and abuse. As such, their lots in life can only be described as outrageously unjust.

The gauntlet of horrific abuse and abject neglect that a handsome tuxedo named Bart was put through back in January of 2015 almost defies credulity, however, and that alone places his seemingly interminable suffering in a class all by itself. His tribulations began on January 16th when he was run down and left for dead in a pool of blood smack-dab in the middle of East One-Hundred-Thirteenth Avenue in Tampa.

This sans doute intentional assault upon a defenseless cat by yet still another hit-and-run motorist occurred less than a block from the house that he had shared since his birth with fifty-three-year-old Ellis Hutson at 822 East One-Hundred-Twelfth Avenue ever since his birth in a dresser drawer eighteen months previously. What transpired next remains a bone of contention to this very day.

For instance Hutson's girlfriend, Candice Mclendon, claims to have retrieved Bart from the avenue and to subsequently have returned him to his owner. Instead of procuring emergency veterinary assistance for his badly injured cat, Hutson instead gave him to a neighbor identified in press reports only by his first name as Dave with instructions to bury him.

"He was very dead," forty-two-year-old Dusty Albritton, another neighbor of Hutson's, averred to the Tampa Bay Times on January 28, 2015. (See "Full Recovery Expected for Tampa 'Zombie Cat'.")"He was stiff. He was cold."

Yet in a video later posted on YouTube by none other than Albritton herself, Mclendon can be heard off-camera telling an entirely different story. "He might not have been dead," she declares according to the Tampa Bay Times' February 11th edition. (See "'Zombie Cat' Owner Suing Tampa Humane Society for Custody.")"Cause when I found him...he was moving and stuff."

In the uproar that followed Hutson, for whatever it is worth, claimed not only that it was he who had found Bart but that Mclendon was not even present. She was proven to have been right, however, when Bart amazingly showed up very much alive at Hutson's house, allegedly five days later on January 21st.

"It was unbelievable," he swore to the Daily Mail on February 11, 2015. (See "Catnapped? Owner of Bart the 'Zombie Cat' Sues Humane Society, Alleging It Stole His Beloved Pet and Is Using Him for Publicity.")"I've never seen anything like that before."

Bart's Shallow Roadside Grave

Bart may have been alive but he also was hungry, dehydrated and, understandably, disheveled. This time around Hutson did what he should have done five days earlier and that was to take him to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay (HSTB) for emergency treatment of the life-threatening injuries that he had sustained at the hands of the criminal motorist.

Unlike most mercenary rescue groups and veterinarians who will not lift so much as a lousy finger in order to save the lives of injured and ailing cats unless they are paid in full and up front, the HSTB used its Save-A-Pet Medical Fund in order to provide emergency care for Bart. It did, however, insist that Hutson take financial responsibility for Bart's long-term care and in furtherance of that objective it worked out an arrangement for him to pay on time.

After the wrangling over money had been settled, the HSTB finally got around to the herculean task of attending to Bart's massive injuries. Specifically, his left eye had been ruptured, his jaw broken, and he had sustained multiple lacerations and contusions to his face and perhaps elsewhere as well.

Therefore on January 27th the irreparably damaged eye was removed, his jaw and plate wired back together, and a feeding tube inserted. He also was placed in an Elizabethan collar given blood stolen from one of the HSTB's unjustly incarcerated and, most likely, hideously exploited donor cats. (See Cat Defender post of November 13, 2010 entitled "Christopher, Who Has Persevered Through Tragedy and Given Back So Much, Is Now Being Held Captive for His Valuable Blood.")

Even though the more than one-thousand dollars' worth of emergency veterinary care that Bart so desperately needed and richly deserved came eleven days after he was injured, late proved to have been better than never at all in this instance because it enabled him not only to survive but to eventually reclaim a semblance of his former life that nearly had been taken away from him through an inexcusable act of violence.

"He's purring, even with all those injuries," Sherry Silk of the charity told the Daily Mail."I can't even imagine how awful he must have felt. He's just a really wonderful, patient, loving cat."

Even still there cannot be any denying that he was put through pure Hell. Bloody, bruised, and with only one good eye and a broken jaw, he was unable to eat even if he had been lucky enough to have stumbled upon some food. Although it undoubtedly was an extremely painful exercise, he nevertheless likely was able to have licked up some condensation and possibly even a little rain water so as to have prevented his kidneys from locking up on him.

Also, his open and untreated wounds easily could have become infected and his debilitated state made him easy prey for ailurophobes, other animals, and yet still another scum-of-the-earth motorist.

Ellis Hutson

The unrelenting pain must have been almost unbearable and the hopelessness of his plight surely would have defeated any soul less determined to have survived. Under such trying conditions, it is remarkable that he still was able to summon the physical and mental resources required in order to have found his way home.

On top of all of that, he not only easily could have suffocated to death in his premature crypt but he also had to somehow summon the strength needed in order to dig himself out from underneath all the dirt and other assorted debris piled on top of him. In that regard, the only two factors that he had going for himself was that his impromptu final resting place was a shallow one located alongside the avenue.

That at least is the official version of events served up to the public by the HSTB. Upon reflections, however, it bears a far closer resemblance to a Märchen than it does the truth.

Most perplexing of all, the HSTB has not even bothered to publicly speculate on where he was and what he was doing between January 16th and January 21st. Above all, it seems highly improbable that he spent that length of time underground and then suddenly extricated himself after miraculously reviving.

A far more plausible explanation is that Bart came to shortly after he was placed in the ground and then clawed his way out from underneath the dirt and back to the world of the living. It also is entirely conceivable that someone, possibly either Mclendon or a passerby, dug him out but, like Hutson himself, was too uncaring to summon veterinary assistance for him.

As shocking as that would have been, such callousness may have, in a roundabout way, saved Bart's life. That is because if he had ended up at a surgery other than the one operated by the HSTB, he likely would have been immediately killed owing to his lack of coin. (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.")

Following that, he likely found his way back home where Hutson unpardonably stood idly by and watched him suffer in excruciating pain for five days before finally deciding to transport him to the HSTB. That analysis of what transpired is, admittedly, purely speculative but it is about all that the public has to go on given that neither Hutson, Mclendon, nor Arbritton are about to ever come clean.

Additionally, the thoroughly disreputable capitalist media have failed once again to show any interest whatsoever in getting to the bottom of another simply horrendous case of cruelty directed at a cat. Instead, these sorry excuses for both journalists and human beings have contented themselves by disparaging Bart as a "zombie cat" and drawing unflattering analogies between him and another tragic feline named Church from out of the pages of Stephen King's 1983 novel, Pet Sematary.

The only recent incident of this kind that readily comes to mind concerned a petit black female named Muffin from the St. Louis suburb of St. Jacob who was condemned by her owner, Sarah McCallum, to spend three and one-half hours underground in April of 2013. Alleging that she was cold, not breathing, and lacked a discernible heartbeat, she precipitately stuffed her into a small box and then buried her in a field outside her house.

Bart Was in Rough Shape Following Emergency Surgery

In all likelihood Muffin soon would have suffocated to death if McCallum's six-year-old son, Bradley, had not requested and received permission to plant a flower on her grave after learning of her demise upon his return from school. While he was doing so, Muffin meowed and that proved to have been her salvation.

Taken to a nearby veterinarian, she was pronounced to be in perfect health. The only explanation subsequently offered by the practitioner was that she likely had suffered some sort of a seizure and afterwards gone into a brief coma.

"My mom thought my cat was dead because she was laying (sic) down," was little Bradley's explanation. It also is entirely possible that McCallum simply wanted rid of Muffin and chose to commit her foul deed while her son was away at school. (See Cat Defender post of June 24, 2013 entitled "Buried Long Before Her Time, Muffin Is Freed from the Crypt by Her Devoted Six-Year-Old Snuggling Partner.")

Although neither McCallum's nor Hutson's versions of events seem plausible, they are nevertheless far from being the only individuals to have buried cats and dogs while they were still very much alive. In particular, shelters commit wholesale crimes of this nature all the time. (See Cat Defender posts of November 12, 2011, February 7, 2012, and May 11, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Multiple Attempts Made Upon Andrea's Life Graphically Demonstrate the Urgent Need for an Immediate Ban on the Killing of All Shelter Animals,""Long-Suffering Andrea Finally Secures a Permanent Home after Incredibly Surviving Quadruple Attempts Made on Her Life by an Unrepentant Utah Shelter," and "Andrea's Incredible Survival of Two Gassings Plus Attempts to Suffocate and Freeze Her to Death Makes Her the Overwhelming Choice as Cat of the Year for 2011.")

Besides the obvious fact that the overwhelming majority of all shelters and veterinary offices function as little more than thinly disguised feline liquidation services and as a result could care less how many of their victims that they bury alive, the act of departing this vale of tears apparently takes considerably longer than previously believed. Although there apparently has not been any research conducted on exactly how long it takes a cat to die, some anecdotal studies have suggested that it can take some humans as long as three hours to completely expire.

Consequently, a radical rethinking of these all-important issues is in order. That is imperative not only in order to safeguard the sanctity of all life but to alleviate unnecessary and prolonged suffering as well.

In a world that has become dreadfully overcrowded, there is not as much interest in this issue nowadays but that was not always the case. For example, in his 1975 historical novel, The Great Train Robbery, Michael Crichton argues that some inhabitants of Victorian England were so frightened of being buried alive that they instructed their morticians to lay out their mortal remains in coffins that were fitted with bells attached to cords that they could avail themselves of should they unexpectedly revive before being interred.

Bart with a Feeding Tube

Following surgery, Bart was placed on a healing and rehabilitation regimen that was expected to have lasted for six weeks. Once he had completed that, the HSTB initially planned on returning him to Hutson.

"I have every indication that his owner is going to be able to come back and forth for follow-up care," Silk declared to the Tampa Bay Times in the January 28, 2015 article cited supra."The main thing is we want him to stay inside, safe and sound."

A few days later, however, the organization did an abrupt about-face and struck up a new tune. "Recently we have learned new information about Bart's home environment and the circumstances leading up to his burial. Therefore, the HSTB does not intend to return Bart to the Hutson family," the Daily Mail reported it as announcing in the February 11, 2015 article cited supra."We are prepared to fight for the best interests of this cat. We hope the Hutson family will do the right thing and surrender Bart to our care so that we can find an appropriate environment for him to live out his life."

Although the HSTB has not explicitly spelled out its reasons for taking that extraordinary action, it certainly by that time had amassed enough incriminating evidence against Hutson for doing so. First of all, even though he earlier had agreed to confine Bart indoors, the charity may have doubted his resolve on that issue.

Secondly, the organization did not want his daughter pestering him while he recuperated. "She's a typical two-year-old," Silk told the Daily Mail."We want a home with no young children that could put him in jeopardy."

The deciding factor, however, was undoubtedly his unforgivable decision to have buried him alive. Plus, his dillydallying for five days before seeking emergency veterinary care for him most assuredly did not help his case. "If somebody tells you the cat is still breathing and it's alive, the cat shouldn't have been buried," Silk told the Daily Mail."I don't know if it was purposeful, but we are not going to return the cat to him."

That still does not completely explain the HSTB's change of heart. "They've known about the video from day one," Hutson retorted to the Tampa Bay Times on February 11, 2015.

Whereas it is always conceivable that a staffer may have taken a shine to Bart and therefore was unwilling to relinquish custody of him, such occurrences are uncommonly rare. On the contrary, it usually is precisely the exact opposite that holds true in that most shelters are so inundated with cats that they cannot get rid of them fast enough even if that means exterminating them en masse.

Bart in an Elizabethan Collar

Not about to sit idly by while the HSTB confiscated his cat, Hutson immediately vowed to fight. "If we have to go to court, we have to go to court," he vowed to the Daily Mail."I haven't done anything wrong, and I don't think it's right to take my cat."

True to his word, he filed suit against the HSTB in the Circuit Court of Hillsborough County on February 9, 2015 demanding that Bart be returned to him. In doing so, he elected to proceed in forma pauperis so as to obtain free legal assistance. Online court records of the case, Hutson v Silk, number 15-CC-004347, indicate that he later was represented by Melissa Ann Cordon but they fail to specify if she was appointed by the court. Local attorney Thomas Gonzales volunteered his skills for the HSTB.

The mere fact that Hutson was either unable or unwilling to hire an attorney to represent him lends credence to the theory that money, not overwhelming grief as he earlier had maintained, was the principal reason behind his abhorrent decision to have Bart buried as opposed to treated. Of course, it is always conceivable that he simply is too cheap to spend any money on either his cat or a lawyer.

Even his lawsuit appears au premier coup d'oeil to have been motivated more by financial considerations than any genuine love for his resident feline. Specifically, he alleged that the HSTB was "keeping Bart for publicity to raise money for the organization."

Although it is by no means unheard of for some rescue groups to engage in such dishonest behavior, absolutely no evidence has come to light that would tend to indicate that was the case with the HSTB. In fact, the opposite appears to have been the reality in that it was on the hook not only for the cost of Bart's various surgeries but his extended convalescence and maintenance throughout this protracted legal process.

Moreover, such an accusation just as easily could be turned around and leveled against Hutson even though there likewise is not a speck of evidence that he was planning on exploiting Bart's newfound notoriety for personal financial gain. Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that whichever side that came out on top in this legal squabble could have eventually reaped a financial bonanza in terms of book, movie, and television contracts as well as earnings from personal appearance made by Bart.

To only person known to have made any money off of Bart's suffering so far has been Albright who raised US$7,000 on his behalf at gofundme.com. Other than informing the Tampa Bay Times on February 11, 2015 that all of the funds were earmarked for Bart's care, as opposed to Hutson's legal bills, she has not publicly specified how exactly they were spent.

Bart Is Able to Eat on His Own but He Drools

Since the HSTB footed the bill for Bart's surgeries that, presumably, left only the cost of his rehabilitation and maintenance to be covered and it is extremely doubtful that the latter wound up costing seven times what was spent on the former. She accordingly needs to make a full public accounting as Sarah Addley of Foulness did with the monies that she received from online donors in order to treat her terminally ill Maine Coon, Lacey. (See Cat Defender post of September 15, 2016 entitled "Lacey and Her Devoted Owner Wage a Lonely, Terrifying, and Grossly Underfunded Battle Against Feline Infectious Peritonitis but in the End the Deadly Malady Refused to Yield.")

As is the case with just about all litigation, the wheels of justice grind every bit as agonizingly slow for cats as they do for humans and it accordingly was not until August 30th of this year that Judge M. Darryl Manning dismissed Hutson's lawsuit for a "lack of prosecution" and thusly awarded custody of Bart to the HSTB. Since he has not publicly commented on the court's decision, it is not known specifically why that he chose to throw in the towel but it is suspected that his lack of money may have factored heavily into that momentous decision.

For its part, the HSTB was ecstatic at the outcome. "After twenty months in our care, countless hours of paperwork, and millions of prayers and well-wishes from across the world, we finally have been legally granted ownership of Bart the miracle cat to the HSTB," the charity announced September 15th in a press release according to a United Press International article of that same date. (See "Bart the 'Zombie Cat' Adopted Two Years After Digging Out of Grave.")

Exactly where Bart spent that long interval has not been disclosed but presumably he was residing at either the HSTB or in foster care with a staffer. The latter would seem to have been more likely in that an anonymous longtime staffer was awarded custody of him on September 14th.

That truly blessed individual, who beat out more than one-hundred competitors for that singular honor, has chosen to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from Hutson and his cronies. That would appear to be a valid concern in that the organization has received at least one telephone threat to "storm" its offices and to catnap Bart.

Moreover, additional violence was the absolute last thing that he needed during his long and, at times, difficult, convalescence. "This cat had a will to live. He was not going down without a fight," Nash McCutchen of the HSTB declared to the Tampa Bay Times on September 14, 2016. (See "Bart the Zombie Cat Has New Owner Following Lengthy Legal Battle.")"He was depressed, couldn't eat well and a lot of other animals may have just given up. He didn't."

Even though he cannot help drooling when he eats, Bart's recovery has been nothing short of spectacular. In particular he has learned to eat so well with his reconstructed jaw that his weight has doubled from seven to fourteen pounds.

Bart Has Overcome His Depression

"Now he actually eats too much, McCutchen added. "He's a little chubby."

Perhaps even more important than that, he appears to have conquered his depression and once again enjoys playing. It has not been disclosed but hopefully he also is pain-free.

Whereas allowing one of its staffers to adopt him augurs well for Bart's short-term care in that he will enjoy unfettered access to topnotch veterinary care, the HSTB's abiding love affair with killing cats may ultimately be his undoing. "Euthanasia is a humane way of ending the life of an animal who is suffering from chronic illness, irreparable injury or old age. Euthanasia is not painful to pets but is simply a sensation of falling into a deep, restful sleep," the organization dishonestly carols on its web site. "We offer a peaceful, private environment where our caring and certified euthanasia staff will help you, your pet and your family through the process."

The objections that can be raised to such outlandish balderdash are myriad. First of all, killing cats and other animals under any circumstances is patently immoral and tantamount to the commission of first-degree murders. Despite all of its insanely egotistical protestations to the contrary, absolutely no one has anointed the HSTB with the moral prerogative to commit wholesale murders.

Secondly, chronic diseases and old age are not, as the HSTB falsely claims, valid reasons for killing cats. Thirdly, even what it labels as "irreparable injuries" are little more than matters of opinion that most often are resolved by considerations of money and convenience as opposed to the application of sound principles of veterinary medicine.

Fourthly, it is utterly disgraceful that the HSTB is so money mad that it has chosen to line its pockets with the blood of cats and other animals that it systematically exterminates. Furthermore, it is not only guilty of corrupting and misapplying the odious practice of euthanasia to nonconsenting animals when it should be explicitly reserved for the sole use of consenting adults, but it also is operating a slaughterhouse in the guise of a humane society.

For instance as of October 1st, it claims on its web site to have saved five-thousand-nine-hundred-eighty-six animals so far this year and that equates to a save rate of ninety-one per cent. That alone means that it admittedly has killed off at least nine per cent of the animals, most likely predominantly cats, that have passed through its portals. The toll could be even higher in that it does not specify either if owner-requested killings are included in that tally or exactly how many animals that it has impounded.

It also, like so many shelters, could be outsourcing some of the killing. (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.")

Bart Has Been Scarred for Life but He Lives, at Least for Now

It furthermore claims on its web site to have treated twenty-nine-thousand-seven-hundred-seventeen animals during the first nine months of this year but that is a meaningless statistic without it first divulging not only how many that it has killed through sheer incompetence but, more importantly, the number that it has condemned to premature deaths, not to mention unimaginable suffering, all because their owners were too poor to pony up for their treatment. On the positive side of the ledger, it claims to have performed nearly three-thousand low-cost sterilizations and to be a proponent of TNR.

In the final analysis, however, its appalling disrespect for the sanctity of feline life coupled with its blatant obfuscation of the truth do not bode well for Bart's prospects. That is because his new guardian, long indoctrinated into the commission of such crimes, is unlikely to even think so much as twice about prematurely snuffing out Bart's life whenever he gets either sick or simply grows old.

In at least that one respect he may have fared better if he had remained with Hutson in that it is a foregone conclusion that anyone unwilling to pay for the treatment of a badly-injured cat is not about to fork over good shekels to either a pack of remorseless killers, such as the HSTB, or to some unscrupulous veterinarian in order to whack a cat.

There are not many advantages associated with being relegated to the ranks of the impecunious but the inability to afford to pay unprincipled individuals and institutions to kill off cats is certainly one of the unheralded ones. Besides, money and the power that it bestows upon its possessors are far more often than not used only for baseless self-indulgence and evil.

"Looky here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be," newly flush Huckleberry Finn declared in Mark Twain's 1876 novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."It's just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the time."

Regardless of either how his life unfolds or ends, the world in all likelihood has heard and seen the very last of long-suffering and horribly abused Bart. All that there accordingly is left to do is to celebrate his triumph over outrageous misfortune and his indomitable will to live. Sadly, he is destined to carry with him for as long as he lives the scars and disabilities inflicted upon him by that diabolical monster known as man.

Needless to say, the motorist who came within a hairbreadth of killing him never was apprehended; even more deplorably, the authorities never even bothered to so much as open an investigation into the matter. Hutson likewise never will be punished for either burying him alive or allowing him to suffer so piteously for so long before finally deciding to have him treated.

Regardless of how that what was done to Bart is added up it still comes out as being appalling unjust. Even worse, once his new guardian and the HSTB decide to prematurely snuff out his life that, too, will be every bit as unfair no matter how strenuously they attempt to sugar-coat and spin it.

Photos: Reuters (Bart's injured face and him with a feeding tube), Fox-13 of Tampa (Bart's grave and Hutson), the Humane Society of Tampa Bay (Bart following surgery and in an Elizabethan collar), and Andrea Leiva of the Tampa Bay Times (Bart eating, exclaiming, and today).

John Read with One of His Robotic Cat Grooming Traps

"'Great sport, hunting.'

'The best in the world,' agreed Rainsford.

'For the hunter,' amended Whitney. 'Not for the jaguar.'

'Don't talk rot, Whitney,' said Rainsford. 'You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?'

'Perhaps the jaguar does,' observed Whitney.

'Bah! They've no understanding.'

'Even so, I rather think they understand one thing -- fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death.'

'Nonsense,' laughed Rainsford. 'This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes -- the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters'."

-- Richard Connell, "The Most Dangerous Game."

Over the course of the past several hundred years many individuals and groups have attempted to eradicate cats from the face of the earth but no matter how hard they have tried none of them have succeeded. Now, Professor John Read of the University of Adelaide in the state of South Australia believes that he has discovered their Achilles' heel and with that knowledge he and his cohorts are intent upon succeeding where all others so far have failed.

In order to achieve that objective, he has turned the tables on the species by transforming their penchant for cleanliness into their Waterloos with the invention of his robotic grooming traps. Seven years in development, the traps employ audio recordings of female cats in estrus, rats squealing, and birds in distress as well as a liberal smattering of feline urine and feces in order to lure in their victims.

Not true traps in the sense of that word in that cats do not need to actually enter them; in fact, the traps' sophisticated lasers are capable of not only detecting their presence from as far away as four to five meters but of positively identifying them as cats as well. They therefore function much more like the blinds used by deer hunters and others than they do as actual traps.

Once cats come within range, the traps automatically fire syringes loaded with either sodium monofluroacetate (1080) or paraaminopropiophenone (PAPP) at them. When they then instinctively attempt to lick off the poisonous gel they unwittingly seal their fates.

Simple yet "beautiful," is how that he described the traps' design to the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) on April 20, 2016. (See "State-of-the-Art Technology Targets Feral Cats in the Outback.")"When we have a cat-sized animal walking past them the grooming trap (sic) sprays a measured dose of toxin onto the fur. Cats are very fastidious groomers so they lick (the gel) off and walk away and die peacefully. The trap then automatically resets itself with twenty loaded syringes."

Although there cannot be any denying that Read is a clever chap, that is only half the story in that he also is a sadistic and remorseless killer without so much as an iota of decency in his black soul. Even more important than that, he is a bare-faced liar!

First of all, 1080 is a metabolic poison that shuts down a cat's Krebs cycle by causing cells to die and its blood to turn to acid. Some of the symptoms commonly associated with its ingestion include, inter alia, nausea, vomiting, salivation, abdominal pain, sweating, urination, defecation, confusion, agitation, irregular heartbeats, twitching, seizures, convulsions, frenzied behavior, and hyperesthesia (an acute sense of pain, heat, cold, and touch).

Cats eventually lose consciousness before lapsing into comas where they die of heart and respiratory failure. Even then, the dying process can take as long as twenty-four hours.

PAPP works in a similar fashion and is every bit as painful to its victims as 1080. Developed by Professor Linton Staples of Animal Control Technologies Australia of Melbourne with the assistance and support of, not surprisingly, the Australian Wool Innovation and the federal government in Canberra, it converts hemoglobin into methemoglobin, a form of nitrate poisoning, which cuts off the cats' oxygen supply. They then turn blue due to a lack of oxygen in the blood (cyanosis) and become lethargic before dying.

The only advantage that it is touted to have over 1080 is that it allegedly is capable of suffocating a cat to death within an hour although some studies have shown the poison to take more than four hours in order to kill one. None of that has in any way dissuaded Staples from trumpeting the same outrageous lies about it as Read.

"The cause of death is actually a lack of oxygen," he told the ABC on June 10, 2016. (See "Wild Dogs: First New Bait Released in Fifty Years to Tackle Australia's Rural Pest.")"The animal just falls down, gets tired, goes to sleep and dies."

John Read with One of the Many Cats That He Has Killed

Quite obviously there is absolutely nothing humane about either poison. In fact, both are barbaric and hideous chemicals to use on any creature.

Other than serving to help slake Read's insatiable lust for feline blood, his grooming traps are not without their financial and labor-saving appeal. "Unlike a conventional trap you don't have to go and shoot or gas the cat, you don't have to contain it at all," he gloated to the ABC in the April 20th article cited supra. "Ethnically it's a lot better than having a cat caught in a leg-holder (sic) trap or a cage trap for many hours, and you don't have to go around and check the traps all the time."

C'est-à-dire, the traps are a lazy and stingy man's method of killing cats in that all that remains for him and his partner in the commission of these unconscionable crimes, spouse Katherine Moseby who also struts, preens, and gases for the University of Adelaide, to do is to collect the dead bodies. Suffice it to say but for a diabolical monster like him to be taking on about ethics would be a hoot if his crimes were not so horrific.

Nevertheless, the traps are already in use in Venus Bay Conservation Park as well as Wilipena in South Australia, the Pullen Pullen Reserve in western Queensland, and on Kangaroo Island, one-hundred-twelve kilometers southwest of Adelaide. Plus, once Reed and his cohorts finish off the cats they next plan on training the grooming traps on red foxes.

