Coal, the Sole Surviving Member of the Fabled Parliament Hill Cat Sanctuary, Is Deathly Ill but His Devoted Owner Is Not Leaving Any Stone Unturned in a Last-Ditch Effort to Save His Life

Coal with His Owner Danny Taurozzi 

"If things go well and the cancer is slowed down, he could have a couple of years."
-- Danny Taurozzi

Some stories are almost too heartbreaking to even contemplate, let alone to give life to with pen and paper. One of them is unfolding at this very minute in the Gloucester section of east Ottawa where Danny Taurozzi is waging a valiant uphill battle in order to save the life of his beloved seventeen-year-old companion, Coal.

Born on July 1, 2008, Coal is as far removed from being a run-of-the-mill tom as his guardian is from being an ordinary cat owner. Rather, he is the last survivor of the world-famous Parliament Hill Cat Sanctuary which was first formed one-hundred-one years ago in 1924 when some of his distant relatives were recruited to work as mousers in the basement of the newly-constructed Centre Block building of Parliament.

As it so often happens, the cats were punished rather than rewarded for their labors in that as soon as they had gotten the rodent population under control they were inexcusably expelled from their new home later in that same year. The same cruel scenario was played out once again in 2005 at the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. (See Cat Defender post of October 20, 2005 entitled "After Ridding the Ohio Statehouse of Rats, a Dozen or So Cats Are Now Facing Eviction Themselves.")

Although the Parliament Hill cats were allowed back inside the Centre Block during the day, they were forced to have braved Ottawa's unforgivably cold and snowy winters outdoors and to have subsisted upon handouts from the groundskeepers and volunteers from the community for their daily sustenance. In 1955, they were replaced by professional exterminators and forbidden to have entered the Centre Block even during the daytime in order to have warmed themselves.

There accordingly can be little doubt that most of them succumbed to the elements, starvation, disease, a total lack of veterinary care, and foul play. The only reward for many of the cats that somehow had managed to survive under such hellish and callous conditions was for them to have been rounded up and liquidated by the Ottawa Humane Society (OHS).

Even as late as 2023-2024, the very best that the OHS can do is to boast of a live release rate of slightly less than seventy-eight per cent. Considering that it is not unusual for twice as many cats as dogs to wind up at shelters, the OHS is likely still systematically killing up to forty per cent or more of the cats and kittens that it annually impounds.

From 1955 until 1987 and the arrival upon the scene of René Chartrand, the cats were pretty much completely on their own. He immediately built wooden, winterized shelters for them and a second set in 1997.

In 2003, he established a TNR program and convinced VCA Canada Alta Vista Animal Hospital to inoculate them gratis and Ralston Purina to help with the feeding of them. He retired in 2008 and died on December 7, 2014. (See the Ottawa Citizen, December 10, 2014, "Parliament Hill's 'Catman' Tended Sanctuary for Twenty-One Years.")

Absolutely nothing is known about either Coal's parents or the first two or so years of his life other than that he, thanks to Chartrand's benevolence, most assuredly had an easier time of it than did his predecessors. His second stroke of good luck came in 2010 when Taurozzi began volunteering at the sanctuary.

By the time that the colony was disbanded in December of 2012, there were only four remaining cats and Taurozzi adopted Coal along with another long-term resident named Spot. The coup d' grâce as far as the sanctuary is concerned came on January 12, 2013 when it was demolished by Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Coal is therefore all that is left of the once flourishing Parliament Hill Cat Sanctuary that in good weather used to attract as many as three-hundred visitors a day. Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau used to occasionally stop by as did members of Parliament and journalists from as far away as Venezuela.

A Very Young Coal at the Parliament Hill Cat Sanctuary

It is not believed that any of the politicians and bureaucrats ever contributed so much as a red cent toward the cats' care. Like all members of their misbegotten ilk, they merely exploited and neglected them for their own amusement.

No one can ever really be for certain how that a homeless cat will react to domesticated life but from all accounts Coal and Taurozzi hit it off right from the start and the next seven to eight years were joyful ones for the both of them. Along the way, Coal also became famous all across Canada.

He did so by starting his own page on Facebook where he advocated for various animal rights issues. At last look, his page has attracted fifty-six-hundred followers.

In 2015, posters featuring his handsome face appeared in Centretown Ottawa urging voters to elect him to Parliament. After that he became a certified therapy cat and in that capacity he regularly visited the Perley and Rideau Veterans' Health Centre where, ironically, Chartrand had spent many of his final days, and other venues around Ottawa until the 2020 pandemic put an end to his charitable work.

His string of amazingly good luck began to run low in March of 2020 when Spot died of congenital heart failure at age seventeen. Even so, he remained steadfast by his companion's side until the bitter end.

Described by Taurozzi as a "pacifist" and a "gentle soul," Coal's empathy is by no means limited to the members of his own species. "Even when I'm not feeling well, he'll be right beside me, too," Taurozzi vouched to the Ottawa Citizen on August 5, 2020. (See "And Then There Was One: The Last Parliament Hill Cat Survives Medical Scare.")

 

A few months later in July of that same year, Coal accidentally swallowed a piece of string and that necessitated a three-day stay at VCA Canada Alta Vista Animal Hospital. Luckily, he eventually was able to have passed the string without surgical intervention.

"Coal is in excellent health now," Taurozzi later told the Ottawa Citizen on August 5, 2020. "He recuperated quickly, and was very happy to come home."

It was indeed fortunate that Taurozzi had the insurance and money in order to have paid for Coal's hospitalization and care. It was an entirely different story for an unidentified Philadelphia cat who had swallowed a piece of ribbon from a Christmas gift in December of 2013.

 

The low-life scumbags who practice veterinary medicine at PennVet (the University of Pennsylvania) refused to have saved the cat's life because its owner did not have the money in order to pay the exorbitant fee that they had demanded. So she instead elected to have had her cat killed off on the cheap. (See Cat Defender posts of  March 19, 2014 and September 24, 2015 entitled, respectively, "The 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" and "Henry Is Saved by Cats Protection after Swallowing Part of a Plastic Trash Bag but His Fate Would Have Been Entirely Different if He Had Fallen into the Clutches of the Mercenaries at PennVet.")

Coal was thus able to have enjoyed another three good years until a malignant tumor was found behind his left ear and excised in June of 2024. Sadly, earlier this year another malignant tumor was discovered in the same area.

Coal with Taurozzi after Swallowing a Piece of String in July of 2020

Known as a salivary gland cystadenocarcinoma, the malignancy also has spread to his lungs. According to miscellaneous information found online, the disease is characterized primarily by a painless swelling, halitosis, and difficulties related to chewing and eating. Weight loss, lethargy, changes in voice, and a limited ability to yawn are also seen in some afflicted cats.

The malady can be brought on by, inter alia, bite wounds, a sudden jerking of the neck, and even by chewing on a sharp object. In most cases, however, the cause is idiopathic.

Since at least February, Coal has been receiving chemotherapy in the form of Palladia. It is a tyrosine inhibitor that works by suppressing the formation of new blood vessels that supply tumors.

Side effects of the drug can include a suppressed immune system, gastrointestinal issues such as a loss of appetite, vomiting, and diarrhea, hematological problems such as a low blood cell count, liver and kidney issues, and hair loss. According to Pharmacy Checker, each tablet costs around US$18.95 but since the drug has not been approved for the treatment of cats by Health Canada, its cost likely is not covered by Taurozzi's pet insurance.

The one remaining ray of hope for both Coal and Taurozzi is that Palladia seems to be working. "So far treatments have been remarkably effective in slowing down the progression of Coal's salivary gland cystadenocarcinoma, which has shown slight pulmonary metastasis," Taurozzi disclosed February 17th in update number twenty-two to "Saving Little Coal" on Go Fund Me. "Despite his diagnosis, Coal continues to defy the odds -- remaining playful, eating and drinking well, using his litter box without issue, and showering his dad with affection."

The specifics of his overall health also are encouraging. "Comprehensive medical evaluations repeatedly affirm that Coal is bright, alert, responsive, and pain-free. His heart and lungs have no cackles-wheezes, and there is no murmur. Abdominal palpitation shows no discomfort or abnormalities. His lymph nodes remain small and symmetrical," Taurozzi continued on Go Fund Me. "He is ambulatory, well-muscled, and displays no signs of major dental or ocular issues. These results, backed by renowned veterinary professionals, are irrefutable evidence that Coal's conditions is well-managed and his quality of life is excellent."  

In his last-ditch effort not to leave any stone unturned, Taurozzi has sought out the advice of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Cornell University in Ithaca, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and Guardian Veterinary Specialists in Ottawa.

Predictably, reaching out to the stiffs at Cornell proved to have been a total waste of his time and scarce resources. "We do not have any clinical trials for cats with salivary adenocarcinoma. It sounded like from your message that your kitty (sic) was receiving Palladia and experiencing some improvement," the school wrote back according to the Ottawa Citizen on January 5, 2025. (See "Coal the Parliament Hill Cat Has Cancer. His Human Is Fighting for the Legend's Life.") "We are glad to hear that! We don't have any other anti-cancer therapies that we would recommend instituting at this time."

C'est-à-dire, the toffs at the Ivy League school, like their colleagues at PennVet, could care less whether Coal lives or dies. Like all politicians, professors are equally full of shit.

More to the point, Cornell's attitude is merely par for the course for a school that not only hates homeless cats but their caretakers as well. (See Cat Defender post of June 14, 2006 entitled "A Kindhearted Dairyman, Sacked for Feeding Feral Cats, Files a $20 Million Lawsuit Against Cornell University.") 