"A fox is a fairly similar shape to a cat, but with a bit longer legs, so the same sensors will get a fox as well, but in some early trials we found the foxes did not groom the whole dose off," he lamented to the ABC on August 4, 2016. (See "Grooming Feral Cat Traps Proving South Australian Invention a Top Idea.")"We are in the pen where I have been putting some foxes and trialling different flavors to see if a bit of shrimp or beef or liver entice them to groom a bit more thoroughly. So ideally we would have something that could get both foxes and cats, but keep our dogs and native animals safe."

Although the cutthroat Australians have been poisoning cats and other animals with 1080 for as long as perhaps World War II, it was not until late 2007 that the Australian RSPCA (ARSPCA) of Deakin, outside of Canberra, finally saw the light. "Based on the evidence available, our conclusion is that animals affected by 1080 do not die a (sic) quick  and humane death (sic); rather they suffer a range of potentially painful and distressing symptoms, often over a period of hours," the organization's Miranda Sherley stated in a November 15, 2007 press release. (See "1080 Is Not a Humane Poison: International Journal Publishes RSPCA Paper.")"We can no longer kid ourselves that 1080 is an acceptable option; we urgently need to focus efforts on finding ways to make 1080 more humane, or otherwise finding more humane ways to control pest animals."

On the one hand, although Sherley's epiphany came way too late she and the ARSPCA are to be commended for belatedly coming somewhat to their senses. On the other hand, her assertion that 1080 ever could be made more humane can only be labeled as a prime example of either wishful thinking or outright mendacity.

Secondly, it is the height of dishonesty for her to claim that there is any humane way of killing any animal. Thirdly, the only true pests in this world are those monsters that strut about on two legs. Much more to the point, for an organization charged with protecting animals Sherley's comments in that regard are an abomination.

Every bit as appalling, the conversion that she and her colleagues at the ARSPCA profess to have undergone lasted only about as long as it takes a supposedly recovering alcoholic to sprint from a detoxification center to the nearest liquor store. That is because when it came to finding a so-called humane alternative to 1080 that it could endorse the organization did not even bother to look beyond its own upturned nose.

"We believe from the available evidence that PAPP is a more humane alternative to 1080, but we are still waiting for a full humaneness assessment to be conducted," the organization's Bidda Jones told the ABC in the June 10, 2016 article cited supra.

The ARSPCA's equivocation can be easily explained by its membership on the government's Feral Cat Task Force which is overseeing its all-out war on cats. Furthermore, given that 1080 is still being used extensively by all conservation groups, municipalities, national parks, and pastoral stations, its denouncement of it is not to be taken seriously.

The attitude shown by the capitalist media down under toward cats has been every bit as reprehensible as that of Read, Staples, and the ARSPCA in that they seem to think that killing them in such a hideous fashion is something of a lark. "Cleanliness may be next to godliness unless you're a feral cat, in which case, cleanliness may get you a place next to god. In kitty heaven," is how morally bankrupt Nicky Phillips of The Sydney Morning Herald joked about Read's devilry on November 7, 2014. (See "Dying to Be Clean: The New Technique for Controlling Feral Cats.")

Linton Staples

Long before Read had racked his warped gourd in order to come up with his lethal grooming traps, both 1080 and PAPP were being used to eradicate cats on both the mainland as well as on many of the continent's eight-thousand-two-hundred-twenty-two islands. The usually preferred method of killing them is to lace sausages comprised of seventy per cent kangaroo meat, twenty per cent chicken fat, and ten per cent digestive and flavor enhancers with the poisons and then to dangle them from tree limbs.

Those that are laced with 1080 are usually sold under the brand name Eradicat® and they have been successfully used at least thirty-nine locations throughout the country including on Dirk Hartog Island, the Gibson Desert and the Peron Peninsula in the state of Western Australia, and on the islands of Cocos (Keeling), located in the Indian Ocean south of Java, Tasman off the coast of Tasmania, North West, seventy-five kilometers northeast of Gladstone in Queensland, Hermite in the Montebello Chain, Gabo Island off of Victoria, and French Island, sixty kilometers south of Melbourne in Victoria's Western Port Bay. (See the ABC, December 14, 2015, "Dirk Hartog Island Close to Full Pest Eradication, Ahead of Four-Hundredth Anniversary" and The Western Australian of Perth, December 7, 2014, "Watch Out Pussycat! Western Australia Trials 1080 Bait.")

The Australians likewise are perilously close to eradicating cats on the former Singaporean island of Christmas, east of the Cocos (Keeling) chain. Specifically, at least twenty-thousand of the poisoned sausages were planted last year on the island. (See The Straits Times of Singapore, November 22, 2015, "Christmas Island Winning War Against Feral Cats," the ABC, September 29, 2014, "Christmas Island Is Waging War on Feral Cats to Save Threatened Native Animals," and The Australian of Surry Hills in New South Wales, August 12, 2014, "Christmas Island Wages War on Feral Cats Threatening Native Wildlife.")

When laced with PAPP, these sausages are sold under the contemptuous brand name of Curiosity® as in "it was curiosity that killed the cat." In addition to Western Australia, they have been used in order to kill cats on Kangaroo Island and at countless other locations as well. (See The Sydney Morning Herald, July 1, 2014, "'Curiosity': the Cat-Killing Bait to Protect Native Species" and Cat Defender post of August 11, 2005 entitled "Barbaric Australians Come Up with an Ingenious New Poison in Order to Exterminate Cats.")

Whenever she is not dutifully trudging along behind her hubby when he is setting his grooming traps, Moseby is busily working on developing toxic microchips. These so-called "toxic Trojan horses" are to be implanted, not in cats, but rather in species, such as quolls, that she and her fellow thugs are championship.

Accordingly, whenever they are attacked the chips break open and kill the cats while leaving their hosts unharmed. The identity of the toxin that the Australians have come up with in order to achieve that delicate balance has not been publicly identified. (See Takepart of Beverly Hills, August 14, 2015, "Australia Targets Wildlife-Killing Cats with Toxic Microchips.")

Over the course of the next ten to twenty years, the Australians also are intent upon infecting cats with some kind of as of yet unspecified viral agent that will wipe them out in one full swoop but such an approach is fraught with many uncertainties as well as wholesale dangers. "We have to make sure that anything we do is safe and targeted because there are plenty of examples of biological controls which have not just failed but have been deeply counterproductive," the chief architect of Australia's all-out war on cats, former Environment Minister Greg Hunt, pontificated to The Australian on June 2, 2014. (See "Greg Hunt Calls for Eradication of Feral Cats That Kill Seventy-Five Million Animals a Night.")"So in the way that the Hippocratic Oath starts with the message of 'do no harm' that has to be the message with regards to any medium term biological control."

Needless to say but by that Hunt is referring to safeguarding the well-being and lives of only those species that he and his fellow villains favor. Whenever it comes to cats and other animals whose presence is no longer wanted, the sky is the limit as to the cruelties that he is willing to inflict upon them.

In fact, the barbaric Australians are old hands when it comes to employing biological warfare against all sorts of species. For example, they have been killing rabbits with myxomatosis since 1938 and in 1968 they introduced the European rabbit flea, Spilopsyllus cuniculi, in order to spread it to the rabbit population on Macquarie Island, south of Tasmania. (See Dana M. Bergstrom et alii, Journal of Applied Ecology, volume 46, number 1, January 13, 2009, "Indirect Effects of Invasive Species Removal Devastate World Heritage Island," The Independent of London, February 26, 2007, "Macquarie's Feral Cats: A Delicate Ecological Balance," The Examiner.com, March 17, 2009, Environmentalists Love Birds So Much They Decide to Kill One-Hundred-Thousand Rabbits," and Cat Defender post of September 21, 2006 entitled "Aussies' Mass Extermination of Cats Opens the Door for Mice and Rabbits to Wreak Havoc on Macquarie.")

They additionally have been liberally infecting the species with the Rabbit Calicivirus Disease (RCD) from as far back as 1991 but since the animals have been able to develop immunities to it that has forced them into developing ever new strains of the killer. "What that's (the rabbit eradication biological pipeline plan) trying to do is recognize that we have to put out new strains of the rabbit calicivirus at key points, to keep numbers low, rather than just waiting for numbers to bounce back, going into crisis mode and then trying to do what we can," Andreas Glanzig of the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre (IACRC) at the University of Canberra told the ABC on November 25, 2015. (See "Rabbit Control Plan Plays the Long Game to Contain Devastating Pest, Protect Threatened Species.")"What the twenty-year plan is all about is making sure we've got new strains of calicivirus coming out every five to eight years, so that when the effectiveness of one strain starts to decrease we've got a new rabbit bio-agent ready to go."

Instead of using homeless cats in order to keep the rabbit population in check and thus to avoid another ecological catastrophe such as the one that occurred on Macquarie, the Australians are hellbent upon eradicating both species by any means that presents itself to them. "So tackling rabbits can also help us to tackle feral cats, which are the single biggest threat to our mammals," Threatened Species Commissioner Gregory Andrews added to the ABC in the same article. "By working on tackling feral cats and rabbits together, we can save at least three-hundred unique Australian animals."

Scientists additionally have invented a strain of the herpes virus known as cyrinid herpesvirus 3 that they plan on introducing into the nation's rivers sometime in 2018 in order to kill off carp. Dubbed as carpageddon by the fun-loving, albeit morally bankrupt, capitalist media, the authorities are counting on the virus to kill between seventy and eighty per cent of the fish without simultaneously adversely affecting more prized aquatic species.

Like all agents used in biological warfare, cyrinid herpes 3 is an especially nasty killer. Specifically, it attacks the kidneys, skin, and gills of the fish and, like 1080, PAPP, and myxomatosis, shuts off their supply of oxygen.

Once infected, it takes the virus up to seven days in order to multiply and thus to spread throughout their systems. Even following the onset of the first symptoms, it takes at least twenty-four hours for the fish to die.

Katherine Moseby Proudly Displays Another of Her Many Victims

Unwilling to even so much as acknowledge either the humongous toll in innocent lives that he is going to be taking or the unprecedented amount of suffering that he will be inflicting upon the carp, federal science minister Christopher Pyne is instead training his misshapen gourd on more mundane concerns. "As you can imagine there is a lot of work to be done in preparation," he confided to the New Scientist on May 3, 2016. (See "Australia to Destroy Alien Carp by Releasing Herpes into Rivers.")"Because suddenly, there will be literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tons, of carp that will be dead...So we have to have a clean-up program."

His attitude is not really all that surprising in that once the politicians and the totally unprincipled professors and scientists who stooge for them have taken away an animal's birthright and declared it to be a national pest, it is just a matter of time before they systematically eradicate it. Consequently, the only thing positive that can be said about this garbage disposal expert's callousness is that he, at least so far, is not falsely claiming that the dead fish are going to be given to the poor.

That is precisely the outrageous lie that Orthodox Jews have been propagating for millenniums in regard to the tens of thousands of doomed US$2 chickens that they fob off on penitents for as much as US$27 apiece each year during the Yom Kippur celebration of Kaparot. Of course, neither the poor nor anyone else ever sees any of that meat in that right after they have slit the helpless birds' throats the Jews nonchalantly toss their remains into the nearest Dumpster. (See The Los Angeles Times, October 11, 2016, "Federal Judge Lifts Temporary Ban on Ritual Slaughter of Chickens, Minutes Before Start of Yom Kippur" and National Public Radio's The World, October 12, 2016, "My Sins Are Cleared for the Year, but the Chicken Wasn't So Lucky.")

Exactly what other types of deadly biological controls that the scientists within Australia's thoroughly discredited degree mills and governmental agencies have up their dirty sleeves has not been revealed but if cyrinid herpes 3 is any indication of what is to come they will be equally hideous, clever and, above add, deadly. For the sake of the animals, the best that can be hoped for is that one of their forays into biological warfare will backfire on them before too many more innocent animals are killed and instead wipe them from the face of the earth while simultaneously sparing the lives of their intended victims.

Although such a devoutly wished dénouement never would be able to fully make amends for all the evil deeds that they have committed against the animal kingdom, it would be preeminently just. In the meantime, they still have at their disposal an array of old-fashioned means with which to kill cats.

For instance, the Queensland Environmental Department shot and killed three-thousand of them in Astrebla Downs National Park during 2013 and 2014. Based solely upon that tally, the number of them that are currently being gunned down throughout the country on both the ground and from the air surely must be in the tens of thousands at the very least. (See the Brisbane Times, May 9, 2016, "New Hope for Endangered Bilbies, Night Parrots.")

On Kangaroo Island, twenty-two-year-old Zach "Shaggy" Slattery and Aaron Wilksch have been having a high old time of it cutting down cats with crossbows. In fact, Slattery is so proud of his atrocities that he published photographs of his kills online last December.

In the wake of the international outrage that ensued, Slattery at first seemed to have been taken aback. "I've had death threats, like people coming to shoot me, hang me, skin me, and use me as a bathroom rug," he later complained to the Daily Mail of London on February 24, 2016. (See "Man Who Shoots Feral Cats with a Bow and Arrow and Posts Pictures of His Kills Online Gets Death Threats for His 'Animal Cruelty'.")

It did not take him long, however, to recover from his initial shock and in turn to go on the offensive by labeling his detractors as ignoramuses who should be thanking him for performing a public service. "It's just that some people don't understand the efforts and shots we make are one-hundred per cent humane, ninety-nine per cent of the time," he added to the Daily Mail."With a bow it's quite sudden. You're going for shock and blood loss, so it's quite quick."

Surprisingly enough the ABC, which from the outset has functioned as Hunt's and Andrews' number one cheerleader, decided to take Slattery upon on his assertions and accordingly accompanied him and Wilksch on one of their killing sprees. Over the course of an afternoon, presumably sometime in February, one of Rupert Murdoch's scribes witnessed the duo shoot at and miss two cats while wounding a third one which disappeared into the brush and never was found again, either dead or alive.

In spite of that direct refutation of his earlier assertions, Slattery afterwards was still humming the same old tune. "It's not so much that it takes longer to die. It's just that they'll go somewhere where they can just quickly hide," he vowed to the ABC on February 24, 2016. (See "Bow Hunter Targeted with Global Hate Campaign for Shooting Feral Cats in Australia.")"It'd (the wounded cat) be well and truly expired by now. It's just (a question of) trying to find it under the thicket."

For whatever it is worth, Andrews later denied that Slattery and Wilksch were employed by the Australian government. "My office has had no contact with them, and when I met the mayor and the Natural Resources Management chair and the community there, I was advised they are not employed by any organization or the community to cull feral cats," he declared to the ABC on March 13, 2016. (See "Bow Hunting of Feral Cats Is Cruel and 'Not Part of the Strategy,' Threatened Species Commissioner Says.")"The Australian government does not support bow hunting. We only support humane, effective and justifiable feral cat culling, and that's why (former) Minister Hunt and I invited the RSPCA to be a member of the Feral Cat Task Force which oversees the feral cat target."

The Mastermind Behind Australia's All-Out War on Cats, Greg Hunt

Whereas it is entirely conceivable that Slattery and Wilksch were killing the cats on their own time and for the sheer pleasure of doing so, that does not seem likely. Besides, The Mirror of London stated emphatically on March 7, 2016 that they were indeed employees of the Australian government. (See "Anonymous Declares War on 'Cat Killer' Who Admits to Slaughtering Moggies with a Bow and Arrow.")

As far as Andrews' assertion that the authorities only support the humane killing of cats is concerned that, quite obviously, is pure drivel. The only thing that concerns him is that the killers went online and exposed for all the outside world to see a tiny bit of what is going on down under. By contrast, the horrendous crimes that Read, Moseby, Staples, and others are engaged in perpetrating against cats are occurring far from the prying eyes of the maddening crowds and thus escape both censure and ever becoming part of public consciousness.

It is, after all, one thing to read about cruelty to cats in the abstract but an altogether different matter to see it up front and in living, blood-red, color. Only by hiding their atrocities from the outside world while simultaneously demonizing the species through their outrageous lies are the likes of Andrews, Hunt, and their adherents still able to keep up the pretense that they are anything other than the worst monsters to ever have trodden upon the face of the earth.

In addition to employing its own killers, the government is relying upon farmers, ranchers, and shooting clubs, such as the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, to travel around the continent killing cats. These groups even stage contests and offer bounties to those individuals who kill the largest number of cats. (See Cat Defender post of January 6, 2006 entitled "DNA Tests Confirm Big Cat Killed in Australia Was a Feral Tabby and Not a Puma.")

In their full court press against cats, the Australians have vowed not to leave any stone unturned and that includes outsourcing their dirty work to other animals. First and foremost among them has been their widespread use of the species' oldest nemeses, dogs.

For instance in the Arnhem Land section of the Northern Territory, Hugh McGregor of the University of Tasmania in Hobart is employing a specially bred and trained English Springer Spaniel named Sally and a Catahoula dubbed Brangul in order to track down cats. Once the muzzled dogs corner the cats, he attaches GPS satellite radio collars and video cameras to them and the data gleaned from them is used in order to develop and implement strategies designed to eliminate them and their mates. (See United Press International, August 31, 2016, "Dogs Help Australian Scientists Catch Cats" and the Northern Territory News of Darwin, October 14, 2013, "Scientists Call in the Dogs to Control Pests.")

In mountainous regions of the country, other spaniels are being used in order to pick up the scents of the cats. Traps are then set in those areas where they have been and those that later are snared are immediately shot on sight. (See the ABC, January 22, 2016, "Sniffer Dogs Helping Fight to Save Endangered Mountain Pygmy Possums from Feral Cats.")

Even wild dogs, outlaws in their own native land, are being called upon to kill cats. For example, with the full support of the Australian Dingo Foundation (ADF) of Gisborne in Victoria, they are scheduled to be reintroduced into Eynesbury Forest in the state of Victoria in order to hunt rabbits and foxes as well as cats.

In the meantime, four sterilized dingoes have been released on Pelorus Island, off the northern coast of Queensland, in order to eradicate three-hundred goats. In a sickeningly Machiavellian forerunner of Moseby toxic microchips, tablets containing 1080 have been implanted in them that are timed to break open and kill them after the two-year period allotted them to get rid of the goats expires. Only an individual as cunning as Cesare Borgia could appreciate such perfidy.

That latest bit of devilry is in response to the catastrophe that occurred on Townshend Island, off the coast of Queensland, in 1993 when dingoes were used to eradicate the goats living there. The dogs did their job all right but in the aftermath of the carnage it took the Australians more than a decade in order to kill off them.

Before that happens on Pelorus, local authorities have vowed to shoot the dingoes but that does not appear to be likely in that even Ramon Jayo, mayor of Hinchinbrook Shire in northern Queensland which released them, is on record as stating that it has proven "pretty impossible" to shoot even the goats owing to the island's heavily forested terrain and shooting wild dogs will be unquestionably more difficult. Besides, the frugal Australians are not about to spend the kind of money that they did earlier on Lord Howe Island, off the coast of New South Wales, where they finally broke down and employed both aerial and ground sharpshooters in order to wipe out a herd of goats.

Although there scarcely can be any denying whatsoever that the Australians are moral degenerates without so much as a scintilla of regard for the sanctity of animal life in their bones, it nevertheless is nothing short of mind-blowing how that they do their sums. For instance, Lyn Watson of the ADF sees absolutely nothing wrong with dingoes killing cats, foxes, and rabbits but, typically, she claims that it is immoral for the authorities to kill dingoes.

Gregory Andrews Is Extremely Proud of all the Cats That He Has Killed

In spite of the dingoes obliteration of the goats on Townshend, she additionally is now claiming that they are much too lazy for the arduous job given to them on Pelorus. "A dingo killing a rabbit is a very quick death, less than a minute. It's a quicker death," she caroled to the ABC on July 27, 2016. (See "RSPCA Wants to Stop 'Cruel' Dingo Cull of Feral Goats on Great Barrier Island.")"But if you put them into killing goats I don't think that's going to happen. They're too big for them to waste energy on to get a feed when there's something smaller."

Like an ill wind that never blows any good, the thoroughly despicable ARSPCA, which does not have any reservations whatsoever about what is now being done to cats, is crying a proverbial river for the goats and dingoes on Pelorus Island. "By sticking some wild dogs in a situation where those goats will be eaten, partly eaten and then left to die a (sic) horrible painful death (sic) is the wrong attitude for 2016," the organization's Mark Townsend blowed to the ABC on July 27th.

From there he went on to show his and the ARSPCA's true colors. "We have no problem with the control of feral animals. But we have to kill those feral animals in a humane way," he added. "We need to make sure that the council uses sharpshooters or whatever other method, rather than this very cruel method."

The ARSPCA certainly is well-acquainted with the subject matter in that it does not have any qualms whatsoever about gunning down cats itself. Few civilized individuals, however, would agree with its ludicrous claim that doing so is humane. (See Cat Defender post of April 22, 2008 entitled "Australian RSPCA Sells Out by Readily Agreeing to Gun Down Charles Sturt's Defenseless Rock Cats.")

The Pelorus cull is not without its supporters, however, and Dr. Ray Nias of the South Pacific Program for Island Conservation of Santa Cruz is already salivating over the money to be saved. "It could be quite a game-changer in how we go about the business of removing goats from islands," he crowed to the ABC. "If there are cheaper techniques which are as effective, such as the one that's being talked about for Pelorus, this could dramatically increase the number of islands around the world we could potentially remove goats from."

The Australian Conservation Foundation of Carlton in Victoria has likewise endorsed the slaughter but with a half-hearted sop to the dingoes. "It would be preferable that it is not at the destruction of these dingoes which they are using for that," the organization's Andrew Picone groused to the ABC. "It seems the dingo is being treated simply as a pest control unit and not given the respect of a native species which we believe it is."

Guy Ballard and Peter Fleming of The Conversation of Boston are equally equivocal in their assessment of the atrocities currently being perpetrated on Pelorus. "Some people find the notion of dingo-based pest control acceptable, even appealing, others do not," they wrote in the August 7, 2016 edition of the online journal. (See "Death by Dingo: Outsourcing Pest Control Raises Uncomfortable Questions.")"Just as society expects that we carefully assess the use of poisons, traps or bullets, so too we should consider the welfare impacts of outsourcing death to dingoes and making them our tools of ecosystem management."

In even venturing to voice that narrowly circumscribed objection, the authors have badly missed the mark in their analysis. As the events currently unfolding in Australia are demonstrating, few if any serious objections are ever raised against the use of poisons, traps, bullets, biological warfare, and all other means employed in order to kill large numbers of animals.

In reality, all legitimate animal rights activists are totally excluded from the decision-making processes during which these totally immoral and inhumane slaughters are hatched and implemented. For instance, all legitimate cat advocacy groups have been systematically excluded from having any say whatsoever in Australia's all-out war on the species; only unscrupulous frauds like ARSPCA are allowed to participate.

Plus, it is ludicrous for Ballard and Fleming to complain about species-on-species warfare and yet to remain totally silent concerning man's countless wars upon the animals. At least under the former scenario the intended victims have some, but not much, chance of prevailing for at least a short period of time whereas, as history has shown time and time again, no animal has any legitimate chance against men who are determined to eradicate it.

Even the much maligned and perennially mistreated Tasmanian Devils are being recruited in order to be used against cats and foxes. In particular, current plans call for some of them to be forcibly returned from Tasmania to their ancestral homes on the mainland with the first such release scheduled to take place in Wilsons (sic) Promontory National Park in Victoria. (See the ABC, October 27, 2014, "Plan to Eradicate Cats.")

Later releases are planned for the Mount Rothwell Conservation Centre, near Melbourne, as well as throughout all of Victoria. (See The Age of Melbourne, July 10, 2015, "Mount Rothwell: the Feral Free Incubator for Victoria's Lost Species.")

With their ranks already decimated by the incurable and highly contagious Devil Facial Tumor Disease, the snarling marsupials very well could be extinct in the wild themselves within as short a period of time as a decade. As a hedge against such an eventuality, the Devil Ark at Barrington Tops in New South Wales has bred in captivity one-hundred-sixty-five of them, thirty of which have been sterilized for release on the mainland. (See The Sydney Morning Herald, November 16, 2015, "Island Hop: Experts Call for Release of Tasmanian Devils on Mainland to Save the Species.")

Zach "Shaggy" Slattery Draws a Bead on Another Cat

"I support releasing Tasmanian Devils in mainland Australia," Rick Shine of the University of Sydney declared to the Scientific American on October 15, 2014. (See "A Wild Idea: Save Tasmanian Devils while Controlling Killer Cats.")"They belong here. We wiped them out and we have the opportunity to release them and hopefully save them from the tumor disease."

It is superfluous to point out but sterilizing devils before releasing them into the wild is not about to save the species from extinction. Moreover, even in Tasmania they are routinely mowed down by motorists, killed by dogs, and poisoned by residents.

Since they undoubtedly are going to face the same identical obstacles on the mainland, that leads to the inevitable conclusion that they, like dingoes and other so-called native species, are being recruited by the mendacious Australians as just another throwaway species to serve in their war against cats. With that being the case, perhaps their best hope for persevering lies, not in rewilding, but rather in an old folks' home called the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary that has been established for them in Brighton, outside of Hobart. (See The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 17, 2016, "Haven for Retired Tasmanian Devils.")

The Australians' willingness to so hideously exploit native species, such as dingoes and devils, in order to kill cats and other domestic animals that they imported centuries ago puts the lie to the dishonest distinction that they and all wildlife biologists are fond of making between indigenous and alien species. The ugly truth of the matter is that every one of these twenty-four karat phonies is willing to kill any animal provided only that they are handsomely compensated for doing so.

"Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country, takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him. Man has done this in all the ages," Mark Twain had the courage to point out in his 1896 essay, "The Lowest Animal.""There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle after cycle, by force and bloodshed."

Even kangaroos have not escaped the Australians' lust for animal blood. For example, culls are held annually and, in particular, at least two-thousand of them were scheduled to have been slaughtered, presumably by riflemen, between May and August of this year. Their remains are then used in order to provide an almost endless supply of free meat with which to poison cats. (See the International Business Times of New York, May 16, 2016, "After Feral Cats, Australia to Cull Two-Thousand Kangaroos.")

Furthermore, at least seven-hundred koalas, another native species, were systematically slaughtered in the southeastern part of the country during the first half of 2015 allegedly because overpopulation had led to some of them being on the brink of starvation. (See The Telegraph, July 22, 2015, "Brigitte Bardot Condemns Australia's Plan to Kill Two Million Feral Cats.")

In order to succeed, any large scale eradication project first requires detailed data on, at least the very least, the personalities, behavioral characteristics, and habitats of the intended victims and in that regard the Australians have been greatly assisted in the commission of their wholesale crimes against cats and other animals by fairly recent developments that have been made in surveillance technology. For example, GPS radio collars and cameras as well as motion-activated hidden cameras on the ground are forcing unsuspecting felines into revealing the very same information that is enabling their enemies to eradicate them.

Although these snooping devices are being used extensively against cats throughout the country, the Australians have been particularly successful with them in the state of Western Australia and on its nearby island Dirk Hartog. (See The West Australian of Osborne Park, October 16, 2016, "Covert Cameras Expose Perth's Feral Pest Problem," Nine-News of Willoughby in New South Wales, October 16, 2016, "Days Look Numbered for Most Wanted Feral Cat," the ABC, September 9, 2015, "Here, Kitty, Kitty: University of Western Australia in Albany to Affix Collars to Feral Cats," and Mother Nature Network, May 9, 2016, "Feral Cats in Australia Kill Seven Animals Per Day. Researchers Strap Cameras on Strays to Track Their Patterns.")

Data gleaned from satellites owned and operated by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are also being used in order to locate their hiding places and in turn to eradicate them. (See Live Science, October 2, 2015, "Tracking Cats from Space: Satellites Estimate Feral Ranges.")

Drones are already being deployed in Queensland against pigs, deer, and goats and the Australians soon hope to be able to also go after cats with them. Not only would the data harvested from these unmanned flights save the authorities a packet on helicopter reconnaissance, but it also would be used in order to allow the authorities to more proficiently poison and shoot them. (See The Courier Mail of Brisbane in Queensland, November 11, 2015, "Drones Could Be Used to Fight Fires, Pests, Says Agriculture Minister Bill Byrne.")

There is even a Feral Cat Scan app that citizens are being encouraged to utilize in order to rat out footloose felines. Those individuals who are willing to do their own dirty work, kill the cats and then post selfies of their brutalities in the app's photo gallery. Others simply call in the authorities to do their bloodletting for them.

Slattery with the Corpse of a Cat That He Killed with His Crossbow

The app is known to be in use in Tasmania, on Kangaroo Island, and sans doute throughout the continent as well. (See Stock and Land, a publication of Fairfax Media in Sydney, November 9, 2015, "Tasmanians Urged to Take Up Feral Cat Scan App," and the Huffington Post, December 11, 2015, "The Cat and the App: How Technology Down Under Is Killing Cats.")

From their relentless spying, the Australians are now claiming that even deadly and destructive wildfires are actually beneficial to cats and they, not surprisingly, are now endeavoring to once again turn the tables on the species like Read has done with his robotic grooming traps. Their new strategy entails deliberately igniting smaller conflagrations that they hope to be able to contain as a means of staving off more catastrophic ones which destroy even greater portions of the habitats of the animals that they, allegedly, are intent upon safeguarding.

Such a shortsighted plan fails to take into consideration, however, that any wildfire, no matter how small, not only kills protective species as well as cats but it also destroys their habitats, food supplies, and hiding places. Besides, intentionally setting any portion of the country's already parched tundra ablaze is a risky proposition under any circumstances. (See Live Science, May 17, 2016, "Australian Wildfires Provide Surprise Boom for Hunting Cats.")

Conspicuously absent from the profuse output of anti-cat propaganda being disseminated by governmental officials, the degree mills, and phony-baloney wildlife advocates has been any mention whatsoever of either the adverse effects that human activities, such as coal mining and burning, oil and gas exploration, sheep and cattle grazing, agriculture, logging, and the widespread use of pesticides, herbicides, and cat poisons, are having on the continent's fragile ecology. Au contraire, earlier this year the government strong-armed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Environment Program into redacting a section of a report that was highly critical of the impact that climate change is having on some of its World Heritage sites, such as the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, and the Tasmanian Wilderness Area (TWA).

The problem with the Great Barrier Reef is that it currently is undergoing significant coral bleaching which, unless abated, will ultimately lead to its death. Instead of tackling this pressing environmental concern Australia, already the world's fourth largest coal producer, is planning on doing the exact opposite by expanding mining, dredging, and shipping activities near the reef.

It also dearly covets the beaucoup bucks that tourists shell out each year in order to visit the reef and that is another reason why that it had the United Nations' report censored. Along those same lines it goes almost without saying that if cats were caught so much as looking cross-eyed at their precious reef the Australians would be killing them right and left in a nanosecond and for a pretty penny to boot.

In Kakadu, invasive grasses, water buffaloes, pigs, cane toads, and brumbies (wild horses) have been singled out for censure but the real culprit is mining. As far as the TWA is concerned, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott attempted in 2014 to have its World Heritage status revoked so that he could turn over the area, one fifth of Tasmania, to loggers.

Just as it is the case with their supposedly great love for native species, the Australians bloated pronouncements on the environment are always heavily tinged with the musty and unmistakable smell of monetary considerations. Just as some individuals are said to be totally incapable of ever drawing so much as a sober breath, the same is likewise true of the Australians and their insatiable lust for shekels.

"Australia is the only inhabited continent that is not featured in the report," Will Steffen of the Australian National University in Canberra superfluously pointed out to The New York Times on May 28, 2016. (See "Australia Gets Some Bad News from United Nations' Study.")"Information is the currency of democracy, and the idea that government officials would exert pressure to censor scientific information on our greatest national treasure (the reef) is extremely disturbing."

Although his comments are precisely the type of self-serving sottise that is to be expected from an entrenched member of the political establishment who has been excluded from the decision-making process, Steffen most assuredly is astute enough to fully realize that the volume of disinformation that circulates within any given society clearly outdistances its opposite by a good country mile. Likewise, it is always hackneyed opinions and special interests that masquerade as public policy just as lies and moral depravity serve as substitutes for the truth and morality.

A good example of that is to be found in the Australians' eagerness to sell protected species down the river for a buck. For example in early 2010, they sold out several such species that were then living on predator-free Barrow Island, off the coast of Western Australia, to a consortium made up of the Australian subsidies of Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell so that they could construct the A$45 billion Gorgon gas project.

Initially, two-hundred-forty-five golden bandicoots, forty-one boodies, eighty-four spectacled hare wallabies, and eighty-eight possums were removed. Over the course of the following twelve years, the oil companies are scheduled to give the boot to at least one-thousand animals per annum.

Slattery Proudly Displayed His Trophies on Social Media

Some of those that were uprooted were relocated to Hermit Island in the Montebello chain where the sands are still radioactive as the result of atomic bomb testing that was conducted there during the 1950's. Others were taken to Lorna Glen Station in the northern goldfields and the Cape Range National Park in Exmouth.

Although it has not been publicly specified what eradications were carried out on the Montebello Islands and in the Cape Range National Park, Lorna Glen was pretty much cleared of foxes and fifteen per cent of the cats were eliminated in anticipation of the arrival of these protected species. "We have virtually eradicated foxes at Lorna Glen. We barely see a fox there, and in terms of feral cats we have reduced their densities to about eighty-five per cent," Neil Burrows of the Department of Environment and Conservation bragged to Fox News on February 22, 2010. (See "Australia Relocates Mammals to Radioactive Island.")"We have thinned them out but we haven't eradicated them."

Like two diseased peas shelled from the same rotten pod, it is only fitting that the Australians and the oil companies would be united in both their insatiable greed and unquenchable thirst for feline blood. (See Cat Defender post of April 7, 2010 entitled "Although Rich as Croesus, Chevron Has Only Peanuts to Offer the Two-Hundred Cats Who Live at Its Refinery in El Segundo.")

Another disturbing component of the Australians' cat-killing methodology is the glaring absence of so much as a scintilla of respect for the vanquished and that is demonstrated writ large not only in their unwillingness to provide them with proper burials but their macabre practice of transforming their corpses into guinea pigs. These unholy dissections are performed not only in order to use the inventories of their abdomens for propaganda purposes and research papers to be published in their so-called scholarly journals but also to assist their killers in perfecting their eradication schemes.

In addition to the scores of cats that Read and Moseby have been dissecting for decades, Tim Doherty of Edith Rowan University in Joondalup, the Northern Territory, is calling upon shooters and trappers to collect stomach and feces samples from their victims so that the staff at the Department of Land Resource Management (DLRM) can perform analyses on them. (See the ABC, January 30, 2014, "Feral Cat Scats Collected for Research.")

As of November of 2015, the DLRM's Danielle Stokeld already had cut up the corpses of at least thirty cats that she had slaughtered in Gregory National Park, Arnhem Land, Limmen National Park, and Kakadu. (See the ABC, November 24, 2015, "Scientists Slice Open Feral Cats in Kakadu to Examine Insides.")

One of the multitude of bloodthirsty Australians who shoot cats for the sheer pleasure of doing so is Bernard McClean of Geraldton in Western Australia. For instance, over the course of a twelve-month period stretching from roughly September of 2014 until September of the following year he shot and killed sixty cats.

Even that amount of carnage was insufficient in order to slake his thirst for feline blood because instead of stopping there he went on to dissect, measure, and weigh each of his victims as well as to record their sexes and the GPS locations of where that he had murdered them. Following that, he relayed what he had learned not only to the authorities but to local farmers as well so that they, too, could join in the killing and merriment.

"What we're finding that they're eating is just blowing us away, centipedes, box thorn berries, cantaloupes, snakes, lizards, beetles, you name it, olives, believe it or not," he exulted to the ABC on September 8, 2015. (See "Controlling Feral Animals in Western Australia and Learning What They Eat.")"Hopefully, (I'll) learn more about the animals, and really long-term try and keep the feral animal numbers in control."

Although neither he nor the ABC will ever admit it, McClean's findings tend to disprove, as opposed to confirming, the government's case against cats. After all, insects, berries, fruits, and vegetables are not, contrary to whatever the authorities maintain, endangered species.

The truer picture would seem to be that the cats are barely getting by themselves and that some of them even could be literally starving to death. Much more concretely, those who abandoned them to such a cruel fate should be arrested and charged with animal cruelty. That is not about to happen in a million years, however, because the Australians'modus operandi from the first day that they landed on the continent always has been to murder their victims, regardless of whatever species that they belonged to, and then to masticate the truth before reshaping it to fit their own nefarious designs.

At the Cape Range National Park, near Exmouth in Western Australia, at least seven cats were trapped and then killed, presumably with gunshots to the head, during the last week of January this year by Derek Sandow and his accomplices within the Department of Parks and Wildlife. They, too, afterwards were dissected.

The killing and dissecting continues to this very day as does the poisoning of other cats throughout the park. (See the ABC, February 2, 2016, "Feral Cats Targeted to Protect Turtle Hatchlings in Exmouth.")

Hugh McGregor's Cat Chasers, Sally and Brangul

Although the Australians never have divulged what it is that they do with the remains of those cats that they cut up, it is difficult to believe that a people as mad-dog for shekels as they are would simply toss them into the trash. They accordingly could be following the example set by noted children's author and wildlife proponent Kaye Kessing of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory by adding them to their diets.

"The Asians have been eating cat and dog for centuries, so why can't we in Australia, where it would be really helpful if we started eating feral cats, camels, and rabbits?" she recommended a few years back. (See Cat Defender post of September 7, 2007 entitled "Australians Renounce Civilization and Resort to Savages with the Introduction of a Grotesque Plan to Get Rid of Cats by Eating Them.")

It is not merely the Chinese, Vietnamese, Indians, and other Asians who eat cats but the aboriginal community of Kiwirrkurra in Western Australia as well. For example, back in 2014 Nolia Napangarti hunted down a cat that she subsequently killed, dissected, and ate.

She then posed with it for the benefit of Kate Crossing of Alice Springs who in turn used the photograph in order to win the "People's Choice Award" in the annual IACRC's Feral Cat Photos Competition. Crossing, who passes herself off as a community worker, later bellyached that getting the prized photograph had left her knackered.

"It involves a lot of time following the cat, looking for fresh tracks, or if you're lucky enough to see one running," she explained to the ABC on November 12, 2014. (See "Alice Springs Local Wins National Award for Feral Cat Photo.")

In their typically slipshod, one-sided reporting, Murdoch's boys neglected to say whether Napangarti had been gracious enough in order to share her repast with Crossing and the pedagogues at the University of Canberra. Most likely she was and the moral degenerates who hold court there undoubtedly imitated the example set by their colleagues at the Danish School of Journalism in Aarhus, Jutland, and lapped up every last morsel all the while smacking their bloodstained lips with pleasure. (See Cat Defender post of August 25, 2008 entitled "Danish Journalism Students Procure the Corpse of a Murdered Cat and Then Skin, Cook, and Eat It in Order to Promote Their Careers.")

In addition to consuming their flesh, those who dissect cats also likely traffic in their valuable pelts as well. That is exactly what park ranger Nigel Burgess does with the more than one-hundred cats that he annually traps and shoots on King Island, located midway between Melbourne and Tasmania.

Burgess hates cats so much and loves money to the extent that he even kills those that have owners. "If it has got in my trap and it's a domestic cat, it should not be there," he declared to The Telegraph on July 9, 2008. (See "The Grandmother Who Turns Cats into Hats.")"Any cat that gets in my trap will be dealt with. I take a rife and shoot it in the head."

After he has taken their lives, Burgess freezes their corpses before delivering them to his partner in crime, Robyn Eades, who then defrosts, skins, and tans their hides in a prelude to turning them into hats, purses, rugs, and coat hangers for retail sale. Far from being a partisan of native species, she used to traffic in the pelts of wallabies before switching to cats. (See Cat Defender post of July 14, 2008 entitled "Australian Park Ranger and a Seamstress Team Up to Go into Business as Cat Killers and Fur Traffickers.")

Although the Australians have been abusing, neglecting, and killing cats seemingly forever, what is different about this latest offensive is not only the unprecedented array of high-tech and barbaric methodologies that they have appropriated to their cause, but the sheer scope of the carnage itself. "By 2020, I want to see two million feral cats culled, five new islands and ten new mainland 'safe havens' free of feral cats, and control measures applied across ten million hectares," Hunt declared to The Telegraph on July 16, 2015. (See "Australia Declares War on Feral Cats with Plan to 'Cull Two Million by 2020'.")

In support of this onslaught, Hunt earlier had made some rather absurd claims. "There are up to twenty million feral cats taking up to four native Australian animals a night," he swore to the ABC on November 12, 2014. (See "Fact Check: Are Feral Cats Killing over Twenty Billion Native Animals a Year?")"That is over twenty billion Australian native species being destroyed a year."

The ABC later looked into the matter but was unable to substantiate either of Hunt's claims. A more recent study conducted by Sarah Legge of the Australian National University has pegged the number of homeless cats at a considerably more conservative estimate of between two and six million. (See the ABC, October 18, 2016, "Feral Cat Population Overestimated.")

The Goats on Pelorus Island Are Doomed...

In the final analysis it really does not matter either how many cats, homeless and domiciled, that there are or how many or few animals that they are killing because as far as the ailurophobic Australians are concerned one cat is one too many. Even more regrettably, Hunt's war against offshore cats already has proven to be a stunning success.

For example, more than nine-hundred cats were lured into traps baited with Kentucky Fried Chicken and then shot on French Island during 2015. (See Deutsche-Welle of Bonn, November 11, 2015, "Why Australia Controversially Plans to Cull Millions of Cats.")

Bruny Island, southeast of Tasmania, plans on eradicating its cats within twenty years. (See the ABC, articles dated August 24, 2015 and November 8, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Tasmania's Bruny Island Takes Steps Toward Becoming Completely Cat-Free" and "Hobart Cat Centre Braces for Influx of Unwanted Pets over Summer.")

Eradication programs on the other three islands referred to by Hunt, King, Dirk Hartog, and Christmas, likewise are entering their final stages. In addition to those five islands, cats were eradicated on Tasman Island in 2011 and Kangaroo Island intends to get rid of all of its felines within fifteen years.

"We have to reach a point where we don't have any cats on this island," Mayor Peter Clements vowed to the ABC on October 6, 2016. (See "Feral Cats: Kangaroo Island's Plan to Eradicate All Felines Within Fifteen Years.")"The feral cat is an apex predator. It is ruining our species here on the island and we are totally committed to eliminating all cats."

Getting rid of those living on the mainland is going to take considerably longer but by using the islands as incubators for perfecting their killing methodologies even that herculean task may not turn out to be quite as difficult as first thought. Even those precious few that are allowed to go on living will have to be sterilized, licensed, and forced to spend their entire lives indoors.

Almost as disturbing as the nature and scope of the crimes being committed against cats has been the seemingly complete lack of opposition emanating from ordinary citizens. As best as it could be determined, not only have there not been any public demonstrations but scarcely a contrarian voice has been raised in support of the cats' inalienable right to live. When all of that is taken into consideration along with those that are ratting out cats via the Feral Cat Scan app and the large numbers of farmers, ranchers, and sportsmen who are killing them for fun, it would appear that the government has succeeded far beyond all expectations in its campaign of demonizing them as devils incarnate.

In order to turn an entire society into remorseless killers, however, the full support of the capitalist media is needed and in that respect their scurrilous reporting on this issue has been so one-sided and biased as to give journalism itself a bad name. In particular, it is difficult, if not entirely impossible, to find so much as either one positive word or photograph of a cat in its coverage.

On the contrary, live ones are always depicted as snarling killers with some animal in their mouths whereas dead one and their entrails are paraded about as if they were nothing more than hunting trophies. For example, the blatant lies of so-called ecological designer and consultant John T. Rankine are typical of the daily fodder that the capitalist media feed to their readers and viewers concerning cats.

"Feral cats are not just misunderstood moggies, they are the Mr. Hydes of the animal kingdom," he bellowed like a banshee to The Brisbane Times on August 27, 2015. (See "Feral Cats Will Devastate Wildlife Unless We Use Scientific Methods to Cull Them.") "Give them three months in the wild and our charming moggie (sic) can turn from a purring Dr. Jekyll into a sophisticated killer the Mr. Hyde of our native wildlife, their purr turned to an horrific caterwauling."

Given the extent of his prejudices, it would be only logical to conclude that Rankine would steer clear of them but that apparently has not always been the case. "For detractors who believe we just do not understand the nature of the cat and are inherently bullies, I invite anyone to spend five minutes in the same room as a feral cat and give their revised opinion," he continued. "I have done this and it is not something that I would advise anyone to do. It is an experience that has remained in my memory for many years."

First of all, there are umpteen millions of individuals around the world who are not only more than willing to take him up on his challenge but who do so every day with the homeless cats that they not only feed and shelter but take into their homes and nestle close to their bosoms. Secondly, he likely is referring to the behavior of a solitary feline that he trapped and was planning on killing.

When the frightened cat attempted to defend its life and limb, which is only its inalienable right, it not only scared Rankine half to death but in doing so furnished the tidbit of evidence that he had been searching for so long in order to transform his nascent ailurophobia into a full-blown disease. If that were not the case, he can be safely dismissed as either a bare-faced liar or a complete imbecile who knows absolutely nothing about cats. As is the case with all cat-haters, it is not always easy to determine the demarcation point that separates inveterate hatred of the species from abysmal stupidity.

The nation's so-called humane groups would appear to have followed the lead of the ARSPCA and thereby sold the animals whose lives that they are sworn to protect down the river to their killers. If not, they at the very least have gone into hiding and are afraid to so much as to even open their usually loquacious traps.

...but So Too Are Their Executioners, Radio-Collared Dingoes

For example, Animals Australia of Melbourne not only is on record as being in support of new laws in effect in twelve suburbs of Canberra that require owners to keep their cats under house arrest twenty-four hours a day, but the best that it has been able to come up with by way of opposition to the government's wholesale poisoning and killing of cats has been to express unspecified "concerns."(See The Sydney Morning Herald, July 28, 2015, "Push for Twenty-Four-Hour Curfew to Protect Native Animals.")

Even then the organization appears to be more concerned about the efficacy of the government's cull than the injustice of it and the cruelty that it is inflicting upon cats. "It's worth noting that the primary and most significant threat to the continued existence of Australia's native species is the destruction of their habitats and food sources," the charity's Lisa Chalk told The Telegraph in the July 22, 2015 article cited supra.

Opposition from the veterinary profession likewise has been almost nonexistent. The one known exception to that rule has been Canberra practitioner Michael Archinal who has publicly acknowledged that indoor cats are prone to both behavioral and bladder problems.

"Some cats are very stressed when they are confined," he told The Sydney Morning Herald on July 28, 2015. "It can actually induce behavioral issues and some physical problems as well."

In southern Tasmania, cat-killer Billie Lazenby of the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries has conducted research that demonstrates that the so-called vacuum effect associated with eradicating cats is real, at least in mainland areas as opposed to islands. Through the use of baited and remotely-controlled infrared cameras she tallied the number of cats still present in areas where she previously had carried out eradications and dissections and came up with some surprising, at least to an ignoramus like her, conclusions.

"In areas that I had tried to reduce cat numbers I recorded an increase in cat numbers," she confided to the ABC on April 7, 2015. (See "Culling Cats May Do More Harm Than Good.")"I actually had more cats running around on those sites than beforehand."

The difference was not a minor one either. "We recorded a seventy-five to two-hundred-eleven per cent increase in the minimum number of feral cats known to be alive in the culled areas," she added.

From all of that she belatedly has arrived at the conclusion that killing alone is not any panacea. Instead, she is now recommending that protective fencing be erected in order to keep cats out of certain environmentally sensitive areas as well as the construction of hiding places, such as log piles, for small prey animals.

"You may be inadvertently doing more harm than good (by killing cats)," she summed up to the ABC. "What we really should be focusing on when we talk about managing introduced species like feral cats is reducing their impact. But it is really important that we keep in mind that you don't always reduce impact by reducing numbers, as one individual (cat) might cause ninety per cent of the damage."

It is truly a shame that Lazenby did not take the time in order to acquaint herself with any of the relevant literature on the subject before she decided to kill so many innocent cats. Every bit as troubling, she is yet to completely repudiate her killing agenda despite the findings of her research.

Even more shameful and revolting than the complicity of animal protection groups and the capitalist media in Australia's all-out war on cats has been the simply abhorrent conduct of the eggheads. To make a long story short, whenever there are money and reputations to be made, these low-life, egotistical, and bone-lazy bums who never have done so much as an honest day's work in their miserable lives quickly cast aside whatever residual morality, intelligence, and personal integrity that they may once have enjoyed and instead, like cockroaches spilling out of an old mattress, gallop lickety-split in order to join the ranks of the cat killers.

In doing so, they demonstrate time and time again that the sum total of everything that they ever have learned throughout their long and profitable scholastic careers can be summed up in two words: kill cats. Even more alarmingly, that is the extent of their knowledge of the outside world that they impart to their naïve and highly impressionable students.

In that regard, Australia is far from being the only nation where both the minds of the young in particular and public discourse in general are being poisoned by the lies and prejudices disseminated by these predatory charlatans. For example, they not only rule the roosts in both American and English universities but they most often do so to the exclusion of all opposing viewpoints. (See Cat Defender posts of July 18, 2011 and October 9, 2015 entitled, respectively, "Evil Professors Have Transformed College Campuses into Hotbeds of Hatred Where Cats Routinely Are Vilified, Horribly Abused, and Systematically Killed" and "A Lynch Mob Comprised of Dishonest Eggheads from the University of Lincoln Issues Another Scurrilous Broadside Against Cats by Declaring That They Do Not Need Guardians in Order to Safeguard Their Fragile Lives.")

A Cat That Was Divested of Its Pelt and Cut Open by Danielle Stokeld

Two academicians who have had the courage to stand up to their dishonest and morally bankrupt colleagues and actually come out against the government's eradication of cats have been Arian Wallach of Charles Darwin University in Casuarina in the Northern Territory and Daniel Ramp of the University of Technology Sydney. Even more amazingly, they have recommended that Australians dispense with the dishonest distinction that they have been making between native and invasive species and finally accept cats as an integral part of the environment.

"Let's embrace cats as part of Australia's environment," they wrote for The Conversation on July 28, 2015. (See "Let's Give Feral Cats Their Citizenship.")"We could even rename them 'Australian wildcats'."

Such a seismic change in thinking would have at least two immediate positive effects. "It would benefit the cats, because they would no longer endure our increasingly creative methods of ending their lives," the authors wrote. "We would also benefit greatly by unburdening ourselves of the task of causing suffering and death to cats."

Secondly, ending once and for all time these cruel and totally barbaric en masse eradications of cats also would benefit native species. Doing so would first of all put an end to the creation of the vacuum effects that Lazenby uncovered in southern Tasmania. Leaving cats in situ additionally would prevent spikes in the population of rats, rabbits, and other species that prey upon endangered animals.

"Killing cats achieves only one outcome with consistency: it produces dead cats," Wallach and Ramp astutely point out. "Attempting to remove cats from Australian ecosystems will not be a clean and painless surgery, and it will not heal the patient."

Their strongest argument, however, is the moral one. "...the aim of conservation is not to generate an ever increasing body count, but to guide human behavior to enable the rest of the earth's species to flourish," they conclude. "Embracing cats is a paradigm shift. It means embracing the entirety of Australia's modern ecosystems, native and feral, and letting go of the past. It is time to accept these immigrants as Australian citizens."