Taurozzi therefore has been forced to rely almost exclusively upon Dr. Dana Clark of VCA Canada Alta Vista Animal Hospital and Dr. Krista Gower of Capital City Specialty and Emergency Animal Hospital in Kanata, twenty-two kilometers west of Ottawa, as Coal's primary caregivers. Coal additionally has received physical therapy from Go Mobile Pet Rehab Services in the Ottawa area and virtual consultations in holistic medicine from Toronto Integrative Animal Health.

Danny Taurozzi Has So Far Remained Steadfast by Coal's Side

"If things go well and the cancer is slowed down, he could have a couple of years," Taurozzi optimistically opined to the Ottawa Citizen in the January 5, 2025 article cited supra. 

Then on June 3rd Coal suffered a huge setback. He abruptly stopped eating and drinking and began to exhibit signs of dehydration and lethargy. Rushed to VCA Canada Alta Vista Animal Hospital, the staff immediately administered intravenous fluids and that saved the day and his life.

"Within half an hour, he began to feel better and was able to eat again gradually," Taurozzi announced June 5th in update number twenty-four to "Saving Little Coal" on Go Fund Me. "By the next morning, his energy had returned and his appetite was back to normal."

Since chemotherapy is sometimes known to adversely affect a cat's appetite, the drug that is prolonging his life is, ironically, adversely impinging upon his chances of survival. Compounding an already desperate situation, Taurozzi waited more than a day before procuring emergency medical care for him. 

Since Taurozzi is a national representative for the Canada Employment and Immigration Union, it is not known what role, if any, his work schedule played in that delay. Nevertheless, a cat in Coal's condition requires around-the-clock monitoring. 

Although cats are notoriously finicky eaters, once one stops eating both he and his owner are in big trouble and veterinary intervention must be procured immediately. The only other option for Taurozzi would be for him to purchase intravenous fluids and a catheter and to medicate Coal himself the next time that he stops eating.

Unlike in the United States where such fluids require a prescription from a veterinarian, they can be purchased over-the-counter north of the border. Staffers at VCA Canada Alta Vista Animal Hospital likely would be willing to instruct him on how to properly administer them and, since Coal is such a model patient, there should not be any difficulties. The key is to do so as soon as Coal starts to falter.

If he has not done so already, Taurozzi might want to discuss with Coal's veterinarians the advisability of easing up on the chemotherapy while simultaneously increasing whatever nutritional support options that are available.

As one would expect, the cost of keeping Coal alive is staggering. The veterinarians alone are costing Taurozzi a fortune. Plus, there is the cost of the medicine, physical rehabilitation, food supplements, and acupuncture.

Over the course of the past year, he has been able to raise only a paltry C$15,066 on Go Fund Me. He additionally has pet insurance but the both of them are hardly enough in order for him to keep up with Coal's mounting veterinary bills.

Although the task before him is daunting to say the least, Taurozzi is not giving up and he most definitely is not bemoaning the depletion of his bank account. "That's fine. We make choices," he told the Ottawa Citizen on January 5th. "He's my little buddy."

Yet in spite of his steadfastness and compassion he has come under outrageous criticism for not killing off Coal. "Only if a grievous and irremediable medical condition substantially diminishes Coal's quality of life beyond the point that management therapies can help will veterinary assistance in dying become an option," he vowed to the Ottawa Citizen on January 5th. "We're very far from there."

Coal at the Hospital Earlier This Month Following His Setback

Coal indeed appears to be bearing up remarkably well. "He has a very good quality of life. He's not in any pain, not in any distress," Taurozzi  continued to the Ottawa Citizen. "He likes to go walk in the hallways, he jumps, he likes to play. He doesn't know that he has something at all. I know, but he doesn't."

In any halfway sensible and compassionate world the onus would be on the cat-killers and life-deniers to defend their love of violence and the heinous crimes that they commit but since, quite obviously, this planet spins to an entirely different beat it is cat-lovers such as Taurozzi who are expected to justify their preference for life over death. "As he continues to enjoy a good quality of life, Coal's treatments are ethical and in his best interest," Taurozzi retorted February 17th in update number twenty-two on Go Fund Me.

Clearly, he is a remarkable ailurophile. Just about all others either pay totally unscrupulous old sawbones in order to do their dirty work for them or they cruelly dump their sickly and elderly cats in the street to fend for themselves.

Along with doing so they contaminate the air with their nonsensical proclamations concerning how that they cannot bear to see their cats suffer while all along the only considerations ever to have coursed through their calloused gourds have revolved around how much cheaper and less troublesome it is to care for a dead cat as opposed to one that is alive but unwell. A cat and an old worn-out pair of shoes are two entirely different things but most owners do not recognize any distinction between them.

As a consequence, relatively few cats die in bed and of old age; on the contrary, sooner or later just about every one of them is murdered. Even cats that have achieved worldwide fame are whacked right and left every day without so much as a second thought. (See Cat Defender posts of February 9, 2006, May 10, 2007, May 31, 2007, October 27, 2008, September 26, 2013, August 27, 2014, October 18, 2014, January 15, 2015, May 28, 2015, October 31, 2015, August 4, 2017, November 2, 2017. March 31, 2020, October 27, 2020, June 24, 2022, September 23, 2022, and May 26, 2025 entitled, respectively, "A Newspaper Cat Named Tripod Is Killed Off by the Journalists That He Befriended in Vermont," "Iowa Librarian Vicki Myron Inks a Million-Dollar Deal for a Memoir about Dewey Readmore Book," "Port Taranaki Kills Off Its World Famous Seafaring Feline, Colin's, at Age Seventeen," "Loved and Admired All Around the World, Feline Heroine Scarlett Is Killed Off by Her Owner after She Becomes Ill," "Former Halifax Mayoral Hopeful Tuxedo Stan Is Killed Off by His Owner after Chemotherapy Fails to Halt the Onslaught of Renal Lymphoma," "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," "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," "Lewis, Ann Arbor's Much Celebrated Garden Shop Cat, Departs This World Under Highly Suspicious Circumstances," "Abandoned, Homeless on the Street, Expelled by the Ingrates at Manchester International Airport, and Finally Whacked by Her Last Guardian, So Ran the Course of Ollie's Sad and Turbulent Life," "Tama Is Finally Able to Escape the Merciless Clutches of Her Simon Legree Overlords at the Wakayama Electric Railway but Doing So Has Cost Her Everything That She Ever Had, Including Her Life," "Mayor Stubbs, 1997-2017: A Melancholic Remembrance, an Appreciation, and Tearful Au Revoir," "Fate, Circumstances, Rotten Luck, and the Half-Hearted Efforts of Insincere Individuals and Groups All Conspire to Make a Quick End of Morris, the World Famous Glass Bank Cat of Cocoa Beach," "Stoic Little CC May Have Graced This Vale of Tears for Only Eighteen Brief Years but the Moral Conundrum That Surrounds the Cloning of Cats Lives On after Her," "Noble and Courageous Harvey Who So Desperately Wanted to Go on Living Is Instead Unforgivably Betrayed and Killed Off by His Foster Mother and Yorkshire Cat Rescue," "Oscar, Who Was Intimately Acquainted with the Grim Reaper, Is Himself Betrayed and Killed Off by the Same Loathsome Ingrates That He Faithfully Served, Comforted, and Made Fabulously Rich and Famous for So Many Years," "Domino's Years of Roaming the Campus of the University of Texas Come to a Sad End after He Is Betrayed and Killed Off by the Eggheads Who Were Too Cheap, Lazy, and Heartless to Have Taken Proper Care of Him," and "Molly of Myers of Keswick, Who Soared to International Fame in 2006, Meets with a Cruel and Unjust End in Obscurity Fifteen Years Later.")

If fame, achievement, and merit are insufficient in order to guarantee a domesticated cat the right to go on living, those that are homeless hardly have any chance at all of surviving for very long in this vile and ailurophobic world. (See Cat Defender posts of September 28, 2011, August 26, 2015, February 17, 2016, October 21, 2018, and August 27, 2023 entitled, respectively, "Marvin Is Betrayed, Abducted, and Murdered by a Journalist and a Shelter Who Preposterously Maintain That They Were Doing Him a Favor," "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," "Cats Protection Races to Alfie's Side after His Owner Dies and He Winds Up on the Street, Swears It Is Going to Help Him, and Then Turns Around and Has Him Whacked," "Diabolically Mutilated in a Back Alley Sterilization, Billy Is Promised Help by Blackpool Cats in Care Who, Predictably, Turn Right Around and Pull the Rug Out from Underneath Him," and "Too Stingy and Ailurophobic to Have Treated Him, Black Dog Animal Rescue Instead Murders Eddie in Cold Blood and Then Hightails It to Alice Gibbs of Newsweek in Order to Have Her Promote Its and PETA's Cat-Killing Cult.")  