According to Adrian Franklin of the University of Tasmania, that is the crux of the matter in that hatred of cats has become the centerpiece of Australians' historically rabid xenophobia. In arriving at such a conclusion, he contrasts the humane treatment that they receive in Old Blighty with the systematic demonization and malice aforethought that they incur down under.

"The cat arrived in England ahead of the Romans, just," he wrote in an opinion piece for The Sydney Morning Herald on January 8, 2013. (See "Hatred of Cats Hides a Sinister Truth.")"Feral cats trigger a sense of pity and charity. They embody the figure of the destitute and deserving poor, someone who must be looked after."

In Australia, however, it is an entirely different story. "The feral cat looks perilously like a metaphor for the unwanted asylum seeker and immigrant. They are creatures that cross boundaries of their own volition; independent, outsider figures accused of threatening a properly Australian 'natural order'," he continued. "They threaten to fragment that fragile and threatened reality: 'Australia'."

Therefore, demonizing and killing cats has very little to do with protecting endangered species. "That the scientific evidence has exonerated feral cats (from causing extinctions) is not the point," he argues. "It is not about what they do but what they have come to represent that matters here."

As it is always the case, killing both animals and humans is a highly profitable business. "The performance of these rituals establishes an important role for insiders," he concludes. "Through supporting ritual purification they become exclusive custodians, and the protection of nature offers an important, irresistible source of power."

Franklin could be on to something with his analysis but a just as likely scenario is that the descendants of the riffraff that England kicked out of its jails, nuthouses, foundling homes, and poorhouses are simply merciless killer who commit their abominable crimes against animals for pleasure as well as money. As is the case with ailurophobia and stupidity, it is not always easy to determine where greed leaves off and a love of killing commences.

The reaction from outside the country to Australia's war on cats has been almost as anemic as that which has come from within. The one notable exception to that has been La Fondation Brigitte Bardot in Paris.

Bernard McClean Shows One of Murdoch's Lasses How He Cuts Up a Cat

"Tuer deux millions de chats sur une population estimée à vingt millions est un scandale, une honte!" the organization's eponymous founder stated in a July 21, 2015 epistle sent to Hunt. (See "Le gouvernement australien prévoit de tuer deux millions chats: Brigitte Bardot réagit.")

From there she went on to express her opposition to both speciesism and the Australians' saturation of the environment with deadly poisons. "Tuer des chats pour protéger d'autres animaux est scandaleux, vous allez disperser dans la nature des produits nocifs, dangereux pour toutes les espèces, sans distinction et la mort par empoisonnement est une terrifiante souffrance," she wrote.

She also took the opportunity to warn him, like Lazenby and Wallach, of the vacuum effect and to propose that his country adopt TNR. "En plus d'être cruel, tuer des chats ne sert à rien, d'autres chats errants se multiplieront," she wrote. "Ma Fondation travaille depius des années sur le sujet et je vous garantis qu'il n'y a pas d'autre alternative que stériliser. Les chats opérés défendent leur territoire mais ne se reproduisent plus."

Adopting TNR also would be considerably cheaper than the trillions of dollars being devoted, both directly and indirectly, to eradicating cats. "Cet inhumain génocide animalier est ridicule. Vos six millions de dollars seraient bien plus utiles à la mise en place d'une campagne de stérilisation," she continued. "Ces campagnes ont fait leur preuve partout où elles ont été mises en oeuvre. Ma Fondation travaille dans le monde entier avec les vétérinaires australiens de "Vets Beyond Borders" pour stériliser, avec succès, les populations d'animaux errants."

Although it is most definitely a minority viewpoint, desexing cats does have a few adherents down under. Once such enlightened individual is Rachel Beech of Longford in northern Tasmania who operates a privately-funded shelter where she sterilizes homeless cats and then endeavors to find them good homes.

"I get a lot of satisfaction out of what we do here at the shelter, to be honest," she confided to the ABC on August 19, 2015. (See "From Feral Felines to Cuddly Kitties: Rehabilitating Feral Cats to Become Pets in Northern Tasmania.")"I think if it is just desexing one cat, then to me I think we've saved so many lives."

Like Bardot, she fully realizes that killing cats not only does not work but, much more importantly, it is immoral. "If we can rehabilitate well, then we'd prefer that option," she added. "They're still a living being (sic), they still have rights and (need) a fair go to be able to survive and manage life (which) can be better than what they started out."

Although not nearly as well publicized, the Australians have been waging wars for decades against dozens of species other than cats that they imported and then later abandoned. For example, in 2005 the government announced plans to exterminate, inter alia, five-hundred-thousand camels, three-hundred-thousand horses, five million donkeys, twenty-three million pigs, and unspecified numbers of cane toads, red foxes, goats, rabbits, rats, and carp (See Agence France Presse, September 25, 2005, "Millions of Animals Face Death Sentence in Australia.")

Although the unconscionable murders of those innocent animals may have escaped the attention and compassion of the world at large, Bardot most assuredly has not forgotten them. "L'image de l'Australie est désastreuse, entre le massacre des kangourous ou l'abbatage des chevaux sauvages, votre pays est loin d'être exemplaire," she told Hunt. "Il est urgent de mettre un terme à ces tueries aussi cruelles qu' inutiles qui entachent votre pays du sang versé par ces millions d'animaux innocents, n'y ajoutez pas les chats!"

As is the case with the cats, the vast majority of these animals could be trapped and sterilized and contraceptives could be prescribed for the remainder. If necessary, either fenced-in habitats could be created for them or they could be removed to some of Australia's thousands of offshore islands.

The long and short of the matter is that Australia should put an immediate end to its crimes against all animals and learn, for once, to respect their right to live. If it is incapable of doing even that much, it should at the very least end its partisanship whereby one species is favored over another and let the animals settle the issue.

She concluded by beseeching Hunt to mend his evil ways. "La cruauté humaine est sans limite mais changer d'avis est une preuve d'intelligence et d'humanité."

A Forever Nameless Feline Before Derek Sandow Killed and Cut It to Bits

Hunt was not about to go along with any of that and just to prove it he immediately dismissed Bardot's concerns as irrelevant. His buddy Andrews not only followed suit but added that he was in fact immensely proud of his crimes.

"I sleep well at night, knowing by killing cats consistent with the RSPCA's policies that I am reducing animal suffering and saving species extinction," he avowed to Deutsche-Welle in the article cited supra. Needless to say, he and his buddy Hunt would not have felt out of place laboring alongside Josef Mengele.

Far from being the least bit perturbed about the wholesale atrocities that they are committing against cats and other animals, the Australians in particular and wildlife advocates in general have donned haloes and now consider themselves to be endowed with something approaching divine authority to eliminate all animals and, by extension, any individuals who dare to stand in their way. That surely must have been pretty close to how the early Christians felt about the pagan Norsemen that they systematically extirpated and that criminality carried over to the medieval crusaders who, if history is to be believed, left the streets of Jerusalem waist-deep in the corpses and blood of the Muslims that they had killed in the name of their religion and god.

Kathleen O'Malley of the NYC Feral Cat Initiative in Manhattan also favors TNR over eradication and warns that killing off cats not only leads to spikes in the rodent population but that such an approach simultaneously ignores the threat posed to Australia's native species by red foxes. She, however, badly misses the boat when she further postulates that the Australian public, already a mixture of inveterate ailurophobes and complacent owners, will not go along with the government's shedding of so much innocent feline blood.

"My view on the Australian policy is it's not going to work unless they are dedicated to years of bloodshed and the public is going to lose their stomach for it," she predicted to the Inside Science News Service of College Park, Maryland on August 10, 2015. (See "New Tech Needed to Fight Against Feral Felines.")

PETA also has expressed reservations about the mass slaughter but they have been pretty much limited to methodological and efficacy concerns. "Not only is shooting and poisoning cats cruel, culls have been shown to be unsuccessful in the long run," a spokeswoman for its Australian chapter told The Telegraph in the July 22, 2015 article cited supra. "The use of poison in suburban areas also puts domestic cats, dogs, and carnivorous wildlife at risk."

Nevertheless,  the organization would be in full accord with the Australians if only they were humanely trapping the cats and then quickly dispatching them to the devil via jabs of sodium pentobarbital. (See Cat Defender posts of January 29, 2007, February 9, 2007, and October 7, 2011 entitled, respectively, "PETA's Long History of Killing Cats and Dogs Is Finally Exposed in a North Carolina Courtroom,""Verdict in PETA Trial: Littering Is a Crime but Not the Mass Slaughter of Innocent Cats and Dogs," and "PETA Traps and Kills a Cat and Then Shamelessly Goes Online in Order to Brag about Its Criminal and Foul Deed.")

The organization's complacency in the face of such horrific carnage has proven to be too much for its most vocal acolyte, Steven Patrick Morrissey the former frontman for the English rockers The Smiths, and he has broken ranks with it and in no uncertain terms condemned he slaughter. "Wie wir alle wissen, wird die Erde von Idioten regiert," he is quoted as saying by LooMee TV of Oberhausen in Nordrhein Westfalen on August 29, 2015. (See "Morrissey setzt sich gegen Katzen-Tötungen ein.") "Aber diese Dummheit geht zu weit."

From that spot on overture, he progressed to forcibly refute Read's and Staples' outrageous lies about 1080 being a humane poison. "Die Katzen werden auf grausame Weise getötet, mit hochgiftigem Natriumsalz (1080), das einen langsamen und qualvollen Tod herbeiführt," he declared.

Although he hit the nail on the head when he accused Abbott of being on the payroll of sheepherders he, like O'Malley, erred grievously by arguing that the hoi polloi do not support the cull. "Die Bevölkerung von Australien hätte dem niemals zugestimmt, aber sie wurden nicht gefragt, weil die Regierung rund um Tony Abbott nur ein Komitee aus Schafzüchtern ist, die keinerlei Skrupel gegenüber dem Tierschutz oder Respekt vor der Tierwelt haben."

Leider, it is just too bad that his behavior has failed to keep pace with his lofty rhetoric. For example, he recently just completed a concert tour of Australia and that followed on the heels of earlier ones that he had staged there during 2012, 2015, and possibly at other times as well.

Even his pledge to perform only at venues that do not serve meat is not always followed. For instance, meatballs, chicken, and tuna were ladled out in the corporate suites at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan last year when he performed there. (See the New York Post, July 29, 2015, "Madison Square Garden Secretly Serves Meat Despite Morrissey's Wishes.")

Nolia Napangarti with the Cat That She Killed and Later Devoured

In spite of his numerous shortcomings, his vision on the whole is highly commendable. "There are laws of protection for dogs, so why not for cows? If you can be prosecuted for cruelty to a dog, then why not a cow? Doesn't everything have the right to lead a natural life? Animals have nothing at all but the enjoyment of their lives...so why take that away from them?" he argued to news.com of Surry Hills on August 2, 2016. (See "Morrissey on Avoiding Brisbane and Only Playing in Australian Venues Where No Meat Will Be Served.")"It's the flesh-eaters that are the true cranks, and the farmers who look upon sheep and cows as their property. If you have a cat you don't refer to it as property. It is morally wrong to make money from the death of any living being."

Alley Cat Allies (ACA) of Bethesda, Maryland, also has come out in opposition to the Australians' war on cats. "Alley Cat Allies strongly condemns this cruel and ill-conceived plan, which supports the shooting, poisoning, and lethal trapping of community cats on five islands and multiple mainland 'feral-free' areas," the charity declared in an August 27, 2015 press release. (See "Alley Cat Allies Condemns Australia's Senseless Cat Killing Pan.")"The Australian government's goal is to 'cull' the cat population, but 'cull' is just a euphemism. They are killing cats, and it's as inhumane as it sounds."

As is the case with Morrissey, ACA's commitment to the doomed cats of Australia has been called into question by the attendance of its leader, Becky Robinson, at a three-day summit sponsored by the Helen Woodward Animal Center of Santa Fe that was held at the University of Sydney on February 15-17 of this year. Even though saving lives, even just one, always should take precedence over both political action and ideology, it is far from clear if Robinson's engagement with the Australians has achieved even that much. (See ACA's January 2016 newsletter, "The Business of Saving Lives: Helen Woodward Animal Conference, Sydney, Australia.")

By way of contrast her former partner, Louise Holton of Alley Cat Rescue (ACR) of Mt. Rainier, Maryland, has called for a complete boycott of Australian products and travel to the country. (See ACR press release of July 24, 2015, "Alley Cat Rescue Calls for Boycott of Australia.")

Earlier, Holton had written to Hunt expressing ACR's opposition to his cat-killing agenda and her letter was accompanied by sixty-three-hundred signatures. The organization likewise delivered a similar letter signed by twenty-five-hundred supporters to the Australian ambassador in Washington, Kim Beazley. (See ACR's press release of November 20, 2014, "Alley Cat Rescue Petitions Greg Hunt to Stop Australia's Plan to Exterminate Feral Cats.")

It is a difficult pill to swallow but any punitive action directed at the Australians is, by necessity, going to have to be of a purely private nature because they enjoy the full support of the Obama Administration and that is unlikely to change once Donald Trump seizes hold of the reins of power in January. Specifically, United States Ambassador to Australia Morrell John Berry not only was in attendance when Hunt officially announced his all-out war on cats but he took the time on that occasion to heap praise on the nation's "leadership position" on wildlife preservation. (See Town Hall of Salem Communications, August 17, 2015, "Environmentalists Kill Millions of Cats and Birds.")

Berry's support for the hideous slaughter of two million cats by any and all means available is not surprising considering that he ran the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo in Washington between 2005 and 2009. That is the same sleazy governmental institution that not only unjustly imprisons and sometimes even kills totally innocent animals but also the one that employed Nico Dauphiné who in 2011 was caught red-handed attempting to poison a colony of homeless cats in Meridian Hill Park with a combination of antifreeze and rat poison. (See Cat Defender posts of July 12, 2011, November 18, 2011, and January 6, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Arrest of Nico Dauphiné for Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats Unmasks the National Zoo as a Hideout for Ailurophobes and Criminals,""Nico Dauphiné, Ph.D., Is Convicted of Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats but Questions Remain Concerning the Smithsonian's Role," and "Nico Duaphiné Is Let Off with an Insultingly Lenient $100 Fine in a Show Trial That Was Fixed from the Very Beginning.")

Plus, her boss at the Smithsonian's Migratory Bird Center, Peter P. Marra, is not only still employed there but recently has been on a world tour promoting his scurrilous new tome, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer, wherein he advocates that all homeless cats should be eradicated by, as the Australians are now doing, "any means necessary." (See WABE-FM of Atlanta, September 29, 2016, "Stakes Grow Higher in the Cat-Bird Wars.")

The petit fait that cat-killing advocates such as him and his buddies Berry and Dauphiné have found sanctuary with Barack Obama is not an anomaly in that as president he has presided over the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) eradication campaigns against the species on San Nicholas and in the Florida Keys as well as the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service's offensive against Ernest Hemingway's polydactyls. (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.")

Ethicist William Lynn of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts,  has arrived at the only halfway sane conclusion that presents itself to any fair-minded individual. "It is time to stop blaming the victim, face up to our own culpability and seek to rewild our world with an eye to the ethics of our actions," he wrote October 7, 2015 in The Conversation.(See "Australia's War on Feral Cats: Shaky Science, Missing Ethics.")"There is no justification for a war on outdoor cats, feral or otherwise, based on shaky science and an absence of ethical reasoning."

Lynn's strongest argument against the cull is the gross unfairness of it. The mendacious Australians lamely have attempted to blame both the polynesians and shipwrecks for their large population of abandoned cats but at least two studies have confirmed that those that they now have branded as interlopers and are slaughtering in droves are most definitely the descendants of those that were brought to the continent by English colonialists and imperialists and that undoubtedly also is the case with the remainder of their so-called invasive species. (See Katrin Koch, et alii, "A Voyage to Terra Australis: Human-Mediated Dispersal of Cats," BMC Evolutionary Biology, December 4, 2015 and Peter B.S. Spencer, "The Population Origins and Expansion of Feral Cats in Australia," Journal of Heredity, December 7, 2015.)

The ancestors of present-day Australian cats accordingly were rounded up in England and shanghaied into coming to Australia. Plus, untold numbers of them doubtlessly perished en route during those long and hellish sea voyages.

Rachel Beech Has a Far Better Solution for Homeless Cats

Upon arrival, life certainly did not get much better for them. Although many of them were able to find gainful employment as both mousers and companions, that did not last long and soon they found themselves abandoned in a strange and forbidding land where they were forced to fend for themselves. Still others were shipped out of the mainland and dispersed far and wide on innumerable islands.

Being the diabolical monsters that they always have been, the Australians failed not only to provide them with either any form of shelter from the elements or protection from predators, but they even were too cheap to supply them with either food, water, or veterinary care. Every bit as callous, they deprived the cats of all human companionship and sociability.

Now that they have discovered that there are huge sums of money to be made from preserving endemic species and restoring habitats, cats have been demonized as pests and their eradication has been decreed by way of every cruel and inhumane method imaginable. The same holds true for all the other imported species that they are demonizing and extirpating en masse.

The Australians can lie their ugly little faces off until doomsday but that never is going to alter the fact that they have an irrevocable moral obligation to do right by their imported species. That means first of all respecting their inalienable right to live and, secondly, to provide them with, properly understood, humane care. Considering how horribly that they have exploited, abused, neglected, and demonized them in the past, that is the very least that they owe them.

The unjustness, cruelty, and criminality displayed by the Australians is trumped only by their greed, mendacity, and the pleasure that they are exuding as they go about their cruel business. "The mind of man is capable of anything -- because everything is in it; all the past as well as the future," Joe Conrad observed in his 1899 novel, Heart of Darkness, and in that light it seems as if all the accumulated evil that has been percolating in it down throughout history has settled in the black souls of the Australians just so that it could erupt like a volcano at this moment and wipe out all cats and other animals in its wake.

In between endorsing ACR's call for a travel boycott of Australia, C.W. Gusenwelle perhaps summed up the entire sorry business best by labeling it as "a monstrosity." (See The Kansas City Star, December 5, 2015, "Australia's Plan for Feral Cats Is a Monstrosity.")

Most depressing and frustrating of all, there is precious little that the average conscientious individual can do in order to stop the slaughter of all these cats and other animals short of hiring and training a team of mercenaries to invade the continent. That reality alone surely must provide the Australians with an enormous sense of both pride and hubris as they continue to snicker up their blood-soaked sleeves at the wishes of the rest of humanity.

Despite the hopelessness of the situation, sitting idly by and doing absolutely nothing is not an option for those who truly care about cats. Fans of the species may not be able to stop the atrocities but they at the very least should refrain from subsidizing them and in that respect strict adherence to ACR's call for a boycott of all products and travel to Australia should be religiously observed. The only exception to that would be rescue missions designed to bring out cats from the country alive.

Such a boycott could even be expanded to include sports teams and schools that employ Australian athletes as well as venues that host their entertainers. All American firms that do business down under, such as Kentucky Fried Chicken, also should be boycotted. In short, anyone, anything, and every entity that has even the slightest connection with Australia should be avoided like the plague.

Likewise, whenever any politician, no matter how petty, comes calling for money and votes he or she should be queried about Australia's slaughter of cats. Unless that individual is willing to support the severing of diplomatic relations, the imposition of an economic embargo, the denial of entry into this country of all Australian citizens, including exchange students, the country's expulsion from the United Nations, nullification of the Australia-New Zealand-United States Treaty (ANZUS), and the putting of an end to the sharing of NASA data with the cat killers, money and votes should be withheld.

The only truly just solution would be an armed takeover of the country followed by the prompt arrest and imprisonment of all animal killers. An international tribunal then could be established along the lines of the one that was set up in Nürnberg in 1945 in order to, hopefully, convict and imprison them for the remainder of their days.

That suggestion is not nearly as far-fetched as some would believe in that courts already empowered to try individuals accused of committing crimes against humanity likewise should have the jurisdiction to hear cases involving crimes committed against the animals and Mother Earth. In fact, the case for doing so is even more compelling given that the latter are unable to either protect themselves or to defend their rights. It even could be argued that the failure to do so is not only grotesquely unjust but, given what is at stake, insane as well.

Such a development is, admittedly, not in the offing at this time but individuals of conscience cannot merely do nothing as they did between 1977 and 1991 when Marthán Niewoudt Bester of the University of Pretoria and his henchmen systematically annihilated more than thirty-four-hundred cats on Marion Island, near Antarctica. Twelve-hundred of them were intentionally infected with the Feline Panleukopenia Virus (FPV), also known as the feline distemper, while the remainder were, inter alia, either shotgunned to death, killed by dogs, or poisoned with 1080.

"That was the price we paid, and we thought it was reasonable," Bester crowed to his chief propagandist, John Yeld of the Cape Argus in Cape Town, on March 29, 2011. (See "Marion's Slow Recovery from Feral Felines.")

He still feels that way to this very day in spite of the fact that since the cats were eradicated not only have mice overrun the island but it is being adversely affected by climate change. (See the Cape Argus, August 17, 2013, "Marion Island's Plague of Mice," The Mercury of Durban, May 9, 2015, "Killer Mice Wreak Havoc on Marion Island," and Times Live of Johannesburg, November 13, 2015, "No Cats, but Mice Zap Birds.")

Morrell John Berry

Even though the cats were murdered in vain and the South Africans' attempt to restore Marion to some semblance of its preconceived idyllic past, that may or may not ever have existed, has been a miserable failure, Old Bester Bird is still living high on the hog as he struts and preens around campus all the while acting out his self-anointed rôle as a great conservationist. He additionally continues to churn out his voluminous anti-cat screeds like a runaway printing press that does not know when to stop and, above all, to inculcate new generations of students into believing in his prejudices, lies, and total lack of morality. Whenever he tires of that, he sails once again to Marion like a criminal unable to resist the temptation of returning to the scene of his crimes in order to relive his glory days.

The Internet was not around when Bester was committing his evil deeds and most people therefore were ignorant of what he was doing. The world at large  therefore can be largely excused for remaining silent but that most definitely is not the case with the even worse crimes that are now being committed against the animal kingdom down under.

The only logical conclusion to be drawn from humanity's indifference is that most individuals either support the carnage or are too self-absorbed to even care one way or the other. In either case, what Anne Sewell once said more than a hundred years ago is still every bit as relevant today.

"That is a selfish, heathenish saying, whoever uses it, any man who thinks he has nothing to do but take care of number one, why, it's a pity that he had not been drowned like a puppy or a kitten, before he got his eyes open, that's what I think," she wrote in her 1877 masterpiece, Black Beauty. "My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt."

For men and women of conscience to ignore what is going on in Australia is not only morally indefensible but shortsighted as well. For instance, New Zealand is likewise vowing to kill off its cats and other unwanted animals by many of the same diabolical means as the Australians are now employing. (See The Washington Post, July 25, 2016, "New Zealand Vows to Kill Every Weasel, Rat and Feral Cat on its Soil.")

In the United States, not only are Marra and the Smithsonian vowing to do likewise but they have been joined in an unholy alliance by Georgie "Porgie" Fenwick of the American Bird Conservancy and Ted "Slick Willie" Williams and the National Audubon Society. Even more disturbing, these fiends already enjoy the unqualified support of just about every department of any significance within the national government and all that they are waiting for is the silence and inaction of ailurophiles and other concerned citizens before springing into action.

The USFWS, for instance, is already trapping and stealing domestic cats from residential neighborhoods in the Florida Keys. (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 his short story "The Most Dangerous Game," which appeared in Collier's on January 19, 1924, Richard Connell included the following revealing dialogue between two big-game hunters:

"'Great sport, hunting.'

'The best in the world,' agreed Rainsford.

'For the hunter,' amended Whitney. 'Not for the jaguar.'

'Don't talk rot, Whitney,' said Rainsford. 'You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?'

'Perhaps the jaguar does,' observed Whitney.

'Bah! They've no understanding.'

'Even so, I rather think they understand one thing -- fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death.'

'Nonsense,' laughed Rainsford. 'This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes -- the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters'."

As things eventually turned out, Rainsford had pause to regret those words once he wound up marooned on Ship-Trap Island in the Caribbean where he subsequently fell into the clutches of General Zaroff. Although he ultimately was able to prevail in the end, long before that happened Zaroff had shown him what it is like to be hunted down like an animal.

It is far from clear but it would appear that he never learned much of anything as the result of his misadventures in that after he had killed Zaroff he not only took possession of his house but, according to Connell, he later declared that he "had never slept in a better bed." In other words, as far as most men are concerned, the killing and stealing never ends.

Morality, justice, and sociability never have been man's strong suits even under the best of circumstances but now in an overcrowded world that is populated primarily by bigoted, greedy killers there is precious little Lebensraum left for either the animals or those individuals who want something more out of life. Accordingly, the day is fast approaching when individuals even in the United States are going to be forced into taking up arms in order to protect not only their cats but their every own lives as well.

Like it or not, Rainsford was right. When push finally comes to shove in this wicked old world there are only "hunters and huntees."

Photos: the ABC (Read, Staples, Andrews, and Slattery aiming at a cat, goats, dingoes, Stokeld dissecting a cat, McClean, cat killed by Sandow in Exmouth, Napangarti, and Beech), The Sydney Morning Herald (Moseby), Daily Mail (Hunt), Twitter (Slattery with a dead cat), Facebook (Slattery with several dead cats), Wayne Lawlor of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (Sally and Brangul), and the United States Office of Personnel Management (Berry).

Ivy Is the Toast of All of Manitoulin Island

"Then she walked back over and jumped on me. It was like, 'Hey, pay attention'."
-- Mary Johnston

Not all that many people are familiar with Manitoulin Island, located on the Canadian side of Lake Huron, and that is even more so the case with its tiny municipality of Tehkummah. All of that is about to change now thanks to the heroics of a recently adopted two-year-old rescue cat named Ivy.