Firmly believing that it is their mandate to liquidate all cats as opposed to treating, socializing, and placing them in good homes, just about all shelters are little more than dressed-up feline slaughterhouses. As a result, they also mistakenly kill an astounding number of domiciled cats that have owners. (See Cat Defender posts of June 5, 2007, March 19, 2010, April 18, 2010, June 15, 2010, August 19, 2010, October 23, 2010, January 11, 2012, October 23, 2012, July 31, 2015, and May 7, 2018 entitled, respectively, "The RSPCA's Unlawful Seizure and Senseless Killing of Mork Leaves His Sister, Mindy, Brokenhearted and His Caretakers Devastated," "Trapped and Killed by the Delaware County SPCA, Keecha's Life Is Valued at Only $1 by a Pennsylvania Arbitration Panel," "Ally's Last Ride Lands Her in a Death Trap Set by an Uncaring and Irresponsible Supermarket Chain and a Bargain Basement Shelter," "A Bay City Shelter Murders a Six-Week-Old Kitten with a Common Cold Despite Several Individuals Having Offered to Give It a Permanent Home," "Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and an Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw," "The RSPCA Steals and Executes Nightshift Who Was His Elderly Caretaker's Last Surviving Link to Her Dead Husband," "A Deadly Intrigue Concocted by a Thief, a Shelter, and a Veterinary Chain Costs Ginger the Continued Enjoyment of His Golden Years," "A Supposedly No-Kill Operation in Marblehead Betrays Sally and Snuffs Out Her Life Instead of Providing Her with a Home and Veterinary Care," "The Cold-Blooded Murder of Spitz Once Again Exposes the Horrifying, Ugly, and Utterly Appalling Truth about Not Only Shelters but Callous Owners and Phony-Baloney Animal Rights Groups as Well," and "The English Authorities Steal, Kill, and Incinerate Nash Van Drake and in the Aftermath Lie Their Ugly Little Faces Off as to Their Reasons for Committing Such a Dastardly Deed.") 

When it comes to phony-baloney shelters and rescue groups, PETA remains the biggest villain in that its only raison d'être is to vilify and kill cats. (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," "The Verdict in the 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.")

Every bit as reprehensible as the wholesale crimes perpetrated by shelters, Animal Control, and the cops, it is entirely plausible that owners, one way or the other, actually kill even more cats. (See Cat Defender posts of July 17, 2013 and September 22, 2020 entitled, respectively, "Not Satisfied with Merely Whacking Meiko, Garrison Keillor Struts on Stage in Order to Shed a Bucketful of Crocodile Tears and to Denigrate the Entire Species" and "Snitch Is Found Alive Fourteen Years after His Disappearance but His Old Owner Refuses to Take Him Back in Spite of the Shameful Neglect Shown Him by His New Caretaker.")

Even that brief survey of a handful of cats that have been murdered in cold blood is woefully inadequate. In reality, a book every bit as thick as the Manhattan White Pages would be required in order just to chronicle the names of the cats that are murdered in such a fashion every day of the week. 

Moreover, despite the blatant lies disseminated so profusely by the likes of PETA, shelters, and the veterinary medical profession, there is absolutely nothing that is even remotely humane about killing a cat. On the contrary, it is a terrifying and often painful ordeal. (See Cat Defender post of April 8, 2018 entitled "A Rare Behind the Scenes Glimpse at the Ruthless Murders of Two Cats by an Indiana Veterinarian Exposes All Those Who Claim That Lethal Injections Are Humane to Be Barefaced Liars.")

Coal and Taurozzi Are Hoping for a Miracle. Has Anybody Got One for Sale?

Although many capital felons are not only unfit to be allowed to go on living but also pose a threat to other inmates, the mounting evidence is that lethal injections are anything but quick, efficient, and painless. (See Atlantic Magazine, July 2025, "Witness. Inside America's Death Chambers.")

While it is doubtful that many owners will choose to follow the example that Taurozzi has set and thus learn to respect their cats' inalienable right to live out their lives to their natural ends, he nevertheless has established the gold standard as to how all those who claim to love their cats should treat them. Although what he is going through is undoubtedly excruciatingly painful, he is at least able to spend a little more time with Coal.

When the end finally does come, he also will know that he did everything within his power to have saved Coal. That is not going to be much of a consolation but it will be something for him to hold on to in the dark and lonely days that are ahead of him.

Nothing is quite as heartbreaking as losing a beloved cat and it therefore is not uncommon for some devoted owners to be ill-equipped to survive such a devastating blow. (See Cat Defender posts of January 2, 2012 and June 12, 2012 entitled, respectively, "With No Reason Left to Go on Living, a Tredworth Resident Takes His Own Life after His Beloved Cat Disappears" and "Sophie's Sudden Death Proves to Be Too Much for a Bachelor in Poole to Bear So He Elects to Join Her in  the Great Void.")

Taurozzi does have another resident feline named Valérie and her love coupled with the chore of attending to her daily needs should be sufficient in order to sustain him after Coal is gone. He is, of course, already fully cognizant of that petit fait.

"There's something mysterious about them (cats) and they're quite affectionate," he told the Ottawa Citizen on January 5th. "If you're not feeling well, they will be right beside you."

Such distressing palaver is premature, however, in that as long as there is still life, there is hope and miracles do happen ever once in while in this world. In that light, the advice that Dylan Thomas gave to his sick father is equally applicable to both Coal and Taurozzi:

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Photos: Ashley Fraser of the Ottawa Citizen (Coal and Danny Taurozzi), Go Fund Me (Coal outside the Parliament Hill Cat Sanctuary), Julie Oliver of the  Ottawa Citizen (Coal and Taurozzi in happier days), and Facebook (Coal following his most recent setback).

Molly of Myers of Keswick, Who Soared to International Fame in 2006, Meets with a Cruel and Unjust End in Obscurity Fifteen Years Later

Molly Lived at a Delicatessen for More Than Fourteen Years

"We take comfort in the long and happy years she lived at the store, where she made many friends. We cannot imagine a world without Molly but feel deeply grateful to have known her and hope you did too."

-- Jennifer Myers-Pulidore of Myers of Keswick

Tempus fugit, memento mori.

Life is awfully short but it is even briefer for a cat. Blink once and a beloved companion is gone forever.

Way back in April of 2006, a beautiful, eleven-month-old black female named Molly made headlines around the world when she became trapped inside the walls of an English-style delicatessen in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. Born in May of 2005, she had been adopted in January of 2006 from a shelter, presumably in New York City, by Peter Myers of Myers of Keswick at 634 Hudson Street in order to serve as his chief mouser and store mascot.

Given that shelters in the Big Apple are little more than thinly disguised feline extermination camps, that act of compassion on his part in all likelihood saved Molly's life. It did not take him long however in order to blot his copybook and he did so on March 31st by allowing her to mysteriously disappear through his inattentiveness.

He quickly compounded that initial error by falsely blaming someone else for her disappearance. "We missed her the first day but because she is such a pretty little cat I thought someone had stolen her," he admitted to The Times of London on April 13, 2006. (See "Bid to Save Molly the Mouser.")

It accordingly was not until three days later on April 2nd that he got around to notifying the authorities and that only occurred after he accidentally had overheard her meowing from inside the walls of the nineteenth-century, four-story structure that houses his delicatessen. The fire department and Animal Care and Control (ACC) did show up at his store but neither of them was willing to lift so much as a lousy finger in order to rescue Molly.

Cat therapists and psychics were called in and traps were baited with mackerel to no avail. Bricks were removed and holes drilled in the walls.

A video camera was lowered into darkened crevices. Recordings of whales and gulls were played in an attempt to entice Molly to come out. Kittens were even pressed into service so as to hopefully arouse her maternal instincts.

While all of that was going on inside the store, a three-ring circus comprised of the media, cat-lovers, and ailurophobes had set up shop outside on the sidewalk and in the street. Unfortunately, none of those tactics nor the racket churned up by those outside contributed anything positive toward locating and saving Molly.

A Caged Molly with Peter Myers and Kevin Clifford after Her Rescue

That herculean task was left to a pair of kindhearted individuals who had volunteered their services for free. The first one to step up to the plate was Alan Fierstein who employed sophisticated sound-detecting equipment in order to have located Molly trapped inside a tube behind a first-floor wall.

That discovery in turn allowed construction worker Kevin Clifford of Queens to pull Molly to safety by her tail at 10:13 p.m. on Friday, April 4th. By that time she had been forced to endure an agonizingly lengthy thirteen days of confinement without sustenance.

"I saw her eyes shining in the light. I was calling her, and she was meowing to me," he later told The New York Times on April 15, 2006. (See "The Fraidy-Cat of Hudson Street Is Yanked to Safety.") "She was scared."

Although he had been as slow as Christmas to have acted, Myers was overjoyed at the outcome. "It feels like I just won the lottery," he cooed to the New York Daily News on April 15th. (See "Ending Is the Cat's Meow.") "We're glad to have her back."

Although she was famished, thirsty, dusty, and frightened, Molly was amazingly otherwise unscathed. It is theorized that she survived her long and terrifying ordeal by subsisting on insects, rodents, and dripping water.

For his part, Myers wasted little time in remedying Molly's nutritional deprivations by treating her to a sumptuous meal that consisted of pork along with sardines in olive oil. While she was scarfing down her first real meal in two weeks, he and his young daughter, Jennifer, celebrated her return with champagne and English ale. Being a non-tippler herself, Molly made do with water.

On Monday, April 17th, Molly and Jennifer appeared with Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa on ABC Television's Good Day New York. It was the New York Mets baseball team, however, that best symbolized what Molly had come to mean to New Yorkers and, for that matter, the entire cat-loving world, when on the night of her deliverance it interrupted a game at the now demolished Shea Stadium in Flushing in order to announce to the crowd that she had been found safe and sound. (See Cat Defender post of April 20, 2006 entitled "Molly Is Finally Rescued After Spending Two Weeks Trapped Inside the Walls of an English Deli in Greenwich Village.")

Much like life itself, fame also is fleeting and as a result Molly's star disappeared from the firmament almost as rapidly as it had ascended. Nothing further concerning her appeared in the press and with Manhattan being far too dangerous in order to visit and its denizens being too bigoted and obnoxious to willingly rub elbows with, she soon was all but forgotten.

It accordingly was not until nearly seventeen years later that it accidentally was learned what had become of her. As it turned out, she had gamely soldiered on at Myers' delicatessen until April of 2020 when it shut down for three weeks due to the pandemic.