The chain of unfortunate events that catapulted the blue-eyed, part-Siamese female to international stardom began innocently enough one day back in late September while she was hanging out at home with her owner, Mary Johnston, who had adopted her two months previously from Fixing Our Felines in Manitowaning, twenty-one kilometers northwest of Tehkummah. In addition to her fondness for felines, Johnston had added Ivy to her family in order to help her to socialize her other cat, a Maine Coon named Nellie, that she earlier had found roughing it in a woodpile.

It therefore could be argued with some force that what transpired back in September was not all that surprising given that Ivy seems to always have had a mission in life. Nevertheless, absolutely no one could have predicted just how huge a role that The Fates would one day assign to her.

The day in question began pretty much like any other in the small town of four-hundred-six souls and, being one of a handful of individuals on the planet who does not own a télé, Johnston was ensconced in a book when Ivy abruptly left her side and bounded to the windowsill. "Then she walked back over and jumped on me," she related to The Sudbury Star of Ontario on November 11th. (See "Ivy the Hero Manitoulin Cat to the Rescue.") "It was like, 'Hey, pay attention'."

Like just about all humans, Johnston still was too thickheaded in order to realize that something was sorely amiss. "When I got my nose out of my book, I heard a noise," she added to The Sudbury Star."I didn't realize it was a person at first. It sounded more like a cat when they do that deep, growly yowl."

She eventually realized that the cries of distress were not only human but that they were emanating from a garage across the road. Upon investigating, she discovered the town's reeve, sixty-nine-year-old Eric Russell, stranded thirteen feet above ground on a stepladder with one of his arms entangled in the garage's door.

"The cable had come off the one pulley and I was just trying to level the door off. I loosened the one pulley and the one at the other end didn't hold the spring," he later explained to The Sudbury Star."The spring just unwound, and I had my coat up over the shaft and the friction made a tourniquet around my arm."

With no time left to waste, Johnston quickly rounded up neighbors Don McMurray and Bob Beard who were able to free the reeve's arm. An ambulance was summoned which sped him to the Manitoulin Health Centre in Mindemoya, twenty-five kilometers to the north, where he was diagnosed to have sustained a dislocated shoulder as well as unspecified nerve damage.

Compounding matters further, it appears that his recovery is going to be protracted affair that could drag on for as long as two years. Specifically, he still does not have any movement in his injured wrist and his shoulder, although back in its socket, is not properly functioning. What effect, if any, his injuries are having on his ability to fulfill his duties as reeve, the political equivalent of being a mayor, has not been specified.

In spite of all of that, Russell is not singing the blues. "I could have lost my arm," he declared to The Sudbury Star.

That certainly is true enough in that his doctors have speculated that if the thirty minutes that he spent with his arm entangled in the garage door had been prolonged for as little as a quarter of an hour they would not have had any choice but to have amputated. He therefore has pretty little Ivy to thank that he is still in possession of both of his upper appendages.

As a show of appreciation, he bought Johnston a gift certificate at a local pet store and she put it to good use by acquiring a cat tree for Ivy and Nellie. "It's got a little house on the top and the two of them play in it and fight in it and have a great time," she confided to The Sudbury Star.

Not only is Ivy reported to be making progress with Nellie but through her rescue of the reeve she has more than repaid Johnston and the community for providing her with a home and a chance to go on living. Kindhearted souls, such as Johnston, who not only take in homeless cats but ransom others of them off of death row at shelters are true heroes in their own right even though none of them ever would admit to such; au contraire, they consider themselves to be the lucky ones.

Deservingly so, Ivy's heroics have not gone unnoticed outside of Tehkummah. For instance on November 9th, Alicia McCutcheon, editor of The Manitoulin Expositor of Little Current, sixty-two kilometers to the north, formally nominated her for induction into the Purina Animal Hall of Fame in Toronto. (See "Expositor Nominates Tehkummah Hero Cat for Purina Animal Hall of Fame.")

Regrettably, her chances of being selected do not appear to be all that promising considering how biased Purina is against felines. For example, over the course of the forty eight years that it has been in existence, the Hall has only inducted a minuscule twenty-seven cats as opposed to a whopping one-hundred-forty-four dogs.

Based upon its miserable track record in that regard, the only logical thing to conclude is that Purina either does not think very much of cats or it never has broken so much as a sweat attempting to locate and subsequently recognize those such as Ivy that have rendered invaluable service to mankind. It is, after all, an indisputable fact that hero cats are to be found almost everywhere.

Möhre and Dirk Prager

For instance, Winnie saved her family from a carbon monoxide leak. (See Cat Defender posts of April 23, 2007 and November 12, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Winnie Saves an Indiana Family of Three from Dying of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning" and "Winnie Is Honored as the ASPCA's 'Cat of the Year' for Saving Her Family from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning.")

Bacon and Cuddles likewise have alerted their guardians and other family members from potentially deadly fires. (See Cat Defender posts of October 31, 2007 and November 30, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Bacon Shows His Appreciation and Love for His Rescuer by Awakening Her from a Burning Apartment" and "Cuddles Saves Saskatchewan Family from a Blaze in a Faulty Fireplace That Destroys Their Home.")

Others such as Tiger, Suma, and Fidge have alerted their owners to the presence of previously undetected cancers. (See Cat Defender posts of April 11, 2009, March 27, 2010, and April 20, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Tiger Saves His Owner's Life by Alerting Him to a Cancerous Growth on His Left Lung,""Taken In Off the Street by a Compassionate Woman, Sumo Returns the Favor by Alerting Her to a Cancerous Growth on Her Bosom," and "Grateful for Being Provided with a Loving Home, Fidge in Turn Saves Her Mistress's Life by Alerting Her to a Malignant Growth on Her Breast.")

Elijah, Pudding, and others assist their owners in their struggles with diabetes. (See Cat Defender posts of May 18, 2009 and April 21, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Elijah Teaches Himself to Detect Low Blood Sugar Levels in His Guardians and Others" and "Adopted from a Shelter Only Hours Previously, Pudding Saves His Rescuer's Life by Awakening Her from a Diabetic Seizure.")

A cat named Blackie even helps his owner to cope with emphysema. (See Cat Defender post of April 18, 2009 entitled "Blackie Stays Up Nights Monitoring His Guardian's Breathing for Emphysema Attacks.")

Aside from its unforgivable snubbing of so many truly deserving cats, Purina's attitude is all the more deplorable given all the millions of dollars that cat caretakers pour into its coffers each year. In that light, perhaps it is high time that they considered switching their allegiance to other cat food manufacturers.

For her part, Johnston fully realizes that the deck is stacked against Ivy ever becoming part of Purina's class of 2017. "I'm just happy we were able to get Eric out," is how she summed up the situation to The Sudbury Star.

It also is more than just a little suspicious that the reeve's wife, who was at home when the mishap occurred, failed to hear his cries for assistance. Although there is absolutely nothing in the public record to suggest any sort of marital discord, there likewise is not any mention of her being as deaf as an adder either.

Be that as it may, the reeve would be well advised as a cautionary measure to immediately get rid of her and in her stead to acquire a cat. In fact, it is a wonder that he has made it this far in life without having one to guide and watch over him.

That is because no cat is about to stand idly by while a garage door chews up its caretaker's arm but it is an entirely different story with some women. For instance, unintended slights, such as either a forgotten anniversary or a subpar performance in the sack, have been known to bring on sudden attacks of deafness at the most inopportune times even in the best of women. By getting a cat, however, a man can thus avoid being left to the mercy of such mercurial creatures.

In addition to their even temperaments and total lack of malice, cats also possess many virtues that are denied to the tender gender. For instance, although they have notoriously poor eyesight, their hearing is especially keen and that is precisely what allowed Ivy to detect the reeve's cries for help even though he lived across the road.

Press reports fail to disclose whether or not Johnston's windows were open on that fateful day but in all likelihood it would not have made much difference even if they had been closed because a cat's auditory skills do not loose very much of their acuity even when sounds are filtered through bricks, mortar, and wood. They also can hear nails coming loose from their moorings long before the photographs and paintings that they have been supporting come crashing to the floor.

Even when intruders are careful so as not to make a sound, cats have the ability to either smell or sense their presence from as far away as one-hundred yards.  For example back on April 13, 2006, then thirty-five-year-old Dirk Prager of Köln in Nordrhein Westfalen was sitting in his kitchen having coffee at 5 a.m. when his resident tom, Möhre, inexplicably began meowing and scratching at the front door.

Looking out his window, Prager saw something on the doormat that at first glance appeared to be another cat. Once he had ventured outside he was shocked to discover that the object was not another cat but rather an infant boy wrapped in a white blanket.

Although he was only a few hours old, all of the blood had been wiped away and his navel had been tied off with a clothespin. Taken by ambulance to a hospital on Amsterdamer Straße, the boy was pronounced to be in good shape in spite of suffering from a mild case of hypothermia.

A nurse at the hospital identified only by her first name as Monika subsequently christened him as Simon Sonnenschein. "Weil er überlebt hat, steht Simon auf der Sonnenseite des Lebens," she explained.

Considering that the overnight temperature in Köln was 0° Celsius, Simon surely would not have lasted much longer under those conditions if Möhre had not intervened. "The cat is a hero," Uwe Beier of the Kölner Polizei later declared. "Its loud meowing got the attention of the homeowner and saved the baby from suffering life-threatening hypothermia."

In a classic case of Glück im Unglück, Simon was cruelly abandoned in the cold but saved by an attentive black cat. By this time he would be ten years old and he owes it all to Möhre. (See Cat Defender post of April 21, 2006 entitled "Möhre Saves a Newborn Infant Abandoned in the Cold on a Doorstep in Köln.")

As best as it could be determined, Möhre never was singled out for any special recognition but he, like Ivy, is richly deserving of all the praise and honors that this world has to bestow. At the very least, both individuals and governments alike should endeavor to respect the species' right to exist and to be free from all abuse. Moreover, every time that a cat is either killed or abused this world becomes a far poorer and considerably less civil place in which to live.

Photos: The Sudbury Star (Ivy) and the Köln Express (Möhre and Prager).

Sylvain Brunette with One of His Cats

"Je ne veux pas partir avant eux, j'ai peur pour leur avenir."
-- Sylvain Brunette

At times it is difficult to determine whether it is cats per se or their owners that the species' detractors detest the most. Regardless of which scenario is the closest to the truth, there cannot be any denying that the independence and open-mindedness exhibited by both groups rankles a world that is dominated primarily by authoritarians and sycophants.

C'est-à-dire, most men only have any regard whatsoever for those beings and things that they can exploit, abuse, and corrupt to the hilt. With that being the case, it naturally follows that they also do not brook any dissent.

An especially apt example of that mentality in action is to be found in how horribly the authorities and residents of tiny Franklin, sixty-eight kilometers south of Montréal and near the border with the États-Unis, are treating fifty-four-year-old Sylvain Brunette and his six, sixteen-year-old resident felines. Most outrageously of all, on November 6th three gendarmes showed up at his house and carted him away to Prison de Bordeaux in the Montréal arrondissement of Ahustic-Cartierville.

That extraordinary exercise of legal and political muscle was in response to his failure to pay fines levied at him totaling C$1,208 for not only owning five cats over the legal limit in Franklin but also for feeding others that are homeless. The petit fait that some of those fines dated back to 2013 certainly did not help his case.

"I have no business paying fines for kittens," he later declared to the CBC on November 26th. (See "Quebec Cat Lover Sent to Jail after Refusing to Give Up His Pets.")"I find that really stupid."

While that doubtlessly is true, he also had other motives for not anteing up and the most pressing of which could have been a lack of wherewithal considering that he lives on social assistance. He additionally appears to be a scofflaw in that he spent an unspecified amount of time interned at Prison de Bordeaux fifteen years ago for failing to make good on a parking ticket issued to him.

Although an unidentified municipal court judge originally had sentenced him to fifty-four days in the sneezer, he was sprung after serving slightly less than four when family members came forward and ponied up C$1,409. Press reports have not spelled out the specifics but presumably that total covered not only his fines but interest and court costs as well.

He subsequently has pledged to repay the full amount to his relatives in installments of C$60 a month but, other than that concession, he remains defiant. "Je ne veux pas partir avant eux, j'ai peur pour leur avenir," he declared to Le Journal de Montréal on November 26th. (See "Peine de cinquante et quatre jours de prison pour ses chats.")

In that regard, his trepidations cannot in any way be underestimated. First of all, by simply retaining custody of them he remains in defiance of a city law and that can only lead to either additional fines or, tant pis, the outright seizure of them.

Secondly, elderly cats are notoriously difficult to rehome and should the authorities ever get their hands on them, they in all likelihood would waste little time in snuffing out their lives. Therefore, unless he can persuade either a lawyer of an animal rights group to take his case on a pro bono basis, it would appear that the only option left open to him would be to leave Franklin.

He also is unlikely to refrain from coming to the assistance of homeless cats in extremis."L' autre jour, il y avait un chat avec un plomb sur lui, j'ai enlevé le plomb, désinfecté sa plaie et je lui ai fait un bandage," he disclosed to Le Journal de Montréal."Depius que je suis petit que j'ai une passion pour les animaux."

As commendable as all of that may be, sooner or later an ailurophobe is going to rat him out to the authorities for either feeding or medicating homeless cats and additional fines are going to ensue. If, on the other hand, he should abruptly stop caring for them he would be in effect initialing their death warrants because not only is food extremely difficult to come by during Montréal's long and grueling winters but veterinary care is totally out of the question as far as impecunious cats are concerned.

Amanda Di Pancrazio's Lost Cat Poster for Gizmo

Contacted by the CBC, Franklin Mayor Suzanne Yelle Blair pleaded ignorance of the entire cause célèbre and that in itself is odd given not only that there are only seventeen-hundred residents in the entire city but the plight of Brunette and his cats has been chronicled by the media. It nevertheless is entirely conceivable that his newfound notoriety may have bought him and his cats some breathing room but that is unlikely to endure for very long in that as soon as the hubbub surrounding them abates the authorities likely will once again strike and this time around they will arrive as thieves in the night and with deadly consequences.

Press reports have failed to disclose who attended to the needs of his cats while he was in jail and in that light he surely must be fully aware that even if the authorities should refrain from seizing them, they cannot provide for themselves. The only obvious way therefore that he can ensure their well-being is to stay out of prison even if that entails paying the fines levied against him.

On top of concerns about their welfare, Brunette also has to be worried about his own safety in that another sojourn, no matter how brief, at Prison de Bordeaux could very well spell the end of him. Although the institution is touted as a minimum security facility for both those awaiting trial as well as those serving sentences of less than two years, Brunette paints a bleak picture of it as an earthly hellhole where overcrowding, violence, and drug use and trafficking are the norms.

With that being the case, it is not surprising that it is the inmates who run the asylum as opposed to its nominal overseer, the Quebec Ministry of Public Security. "Des le lendemain de mon arrivée, le comite de détenus m'a accueilli pour m'expliquer le fonctionnement de la place, j'avais peur, ils sont épeurants," he explained to Le Journal de Montéal.

This comité de détenus also hogged a lion's share of the daily food rations and that in turn left very little for the other inmates to eat. It was, however, the threats and violence that unnerved Brunette the most and necessitated in him being forced to walk with his back to the wall so as to ward off assaults from behind.

"Les gars sont gros, sont grands et méchants," he told Le Journal de Montréal."J'ai vécu de multiples agressions."

In his defense, Brunette has raised several salient points. Perhaps most important of all, he was ratted out to the authorities by an unidentified neighbor that he foolishly had taken into his confidence by confiding to that individual that he had six cats.

That is an altogether too familiar pattern that plays itself out seemingly all the time at varying locations around the world. In the United States, for example, it is almost always cat-hating neighbors who inform on roaming cats to the authorities who in turn dispatch trigger-happy cops who put bullets in their heads. (See Cat Defender post of September 1, 2016 entitled "The Legal and Political Establishment in a Small Pennsylvania Backwater Closes Ranks and Pulls Out All the Stops in Order to Save the Job and Liberty of the Bloodthirsty Cop Who Murdered Sugar.")

Secondly, Brunette believes himself to have been the victim of selective law enforcement and prosecution. "On est à la campagne, mon voisin a plusieurs chiens, un autre a plusieurs chats sur ses terres et ils ne se sont jamais retrouvés en prison," he groused to Le Journal de Montréal.

Thirdly, he is perturbed by the grossly unfair manner in which his cats are being treated. "Oui, j'ai six chats, mais ils restent toujours à l'intérieur de ma maison," he freely admitted to Le Journal de Montréal."Ils dérangent qui?"

He also most definitely does not care for how he is being treated by both his neighbors as well as the authorities. "...Il y a une chose que je sais, c'est que jamais je ne ferais mal à personne et je serais le premier à sauver un humain et également le premier à sauver un animal," he vowed to Le Journal de Montréal.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once observed that individuals are best punished for their virtues and that most definitely has proven to be the case with Brunette. "Imaginez, moi j'etais là (prison) pour avoir gardé mes chats et je ne ferais pas de mal à une mouche," is how that he summed up the absurdity of his incarceration to Le Journal de Montréal.

Self-Professed Cat Killer and All-Around Scumbag Stéphane Gendron

As patently unfair as what is being done to Brunette and his cats in Franklin may be, it is merely one episode in an ongoing worldwide assault upon their and their owners' liberties. For instance, in addition to ownership restrictions, many jurisdictions now mandate that cats be licensed, sterilized, and have cancer-causing microchips implanted in them. Other jurisdictions have relegated them to  second class citizens of this planet by mandating that they be locked up indoors at all times.

It is homeless cats, however, that always have been on the receiving end of the most outrageous and monstrous treatment of all. Even in this supposedly enlightened age, they are largely still regarded as being unfit to even exist.

In furtherance of that inhumane and morally indefensible objective, anti-feeding laws have proliferated not only in Franklin but elsewhere as well. For example, in 2007 Janice L. Rolfe of Grandview Heights, Ohio, was arrested for showing compassion for a cat named Fluffy. (See Cat Defender post of February 26, 2007 entitled "Charged with Feeding a Feral Cat Named Fluffy, Retired Ohio English Teacher Beats the Rap.")

Others, such as eighty-one-year-old Jeanne Ambler of Temple Terrace, Florida, have been threatened with eviction from their apartments for doing likewise. (See Cat Defender post of August 2, 2010 entitled "Old, Poor, and Sickly, Jeanne Ambler Is Facing Eviction for Feeding a Trio of Hungry Cats.")

The slugs and moral degenerates who run the show at Cornell University even stooped so low as to fire John Beck for feeding homeless cats of its sprawling upstate New York campus. (See Cat Defender post of June 14, 2006 entitled "Kindhearted Dairyman, Sacked for Feeding Feral Cats, Files $20 Million Lawsuit Against Cornell University.")

Even so much as attempting to rescue a cat trapped inside the walls of a building earned Chris Muth of Brooklyn a six-day stay in a mental hospital. (See Cat Defender post of August 4, 2008 entitled "Brooklyn Man Gets Locked Up in a Nuthouse and Then Loses Digs, Job, and Honey All for Attempting to Save His Friend's Cat, Rumi.")

To their eternal credit, however, some fans of the species steadfastly refuse to be intimidated by the authorities regardless of either how daunting the obstacles or severe the penalties. For example, fifty-five-year-old Hannelore Schmedes of the Mahlum section of Bockenem, thirty kilometers southeast of Hannover in Niedersachsen, was forced to spend thirty-five days at the Justizvollzuganstatt für Frauen in Hildescheim in 2010 for shoplifting €100 worth of food in order to feed her twelve resident felines.

While she was incarcerated, Tierschutz Hildesheim not only confiscated her cats but a pair of dogs that belonged to her as well. It then adopted out two of the cats and one of the dogs while simultaneously sticking her with a bill for €400 for feeding and housing the remaining ten felines and one canine.

"Ich habe noch nie etwas gestohlen," she later said in her defense. "Aber jetzt wusste ich mir keinen anderen Rat."(See Cat Defender post of February 11, 2011 entitled "Disabled Former Casino Worker Is Sent to Jail for Shoplifting Food in Order to Feed Her Twelve Cats.")

In 2013, forty-eight-year-old Mamoru Demizu of Izumi in Osaka Prefecture was arrested and charged with stealing the equivalent of £112,000 in cash and jewels during the course of thirty-two burglaries that he committed in order to purchase food for the one-hundred-twenty homeless cats that he had taken under his care. As that staggering grocery bill indicates, he most definitely was not feeding them cheap kibble but rather a gourmet diet consisting of fresh fish and chicken that cost him £148 per day.

"He said he was happiest when he rubbed his cheek against the cats," an unidentified police officer told The Telegraph of London on December 12, 2013. (See "Cat Burglar: Japanese Man Steals £112,000 to Feed His One-Hundred-Twenty Cats.")

Although anti-cat sentiment has reached a fever pitch just about everywhere, that is particularly the case in and around Montréal. For instance, in May of 2013 the authorities in the arrondissement of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve threatened to fine Amanda Di Pancrazio C$500 for posting four-hundred Lost Cat posters.

A Campaign Poster for  Humbert

Her beloved Gizmo had disappeared in April and it, unfortunately, is not known if she ever was able to locate him. Like Brunette, however, she remained defiant in face of the opposition that she faced and vowed not to take down the posters. (See CTV of Montreal, May 7, 2013, "Woman Threatened with $500 Fine for Posting Pictures of Lost Cat.")

By taking such a cruel and inhumane attitude toward Di Prancrazio and Gizmo, the authorities in Montréal were imitating the utterly reprehensible example set earlier by the politicians in the north London borough of Haringey who in 2008 went after fifty-three-year-old Eileen Miles for fly-posting the neighborhood in search for her missing cat, Ginger Boy. (See Cat Defender posts of September 11, 2008, October 3, 2008, and November 7, 2008 entitled, respectively, "North London Borough Bans Lost Cat Posters Thus Forcing Ginger Boy to Find His Way Home by Himself,""Haringey Council Comes to Its Senses and Rescinds Its Ban on Lost Cat Posters but It Already May Be Too Late to Save Ginger Boy," and "Ginger Boy Is Found Safe and Sound after Roaming the Streets of Harringay Ladder for Nearly Two Months.")

The high-muck-a-mucks in Haringey eventually backed down and Miles thus was able to avoid being fined but the outcome was entirely different a few years later in Bedford when the Bedfordshire Borough Council gave forty-four-year-old Mike Harding only forty-eight hours in order to remove twenty Lost Cat posters that he had erected around town  in an effort to locate his seven-year-old cat, Wookie. Failure to have complied would have cost him £1,000.

Afterwards he expressed many of the same sentiments that Brunette was later to voice after his incarceration. "...I'm a law-abiding citizen and I've not even got so much as a speeding ticket and I'm being threatened to be fined £1,000 for looking for my cat," he complained to The Telegraph on January 3, 2011. (See "Council Threatens Man with Fine over Lost Cat Posters.")"You would think the council would have more compassion."

Ownership restrictions and bans on Lost Cat posters are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg, however, as far as the authorities in Quebec are concerned in that some of them seem to think that they have a divine right to take the law into their own hands. For instance, in July of 2013 Mayor Stéphane Gendron of Huntingdon, twenty-six kilometers west of Franklin, bragged on his radio show about running down and killing cats with his pickup truck.

"When I see a cat in the street, I accelerate," he declared on Radio X according to the July 13, 2013 edition of The Globe and Mail of Toronto. (See "Quebec Mayor in Cat Scandal Under Investigation by Animal Rights Activists.")"Stray cats have no business in the street. So bang! I accelerate."

He even went on to claim that killing kittens made him especially delirious with joy. "The other day, I backed up on one, it was a newborn,"The Huffington Post reported him as declaring on July 13th. (See "Stéphane Gendron Killed Cats with Truck, He Admits on Radio Show.")"I'm sure he didn't feel anything. The pickup truck ran on it like nothing. I was so happy, yes! One less."

Many individuals do not want to believe it but Gendron's admission is just one more bit of evidence that motorists do not accidentally kill cats; au contraire, every single one of all the dead cats to be found in the street have been intentionally run down and killed by low-life scumbags like Gendron. Many motorists also do likewise to pedestrians and bicyclists.

Although both the SPCA and the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council pledged to look into the matter, no punitive action ever was initiated against him. The only positive development to transpire came when pet food supplier Mondou of Montreal pulled its ads from Radio X in protest.

"Shocking, but not surprising," is how Leni Parker of the Montreal-based rescue group, Pussy Patrol, characterized Gendron's conduct to The Globe and Mail."Quebec is one of the worst places on the planet in terms of animal abuse and complacency."

Considering how horribly that cats are treated throughout the province, it was not all that surprising that a four-year-old tom named Humbert did not fare too well last year when he campaigned to represent the Montreal arrondissement of Notre Dame de Grâce and Westmount in Parliament. Instead, the voters on October 19th returned Liberal MP Marc Garneau to Ottawa.

"We just thought that given all the characters running for election, you couldn't do any worse than our cat," Humbert's owner, John Jordan, averred to the CBC on August 18, 2015. (See "Humbert, Four-Year-Old Furry Feline, Tries to Purr-suade Voters in Notre Dame de Grâce-Westmount.")"He's good at his job and he's well-known. He's a man of the people."

Generally speaking, it would appear that Théophile Gautier was talking out his hat when he once declared that "only a Frenchmen could understand the fine and subtle qualities of the cat." On the contrary, these are perilous times for both cats and their owners everywhere but that appears to be especially the case in Quebec.

Photos: Magalie Lapointe of Le Journal de Montreal (Brunette with one of his cats), CTV of Montreal (Gizmo), Ian Barrett of The Globe and Mail (Gendron), and Carol Berringer of Facebook via the CBC (Humbert).

Browser Is the Library's Number One Attraction

"Browser is still employed and will be as long as he wishes to continue his duties as mascot and reading helper for children at the library."
-- Ronald A. White, mayor of White Settlement

Cats do not often come out on top in this ailurophobic world but a handsome six-year-old gray male named Browser from White Settlement appears to have pulled off that herculean feat by beating back a determined effort to evict him from the public library. "Browser is still employed and will be as long as he wishes to continue his duties as mascot and reading helper for children at the library," Mayor Ronald A. White declared to The Dallas Morning News on December 13th. (See "Browser Will Be White Settlement Cat for Life, Mayor Says.")

Adopted from a local shelter in October of 2010 by the White Settlement Public Library (WSPL), the then tiny kitten quickly became a huge favorite of both staffers and patrons alike in the small community of sixteen-thousand souls located sixteen kilometers west of Fort Worth. He often can be found either napping on staffers' chairs and desks, lounging on top of computer keyboards, or assisting children with their studies.

Always on the lookout in order to better himself, he attends GED classes twice and week and for that effort he has been rewarded with an honorary high school diploma. Even more remarkably, he was able to accomplish that milestone in spite of suffering from periodic bouts of Wanderlust that prompt him to make impromptu breaks for any doors that have been left ajar by arriving and departing visitors to the facility at 8215 White Settlement Road.

Although he more than pays for his keep through the many hats that he wears, such as that of mascot, goodwill ambassador, and rodent chaser, he additionally puts money in the library's coffers by graciously consenting to pose for its annual calendars which staffers then sell back to his legions of fans and others. All things considered, the arrangement has worked out remarkably well for both parties and, best of all, the library saved a life by ransoming him off of death row.

The tranquility and happiness that he had enjoyed for so many years was rudely shattered back in June, however, and it all began with, predictably, a dog. That was when City Secretary Amy Arnold brought an unidentified puppy to work with her which in turn provoked the ire of seventy-five-year-old city councilman Elzie Clements.

"City Hall and city businesses are no place (sic) for animals," he declared to Fox News on June 26th. (See "Texas City Council Votes to Evict Library Cat.")

Arnold accordingly was instructed to get rid of the dog and when he obediently complied that served as the catalyst for Clements to go after Browser's tiny head in a spirited effort to add it to his trophy collection. Now feeling his oats more than ever, the old warhorse was able to convince councilman Paul Moore to support his scheme to remove Browser from the library.

The City Council then compliantly voted two to one on June 14th to issue Browser a thirty-day eviction notice. Only councilman David Mann was able to muster the moxie in order to go against Clements' wishes.

The reaction to that disastrous turn of events was quick and predictable. "We've had that cat five (sic) years, and there's never been a question," White, a nominal, non-voting member of the council, complained afterwards to Fox News.

It was, however, Lillian Blackburn of the Friends of the WSPL who most succinctly and eloquently summed up the sorry situation. "This cat has been loved by people of all ages for six years," she pointed out to Fox News. "I don't have any animals but this cat is so gentle and so lovable and he brings so much comfort to so many people, it seems a shame to take him away."

Mayor Ronald A. White

To their credit, neither the library nor the citizens of White Settlement were about to knuckle under to the prejudices of a mean-spirited old man with a political ax to grind and they accordingly circulated a petition demanding that Browser be allowed to continue residing in the only home that he ever has known and it quickly garnered more than twenty-thousand signatures. His supporters received a major shot in the arm when both the mainstream as well as social media rallied to his defense.

In particular, his desperate plight was not only chronicled on Facebook, Gawker, and BuzzFeed, but also by the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. That in turn led to White being inundated with at least fourteen-hundred e-mail letters, some of which came from as far away as London, Guam, and Australia.

"They're all in support of the cat," he divulged to the Grizzly Detail of Fort Worth on July 8th. (See "Council Reinstates Library Cat at Special Me(ow)eting Friday.")

That alone put the obscure little town with the provocative moniker on the map. "We are now known all over the world," White caroled to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram on July 1st. (See "Browser the Cat Gets to Stay at White Settlement Library.")"I'm not sure yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I never expected this would get this big."

As things eventually turned out, that was not the end of the matter but rather only the beginning in that public opposition to Browser's ouster became so widespread and vociferous that City Council was forced into calling a special meeting on July 1st in order to undo the colossal damage that it earlier had inflicted. On that memorable occasion, fifty or more of Browser's avid supporters packed council chambers while others waited outside and once the political dust had settled councilman Paul Moore had reversed his earlier vote and joined Mann in voting to rescind the eviction notice.

Realizing that he was licked, Clements grudgingly joined his opponents in making the decision unanimous. To say that he was unhappy with that outcome would be a gross understatement.

Although he unmercifully castigated both mainstream and social media for meddling in White Settlement's affairs, he reserved his most poisonous venom for cat-lovers. "This small group of activists and their political supporters have chosen to ignore the needs of the minority group of people, which includes our schoolchildren who are unable to use the public facility," he declared to the Grizzly Detail."They take their view of the cat's residence in the library as exclusive and set aside the needs of everyone else who may wish to use the facility."

On all of those points Clements was being considerably less than truthful. Most importantly, there is absolutely nothing in the public record to even remotely suggest that Browser's presence ever had deterred anyone from using the facility.

Au contraire, several residents who are allergic to cats themselves spoke up at the July 1st meeting in favor of allowing him to keep his home. Moreover, staffers at the library always have been more than willing to accommodate any patrons with allergies by confining Browser during their visits if they so requested.

Most dishonest of all, Clements has conveniently forgotten that the main reason that the library acquired Browser in the first place was to protect the health and well-being of its juvenile patrons. That is because prior to his arrival the facility had employed an exterminator who was so careless that some of the rat poison that was put out eventually found its way onto the books and that in turn necessitated that they had to be individually inspected and wiped clean.

"We don't want those books getting into the hands of little children who would then put their fingers in their mouths," White astutely pointed out to the Star-Telegram in the July 1st article cited supra.

Mean Old Elzie Clements

In addition to contaminating the environment, it is the epitome of cruelty to poison rodents. Furthermore, in many instances the mere presence of a cat is sufficient in itself to persuade them to pull up stakes and to relocate elsewhere. They thus are able to escape with their lives but with poisons they do not stand a ghost of a chance of doing so and instead die hideously painful deaths.

While he had the wind up, old Clements heaped scorn and ridicule upon Browser's supporters by arguing, in effect, that depriving him of a place to hang his hat was of no consequence. "Yet, with all of that going on (other city business), the only focus of a small group of community activists and their political supporters is whether or not a cat can reside in the public library," he sneered to the Grizzly Detail.

He additionally had the chutzpah to blame Browser's supporters for his own pigheadedness and folly. "Staff and elected officials have been needlessly called names and ridiculed over this issue," he whined to the Grizzly Detail."The entire town has been made a mockery."

His wife, Penny, echoed those sentiments. "We have gotten nothing but hate e-mails and hate messages since this whole thing started," she groused to the Star-Telegram."We just wanted (sic) it all to go away."

Regardless of how many incidents of this nature occur, the way in which cat-hating individuals and institutions do their sums continues to boggle the mind. First of all, they talk and behave as if they are endowed with a divine right to malign, evict, abuse, and even kill cats with impunity.

Secondly, whenever they encounter any opposition whatsoever they immediately show their true fascist colors by declaring their total opposition to free speech and press as well as the constitutional right of citizens to petition the government for the redress of grievances. A good example of that behavior is to be found in how Clements threw his considerable weight around at the July 1st city council meeting.

Specifically, he adjourned the meeting twenty minutes after it had been called to order without granting any of Browser's supporters the opportunity to speak. Even more unfairly, he did that after he had monopolized the allotted time in order to harangue and denigrate them to the hilt.

Worst of all, Clements and his misbegotten ilk categorically refuse to acknowledge cats' right to live and to be treated humanely. To top it all off, he and his wife would have the world to believe that they actually like cats.

"We've been called cat-haters and we have cats at home," she averred to the Star-Telegram. "People have suggested doing things just short of murder."

While it is conceivable that she was being truthful, it nevertheless is extremely odd for one cat owner to be agitating for the uprooting and eviction of someone else's resident feline. That is especially the case in light of the millions of unwanted and homeless cats that are systematically exterminated each year without so much as a twinge of conscience by shelter operators and veterinarians.

Browser Is Always on Hand to Assist Children with Their Reading

Most deplorable of all, there is absolutely nothing in press reports to even remotely suggest that either Clements or his spouse ever expressed one iota of concern about Browser's well-being and future. Quite obviously, neither of them cared whether he lived or died.

Their callousness is trumped only by their ingratitude, unfairness, and cheapness. Given that Browser had worked as a dutiful city employee for the past six years, he was at the very least owed a pension and veterinary care for life.

It additionally is the very pinnacle of hypocrisy for the Clements to complain about receiving threats after what they were attempting to do to Browser. Everywhere in the world it is always the same old story in that the rich and powerful believe that they not only should be allowed to do with cats, other animals, Mother Earth, and the poor as they see fit but without opposition to boot.

Clements' cavalier treatment of Browser also makes a mockery of his utterly laughable attempt to pass himself off as a champion of minorities. In reality, the only minority that he cares about is himself.

Under most circumstances, the vote on July 1st would have been the end of this dispute and Browser's position as "Library Cat for Life" would have been secure, but nothing ever can be taken for granted when it comes to members of his species. Someone or some group is always out to get them and that is especially the case once any of them have made any enemy out of a spiteful old man like Clements who does not have anything better to do with his dwindling days upon this earth than to attack them.

Consequently, it was not really all that surprising that he went back on his word and once again attempted to have Browser removed from the library when the City Council convened again on December 6th. "My view hasn't changed," he proclaimed on that occasion according to the account of events rendered in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram on December 10th. (See "Council Critic Takes Yet Another Swipe at Browser the Library Cat.")"I don't believe we need animals in our buildings."

Clements' about-face left Mann exasperated. "I can't believe they (sic) would bring the cat up again," he told the Star-Telegram."He's not costing the city any money. Why act this way?"

That was one question that White was more than capable of handling with ease. "Mr. Clements wants to get the last hurrah and snub his nose at everybody," he told the Star-Telegram."It's like he wants to get the city back for not voting for him."

By that he was referring to Clements' trouncing by Evelyn J. Spurlock at the polls on November 8th. In fact, the political drubbing doled out to him was so bad that he was only able to garner forty-three per cent of the vote as compared to her fifty-seven per cent.

As if any further proof of Clements' designs were needed, it is to be found on the city's Facebook page in a notice that was posted shortly before the calling to order of the December 6th meeting of City Council. "One decision that has been finalized is that there will be no items on this agenda related to the removal of animals from city buildings," the notice read according to The Dallas Morning News'December 13th edition. (See "Browser Will Be White Settlement Library Cat for Life, Mayor Says.") "City leadership made the decision that this item will not be placed on the agenda and at no time was it included."

Browser Is Safe and Secure in the Stacks -- at Least for the Time Being

By ultimately prevailing over Clements, Browser became the second cat in recent memory to have outlasted a politician who was not especially fond of him. For instance, earlier this year Larry was allowed to remain at 10 Downing Street after David Cameron was driven from power in the wake of the Brexit debacle.

Larry's and Browser's situations were not exactly identical in that Cameron at least tolerated the former's presence for political reasons even though he, according to Fleet Street, was not overly fond of him. (See Cat Defender post of August 1, 2016 entitled "Unmercifully Maligned and Treated Like Dirt for So Many Years, Larry Nevertheless Manages to Stick Around Long Enough in Order to See the Last of David Cameron and His Uncaring Family.")

"There's one absolute rule in politics: Don't mess with cat people," former Miami Beach Mayor Seymour Gelber declared in 1995. While they are not always able to prevail, cat-lovers usually can be counted upon to at least put up a good fight.

In that respect, the fighting spirit of Browser's defenders in White Settlement may be needed again in that it is anything but certain that they have seen and heard the last of Clements. Even though he has been driven from power, he is more than willing and capable of going after Browser again in his capacity as a private citizen.

That is precisely what local rabble-rouser and ex-jailbird Patrick Higgins did in 2013 when he unsuccessfully attempted to have an elderly tortoiseshell named Penny evicted from the Swansea Public Library in Massachusetts. (See Cat Defender post of March 8, 2016 entitled "Penny of the Swansea Public Library: A Remembrance.")

Browser's best hope of remaining at the library therefore lies in the continued vigilance of his supporters in White Settlement. In that respect, his fate appears to be in especially capable hands in that this was by no means the first time that residents have joined together in order to rein in their elected officials once they had become tyrannical.

For example on November 8, 2005, they beat back an attempt to change the town's politically incorrect name to West Settlement by the lopsided vote of two-thousand-three-hundred-eighty-eight to two-hundred-nineteen. When it was incorporated in 1941, the town's elders gave it that moniker in order to distinguish it from, not blacks, but rather a group of Native Americans that had a settlement of their own nearby.

Even if the political winds should once again turn against him, it is unlikely that Browser is going to wind up on the street given the large number of individuals from around the world who have generously offered to adopt him if worse should ever come to worst. That is unlikely to be necessary, however, considering how much that the resident of White Settlement value his presence.

Speaking more broadly, libraries and other facilities, both public and private, need more, not fewer, cats. Not only do they have a proven calming effect upon most individuals but their presence also serves as a poignant reminder that, contrary to what some people believe, a whole other world still exists outside of computers, mobile telephones, and television.

Cats additionally have much to teach individuals who are still willing to learn. "These intelligent, peace-loving, four-footed friends -- who are without prejudice, without hate, without greed -- may someday teach us something," novelist Lilian Jackson Braun once observed.

Besides, cats and books just naturally go together. "Outside of a cat, a book is man's best friend," a sign at the Lilac Hedge Bookshop in Norwich, Vermont, proclaims. "Inside of a cat, it's too dark to read."

Photos: White Settlement Public Library (Browser holding court and in the stacks), Paul Moseley of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (White and Clements), and KDFW-TV of Dallas-Fort Worth (Browser assisting a group of children with their reading).

Whisper Was a Fixture at the Library for Eight Years

"Let the population have a voice in this. This is a quality of life issue."
-- Ed Busch of Friends of the Animals Low-Cost Spay and Neuter Clinic

For every library cat that is able to fend off an eviction attempt countless others wind up relegated to the ranks of the dispossessed. Sadly, that was the cruel and grotesquely unfair fate recently meted out to a mild-mannered, eight-year-old female with gorgeous long gray and white fur named, à propos, Whisper by an out of control gang of thoroughly ruthless and mendacious politicians in Mabank, one-hundred-forty kilometers southeast of Fort Worth.

Adopted as a kitten from the Friends of the Animals Low-Cost Spay and Neuter Clinic in Gun Barrel City, eight kilometers southeast of Mabank, Whisper had spent her entire life at the Tri-County Library.  Loved and admired by staffers and patrons alike, she served as the institution's mascot, goodwill ambassador, and resident mouser.

Her birthdays were celebrated with punch, cake, candles, and presents and her mere presence brought in countless visitors who came specifically in order to meet and greet her. That in turn doubtlessly generated revenue for the perennially cash-strapped library. Best of all as far as the facility was concerned, Friends of the Animals footed the bill for her food, litter, vaccinations, collars, and toys.

All went swimmingly until ownership of the facility passed from private hands to the city of Mabank in September of last year. That was when the authorities, in a desperate search for a defenseless victim that they could screw to the wall with impunity and thus by doing so bring the library to heel underneath their thumbs, decided to go after Whisper. As a consequence, she was ordered in no uncertain terms to vacate the premises by no later than October 1st.

Ailurophobia sans doute also factored heavily into that decision but it appears to have been of secondary importance. This was primarily a naked power grab and nothing less.

That is easy enough to see by the gargantuan lengths that the politicians have gone to in an effort to justify their outrageous behavior. For instance, the mayor of the tiny city of three-thousand souls, Jeff Norman, has thrown everything except the proverbial kitchen sink at Whisper by falsely accusing her of being potentially responsible for a myriad of totally fanciful calamities.

First of all, he claims that her presence at the library will prompt city employees to demand that they too be allowed to keep pets at work. Yet, he has not presented one iota of evidence to indicate that ever has occurred during Whisper's long tenure at the library and as a consequence it is unlikely to happen now that the facility is under new management.

Secondly, although he claims to have received complaints about her, he likewise has not produced so much as a scintilla of evidence to substantiate that allegation. "I've received comments disfavoring the cat," is all that he was willing to divulge to The Monitor of Mabank on October 7th. (See "City Evicts Whisper, the Cat, from the Library.")

Thirdly, he has brought up that old bugaboo about cats and food being incompatible and since the library has a kitchen Whisper ergo has to go. That is hardly an issue in that the vast majority of these amenities are not really full-blown kitchens at all but rather they are usually pretty much limited to a coffee maker, a microwave oven, and sometimes a refrigerator. Furthermore, these rather spartan facilities are included as a convenience to staffers and seldom, if ever, are the food and drinks that are prepared there served to the public.

Fourthly, he has argued that if the city had not taken over the library it would have been forced to close and Whisper therefore would have lost her home in any event. That too is an irrelevant argument because the library did not in fact close but it is still very much open for business. Moreover, he should not be allowed to get away with dishonestly packing off blame for Whisper's ouster on the library's former owner and that individual's financial straits.

Jeff Norman

Fifthly, this laughingstock of a mayor has accused Whisper of being diseased, flea-ridden, and violent. "As difficult as this is, we must regard the safety and the needs of all our constituents and the potential danger and risk associated with animals and the resulting liability of the library if anyone is injured because of disease, fleas and ticks, allergens, or biting and scratching, whether intended or unintended," is how that he blew it out both ends to The Monitor on November 4th. (See "Whisper's Eviction Stands.")

Norman's sottise was quickly refuted by Ed Busch of Friends of the Animals who told The Dallas Morning News on November 2nd that Whisper not only does not have fleas but that the library likewise does not, thanks to her presence, have mice. (See "Texas City Shelves Vote on Cat Kicked Out of Mabank Library.")

Much more to the point, there is absolutely nothing in press reports to even remotely suggest that Whisper ever has either bitten or scratched anyone during her eight years in residence at the library. Even if she were to accidentally do so it would not be all that big of a deal given that she is up-to-date on her vaccinations.

Fifthly, Norman has had the unmitigated gall to enlist the support of the confirmed cat-haters at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta in his unholy crusade against Whisper. "Please refer to the CDC for the potential harm we are trying to avoid," he implored readers of The Dallas Morning News.

Given the extravagant lengths that he has been willing to go to in order to fabricate a totally bogus case against Whisper, it is a tad surprising that he did not attempt to resurrect that nonsensical old wives' tale about cats sucking the breath out of infants. That is precisely what novelist Anita Shreve so shamefully stooped to in the following memorable passage from her 1989 novel, Eden Close:

"Andrew, who has settled for a casserole left by the Ladies Guild, which looks more or less like goulash, remembers the afternoon Edith Close left the baby (Eden) outside in the carriage without the net and went upstairs to lie down. The Closes' honey-colored cat -- whose jealousy, unlike his mistresses (sic), was uninhibited -- leapt silently into the carriage and was about to do away with the usurper when the baby's screams brought Andy's mother running from the kitchen. She scooped up the child, giving the sullen cat a remarkably deft kick -- thinking the row would alert her neighbor."

Also, he could have chosen to have gone whole hog and aligned himself with the likes of the National Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy and accused Whisper of being a menace to birds by simply staring cross-eyed at photographs of them contained in books! Whenever an individual is as determined to get rid of a cat as Norman was to do with Whisper the potential slanders and libels that he is capable of manufacturing out of thin air are almost endless.

All over the world political hacks stick together like congealed feces and that certainly has proven to be the case in Mabank. For example, former mayor and current city councilman Larry Teague could not resist the temptation to sound an alarm over liability issues.

"We've said nothing against it (Whisper residing at the library so long as it was in private hands)," he gassed to The Monitor in the October 7th article cited supra."But things are different now. There's liability."

He then went on to postulate that individuals are more prone to bring legal action against governmental entities than they are to go after private concerns. "They wouldn't hesitate to sue over the smallest of harms or perceived harm," he declared to The Monitor."It's a whole different animal."

Larry Teague

When Busch attempted to argue that insurance would protect the city from any potential lawsuits involving Whisper, he was immediately shot down by Teague's and Norman's comrade-in-arms, city manager Bryant Morris who, like them, has an answer for every objection so long as it is compatible with getting rid of the cat. "Though the city may be covered, the insurance agency doesn't recommend it," he averred to The Monitor.

On all of those issues Teague is guilty of not only drawing legs on a snake but of being considerably less than forthright. First of all, aggrieved individuals must have the ability to instigate legal action and that requires, like everything else in this world, time and money.

If they should belong to the ranks of the impecunious, their only recourse is to locate attorneys who are willing to take their cases on a contingency basis and that is not an easy feat to pull off considering that liability shysters only take on those that they have a good chance of winning in court. With that being the case, the actual number of aggrieved individuals who receive compensation for their injuries is rather small.

Secondly, for individuals who have been injured and have the resources to sue it is highly unlikely that it makes much difference to them whether their opponent is a private or a governmental entity. Besides, civil lawsuits involve considerably more than money in that complainants also want those responsible for their injuries and suffering to be held publicly accountable regardless of how much or little compensation they ultimately pocket.

Civil suits also benefit society enormously through the spillover effect that they have upon the future behavior of both actual and potential wrongdoers. Sometimes just the mere threat of legal action is sufficient in itself in order to prompt both private and governmental concerns to mend their evil ways.

Thirdly, for Teague and his cronies to invoke the liability argument against Whisper in an effort to get rid of her is simply absurd. In the first place, even if she did accidentally scratch or bite someone it is highly unlikely that the aggrieved individual would sue over such a trifling matter. Moreover, even if worse came to worst it is doubtful that such action would end up costing the city very much of its precious moola.

Potential liability issues involving Whisper also pale in comparison to the almost endless array of other litigious matters that can, and often do, end up costing municipalities like Mabank a pretty penny each year. Chiefly among them are lawsuits that result from, inter alia, police misconduct, sexual harassment and assaults by city employees, job discrimination, unlawful terminations, vehicular and mass transit mishaps, slips and falls on city-owned properties, and citizens who contest fines, code infractions, and tax bills.

It accordingly is safe to conclude that the list of potential liabilities that cities face is almost endless whereas it is extremely doubtful that any of them ever has been held negligent in a court of law because a cat scratched someone. The politicians' eagerness to plumb the outer limits of contorted logic has however inadvertently exposed a rather disconcerting truth.

C'est-à- dire, given the large number of real, as opposed to imaginary, liability issues that could arise it is simply too risky for the city of Mabank to continue to exist. As a consequence, it should immediately take down its shingle and go out of business altogether.

In fact, it may already be too late for it to ward off financial ruin. That is because Norman, Teague, and Morris have so overworked their desiccated old gourds in fabricating a make-believe case against Whisper that they, in all likelihood, are now prone to developing aneurisms.

Once that occurs, the taxpayers are going to be stuck with picking up the humongous tabs for not only their surgeries but their disability retirements as well. It is superfluous to point out but modern medicine has yet to come up with cures for rotten brains and diseased souls.

Whisper Celebrating Her Fourth Birthday Back in 2012

In addition to being mean-spirited, high-handed, and a complete fabrication of the truth, the politicians' eviction of Whisper was undemocratic as well. Not only was that decision never submitted to the public for approval, but Norman stated at an October 4th city council meeting that it would be put to a vote at the next meeting. That turned out to be a bare-faced lie because when the council next met on November 1st he categorically refused to even put the matter on the agenda.

"We tried to get some idea of what the citizens of Mabank think about this issue and it didn't matter at all," Busch lamented to The Dallas Morning News."They're (city council) happy with the result. The cat's out. We're going to have to go to the city and ask that it be put on the agenda."

Better still, he would like to see the matter put to the people. "Let the population have a voice in this," he told The Monitor in the October 7th article cited supra. "This is a quality of life issue."

Unless pressed, Norman and his entrenched cronies are not about to allow that to happen. "La politique, c'est l'art d'empêcher les gens de se mêler de ce qui les regards," Paul Valéry once observed.

The politicians in Mabank have now added the Tri-County Library, which serves not only Mabank but surrounding Henderson and Kaufman counties as well as adjacent Van Zandt county, to their personal fiefdom and they are not about to willingly relinquish control of it. "Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it," Edmund Burke once pointed out. "They may be distressed in the midst of all their power, but they will never look to anything but power for their relief."

In that light it would be foolish for anyone in Mabank to believe that Norman's insatiable lust for power and domination ever can be slaked by merely nailing Whisper's lovely hide to his garage door. Au contraire, he doubtlessly is going to insist upon having a say in personnel matters and who is allowed to use the library.

It is even conceivable that he may demand to have a veto on what books and videos are allowed on the facility's shelves. Censorship of the Internet also is a distinct possibility. Whether it is termed as fascism or simply as the will to power, politicians of his ilk never have recognized either any limits or boundaries upon the exercise of their authority.

Lamentably, Busch and Whisper's other supporters so far have proven themselves to be rather anemic when it comes to putting pressure on Norman and the city council to reverse their eviction edict. Petitions have been circulated and dozens of Whisper's advocates have turned up at council meetings but that has been pretty much the extent of the opposition that they have been able to muster.

Unless they are being shortchanged by the local media, they have not been all that vociferous either with the notable exception of library volunteer Howard Hopkins. "I've seen families come to the library, and seeing the cat is the highlight of their visit," he told The Monitor on October 7th.

That fact has been corroborated by Busch's wife, Sydney. "Mabank residents aren't the only ones who regularly use that library," she told The Monitor on that same date. "Some of the most regular visitors come primarily to visit Whisper."