Lewis Was Killed Off by His Ungrateful Owner

With Myers having sacked up his shekels in 2019 and returned home to Keswick, a small town of fewer than five-thousand residents located fifty-one kilometers southwest of Carlisle in Cumbria, Jennifer now married and known as Myers-Pulidore, ascended to the throne as top dog at the store and she wasted little time in availing herself of the opportunity afforded her by COVID-19 in order to have quickly gotten rid of Molly. She did so by exiling her to Jersey City in order to live with an unidentified employee of the store.

"When we reopened we thought Molly was better off living a life of luxury in Jersey City," is how that she dishonestly attempted to justify her totally unforgivable and heartless behavior to the New York Post on October 23, 2021. (See "Tributes Pour in for Archie, the Cat at Manhattan's Myers of Keswick.")

Finally, in an article entitled "Our Cat Molly" that is posted on Myers of Keswick's web site, it was learned that Molly had died in December of 2021 following a brief battle with cancer but even that admission hardly qualifies as the unvarnished truth. Au contraire, all feline deaths that occur in December are highly suspicious.

The usual routine calls for nominal Christians and others to keep their cats alive through Christmas Day only to turn around and have them whacked on either the following day or sometime before the arrival of the new year. For example, that was all but certain the cruel fate that befell a handsome, and apparently as healthy as a horse, eighteen-year-old orange tom named Lewis on Boxing Day of 2014.

He had worked for fifteen years at Downtown Home and Garden at 210 South Ashley Street in Ann Arbor but the store's seventy-one-year-old owner, Mark Hodesh, was determined to unload his business by the year's end and he wanted no further part in caring for him. Although he easily could have rewarded him for his long and faithful service by placing him in another home, he unconscionably had him killed off. (See Cat Defender post of January 15, 2015 entitled "Lewis, Ann Arbor's Much Celebrated Garden Shop Cat, Departs This World Under Highly Suspicious Circumstances.")

Since Myers-Pulidore, like Hodesh, has plenty of moola, she easily could have afforded to have had Molly's cancer treated and thus to have extended her life but she instead was too cheap and uncaring in order to have done even that much for her. Besides, considering the amount of business that Molly had brought in to her delicatessen she owed her at least that much in return.

No mention has been made concerning what was done with Molly's remains but more than likely they were either tossed out in the trash or burned. All that therefore remains of her is to be found in cyberspace, photographs, and the memories of those who knew her.

"We take comfort in the long and happy years she lived at the store, where she made many friends," Myers-Pulidore wrote in "Our Cat Molly." "We cannot imagine a world without Molly but feel deeply grateful to have known her and hope you did too."

That is not a bad eulogy but it stands in stark contrast to Myers-Pulidore's abandonment of her. In particular, it is highly doubtful that she even so much as once laid eyes on her again after she had exiled her from her place of business.

Barely Out of Kittenhood, Archie Was Killed by a Pair of Pit Bulls

Heartlessness apparently runs in the Myers clan. For instance, it was reported in April of 2006 that her father had balked at footing the bill for any damage that rescuers might have done to his precious little delicatessen. That was in spite of the fact that the landlord had given them permission to drill holes in the walls and an anonymous donor had generously agreed to pay for Molly's rescue.

Even Clifford was critical of Myers' stinginess. "If that (getting trapped in a wall) ever happened to me, I hope they (rescuers) would keep working that way," he told the New York Daily News on April 16, 2006. (See "Molly's Already Feline (sic) Just Fine.")

It is difficult to speculate on what kind of existence Molly had at the deli other than to say that she at least had a home, food, heat, and some level of security. Since the store is open seven days a week except on holidays, she likely seldom was left alone for extended periods of time, which is a major concern with just about all working cats and mascots who quite often are abandoned to their own devices for days at a time.

Even so, she still was deprived of the fellowship of other cats and access to the wonders of nature. Considering that her new guardian worked days at the deli, Molly likely was forced into spending the majority of her last eighteen months on this earth locked up all alone in either an apartment or a house across the river in Jersey City.

C'est-à-dire, the lion's share of the benefits to have been derived from this relationship accrued to the deli and its bottom line rather than to Molly. Myers-Pulidore certainly had it well within her power to have done considerably better by Molly than she did but to expect a confirmed shekel-chaser to think of anything other than money is to have asked too much of her.

All of Molly's years of faithful service and companionship to the Myers family meant absolutely nothing to any of them. Her international acclaim likewise failed to have saved her. In the end, she was proven to have been nothing more to them than a poorly paid and expendable employee.

After Myers of Keswick had gotten rid of Molly it wasted little time in adopting a very young tuxedo kitten named Archie in May of 2020. He was given to the establishment by one of its kitchen workers and named in honor of Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle.

That in itself confirms Myers-Pulidore to be an admirer of the filthy and parasitic royal family. She also apparently goes gaga every time celebrities, such as Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode, and actress Sarah Jessica Parker of "Sex in the City" fame, condescend to stop by her grubby little deli.

She therefore is clearly a social climber with stars in her eyes and who identifies with the rich and the famous and that hardly qualifies her as a cat-lover. Contrary to what she and most individuals fervently believe, it is actually those at the bottom of society's perverted pecking order, such as the animals, Mother Earth, and the honest and decent poor, that have any intrinsic value and most assuredly not the flotsam and jetsam of the human race who have murdered, stolen, and lied their way to the top. Most importantly of all, there is a world of difference between appreciating and revering a cat as opposed to nakedly exploiting her for personal gain and then getting rid of her once she becomes expendable. 

Jennifer Myers-Pulidore (rear left) and Her Staffers Mourn Archie

Archie immediately proved himself to be a real financial asset for the store and that very well could have been the true reason why Myers-Pulidore gave Molly the bum's rush. That is to say, she wanted a younger and more energetic mascot.

"He took to the store immediately and immediately stole the hearts of everyone," she declared to the New York Post in the October 23, 2021 article cited supra. "In such a dreary time (the pandemic), Archie warmed the hearts of so many. You wanted to go visit him at the store."

One can almost hear the cash register humming in the back of Myers-Pulidore's desiccated gourd as she tallied up her greenbacks. Not only did Archie more than pay for his upkeep but he also was a big hit with her employees.

"Archie wasn't just a store cat," she continued to the New York Post. "He belonged to all the employees who worked here."

Tragically, Archie's financial value to the store did not magically transform Myers-Pulidore and her staffers into responsible guardians of him. As any true aficionado of the species knows only too well, joint custody of a cat is a prescription for, at best, neglect and, at worst, disaster.

"He wandered to other businesses on the block," she acknowledged to the New York Post. "He had such a personality. Actually, I think he was a little full of himself, which made him more endearing."

With New York City being as clogged as it is with motorists and pedestrians, no one who cared so much as a whit about a cat would ever let him roam. As things soon turned out, Archie was not even safe sitting by the front door of the deli.

Consequently, on October 20, 2021 he was mauled to death by a pair of pit bulls. "It's awful...He literally sat right by our door, minding his own business," Myers-Pulidore informed the New York Post. "They just went at him and the owner couldn't hold them back."

Ironically, it had been a kindhearted dog-lover, Kevin Clifford, who had saved Molly's life all those years ago but in this instance it was an irresponsible and callous one that cost Archie his young life. Weighing only a measly eight pounds and barely out of kittenhood at seventeen months of age, he never would have stood a chance against even one pit bull, let alone two.

Miss Pearl Was Savagely Killed by a Dog at the Annapolis Maritime Museum

"We rushed him to the vet but despite their (sic) heroic efforts, his wee heart did not hold up," Myers-Pulidore summed up to the New York Post.

That possibly could be true but, on the other hand, it also is conceivable that she simply was too cheap in order to have footed the bill for his treatment and convalescence. His remains were cremated and reportedly buried outside the delicatessen which likely was more of a sendoff than Molly ever received.

"We are all devastated and would appreciate that you respect our privacy as we grieve for our beautiful wee Archie. He was so full of life, an adventurer at heart," is how that Myers-Pulidore chose to eulogize him on Instagram. "He will be missed not only by us but by so many of our customer base, who were so kind to him with their love and generosity regarding attention, toys and treats. We hold you all in our thoughts and hearts."

She would have sounded considerably more sincere if she could have refrained from repeatedly patronizing him with the diminutive "wee." Actually, his heart was considerably bigger and fuller than hers.

It is not known if the killer dogs and their owner ever were identified and brought to justice but that seems unlikely. Although it is open season everywhere on cats, it is difficult to think of a single case whereby any killer dog and its owner has been held accountable.

In fact, all across the globe dogs surely must kill hundreds of thousands of cats and kittens each year and the culprits are by no means limited to pit bulls. For example, like the officers of the law that they serve, police dogs also attack and kill cats. (See Cat Defender post of July 2, 2015 entitled "After Allowing One of Their Dogs to Maul McGuire to Within an Inch of His Life, the Toronto Police Do Not Have Even the Common Decency to Summon Veterinary Help for Him.")

It likewise is common practice for canine owners to purposefully release their charges from their leashes and to sic then on cats. Every bit as revolting, such barbarism delights these sociopaths no end. (See Cat Defender posts of July 18, 2015, March 17, 2017, September 27, 2019, and March 20, 2023 entitled, respectively, "A 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," "Already Sans an Appendage, Simon Loses a Second One to a Killer Dog but His Devoted Owners Elect to Allow Him to Live and He Rewards Them Handsomely by Making a Remarkable Adjustment," "Sparkle Is Killed on the Front Stoop of Her House by an Unleashed Dog in the Latest of Centuries-Old Deadly Attacks That Bear the Unmistakable Imprimatur of the House of Commons," and "Mauled to Within an Inch of His Life by Either a Dog or a Coyote and Afterwards Cruelly Left to Suffer in the Bitter Cold and Deep Snow for More Than a Month by the Lewis County Humane Society, Warden Not Only Perseveres but Now Has Hope for a Better Life.")

Failed American cities such as Memphis deliberately allow large and vicious dogs to roam freely and, as a consequence, to maul and kill cats with impunity. (See Cat Defender post of April 30, 2023 entitled "The City of Memphis Is Refusing to Remove a Pair of Dogs from the Street No Matter How Many Cats That They Kill.")

Some derelict owners even allow dogs to maul cats that live under the same roofs with them. (See Cat Defender post of August 14, 2021 entitled "Amazing Little Juicebox Overcomes Not Only a Near Fatal Mauling at the Hands of His Owners' Dog but also Penury and Being Cruelly Abandoned to Shift for Himself Inside the Snake Pit World of Veterinary Medicine.") 

Gracie with Store Employee Irene Donnelly

In the elder Myers' home country of Angleterre, cats and their owners are routinely preyed upon by foxhounds. (See Cat Defender post of July 1, 2021 entitled "Fourteen-Year-Old Mini Is Ripped to Shreds by a Pack of Vicious Hounds but Those Responsible Never Will Be Punished Because the Limeys Value the 'Unspeakable in Full Pursuit of the Uneatable' More Than They Do Her Right to Live.")

Dogfighters in the United Kingdom also still use cats as bait in order to train their killers. (See Cat Defender posts of October 22, 2021 and October 31, 2021 entitled, respectively, "Condemned to Die as Dog Bait, Courageous Buzz Perseveres Just Long Enough Until He Is Somehow Able to Not Only Regain His Freedom but Also to Find His Pot of Gold at the Rainbow's End" and "The Arrest of a Dogfighter in Ayr Provides a Rare Glimpse into the Utterly Despicable Abuse That Bait Cats Are Subjected to but the Scottish SPCA Still Stubbornly Persists in Treating Them as Expendable Nonentities.")

Archie's killing additionally refocuses attention on the abysmal failure of both retail and governmental entities to safeguard the lives of the cats that they keep as companions, mascots, and mousers. Most reprehensibly of all in that respect, on December 9, 2020 staffers at the Annapolis Maritime Museum (AMM) unconscionably allowed an unleashed dog to stroll unmolested onto its docks and savagely kill its truly beautiful Miss Pearl.

They cared so little about her that they not only permitted her to roam the neighborhood unescorted but they additionally refused to even put her up at night and it was precisely that latter gross dereliction of duty that facilitated her brutal killing. (See Cat Defender post of April 30, 2022 entitled "Relegated to the Dustbin of History and All but Forgotten by the Grossly Negligent Annapolis Maritime Museum, Miss Pearl's Beautiful Soul Continues to Cry Out from the Grave for Justice.")   

After shedding a crocodile tear or two over Miss Pearl's violent demise, the museum wasted little time before setting about securing a replacement for her and by February of 2021 it had procured another victim for its machinations named Big Mac. Despite being grossly overweight at eighteen and one-half pounds, he astonishingly is still alive today and being put through his paces by his overlords.

"Big Mac, our very own museum working cat, has officially taken the helm as captain of the Wilma Lee's New Cat Lovers' Cruise!" the AMM proudly announced April 1st on both its web site as well as Facebook. 

Powerless to do anything else, the outside world can only sit back and hope that staffers at the AMM do not negligently allow him to fall overboard and drown in Chesapeake Bay. As far as shelters that fob off cats like him and Miss Pearl on the public are concerned, they care so little about them that they do not even conduct follow-up wellness checks; they simply want rid of them and therefore could care less what ultimately becomes of them.

Vicious and unsocialized dogs that their owners refuse to control are not only a threat to cats but also to smaller dogs. For instance, there recently has been a spate of such attacks in both Manhattan and the Bronx. (See the New York Post, May 8, 2025 articles entitled, respectively, "Killer History. Recalling How Pits Mauled Her Pups" and "Another Vicious Attack in (the) Bronx.")

Such dogs sometimes even kill humans. For example, on January 2, 2001 a Presa Canario named Bane bit thirty-four-year-old Diane Alexis Whipple seventy-seven times in San Francisco. The dog's handler, attorney Marjorie Knoller, remains to this very day behind bars at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. (See the San Francisco Chronicle, February 27, 2023, " 'Dog of Death': The Horrific Killing of Diane Whipple in San Francisco.")

Whereas the attack on Archie was so sudden and unexpected that there likely was not anything that Myers-Pulidore and her staffers could have done in order to have saved him, it does highlight the urgent need for all those with shop cats to not only keep them inside but also to place both the insides and outsides of their businesses off limits to all dogs and their owners.

Antonio Was Stolen from Outside the Queens Deli That He Called Home

They also should perhaps consider arming themselves with either tear gas or pepper spray. Neither the politicians nor the worthless cops are, quite obviously, going to lift so much as lousy finger in order to protect cats, small dogs, and the general public from vicious dogs.

Nor can anything positive be expected from humane groups in spite of the fact that the stubborn refusal of the sociopaths who own these dogs to properly socialize them is in itself an act of animal cruelty. That is because dogs that kill, such as Bane, are often condemned to die in turn themselves by the courts.

Other than pausing briefly in December of 2021 in order to have whacked Molly, Myers of Keswick scarcely missed a beat before acquiring a new replacement for Archie. The store therefore adopted in January of 2022 a brown and white female named Gracie.

"She has been a wonderful addition to the store. She's playful and she loves to meet people," Myers-Pulidore wrote in "Our Cat Molly." "She has some big 'paws' to fill but we are confident she will do a great job! As long a she stays away from small places between buildings, we should be okay."

Given that she has persevered for three and one-half years, Myers-Pulidore and her staff surely must be either doing something right or they have been extremely lucky. Nevertheless grave concerns about her safety remain unaddressed, at least publicly.

For instance, unless she is willing to confine Gracie to the rear portion of her store during business hours, she would be well advised to equip her with a collar that not only would sound an alarm whenever she ventures to within ten feet of the front door but which also would automatically lock it.

Catnappers are another concern. For example, at around 8:30 p.m. on August 2nd of last year an eighteen-year-old black and brown male named Antonio was stolen outside the K'Glen Deli and Sari Sari store at 39-16 Sixty-Fifth Street in Woodside, Queens. Worst of all, Antonio is in need of unspecified daily medication and the thief had no way of knowing that.

Even though a perfectly clear photo of the culprit was captured on a surveillance camera, apparently nothing further has been either seen or heard about Antonio. Moreover, there can be little doubt that his abduction was intentional.

"He really meant to take the cat because if he thought that he might be a stray, our door was open," Antonio's heartbroken owner, Glen Alagasi, told the Sunnyside Post on August 8, 2024. (See "Search Underway for Stolen Woodside Bodega Cat Beloved by Local Community.") "He could have just asked if the cat was a stray or not."

A Very Young Molly in 2006 With Her Entire Life Ahead of Her

It is cruel but the long and the short of the matter is that New York City is simply too dangerous of an environment for a footloose feline. If Myers of Keswick perhaps has a fenced-in garden out back Gracie possibly could be allowed to avail herself of it but even then someone should be watching over her.

Since its opening in 1985 , Myers of Keswick has had at least one other resident feline. Her name was Fluffy Fleabag and she preceded Molly but other than that absolutely nothing else is known about her.

The elder Myers could not possibly have thought much of her otherwise he never would have saddled her with such a pejorative moniker. (See Cat Defender post of February 20, 2007 entitled "A Stray Cat Ignominiously Named Stinky Is Rescued from a Rooftop by Good Samaritans After the Fire Department Refuses to Help.")

On its web site, the delicatessen mentions only Molly and Gracie while treating Archie and Fluffy as if they never existed. Those glaring omissions in turn raise the prospect that during it forty years in existence it possibly could have had several additional cats and that some of them could have, perhaps, met with untimely demises.

Since the store is unlikely to ever come clean, no one from the outside world will ever know the full story. It can only be sincerely hoped that Molly at the very least experienced a few moments of happiness during her life even if it ultimately ended tragically wrong for her.

Untold numbers of people from near and far held their breaths and hoped for her deliverance in 2006 when she was trapped inside a wall at the deli but when she was killed off in 2021 she was all alone and without anyone in her corner in order to have advocated for her right to veterinary care and, above all, to go on living. That was not right and none of Myers-Pulidore's insincere, self-serving palaver will ever make it so.

It is highly doubtful that Molly therefore is either missed or mourned very much by the shekel-counters at Myers of Keswick. Perhaps other individuals from outside the store will not only remember her but also keep her memory alive by dedicating their lives to advocating for justice for all working cats and mascots and, above all, their right to live.

Should such an undertaking ever be attempted, it is imperative that it, like TNR, be one-hundred per cent privately funded and staffed. The politicians, bureaucrats, and cops can never be trusted to do the right thing by any cat. (See Cat Defender post of December 22, 2011 entitled "A 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.")

Molly was a great cat and a tremendous ambassador for her species but, sadly, she is long gone. So, as Anglo-American writer Oliver Herford reminds one and all:

"Gather kittens while you may,

Time brings only sorrow;

And the kittens of today;

Will be old cats tomorrow."