Whisper Looks Longingly Back at What Used to Be Her Home

Even the library's director for the past two and one-half years, Brandi Marett, has been conspicuously silent on this momentous issue and that makes it difficult to gauge her feelings. Most likely she is too preoccupied with sucking up to Norman in order to save her own miserable hide in order to be bothered with Whisper's problems.

The good news is that her photograph still adorns the library's web site so staffers have not completely written her out of their lives just yet. Its caption, which states that "Whisper is always here to learn and grow at the Tri-County Library Mabank," is a little bit out of date, however.

If the gross injustice done to her is going to be reversed and she returned to the only true home that she ever has known, Whisper's supporters need to emulate the sterling example set last autumn by their neighbors in White Settlement, one-hundred-fifty-four kilometers to the northwest, who put the heat on their local politicians to rescind an eviction notice that they had issued to a cat named Browser at their public library. If that should fail, they always could take revenge upon Norman and his fellow gang members by voting them out of office on the next election day just as the citizens of White Settlement courageously did with Browser's chief antagonist, Elzie Clements. (See Cat Defender post of December 28, 2016 entitled "Browser Beats Back a Determined Effort to Oust Him from the White Settlement Public Library and in Doing So Has the Distinct Pleasure of Seeing His Political Nemesis Voted Out of Office.")

Since there has not been any news recently out of Mabank regarding Whisper it is not known what, if any, efforts are being contemplated by Busch and Friends of the Animals in order to have her reinstated at the library. In the meantime, she is said to be residing fulltime with an unidentified volunteer from the library who previously had been taking her home with her on weekends when the facility was closed.

A far more pressing concern is what is going to become of her if she is not returned to the library. Under that scenario, the best that can be hoped for her is that the volunteer will adopt and give her the permanent home that she so richly deserves. If that is not in the cards, perhaps Friends of the Animals will be able to place her in another home.

Even then she doubtlessly will miss all the attention that was lavished upon her at the library but cats are highly adaptable animals and, in time, she should be able to adjust without too much difficulty to new surroundings and caretakers. Her new home would, quite obviously, need to be a loving one where she is showered with attention as opposed to being simply housed, fed, and left to her own devices.

"These (library cats like Whisper) are the kind of things that make up the character of the city," Ed Busch astutely pointed out to The Dallas Morning News."And I'm disappointed that they (city council) don't see it the same way."

The cruel fate visited upon Whisper also is a matter of justice and fairness. Aside from that, the city's decision to evict her is yet still another troubling benchmark on the road to the marginalization of cats everywhere.

Finally, as far as it is known, Mabank does not have an official motto of its own. Gun Barrel City on the other hand has adopted "We shoot straight with you" as its slogan.

The Busches therefore might want to consider coming up with an appropriate moniker for Mabank that not only would distinguish it from Gun Barrel City's motto but also call attention to how horribly it has mistreated Whisper. One possible suggestion would be: "Lies, bullshit, and abusing cats are our specialties." That would pretty much sum up in a nutshell how that the city conducts business.

Photos: The Dallas Morning News (Whisper looking out the window), City of Mabank (Norman and Teague), The Monitor (Whisper celebrating her fourth birthday), and the Tri-County Library (Whisper looking back).

Tigger Was Subjected to Years of Turmoil and Uncertainty

"A microchip registration should not be treated as proof of ownership, but rather it is a record of keepership. That is, where a pet animal normally resides and is intended to assist reunification if the pet goes missing."
-- a spokesperson for Petlog

"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive," Sir Walter Scott observed in his 1808 epic poem, "Marmion," and those sentiments are perhaps nowhere more á propos than when it comes to implanted microchips. As their universality continues to grow, so too do the problems and absurdities associated with them as the preferred method of keeping track of companion animals.

The double-edged nature of these onerous devices was driven home in rather stark fashion to forty-one-year-old Karen Jones and her three children, thirteen-year-old Carmen, fifteen-year-old Leon, and nineteen-year-old Sam, of Drayton Bassett, five kilometers south of Tamouth in Staffordshire, late last July when she, out of the blue, received a letter from the microchip database Petlog requesting a change of ownership for her seven-year-old Bengal, Tigger. To say that the missive left her dumbfounded would be a classic understatement of the first order.

That is because not only had she not put in such a request but, more importantly, the designer cat that she had shelled out £800 for in 2009 had mysteriously disappeared without so much as a trace four years earlier in 2012. At that time, she and her children  had searched high and low for him and even resorted to fly-posting the neighborhood with Lost Cat posters but they never were able to find either hide or hair of him. They even notified Petlog and their veterinarian but those efforts likewise failed to bear fruit.

"I couldn't believe it when I discovered Tigger was still alive," Young, who works in the beauty industry, told The Telegraph of London on August 12, 2016. (See "Missing Cat Found after Four Years -- but Family Can't Be Told Who Has It Because of Data Protection Rules.")"It'd be (sic) so long, that I had given up all hope of seeing him again."

Her elation that Tigger was still alive melted quicker than a cone of ice cream on a hot July day however when Petlog, which is supposed to assist owners in reclaiming lost cats, unexpectedly stiffed her. "But when I got in touch with Petlog and told them I was the owner and I wanted to be reunited with my cat, they refused to tell me who had him, due to data protection rules and instead said they'd pass on my details," she disclosed to The Telegraph."They told me it was up to the people who had him to get in touch with me."

By that she was referring to the Data Protection Act (DPA) of 1998 which Petlog, quite obviously, interprets in an extremely inflexible fashion. That is nothing, however, compared to the novel view that it holds regarding microchips themselves.

"A microchip registration should not be treated as proof of ownership, but rather it is a record of keepership," a spokesperson for the company proclaimed to The Telegraph."That is, where a pet animal normally resides and is intended to assist reunification if the pet goes missing."

Even though circumstances abound whereby someone, usually a close family member, serves as the caretaker of a cat without actually owning it, most individuals nevertheless would be shocked to learn that there exists a legal distinction between keepership and ownership and that microchipping alone is therefore insufficient to establish the latter. Au contraire,  it would appear that if Young had not either received or responded to Petlog's letter that Tigger's current guardians would have been able to legitimize their possession of him by simply putting in a change of ownership in the database.

The entire rationale behind microchipping then would have been turned on its head with Young left out in the cold as the biggest loser. "I had no right to my own cat," she later correctly deduced to the Daily Express of London on August 17th. (See "Cat Finally Reunited with Owners after Four Years Missing and a Data Protection Battle.")

Perhaps most galling of all, Petlog insisted upon referring to Tigger's new guardians as his owners and that really got Young's goat. "I was furious," she exclaimed to The Telegraph.

Although she may have run up against a brick wall in her frustrating dealings with Petlog, she still had the law on her side. Armed with both a receipt of purchase as well as a pedigree certificate, both of which she had wisely retained over the years, she took her case to the Staffordshire Police where she, surprisingly, found receptive ears.

"Via a third party, this individual or individuals have been made aware that the cat in their possession has an owner and they should take appropriate steps to return the cat to its rightful owner," a spokesman for the department told The Telegraph."We expect this to happen. Failure to do so could result in further action."

The specifics have not been spelled out in media reports but it nevertheless is believed that the undisclosed third party was someone that had contacted Young via social media and she in turn then relayed that information to the police. Regardless of the exact details, Young eventually learned that Tigger was residing in Sutton Coldfield, a suburb of Birmingham located nine kilometers southwest of Drayton Bassett.

Realizing that the game was up, Tigger's guardians belatedly contacted Young and he was returned to her during the second week of August. "The kids were close to tears when I walked in the door with him," she confided to the Daily Express. "Me and my kids were over the moon and were relieved he was okay."

It is far from clear what would have transpired if his interim caretakers had not complied with the warning issued to them. While it is entirely conceivable that the police could have unilaterally procured a warrant and seized him, a more likely scenario is that a lengthy and expensive legal tug-of-war would have resulted.

Best of all as things eventually turned out, Tigger apparently had been treated well during his prodigal years and therefore was no worse for the wear in spite of having endured many trials and tribulations. "The people who had Tigger said they purchased him for £200 from a woman who was moving into a high-rise flat," was about all that Young was able to disclose on that subject to the BBC on August 16th. (See "Data Protection Row' Cat Owner Reunited with Pet.")

She nonetheless suspects that he may have been stolen before he was passed on to the family in Sutton Coldfield. For their part, the police apparently found the caretakers' story to be plausible in that no charges were filed against them.

Karen Young Fought Tooth and Nail in Order to Get Tigger Back

Since press reports have not divulged the circumstances surrounding Tigger's disappearance in 2009, it is difficult to evaluate Young's claim that he was stolen. In particular, if he was allowed out-of-doors, almost anyone could have mistakenly picked him up off the street falsely believing that he was homeless.

That happens all the time and although cats are richly entitled to their freedom, allowing them to roam exposes them to a myriad of dangers. It also leaves their owners open to charges, no matter how frivolous, of being unfit caretakers.

That is especially the case if their cats are deemed to be disheveled, injured, or out in traffic. Their rescuers therefore sometimes have valid reservations about returning them. (See Cat Defender posts of July 9, 2007 and June 26, 2012 entitled, respectively, "A Hungry and Disheveled Cat Named Slim Is Picked Up Off the Streets of Ottawa by a Rescuer Who Refuses to Return Him to His Owners" and "A Family in Wiltshire Turns to Social Media and Leaflets in order to Shame a Veterinary Chain and a Foster Parent into Returning Tazzy.")

All things considered, Young and her children are extremely fortunate to have found Tigger again after so many years. If, on the other hand, his interim caretakers had not requested a change in ownership not only would they never have seen him again but they likewise would not have known whatever became of him. Under such cruel circumstances any measure of closure would have been totally out of the question.

Unlike collars and tattoos, implanted microchips are not visible to the naked eye and therefore the two, or possibly more, guardians that Tigger had between 2012 and 2016 in all likelihood were unaware that he was a lost cat with an owner who desperately wanted him back. That discovery likely was not made until fairly recently and then only during a routine visit to a veterinarian.

None of that explains, however, why neither his last interim caretakers nor the attending veterinarian failed to notify Young. It is a murky area of the law but apparently veterinarians are not under any legal obligation to notify the authorities whenever they treat a cat whose implanted microchip lists its owner as being someone other than its current guardian.

The only remotely similar case in recent memory involved a four-year-old gray and white female named Tabor who was picked up off the streets of Portland in September of 2012 by a homeless man named Michael King. After a nine-month tour of the West Coast, he took her to Helena Veterinary Service in June of the following year for a routine check-up and that is when a microchip was discovered that revealed her legitimate owner to be Ronald A. Buss of Portland.

Without so much as a moment's hesitation, King did what was legally required of him by promptly returning her to Buss. By that time, however, he already had moved on to the next chapter in his turbulent life by acquiring a new traveling partner and that development made Tabor expendable.

It never was disclosed what, if any, action that the surgery would have taken if he had refused to contact Buss and to return his cat. (See Cat Defender post of July 5, 2013 entitled "Tabor's Long and Winding Road Finally Leads Her Back Home but Leaves Her with a Broken Heart.")

In her case, Young is, quite understandably, thoroughly disgusted with the entire business of microchips. "Based upon my experience I think microchipping is a scam," she ranted to The Telegraph."I paid for a service I'm not receiving. It's a mockery and protects criminals."

She is equally fed up with Petlog. "I'm glad the keepers did the right thing and realized how much misery they were causing us all, but it's no thanks to Petlog," she averred to the Daily Express."The fact still remains that Petlog didn't help me get Tigger back."

The DPA likewise has not escaped her vituperation. "It's up to the integrity and goodwill of people who find your cat to return it," she pointed out to the BBC. "If it falls into the wrong hands, they can hide behind the Data Protection Act."

For its part, Petlog stubbornly insists that the only allegiance that it owes is to the authorities. "In the case of stolen pets...Petlog will work with the police and other relevant authorities, but it is against data protection legislation to provide personal data to third parties," a spokesperson for the firm swore to the BBC.

That admission brings up the still unresolved issue of what, if anything, that it did with the lost cat report that Young filed with it in 2012. At the very least it should have made a notation in its database that Tigger had been reported missing.

If it had done its due diligence, it then would have readily known that something was amiss as soon as his interim caretakers had filed a change of ownership request and under those puzzling circumstances it should have contacted either Young by telephone or the Staffordshire Police. It accordingly seems rather clear that Petlog failed both Tigger and Young in its mission to protect their interests.

Furthermore, if Young was furious at the firm for referring to Tigger's interim caretakers as his "owners," she surely must have hit the ceiling once she learned that it considered her to be a mere third party. Although that in itself is a disturbing commentary upon just how shabbily both cats and their owners are being treated by those individuals and groups who are lining their pockets by peddling Silicon Valley snake oil to the naïve, it is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg as far as the difficulties and dangers that implanted microchips pose to both cats and their owners.

Although this is the first such known incident on record whereby a microchip database company has freely chosen to hide behind privacy law protection statutes in order to thwart the expressed purpose of the devices, it would be rather naïve to believe that Tigger is an isolated case. A large part of the problem in determining the extent of such malfeasance lies in trying to get to the bottom of a rather complicated matter that is little understood outside the microchip industry itself.

Carmen with a Remembrance of Her and Tigger

Owned by The Kennel Club of London, Petlog boasts on its web site that it is the United Kingdom's "largest database for microchipped pets" but since there are at least a dozen known microchip purveyors it is by no means the only one. By contrast, in the United States there are at least fourteen known manufacturers of microchips with, presumably, their own individual databases. Plus, RFID-USA of Tampa claims to be a national pet microchip registration base.

Complicating matters further, microchips operate on different frequencies and therefore require multiple hand-held scanners in order to be deciphered. The chips themselves also sometimes move around once implanted and therefore are difficult to locate even if the appropriate scanners are available.

The chips additionally have been known to malfunction with disastrous consequences, such as leaving pets marooned in foreign countries. That is an especially frightening matter considering that the European Union mandated in 2011 that all pets crossing the borders of its member states must be microchipped.

It is almost superfluous to point out but unless guardians keep their contract information up-to-date in the databases it it almost impossible for lost pets to be reunited with them. (See Cat Defender posts of March 31, 2010, July 25, 2014, and August 26, 2015 entitled, respectively, "Winnipeg Family Is Astounded by Tiger Lily's Miraculous Return after Having Been Believed Dead for Fourteen Years,""Poussey Overcomes a Surprise Boat Ride to Dover, a Stint on Death Row, and Being Bandied About Like the Flying Dutchman in Order to Finally Make It Home to La Havre," and "A Myriad of Cruel and Unforgivable Abandonments, a Chinese Puzzle, and Finally the Handing Down and Carrying Out of a Death Sentence Spell the End for Long-Suffering and Peripatetic Tigger.")

That is one reason why that England and Wales impose a £500 fine on all dog owners who not only fail to microchip them but also to keep their contact information current. As of yet, neither jurisdiction requires that cats be chipped but that is the law in both Spain and Belgium.

The biggest impediment in the entire scheme lies, arguably, in the limited availability of scanners in that, as far as it is known, only shelters and veterinarians have access to them. If, on the other hand, they were readily available to the general public it is entirely possible that at least some lost pets would be promptly returned to their legitimate owners.

As things now stand, that does not always happen. Rather, it is often years, and even decades, before a lost cat is brought to either a veterinarian or a shelter and its implanted microchip found and read. Regrettably, by that time it its owners often have relocated elsewhere and therefore are nowhere to be found. Even worse, some of them who are belatedly contacted have already moved on with their lives and as a consequence no longer want any part of their long-lost cats.

The sale and implantation of microchips also is a thinly-disguised cruel and inhumane money-making racket. In their quest to make as much moola as possible in the shortest amount of time coupled with the least amount of exertion, some veterinarians have been known to carelessly ram home these devices on top of vaccination sites which in turn has led to cats developing cancerous growths.

Others think absolutely nothing at all of implanting them on top of spinal cords. For example, back in 2014 a three-year-old calico named Sassie from Consett in County Durham was left paralyzed as the result of such gross negligence.

Plus, removal of the chip cost the offending party, the Durham County Council, £3,000. (See Cat Defender post of April 28, 2016 entitled "Sassie Is Left Paralyzed as the Result of Yet Still Another Horribly Botched Attempt to Implant a Thoroughly Worthless and Pernicious Microchip Between Her Shoulders.")

In Angleterre, the cost of having a microchip implanted in an animal generally runs between £25 and £30 and as such these procedures constitute a quick and easy way of turning a fast buck. It therefore is not surprising that the RSPCA, Cats Protection, the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, and the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals have jumped on the microchipping bandwagon in spite of the dangers associated with these devices.

Not a great deal is reported in the media about what goes on inside shelters but if what happened to a gray and white tom of unspecified age named Cooper last year while he was unjustly incarcerated at the Rowan County Animal Shelter in Salisbury, North Carolina, is indicative of prevailing conditions and procedures elsewhere, the number of grotesquely botched microchipping operations surely must be staggering. (See Cat Defender post of June 23, 2016 entitled "The State of North Carolina's Veterinary Division Is Covering Up a Savage Beating Dished Out to Cooper at the Rowan County Animal Shelter During the Course of a Microchipping Fiasco.")

In addition to concerns over the ill-advised implantation of foreign objects, there is a growing body of research linking microchips to the development of 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.")

By far and away, however, the strongest argument against these odious devices is that they offer cats absolutely no protection whatsoever against motorists, other animals, and a multitude of individuals and organizations 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.")

Their manufacture, implantation, and recordkeeping also provide the financial and political elites with yet still another golden opportunity to snoop, dominate, and ultimately control the lives of both cats and their owners. Once all of their demerits are taken into consideration the benefits that they offer are negligible to say the least.

Young's roller-coaster ride with Tigger also serves to refocus attention on the myriad of problems associated with owning hybrid cats. Created from the forced breeding of Asian Leopard Cats (Prionailurus bengalensis) with Egyptian Maus, Abyssinians, and other unspecified domesticated breeds, Bengals such as Tigger are four generations removed from their wild ancestors.

Even as such, man's patently cruel and immoral manipulation of their gene pools has not been able to completely eradicate their wild natures. Consequently they, like all hybrids, are high maintenance cats that require a good deal of both attention and space.

Mother and Daughter Finally Have Tigger Back Home Where He Belongs

Not surprisingly, they do not like being cooped up indoors all the time and according have a tendency to run off whenever the least little opportunity presents itself. That, most likely, is how that Young lost custody of him in the first place although thievery also is a distinct possibility.

On a much broader scale, it is difficult to understand how that any hybrid cat ever could be completely contented in a domestic environment. In addition to that, they are prone to genetic abnormalities that often shorten their lives.

Furthermore, many jurisdictions around the world have statutes that outlaw the ownership of them. Most tragic of all, whenever they are able to shake off the shackles of domestication their only reward is often to be shot on sight by either ignorant citizens or trigger-happy cops.

Even if they are able to stay alive under such perilous circumstances, sooner or later they are trapped and wind up spending the remainder of their days in either some hellhole shelter or zoo. (See Cat Defender post of February 20, 2008 entitled "Exotic and Hybrid Cats, Perennial Objects of Exploitation and Abuse, Are Now Being Mutilated, Abandoned, and Stolen.")

Their tendency to run away from home coupled with owners who intentionally abandon them to their own devices has even necessitated the creation of rescue efforts designed to shelter and rehome specific breeds of them. Considering the millions of homeless and unwanted cats that are systematically exterminated en masse each year by shelters and veterinarians, homeless designer cats are the absolute last thing that this world needs.

Just as it would be utterly impossible for any whorehouse to stay in business for very long without a rather substantial client base, sadistic and greedy breeders of these cats rely upon an equally callous public that is willing to shell out big bucks in order to bask in the hubris of being able to show them off to their friends and acquaintances. Therefore, in spite of the cruelties inflicted upon them by both parties, the variety of hybrids as well as their overall numbers continue to increase.

One of the more popular breeds are Savannahs, which are a cross between African Servals and a variety of domestic cats that include Oriental Shorthairs, Egyptian Maus, Serengettis, Ocicats, Chausies, and Bengals. (See Cat Defender posts of May 19, 2015 and April 19, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Savannahs: More Feline Cruelty Courtesy of the Capitalists and the Bourgeoisie" and "Doomed from Conception to a Lifetime of Naked Exploitation and Destined Never to Fit In Anywhere, Chum Is Gunned Down in Cold Blood on the Violent Streets of Lawless and Uncaring Detroit.")

Asheras, which are a cross between African Servals, Asian Leopard Cats, and a "trade secret" domestic, also are growing in popularity. (See Cat Defender post of February 19, 2008 entitled "Asheras Are the Dessigner Chats du Jour Despite the Cruelties Inflicted During Their Hybridization.")

Although they are still very much a breed in development, Toygers are supposedly the end product of forcibly breeding Bengals with the offspring of an unidentified cat abducted from streets of Kashmir. (See Cat Defender post of April 13, 2007 entitled "Killing and Torturing Wild and Domestic Cats in Order to Create Toygers Is Not Going to Save Sumatran Tigers.")

In the United States, the breeding of bobcats with domestics in order to create Pixie-Bobs and similar varieties has spawned all sorts of dilemmas. (See Cat Defender posts of June 28, 2007, December 19, 2008, April 26, 2014, and May 29, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Rural Alabama Man Makes a Killing Forcibly Breeding Domestic Cats to Bobcats in Order to Create Pixie-Bobs,""Regardless of Whether He Is a Pixie-Bob or a Bobcat, It Is Going to Be a Blue Christmas for Benny after He Inadvertently Bites Santa Claus,""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," and "The Odds Were All Against Him and His Enemies Were Well-Financed and Unscrupulous but Rocky Nonetheless Prevails in a Stafford Courtroom.")

Trumping all of the cruelties and inequities involved in not only domesticating but in breeding hybrids is the disturbing petit fait that their creation requires the removal of their progenitors from the wild. Although Prionailurus bengalensis still inhabit a large swath of the earth that includes Russia, Korea, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, and parts of Indonesia, that does not mean that their survival is by any means assured.

For instance, the Chinese, Thais, and Myanmars traffic extensively in their fur, flesh, and body parts. Farmers also shoot them on sight in order to protect the chickens that they in turn slaughter in droves.

Their habitat also is shrinking. For example, on Iriomote in the Yaeyama Islands of the Ryukyu chain, a subspecies of them, Prionailurus bengalensis iriomatensis, is being decimated by both developers and motorists. That is so much the case that perhaps fewer than two-hundred of these critically endangered cats still exist. (See Cat Defender post of November 27, 2006 entitled "After Surviving on Its Own for at Least Two Million Years, Rare Japanese Wildcat Faces Its Toughest Battle Yet.")

The hybridization of Asian Leopard Cats was first reported in 1889 but such unions were not officially confirmed until 1934. It took another thirty ago, however, for Bengals to become a popular breed.

It also is believed that Leopard Cats were the first breed to have been domesticated in China. That reportedly occurred more than five-thousand years ago and long before they were supplanted by the more common Felis sylvestris lybica of African and the Near East.

Regardless of whether their domestication involves either the genuine articles or hybrids, neither process augurs well for their long-term survival in the wild. What the species needs is to be left alone in protected habitats coupled with a ban of all trapping and killing.

As far as Tigger is concerned, he certainly has done remarkably well in order to have persevered throughout all the upheaval that has been thrown at him during his short life. It remains to be determined, however, if Young and her family are capable of holding on to him this time around.

Beyond that, it would be refreshing if they were willing to devote the time, effort, and resources that are necessary in order to make him at least somewhat contented with his unfortunate lot in life. It was not his fault that he was born with a mixed set of genes that have left him suspended midway between two rather different, but equally demanding, worlds.

Photos: The Telegraph (Tigger and Carmen with a picture of him), the BBC (Karen Young), and the Daily Express (the happy reunion).

Mr. Cheeky

"You've paid a high price for being so independent, friendly and fearless, (or perhaps because of your resemblance to 'A Street Cat Named Bob'), but you could never have been an indoor cat. It just wasn't in your nature. I'm so glad you got a last taste of freedom, albeit tragically brief."

-- Laura King

The long-drawn-out search for Mr. Cheeky has finally ended. Tragically, the three and one-half year old ginger-colored tom was intentionally run down and killed by a hit-and-run motorist sometime January 28th on Cromwell Road, a scant 1.44 kilometers removed from the home that he shared on Brunswick Street East in Hove, East Sussex, with fifty-four-year-old Ollie Wilson and his common law wife forty-six year old Laura King as well as a black cat named Django.

An unidentified woman discovered his body in the road and rushed him to the Wilbury Veterinary Surgery at 20 Wilbury Street but it was too late to save his precious life. An implanted microchip was found and deciphered and, this time around, Petlog did its job by supplying the surgery with the names and address of his owners. (See Cat Defender post of January 24, 2017 entitled "Tigger Is Finally Reunited with His Family Despite the Best Efforts of the Administrators of a Microchip Database to Keep Them Apart.")

Nevertheless, this incident has graphically demonstrated once again that when it comes to safeguarding the lives of cats implanted microchips are thoroughly worthless. (See Cat Defender post of May 25, 2006 entitled "Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats.")

Heinous and despicable acts of this nature also constitute the perfect crime in that neither the police nor phony-baloney animal protection groups can be so much as bothered with even superficially looking into them. Consequently, no arrest has been made and none is expected.

"I've been in bits all day thinking about it," King, who was notified of Mr. Cheeky's death at 11:50 a.m. by the surgery, wrote later that same day in an article entitled "The Kidnapping of Mr. Cheeky -- the Final Chapter" that was posted on the Facebook page Find Mr. Cheeky. "He had such a tough start to life, abandoned as a young cat, barely out of kittenhood, living on the streets and rescued by Lost Cats (of) Brighton (where we got him) and then only two and a half years of happy life with us..."