Photos: Myers of Keswick (Molly), Dima Gavrysch of the Associated Press (Molly with Peter Myers and Kevin Clifford) , Facebook (Lewis), Helayne Seidman of the New York Post (Archie by himself and Jennifer Myers-Pulidore and her staff mourning Archie), Mark Brady (Miss Pearl), James Barron of The New York Times (Gracie with Irene Donnelly), Glen Alagasi (Antonio), and ABC-TV of New York (Molly in 2006).

Sophie's Long and Painful Odyssey of Multiple Abandonments, a Death-Defying Fall, Life on the Street, and Battles with the Bitter Cold and Deep Snow Leads Her Back Home Again Just in Time for Christmas

At Least for the Time Being, Sophie Has Landed on All Four Paws

"It is extremely uncommon to find a cat that's been missing for this long. That's a credit to the people who were caring for her outside for so long. Sophie really did touch a lot of people's hearts."

-- Vanessa Freeman of Community Cats of Edmonton

Sophie has had a hard, turbulent life that rivals "The Pearls of Pauline." The beautiful longhaired gray, brown, and white female was born on or about October 2013 but nothing else is known about either her kittenhood or the days immediately thereafter.

For all intents and purposes her story therefore does not really begin until fourteen months later in December of 2014 when she was doing time at the Edmonton Humane Society (EHS) and was known as Stardust. How long that she had been unjustly incarcerated there is not known but it generally can be assumed that she was either trapped by the Edmonton Animal Care and Control Centre (ACCC) or dumped at the shelter by her previous guardian.

It would not even be unusual if by that time she already had been bandied about several times between multiple owners and, possibly, even shelters. It likewise is not even known who it was that first dubbed her Stardust.

Her deliverance and new lease on life came when Glenn Stupar of Spruce Grove, a town of around forty-thousand souls and located eleven kilometers west of Edmonton, visited the shelter and adopted her as a Christmas present for his then fourteen-year-old daughter, Keisha. Immediately thereafter either he or she renamed her Sophie and she took up residence with them in their seventh-floor apartment.

That act of compassion on Stupar's part in all likelihood saved Sophie's life in that the EHS was at that time a notorious feline killing factory. Although in recent years it allegedly has greatly reduced the number of cats that it slaughters, as far back as November of 2015 it was still whacking them at the rate of sixty-eight a month. (See the Edmonton Journal, July 29, 2018, "Edmonton Humane Society Cuts Euthanasia Rate by Half Since 2016.")

This phony-baloney shelter additionally was an especially uncaring and slipshod operation. For example, on March 27, 2018 two of its employees took receipt of an unspecified number of animals from the Grand Prairie Regional Animal Care Facility, four-hundred-fifty-four kilometers to the northwest, and proceeded to drive them back to Edmonton.

Upon arrival, something went terribly haywire when a trio of young cats -- four-year-old Lucky, one-year-old Magic, and two-year-old Chance -- were inexplicably left locked in their cages inside their transport van without food, water, heat, and litter boxes for the following twenty-three days. Compounding their already desperate plight, the overnight temperature outside during that period hovered slightly below the freezing point on the Fahrenheit scale.

They were not rescued until April 18th and only then because the EHS needed to use the van. By that time, all of them were suffering from severe dehydration and malnutrition as well as having sustained urine burns to their paws. Their anuses additionally were caked with congealed feces.

Chance also was suffering from severe liver damage but all of them, allegedly, recovered and later were placed in new homes by the Calgary Humane Society. (See Cat Defender post of August 8, 2018 entitled "Under Fire for Allowing Three Cats to Languish in an Unheated Vehicle for Twenty-Three Days Without Food and Water, Staffers at the Edmonton Humane Society Are Now Attempting to Save Their Own Miserable Hides with a Trumped-Up Outside Inquiry.") 

Later in that same year, Integrated Risk Investigations and Security Solution (IRISS) of Calgary gave the EHS a clean bill of health by blaming the entire affair on the snow and employee fatigue and complacency. It even went to the utterly ludicrous length as to excuse the shelter's negligence by arguing that the cats' cages were "kinda hidden" in an area of the van that normally is used for storage.

With its see-no-evil, hear-no-evil attitude, it is a bit surprising that IRISS did not blame what was done to the cats on either a troublesome case of the piles or an ingrown toenail. (See Global News of Toronto, December 20, 2018, "Changes Recommended at Edmonton Humane Society after Investigation into Abandoned Cats.")

Considering that Sophie easily could have been whacked outright or succumbed to gross negligence, she was extremely fortunate to have gotten out of that feline hellhole with her life. At that time, however, Stupar likely was totally ignorant about how that the EHS conducts business.

The two and one-half years following her adoption are another blank page in Sophie's life. What kind of existence did the "spunky and independent" calico have with Keisha and her father? Only they know the answer to that question and they so far have been remarkably unforthcoming on that matter.

Then sometime during the middle of 2017 Sophie's life took another disastrous turn. "I always go shower, and then I come out and she'd be sitting there, meowing at me like, 'Okay it's breakfast time'," Stupar recalled to the Edmonton Journal on December 30, 2024. (See "Home for the Holidays: How a Missing Spruce Grove Cat Was Reunited with Her Family after Seven Years.") "And that morning, she wasn't. When I went out to the front room and saw the screen I put it all together quickly."

What Stupar and Keisha did in order to have located Sophie is not known but it would appear that they did not do very much in that regard. For instance, how long and hard did they scour their neighborhood for her?

Sophie with Keisha Before Her Dangerous Fall and Disappearance

Did they look underneath any buildings? Comb through any wooded areas? Did they knock on any doors?

Did they fly-post their neighborhood with Lost Cat posters? Did they contact the EHS and local veterinarians? Did they utilize the resources of social media in their search for Sophie?

Most importantly of all, did they have the bon sens to have outfitted her with an old-fashioned collar and a tag? Even in this technology besotted world, they still remain the second best means that owners have at their disposal of protecting their cats. Best of all is to never to allow a beloved cat out of sight.

Even after having spotted what he thought to have been Sophie running across a street about a month later, Stupar still refused to have acted. Rather, he simply assumed in the face of all evidence to the contrary that she had run off on her own accord.

A cat that is given a home, food, and love never does a runner. On the contrary, if she should suddenly disappear it is because some mischief has befallen her and therefore is preventing her from returning.

It is conceivable, however, that the Stupars believed that she had been injured in the fall and afterwards crawled away to die all alone and that would not have been an unreasonable assumption for them to have made considering the intermediate height from which she had fallen. It sounds counterintuitive but, generally speaking, a cat's chances of surviving a fall actually increase, up to a certain point, the greater the height from which it plunges.

That is because once it reaches terminal velocity the force of its impact with the ground becomes relatively constant. Every bit as importantly, the greater the height the more time that it has in order to use its righting reflex in order to land on its feet. The specifics of how that this process works in practice are not known but given that cats have been known to have walked away from falls of a much greater height, it might not be totally erroneous to classify Sophie's plunge as having been in the dicey middle range of survivability.

The surface upon which a cat lands also is of paramount importance and if Sophie had collided with concrete as opposed to either grass or dirt she could have been seriously injured if not indeed killed. Radiographs likely would be able to determine if she had suffered any fractures but evidence of other types of damage, such as abrasions and internal distress, likely disappeared long ago.

It additionally is entirely likely that she had attempted return to the building but could not negotiate the front door and elevators. On the other hand, such a fall could have left her disoriented and traumatized. 

It is only common sense but cats that get outside or simply get lost usually do not stray far. They are small animals with short legs and there are too many motorists and other impediments standing in their way for them to get very far in this outrageously overcrowded world.

In other words, it would never cross the mind of a cat in Spruce Grove who suddenly found herself on the outside to think of taking a spring vacation in Fort Lauderdale. Ergo, she is all but certain to be somewhere close by. (See Cat Defender posts of September 22, 2020, January 29, 2021, January 9, 2022, May 23, 2023, and October 16, 2023 entitled, respectively, "Snitch Is Found Alive Fourteen Years after His Disappearance but His Old Owner Refuses to Take Him Back in Spite of the Shameful Neglect Shown Him by His New Caretaker," "Mocha Is Saved from an Almost Certain Death at a Shelter by the Enduring Love and Compassion of Her Former Owner Who Had Not So Much as Laid Eyes on Her in Thirteen Years," "Marley Is Reunited with Her Family after Having Gone Missing Nine Years Ago but Her Deliverance Does Not Establish Either the Efficacy or Desirability of Microchipping Cats," "Tilly Is Returned to Her Owner after a Seventeen and One-Half Year Separation but Their Reunion Is Destined to Be, Sadly, a Bittersweet One," "Believed to Have Perished in the Montecito Mudslides, Patches Turns Up at a Shelter Three Years Later On Where She Is Adopted by Her Deceased Owner's Boyfriend," and "Daisy Is Found in Poor Health Wandering the Forbidding Streets of Caerphilly Eleven Years after She Vanished Without So Much as a Trace.") 

 

Although cats such as Mimine, Mayhem, and Cookie have purportedly used their well-developed spatial memory and the movements of the sun in order to have traversed staggering distances in order to track down their former owners, the herculean feats of the latter two were made all the more incredible owing to the fact  that their guardians had changed addresses while they were, supposedly, on the road. (See Cat Defender posts of April 27, 2007 and April 10, 2014 entitled, respectively, "A French Chat Named Mimine Allegedly Walks Eight-Hundred-Thirty Kilometers in Order to Track Down the Family That Had Abandoned Her" and "Mayhem Inexplicably Finds His Way to the New Address of the North Carolina Woman Who Earlier Had Cruelly Abandoned Him," plus the Nice Matin, December 12, 2014, "Un chat, disparu à Grasse, parcourt mille kilomètres pour retrouver sa maîtresse en Normandie.")    

 

Many lost cats that later are found far from home have been stolen and then dumped. (See Cat Defender posts of November 16, 2007, December 11, 2014, January 29, 2020, and November 15, 2023 entitled, respectively, "Fletcher, One of the Cats Abducted from Bramley Crescent, Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton," "Uprooted from Home and Left Stranded Thousands of Miles Away, Spice Discovers to Her Horror That Not All the Ghouls and Goblins in This World Are Necessarily to Be Found on Halloween," "Brazenly Abducted from His Home in Broad Daylight by an Auto Parts Delivery Man and Then Allegedly Dumped, Dot Is Nowhere to Be Found Almost Four Months after the Fact," and "Basil Is Abducted, Shot in the Head, and Her Body Dumped in a Creek and, Although a Neighbor Was Immediately Implicated in Her Death, Apparently No Arrest Has Been Made More Than Two Months Later.")

At other times, cats take refuge in passenger cars and other vehicles and as a result wind up halfway across the country. (See Cat Defender posts of November 6, 2006, December 12, 2007, and June 1, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Trapped in a Moving Van for Five Days, a Texas Cat Named Neo Is Finally Freed in Colorado," "Bored with Conditions at Home, Carlsberg Stows Away on a Beer Lorry for the Adventure of a Lifetime," and "A Tattoo Unravels Burli's Secret Past but It Is a Radio Broadcast That Ultimately Leads to His Happy Reunion with His Forever Grateful Current Guardian.")

They even have wandered onto both freight and passenger trains and subsequently been transported to distant cities. (See Cat Defender posts of June 7, 2007 and April 5, 2024 entitled, respectively, "Rascal Hops a Freight Train in South Bend and Unwittingly Winds Up in Chattanooga" and "Lost and All Alone on the Rails, a Young Cat Is Befriended and Saved Through the Efforts of a Kindhearted Employee of the Chemins de fer Luxembourgeois.")

Sophie Toughed It Out at a Car Wash for Eighteen Months

A few of them even have, through no fault of their own, found their way onto ships and as a consequence wound up in foreign countries. (See Cat Defender posts of December 9, 2005, May 31, 2007, and July 25, 2014 entitled, respectively, "An Adventurous Wisconsin Cat Named Emily Makes an Unscheduled Trip to France in the Hold of a Cargo Ship," "Port Taranaki Kills Off Its World Famous Seafaring Feline, Colin's, at Age Seventeen," and "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.")

Airplanes also have played a role in cats being transported to the ends of the earth before being dumped by their utterly disgraceful owners and others. (See Cat Defender post of August 26, 2015 entitled "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.")

Some owners even have been so careless as to have sent their cats through the post. (See Cat Defender post of July 21, 2008 entitled "Janosch Survives Being Sent Through the Post from Bayern to the Rhineland" and Ruhr24 of Dortmund, May 13, 2022, "Nordrhein Westfalen: Katze aus Versehen mit der Post Funf-Hundert Kilometer weit verschickt.")

Once Sophie had found herself on the street her first order to business would have been to have attended to any injuries that she may have sustained in her fall. Following that, she would have been forced to confront the reality that she now was homeless and totally on her own.

Since absolutely nothing has been revealed about the first fourteen months of her life, it is impossible to know if she had had any previous experience of either being on her own or with the great outdoors. If the answer to both of those questions is no, she would have been left with precious little time in order to have gotten up to speed or to have perished.

Most pressing of all, she now had to procure her own food, water, and shelter from the elements. Secondly, she quickly had to learn how to avoid such prolific feline predators as motorists, poisoners, dogs, and an assortment of wild animals, such as cougars, wolves, and coyotes.

Thirdly, she had to stay out of the traps set for her and other members of her species by the ACCC. For example, in 2021 that agency admitted to killing at least one-hundred-forty-six cats and seventy-nine kittens. How many other cats that it killed in the field and did not even bother to report is not known. (See the Edmonton Cold Weather Animal Rescue Society, no date, "Animal Care and Control Centre Euthanasia Policies.")

"Communities throughout Canada share an immense feral cat overpopulation. Many thousands of healthy, adoptable cats are euthanized each year because we simply don't have enough homes for them all. Euthanasia due to homelessness is the largest cause of death in cats," Hanna Booth of the Toronto Feral Cat TNR Coalition admitted recently. "An estimated eighty per cent of kittens are born from feral mothers; and every kitten born is competing for adoption against cats already in the shelter system." 

The biggest threat to her continued existence however would have come from those two-legged monsters who enjoy torturing, mutilating, and killing both small and large cats and Edmonton and Alberta are chock-full of them. (See Cat Defender posts of August 26, 2018, November 25, 2015, and January 21, 2018 entitled, respectively, "The Brutal Slaying and Mutilation of Bebe Has Reaffirmed Edmonton's Longstanding Claim to the Title of Being Canada's Most Violent, Sadistic, and Murderous City When It Comes to Cats, "A Cruel Teenage Drunkard and Dope Addict Who Bound a Cat and a Dog with Tape Before Killing Them Is Let Off Easy by a Calgary Court," and "Steve Ecklund's Savage Killing of a Cougar and Vainglorious Gloating, Strutting, and Preening Are Resoundingly Applauded by Canada's Ever Obliging Media and Complicitous Universities.")

Clearly, Edmonton in particular and Canada in general is no place for any cat, big or small. It accordingly is nothing short of a miracle that Sophie survived and in that regard she likely owes her life to some unknown individual who took her in and cared for her for about five years before heartlessly abandoning her once again to the unforgiving streets.

It therefore was not until approximately July of 2023 that she once again showed up on anyone's radar screen and that occurred when she unexpectedly arrived at an unidentified car wash a scant four to five kilometers removed from Stupar's apartment and took up residence in a crevice in a concrete wall in the rear. Over the course the following eighteen months she was fed by an assortment of individuals from Sobeys supermarket, a next-door liquor store, and a nearby condominium but apparently not by anyone connected to the car wash.

To most area denizens she became known as the "car wash cat" but to retirees Bob and Maureen Baynes she was known as Flossie. "They would go every single day at noon to feed her. They would call for her, watch her eat, just kind of hang out with her," Jess Hood of Community Cats of Edmonton related to the Edmonton Journal on December 30th. "It was almost like it (sic) was their cat. They considered themselves her grandparents."

While having the Bayneses and other concerned citizens to feed her sans doute made her life somewhat easier, it contributed absolutely nothing toward her safety. Just as closeness only counts in pitching horseshoes, being an "almost" guardian does not count for much when it comes to caring for a cat. 

Furthermore, they cruelly left her to brave the elements which in Edmonton would test the survival skills of an eskimo. For instance, winter arrives in October and lasts until May and it brings with it below zero Fahrenheit temperatures and 48.6 inches of snow each year.

Not surprisingly, January is the coldest month of the year with daytime temperatures reaching an average of only 21.6 ° Fahrenheit with the thermometer plunging to an overnight average of -14.7° Fahrenheit. Absolutely no one who cared anything about a cat would deliberately leave it outside in such deadly cold.

Jess Hood Feeding Sophie in the Snow at Her Hole-in-the-Wall Refuge

Nobody ever has been concerned enough to even so much as hazard a guess as to the number of cats that Old Man Winter claims each year in Edmonton and elsewhere around the world but the total surely must be astronomical. Even those lucky few that somehow manage to persevere are often left crippled for life with missing appendages that have been lost to frostbite. (See Cat Defender posts of May 8, 2009, January 21, 2010, March 25, 2011, February 2, 2015, February 23, 2015, and March 23, 2019 entitled, respectively, "Domino, Feral and All Alone, Faces an Uncertain Future in Wisconsin Following an Unplanned Trip to Arizona," "Trapped Outdoors in a Snowstorm, Annie Is Brought Back from the Dead by the Compassion of a Good Samaritan and an Animal Control Officer," "Compassionate Construction Workers Interrupt Their Busy Day in Order to Rescue Chabot-Matrix from a Stream in Maine," "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," "Abandoned to Tough It Out in the Deadly Michigan Cold and Snow, Flick Sustains Horrific Injuries to His Front Paws When They Become Frozen to a Porch," and "Fluffy Is Brought Back from the Dead after She Is Found Comatose in a Sarcophagus of Frozen Snow and Ice in Frigid Montana.")

A cat's odds of surviving the cold, snow, and ice of winter are reduced to practically zero whenever foul play is involved. (See Cat Defender posts of January 13, 2006, March 5, 2007, December 9, 2008, March 14, 2015, February 26, 2022, July 10, 2022, and March 12, 2024 entitled, respectively, "Montana Firefighters Rescue a 'Lucky' Calico Cat Who Was Caged and Purposefully Thrown into an Icy River," "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Roo is Saved by a Caring Woman," "Shaved from Head to Tail and Left to Freeze to Death in the Ontario Cold, Chopper Is Saved at the Last Minute," "Ace Is Found Frozen to a Porch with His Eyes Gouged Out but the Authorities Are Too Lazy, Cheap, and Ailurophobic to Go After His Assailant," "Intentionally Blinded, Crippled, and Abandoned to Freeze to Death in a Locked Cage at a Rest Stop on Interstate 95 in Connecticut, Highway Not Only Perseveres but Now Has Hope for a Brighter Tomorrow," "Unspeakably Mutilated and Then Dumped in the Bitter Cold, Highway Amazingly Defies the Odds and Now Has a New Guardian, a Home, and a Second Chance at Life," and "In One of the Most Abominable Acts of Cruelty to a Cat in Recent Memory, a Vile Conductress on the Trans-Siberian Railway Hurls Twix to His Death in the Bitter Cold and Snow of Kirov.") 