Although he was a rough and tumble tom, he also had his gentler side. "He was a tough and independent cat most of the time, (let's face it he ran the neighborhood in catty terms!) but just occasionally he would be as soft as a marshmallow and allow a big cuddle, usually when he was tired," she continued. "Or if I let him sleep on our bed (big treat) he would start by sleeping nonchalantly at the bottom and gradually work his way up...through the night until he had wedged his head under my chin gently purring and bunting me with his nose until I was so hot I had to get up and relegate him back to the living room with his food and litter tray."

The surgery offered, for a hefty fee no doubt, to burn and dispose of Mr. Cheeky's remains but King instead asked it to hold them until she could collect them after the weekend because she was too upset to drive the 1.93 kilometers that separate her house from the surgery. She easily could have walked that short of a distance but apparently she did not even feel up to doing that.

As a result, the surgery refrigerated them. That is all that has been revealed but hopefully King and Wilson did reclaim and later bury them in their garden. The very thought of them being casually tossed out in the trash is too nauseating to even contemplate.

By way of commemorating Mr. Cheeky's life she is planning on hosting a Mad Catters' Tea Party February 19th at Patisserie Valerie on Western Road in order to raise money for Lost Cats. No further details have been disclosed, but it would be a nice gesture on its part if the shelter were to kindly reciprocate by naming either a fund or a wing in his honor. The shelter itself sans doute could sorely use the money after having recently lost its longtime founder, Ron Ayres, to the Grim Reaper and now to be facing eviction from its current location.

Although Mr. Cheeky's murder is sad enough in its own right, how that he came to be on Cromwell Road in the first place is an entirely different, and ongoing, story that began at 11:52 p.m. on December 4th when he was stolen from Wilson and King's courtyard by a pair of brazen thieves. Since they sometimes allowed him to stay out all night, they did not realize that anything was amiss until he failed to show up for breakfast the following morning.

In all likelihood they would have remained forever ignorant of his fate if one of their neighbors had not come forward and voluntarily supplied them with Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) footage of his abduction. It has not been disclosed when the unidentified neighbor contacted them but it apparently was sometime considerably later because the surveillance video was not uploaded onto YouTube until December 15th.

"Our neighbor found these images on CCTV of our cat Mr. Cheeky being kidnapped by a couple (we think in their twenties) at 11:52 p.m. on Sunday 4th December," King disclosed to the Brighton and Hove News on December 15th. (See "Cat Thieves Caught on Camera.")"The man fusses (with) Mr. Cheeky, then the woman entices him with some food. They then pick him up and take him round the corner to the end of Brunswick Street East where it exits onto Waterloo Street."

The Thieves Lured Mr. Cheeky into Their Net of Intrigue...

The male culprit is described as being white, five-feet, eight-inches tall, stockily built, and with short brown hair that is shaved on the sides. He is wearing a black jacket, light-colored jeans, and dark shoes.

His accomplice was a five-foot, six-inch, white female wearing a long padded black coat with a fur-lined hood. She also had on a knee-length dark dress, black low-cut ankle boots, and light-patterned leggings. She additionally was carrying a white shopping bag.

"It's a callous and stupid thing for someone to do," Wilson angrily barked to The Sun of London on December 14th. (See "Catnappers: Heartbroken Couple Release (sic) CCTV Footage of Their Beloved Ginger Cat Mr. Cheeky Being Stolen from Outside Their Home.")"I'd never expected someone to steal Mr. Cheeky, he's not a pedigree cat."

C'est la vie. It is always unforeseen events that are the most difficult to cope with and, worst still, they constitute the norm as far as most cats are concerned.

"Mr. Cheeky had been inside all evening fast asleep," Wilson continued. "He left through the cat flap and was sat (sic) in the courtyard when he was taken."

King later corroborated her mate's version of events on that fateful evening. "My last memory of Mr. Cheeky was earlier on the night he was taken. I was sitting on the sofa in front of the TV and Mr. Cheeky was lying on his back on my lap reaching up with his paws to try and brush my hair with his claws," she wrote in the January 28th Facebook article cited supra."It was one of his little things. He was fascinated by hair. But it was also a perfect moment which I will treasure always."

Chances are that he would still be alive today if either she or Wilson had had the bon sens to have locked the cat flap. In her defense, King stated on in a January 31st addendum to her January 28th article on Facebook that a miscommunication between her and her mate was the reason that the flap was not secured. For whatever it is worth, she insists that Mr. Cheeky was locked up nights ninety-five per cent of the time.

The case against Wilson and King's guardianship of Mr. Cheeky is even more egregious in that in addition to allowing him to stay out all night at times, they allowed him to roam the streets of Hove pretty much at will. "You had a paw in every door (little children loved you) and you followed us to the local pub too," King wrote in the January 28th Facebook article. "You even tried to follow me up the street to get the bus to work and were a regular visitor striding up the aisles at the Sunday Assembly in Waterloo Street!"

Ever since Wilson and King started their own business, MatchFit Media, of Brighton in late 2014 they undoubtedly have been away from home for rather extended periods of time at least five to six days a week and in doing so they, from all indications, left Mr. Cheeky to wander the streets all by his lonesome. (See PRWeek of New York, January 26, 2015, "Ollie Wilson Leaves CLA to Launch Brighton-Based Agency MatchFit Media.")

As if all of that were not reproachable enough, they not only inexcusably allowed him to scrap with dogs but reveled in his deering-do to boot. "You wouldn't hesitate to look a dog straight in the eye or boot a canine nose which got too close," King revealed in her January 28th Facebook article. "You even managed to cow an American Bulldog two doors down and visit and walk around the flat as if you owned it."

Plus, Mr. Cheeky was known to be overly fond of people and bad things generally can be counted upon to happen to such cats. (See Cat Defender post of July 14, 2016 entitled "Missy, Who Was Too Kindly Disposed Toward Humans for Her Own Good, Is Memorialized in Wood at the Bus Stop That She Called Her Home Away from Home for Almost a Decade.")

That is just one more reason why that cats, contrary to popular opinion, should not be tamed any more than is absolutely necessary. A healthy wariness of humans is highly beneficial for their long-term survival. Also, as far as it is feasible owners never should allow anyone else to feed them.

...and Then Spirited Him Away to Parts Unknown

The negative aspect of such a policy is that shelters routinely kill cats that they deem to be unsocialized. Even so, almost any cat that is trapped and brought to one of these wretched killing factories can exhibit characteristics of being wild owing solely to the fear and stress that routinely accompanies such a harrowing experience.

As a result, most cats cannot win no matter what their socio-economic status, temperament, and behavior. (See The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 11, 2011, "Shelter Shock. Cats Can Get Sick from Stress. One Proposed Remedy? Keep Them Out.")

In addition to contacting the Brighton and Hove News, Wilson issued a public appeal for Mr. Cheeky's return. "It's been very upsetting and stressful. Mr. Cheeky is such a character, he's much loved and we enjoyed having him at home," he told The Sun."We're worried about him and we hope he is okay. I'm appealing to the people in the CCTV to please return Mr. Cheeky."

Zoe Ayres of the Sussex Police echoed those sentiments. "Mr. Cheeky is microchipped and is missed dearly by his owners. We are appealing to anyone who might recognize the man or the woman or have information as to the location of his whereabouts," she declared to The Sun."I would also like to appeal to the people in the video as our main priority is to get Mr. Cheeky back safe with his owners. He is probably very distressed being away from his normal surroundings and it is obviously very upsetting for his owners."

In the extremely trying days and weeks that followed, King fly-posted the neighborhood with Lost Cat posters, offered a £300 reward for Mr. Cheeky's return, and established at least two pages on Facebook as well as writing about his disappearance on her blog, www.thepoetlaura-eate.blogspot.com. As far as it could be determined, she did not hesitate to check out every credible lead that she ever received but all of her efforts failed to bear fruit.

Arguably the most promising course of action available to her and Wilson would have been for them to have had stills made of the thieves from the surveillance tape and then to have circulated them around the neighborhood. In particular, these photographs ought to have been shown to both employees and patrons of the Bottom's Rest Pub at 16 Kerrison Mews, which is only about fifty feet or so removed from where Mr. Cheeky hung his hat.

"We suspect they (the thieves) may have left Bottom Rest's Pub at the top of the street before spotting Mr. Cheeky sitting in (our) yard," King theorized to the Brighton and Hove News in the article cited supra.

Sure enough the bar, according to information contained online, closes its doors at midnight and that tends to lend credence to her suspicions. Apparently that avenue of inquiry either was not pursued for whatever reason or turned out to be a a cul-de-sac.

In this instance, the valuable time that had elapsed between Mr. Cheeky's disappearance and when his owners were alerted to the existence of the surveillance video may have proven fatal. If, on the other hand, they had been able to show stills of the culprits to bartenders at the pub the very next day there is a good chance that they not only would have remembered serving the duo but might actually have known their names and address.

Furthermore since most, but not all, people go to bars in order to socialize, it is possible that one or more of the patrons who were on hand December 4th would have recognized the thieves. Any little tidbit of information gleaned from either patrons or employees could have been decisive in cracking this case.

The only other obvious option available to Wilson and King would have been for them to have temporarily shuttered their business and beaten the pavement day and night for Mr. Cheeky. If they did not want to do that, they could have retained the services of a private dick to have acted in their stead. (See Cat Defender post of April 2, 2015 entitled "Cornishman Shells Out £10,000 on Private Peepers in Order to Track Down Farah's Killer but Once Again Gets Stiffed by Both the Police and the RSPCA.")

Since Mr. Cheeky was able to stay alive for nearly two months that eliminates both PETA and the RSPCA from the list of possible suspects in that both groups routinely kill off all cats that they steal from the street. (See Cat Defender posts of January 29, 2007, February 9, 2007, October 7, 2011, June 5, 2007, and October 23, 2010 entitled, respectively, "PETA's Long History of Killing Cats and Dogs Is Finally Exposed in a North Carolina Courtroom,""Verdict in PETA Trial: Littering Is a Crime but Not the Mass Slaughter of Innocent Cats and Dogs,""PETA Traps and Kills a Cat and Then Shamelessly Goes Online in Order to Brag about Its Criminal and Foul Deed,""RSPCA's Unlawful Seizure and Senseless Killing of Mork Leaves His Sister, Mindy, Brokenhearted and His Caretakers Devastated," and "RSPCA Steals and Executes Nightshift Who Was His Elderly Caretaker's Last Surviving Link to Her Dead Husband.")

Lost Cat Posters Did Not Work This Time

Vivisectors, fur and flesh traffickers, and abusers likewise can be eliminated for that same reason. It seems unlikely in this instance but it is always remotely possible that Mr. Cheeky could have been stolen and dumped by either bird or wildlife advocates.

That is precisely what happened in Southampton, Hampshire, back in September and October of 2007 when a self-professed bird lover trapped and subsequently dumped between six and eight of his neighbors' cats at an undisclosed location. In a macabre resemblance to what happened to Mr. Cheeky, one of the stolen cats, a two-year-old ginger tom named Fletcher, later was killed by a hit-and-run motorist twenty-two kilometers from home in Corhampton.

"It makes me really angry at what has happened," his twenty-nine-year-old owner, Kelly Went, said afterwards in sentiments that have become all-too-familiar to both Wilson and King. (See Cat Defender posts of October 30, 2007 and November 16, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Crafty Bird Lover Claims Responsibility for Stealing Six Cats from a Southampton Neighborhood and Concealing Their Whereabouts" and "Fletcher, One of the Cats Abducted from Bramley Crescent, Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton.")

In Mr. Cheeky's case, however, his abduction appears on the one hand to have been a random crime of opportunity. It is even conceivable that the thieves were drunk and stole him as some kind of a perverse prank.

On the other hand, the woman appears to have enticed him over with food which in itself would tend to indicate a certain amount of forethought went into her actions. It additionally is rather odd that he, in spite of his overly friendly nature, was so compliant and that in turns leads to speculation that he may have known his abductors. Since he was wearing a yellow collar, there can be little doubt that he was purposefully stolen as opposed to having been mistaken for a homeless waif.

The most perplexing aspect of this tragic and disturbing case concerns where and what Mr. Cheeky was doing between December 4th and January 28th and in that light absolutely nothing was known until certain unidentified individuals residing on Cromwell Road contacted King out of the blue a few days after his death in order to inform her that he had been frequenting their flat. They even supplied her with at least two photographs of him entering the premises through an open window on January 27th.

"Sadly the occupants hadn't heard about Mr. Cheeky's case to realize a stolen cat was visiting them or they would have kept him in and contacted us," King wrote February 2nd in an untitled article posted on Facebook. "They are so upset but I have told them they mustn't blame themselves. If a cat looks okay and is wearing a collar, why wouldn't you assume they (sic) must belong to a neighbor?"

From that it can be inferred that she accepted their version of events because their physical descriptions do not match those of the culprits as shown in the video but beyond that her severely redacted version of that encounter raises far more questions than it answers. First of all, did Mr. Cheeky's collar contain contact data?

Secondly, through their abysmal failure to take any concrete steps in order to protect Mr. Cheeky's safety, the occupants of the flat have proven themselves to be every bit as callous and uncaring as both his owners and abductors. Thirdly, King most conspicuously of all fails to disclose how long that her cat had been visiting the flat.

"Our one crumb of comfort is that at least our darling wasn't malnourished when he died (albeit thinner than when he was stolen)," she concluded in the February 2nd article. "But it still breaks my heart how scared and stressed he must have been for so many weeks. And how desperate to find his way home to us."

None of that is necessarily true. For instance, if he had been taken out of the area and dumped at a remote location, like Fletcher, and then attempted to find his way home, the telltale signs of his travails may have been evident in his worn-down claws and pads on his feet and even a cursory veterinarian examination would have detected such damage.

If that were not the case, a far more plausible explanation is that his abductors were astute enough to have kept him inside for at least a month. After that length of time cats, supposedly, forget all about their old abodes and owners.

Mr. Cheeky Visiting a Flat on January 27th

It is entirely conceivable that the thieves were hands-on, as opposed to absentee, caretakers and that he grew to like living with them. Quite obviously, either they or someone else had been feeding him. Regardless of what actually transpired, the thieves are every bit as guilty as everyone else who either walked in or out of his brief life for failing to protect him from the machinations of motorists.

With blood in her eye, King is determined more than ever to bring Mr. Cheeky's abductors to justice and in furtherance of that worthy objective she announced in another untitled Facebook article dated February 2nd that she had been granted an interview with the BBC for the following morning. The engagement, however, did not go well.

In a February 3rd posting on Facebook that since has been deleted she stated that the network's Neil Pringle not only gave her short shrift but even had the unmitigated gall to cast aspersions on the unassailable fact that Mr. Cheeky had been kidnapped in the first place. It will no doubt come as cold comfort to her, but one-sided, scurrilous journalism is a staple at the propaganda arm of the old British Empire.

For example, last September James Menendez of the News Hour not only granted Peter P. Marra of the disgraced Smithsonian Institution a platform in which to agitate for his cat-killing agenda but in doing so he even chuckled at the very idea of so many innocent felines being slaughtered. Like just about all of the network's hatchet jobs, this outrageous piece of unabashed anti-cat propaganda never was posted on its web site.

Moreover, both Menendez and the BBC were fully aware that Marra served as Nico Dauphiné's supervisor. (See Cat Defender posts of July 12, 2011, November 18, 2011, and January 6, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Arrest of Nico Dauphiné for Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats Unmasks the National Zoo as a Hideout for Ailurophobes and Criminals,""Nico Dauphiné, Ph.D., Is Convicted of Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats but Questions Remain Concerning the Smithsonian's Role," and "Nico Dauphiné Is Let Off with an Insultingly Lenient $100 Fine in a Show Trial That Was Fixed from the Very Beginning.")

It therefore would not appear that King can expect much assistance from the BBC. She likewise apparently has not received any anything other than lip service from the Sussex Police.

Her best bet therefore would be to canvass the area around Cromwell Road in search of a young couple in their twenties and this would need to be done primarily through contacting the owners and superintendents of apartment blocks. Even if a pair of suspects should be ultimately identified, the surveillance video may be insufficient in itself to support bringing charges against them owing to its poor quality.

There additionally has been some speculation that the thieves dumped Mr. Cheeky because he had become too hot to hold on to before fleeing the area themselves. In that case, any young couple known to recently have moved out of the neighborhood immediately would fall under a cloud of suspicion. Tracking them down and holding them accountable under the law would, however, require either the cooperation of the authorities or the hiring of a peeper.

Oddly enough, King as of yet has not publicly expressed so much as a jot of interest in bringing Mr. Cheeky's killer to justice. That is a real shame given that with so many surveillance cameras in the area, the dastardly dead very well could have been captured on tape.

Her total unwillingness to face up to her own culpability in his death is a likely factor in her reluctance to pursue that angle. "I take the point about indoor cats but Mr. Cheeky was having no truck with that," she wrote January 31st in the comments' section of her January 28th article on Facebook. "...Mr. Cheeky would bash his face against the cat flap until his nose bled during the daytime if he was not let out."

Based upon that, it would appear that he craved something that he was not getting at home. "He also had a huge need for the company of other humans and cats, which we didn't realize when we first got him," she continued. "He was massively sociable and had 'a paw in every door'."

Whereas it is readily granted that the difficulties associated with putting the brakes on a cat that has grown accustomed to enjoying unfettered freedom cannot in any way be underestimated, King committed the fatal error of drawing all the wrong conclusions from Mr. Cheeky's personality and behavior. "I guess this made him a high risk cat in some ways, but it was not one of our neighbors who stole him, but two random strangers. Our neighbors are all devastated and he was perfectly safe with them," she concluded.

How Long Had He Been Coming to This Flat?

First of all, it is difficult to see how that she could arrive at such deductions considering that neither the thieves nor the motorist have been identified. Consequently, both of them very well could be neighbors of hers.

Secondly, the existence of the Bottom's Rest Pub is a rather strong indication that the neighborhood contains retail as well as residential properties and the latter most assuredly attract all sorts of outsiders. Thirdly, Hove has more than ninety-thousand residents and nearby Brighton is home to more than two-hundred-eighty-one-thousand additional denizens. Most of them undoubtedly also own and operate motor vehicles and that in turn makes the area far too dangerous for cats to be allowed to roam the streets without chaperones.

Although kidnapping are relatively rare, the evidence is overwhelming that motorists are lethal to cats. (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 that are able to somehow weather these totally uncalled for assaults often wind up maimed for life. (See Cat Defender posts of October 13, 2016, May 2, 2012, November 17, 2010, November 13, 2010, April 29, 2010, September 12, 2009, and March 5, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Bart Has Courageously Overcome Being Run Down by a Hit-and-Run Motorist and Subsequently Buried Alive by His Owner but Another Dark Cloud Is Looming over His Future,""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,""Penniless and Suffering from Two Broken Legs, It Looked Like It Was Curtains for Trace Until Geoffrey Weech Rode to Her Rescue on His White Horse,""Christopher, Who Has Persevered Through Tragedy and Given Back so Much, Is Now Being Held Captive for His Valuable Blood,""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," and "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Roo Is Saved by a Caring Woman.")

The case against motorists is so damning that even police officers, who are supposed to act responsibly and to enforce the laws of the road, not only callously allow their cats to be run down and killed but actually do likewise themselves to those that are owned by civilians. (See Cat Defender posts of March 18, 2009 and June 18, 2015 entitled, respectively, "Eco, Who for Years Was a Mainstay at a Small Massachusetts Police Department, Is Run Down and Killed by a Motorist" and "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.")

Politicians likewise not only use them as valuable political props with little or no regard for their personal safety but often are downright antagonistic to roadside memorials erected in the memory of those that have been killed by motorists. (See Cat Defender posts of November 10, 2014, November 13, 2014, and October 9, 2010 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,""Gutless Georgie 'Porgie' Osborne Gets Rid of Freya but in Doing So Lies About the True Reason Behind His Second Cruel Abandonment of Her," and "Feline Traffic Fatalities Are Unworthy of Commemoration According to a Möhnesee Bureaucrat Who Orders the Destruction to a Roadside Memorial to Jule.")

Moreover, there cannot be so much as a scintilla of doubt that all such attacks on cats by motorist are, not accidental, but rather intentional. (See Cat Defender post of June 25, 2015 entitled "Kayden Is Run Down Three Times in Succession by a Van Driver in Yet Still Another Graphic Example of How So many Motorists Intentionally Kill Cats.")

Even more galling, these individuals not only glory in mowing down cats but also at the tremendous amount of pain and suffering that they are inflicting upon their heartbroken owners. "The world is a bad dog," Joe Conrad opined in his novel, Victory."It will bite you if you give it a chance."

It accordingly is the solemn duty of all individuals who care about cats to do everything in their power not to allow these rotten, scum-of-the-earth bastards to win! For homeowners, such as Wilson and King, that means nothing less than keeping their cats out of the street.

For the managers of TNR colonies, the homeless, and those who reside in buildings that do not allow cats, a solution to this pressing and disturbing dilemma is largely out of their control but even they must do whatever they can in order to protect those cats that are under their care. (See Cat Defender posts of January 5, 2011, March 2, 2012, and August 2, 2010 entitled, respectively, "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,""Homeless Man in Washington State Pauses in Order to Take a Snooze and It Ends Up Costing Him His Beloved Cat, Herman," and "Old, Poor, and Sickly, Jeanne Ambler Is Facing Eviction for Feeding a Trio of Hungry Cats.")

There is not any point in arguing that the task is too difficult because if Michael King was able to rough it all the way from Portland to Ventura and then back to Helena with Tabor safe and sound in his backpack surely homeowners are capable of figuring out a way of keeping their cats from winding up underneath the wheels of motorists. (See Cat Defender post of July 5, 2013 entitled "Tabor's Long and Winding Road Leads Her Back Home but Leaves Her with a Broken Heart.")

In Milford, Connecticut, and on the remote Japanese island of Iriomote, Cat Crossing signs have been erected and speed limit restrictions have been instituted in select cities throughout both Deutschland and Angleterre but those efforts have been sabotaged by politicians and the police who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in protecting the lives of cats. Consequently, the onus of doing so falls by default squarely upon the shoulders of their owners and caretakers. (See Cat Defender posts of January 26, 2007 and November 26, 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.")

Sadly, Mr. Cheeky Has Climbed His Last Tree

The best solution is to provide them with large, fenced-in yards that have nets strung across the top. Unfortunately, such arrangements normally are either impracticable or too expensive as far as most cat owners are concerned.

One possible compromise would be to equip cats with escape-proof harnesses and then to tether them to long leashes in the garden. If that is not feasible, their guardians need to accompany them on all of their outdoor rambles.

Measures of this sort are needed because it is cruel and unfair to keep them locked up indoors all the time. They are not, as birders and wildlife biologists ludicrously contend, second-class citizens of this planet. Furthermore, they never have committed any offenses that would justify such mistreatment.

Secondly, exclusively indoor environments can be harmful to their physical 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.")

Thirdly, such environments deny them not only access to fresh air but to the extensive exercise that they need. Fourthly, keeping cats locked away deprives them of the society of their fellow felines and as such has a tendency to engender behavioral problems.

Regardless of whatever approach is adopted, the time when cats were capable of holding their own against the machinations of the monster known as man are long past and those individuals, institutions, and groups that contend likewise are liars. (See Cat Defender post of October 9, 2015 entitled "A Lynch Mob Comprised of Dishonest Eggheads from the University of Lincoln Issues Another Scurrilous Broadside Against Cats by Declaring That They Do Not Need Guardians in Order to Safeguard Their Fragile Lives.")

Another myth currently en vogue is that they are low maintenance animals. In reality, however, nothing could be further from the truth.

In addition to their myriad of mortal enemies, they require almost constant attention in order to ward off the onset of both boredom and loneliness and that usually means that they fare best with owners who stay home the vast majority of the time. Under such circumstances, they not only tend to do considerably less roaming but mischief as well to their owners' houses.

As Mr. Cheeky has demonstrated, sterilizing a cat does not always reduce its tendency to roam and that is especially the case if its owners are away for most of the time or ignore it whenever they actually are at home. As a consequence, busy and selfish individuals who are unwilling to devote considerable time to ensuring that their cats are happy and contented ought to reconsider adopting one.

In spite of how truly tragic events have turned out for Mr. Cheeky, King is still in denial and that does not bode well for the well-being of either Django or any other cats that she and Wilson plan on adopting in the future. "You've paid a high price for being so independent, friendly and fearless, (or perhaps because of your resemblance to 'A Street Cat Named Bob'), but you could never have been an indoor cat," is how that she chose to eulogize him in the January 28th Facebook article cited supra."It just wasn't in your nature. I'm so glad you got a last taste of freedom, albeit tragically brief."

There is no one so obstinate as those individuals who pigheadedly refuse to learn from their past mistakes but King's turning to religion for solace really takes the cake. "So farewell my brave soldier, the most fearless cat I ever knew," she wrote on January 28th. "God bless you my fur babe, until we meet again."

That is doubly ironic in that the Sunday Assembly which she attends is comprised of nonbelievers. "We want people to come and feel part of a community and have fun -- but we can't promise eternal life," the church's leader, Simon Clare, declared to The Argus of Brighton on August 1, 2013. (See "Atheists Set Up Brighton and Hove's First Godless Church in Waterloo Street.")

Bull sessions devoted to science, philosophy, and psychology have replaced Bible thumping as the brain fodder du jour at the Sunday Assembly but absolutely nothing contained in either of those two extremes ever has produced anything even remotely beneficial for cats like Mr. Cheeky. He is simply stone-cold dead and he is not coming back either tomorrow or in ten-thousand years.

Photos: Facebook (Mr. Cheeky), The Sun (surveillance tape), and the Brighton Journal (Mr. Cheeky up a tree).