The next chapter in Sophie's topsy-turvy life began to unfold in May of last year when her plight belatedly came to the attention of an unidentified woman who contacted Community Cats. Having previously adopted from the charity, she sought its assistance in trapping her but that, regrettably, proved to have been a chore beyond its expertise.

"She (Sophie) was scared of everything," Hood told the Edmonton Journal on December 30th. "A car would drive by, somebody would get out of their vehicle, honking -- anything would scare her, and she'd run back into the hole."

In frustration, Hood resorted to the inhumane expedient of attempting to starve Sophie to death by advising others not to feed her. Not only is starving a cat patently immoral but it also endangers her life in that it forces her to venture far and wide, primarily at night, in order to search for food. That in turn brings her into conflicts with motorists, dogs, and other feline predators.

"I had to really gain her trust," Hood acknowledged to the Edmonton Journal but anyone who believes that starving a cat is the way to gain its trust is delusional. Au contraire, it retards the socialization process.

It is a mystery as to why that Animal Control officers never seem to have any difficulties in trapping cats whereas so many rescue groups tend to be totally incompetent in that regard. For example, during December of 2022 and January of 2023 it took the Lewis County Humane Society of Glenfield in upstate New York more than a month in order to have successfully corralled a beautiful longhaired yellow and white tom named Warden at a trailer park in nearby Lowville.

That was in spite of the fact that he had been savagely chewed up by either a dog or a coyote and was all alone in enough snow and sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures as to have made Spruce Grove look like Miami Beach. (See Cat Defender post of March 8, 2023 entitled "Mauled to Within an Inch of His Life by Either a Dog or a Coyote and Afterwards Left to Suffer in the Bitter Cold and Deep Snow for More Than a Month by the Lewis County Humane Society, Warden Not Only Perseveres but Now Has Hope for a Better Life.")

None of that criticism is meant in any way to minimize either the practical difficulties or the moral dilemmas that are involved in deciding what is best for any homeless cat, especially one that has been roughing it for any length of time. Nevertheless, rescuers ideally need to be proficient in both short-term as well as long-term trapping strategies.

The first is required whenever a cat's life is in imminent danger, such as when it is being evicted from a building or an area. (See Cat Defender posts of June 10, 2005, March 31, 2006, and November 2, 2017 entitled, respectively, "The War on Terrorism Costs Cats Their Home -- and Maybe Also Their Lives," "The Idaho Humane Society Lends Its Support to the Demolition of a Derelict Seed Store That Claims the Lives of Dozens of Cats," and "Fate, Circumstances, Rotten Luck, and the Half-Hearted Efforts of Insincere Individuals and Groups All Conspire to Make a Quick End of Morris, the World Famous Glass Bank Cat of Cocoa Beach.")

Another formidable enemy of homeless cats is the United States Government in general and the National Park Service in particular. (See Cat Defender posts of August 7, 2014 and December 16, 2022 entitled, respectively, "The National Park Service Racks Up a Major Victory by Expelling the Plum Beach Cats but It Is Thwarted in Its Burning Desire to Dance a Merry Little Jig on Their Graves" and "The Bloodthirsty National Park Service Is All Set to Trap, Remove, and Kill the Famous Cobblestone Cats of Old San Juan as the Tyrannical Feds Ratchet Up Their Worldwide Campaign of Felicide.") 

More often than not, it usually is cretins who get their perverted jollies by injuring, mutilating, and killing cats that necessitates that entire colonies of them must be relocated. (See Cat Defender post of January 5, 2011 entitled "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.")

In cases such as those, cats must be trapped and relocated elsewhere and rescuers need to be capable of pulling off that herculean feat both humanely and expeditiously. Once they have been removed from harm's way, the process of socializing, fostering, and rehoming them can resume.

In those instances where cats are not under immediate threat a long-term approach can be utilized whereby an attempt is first made to socialize then before relocating them. Such an approach also allows their rescuers time in order to line up both foster and permanent homes for them. 

Unfortunately, there are not any guarantees that this approach will be successful. First of all, no cat is truly safe while it is outside and on its own. The clock on its survivability is therefore always ticking.

Sophie with Glenn Stupar as Donny Hendricks Looks On

Secondly, even though a cat may become friendly with its would-be rescuer, there is always the possibility that it will not accept domestication. For instance, it could somehow get out of its new home and disappear.

Therefore, instead of saving its life its rescuer could end up actually initialing its death warrant. All cats are fundamentally different and nobody knows with any degree of certainty how that any one of them is going to react to being uprooted, deprived of its unbridled freedom, and domesticated.

Owing to Community Cats' ineptitude, which saw Sophie escape from at least one trap, it was not until December 15th that Hood finally was able to have successfully lured her into a trap with the promise of some wet food. Afterwards, she took her home with her and confined her to a dog kennel.

Once she had lost the struggle to retain her freedom, Sophie morphed into a surprisingly sweet and docile cat and that allowed Hood to bathe her as well as to remove the tangles from her long fur. She then scanned her for an implanted microchip and that was when she discovered that she was Stupar's long-lost Sophie.

When Hood telephoned him in order to tell him the good news he at first did not even know what she was talking about. "She started off by asking if I ever had a cat named Stardust," he told the Edmonton Journal on December 30th. "It took me a second, because I (had) forgot her original name."

He also claimed that he was unaware that Sophie had been chipped and that is odd considering that just about all cats that come from shelters and rescue groups nowadays are not only chipped but sterilized and vaccinated as well. Quite obviously, he had not paid any of his database maintenance dues.

From this and so many other cases, it thus seems safe to conclude that once the administrators of a microchip database gain possession of an owner's personal data they never let go of it even if he fails to pay his annual fees. What else these administrators do with that information is not known but it could not possibly be beneficial.

That which is known, however, is that they sometimes stand in the way of owners reclaiming their lost cats. (See Cat Defender post of March 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.")

It took a while but Stupar finally came around to acknowledging his good fortune. "You got to pinch yourself. Like what do you mean she's alive?" he exclaimed to the CBC on December 31st. (See "A Tiny Microchip and a Big Community Effort Culminated in a Christmas Reunion.") "It takes a lot to put me into a state of like tingly numb, you know -- like, a shock feeling and that --and that did it."

The poignancy of getting Sophie back just in time for Christmas, however, was not lost on him. "I got her for her (Keisha) for Christmas and now she's getting her back two days before Christmas," he continued to the CBC. "I joked it's the ultimate re-gift."

Hood was seemingly even more elated than Stupar. "I was like, 'I am determined to get her home for Christmas, and it's gonna be a Christmas miracle'," she gushed to the Edmonton Journal on December 30th. "It was just so special. She was a Christmas present. To bring her home again for Christmas seven years later, it's just a full circle."

 

Her colleague at Community Cats, Vanessa Freeman, was a good deal more reserved. "It is extremely uncommon to find a cat that's been missing for this long," she told the CBC. "That's a credit to the people who were caring for her outside for so long. Sophie really did touch a lot of people's hearts."

Au contraire, the available evidence is overwhelming that she survived in spite of the callousness shown her by area residents more so than because of the morsels of food that they tossed her way. As everyone knows but few are willing to admit, this world is chock-full of individuals and groups who make a good living by passing themselves off as caring about cats but who in reality are merely exploiting them for their own selfish reasons and ego titillation.

"Human kindness is like a defective tap," noted English novelist Phyllis James once observed. "The first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries out."

Even more remarkable than her rescue, Sophie was pronounced by a local veterinarian to be in good health despite all the deprivations that she had been forced to endure over the past seven years. Following that she was reunited with Stupar on December 23rd.

Sophie and Keisha Back Together for Christmas 2024

Given that he already has another resident feline that was given to him by his children a few months after Sophie had disappeared, she will not be residing with him but rather with Keisha and her boyfriend, Donny Hendricks. They, presumably, live in either Spruce Grove or elsewhere in the Edmonton area.

Sophie is said to be more "cuddly and affectionate" than ever and supposedly spends her nights in bed with Keisha and Donny. According to Stupar, however, she has not changed all that much.

"She still has some of the old Sophie in her," he declared to the CBC. "She's doing great."

In reunions such as this, the question always arises as to whether long-lost cats still remember their former caretakers and while no one knows for sure the answer to that thought-provoking question, a 2017 Japanese study tends to suggest that they do, provided that they were well treated. "If your cat remembers you after a long separation, it's likely that the bond you shared -- whether through positive experiences or comfort -- left a lasting impression," Brian Foster of the Glass Almanac wrote on January 26th. (See "Do Cats Have Strong Memories?") "Cats may not remember everything, but they certainly retain the emotional connection they've had with people and places that matter most to them."

Like Homo Sapiens, cats also have a well-developed olfactory sense that helps them to recall individuals. "Cats rely heavily on their sense of smell to recall memories, which is why they can recognize their previous owners, even years apart," Foster continued. "Their keen sense of smell allows them to remember a person, a place, or an object long after they've encountered it, creating lasting impressions that transcend time." 

None of that should come as any surprise for an animal that is quite capable of finding its way home from faraway places by following the movements of the sun. Moreover, a cat can tell the time of day more accurately than Tag Heuer as well as hear a lid being pried off of a can of Fancy Feast® a hundred feet or more away.

Looking ahead, it is difficult to speculate as to what the future holds in store for the now eleven- and one-half-year-old calico. Stupar told the Edmonton Journal that Keisha was "ecstatic" to have Sophie back but how long that euphoria will last is anyone's guess.

"She's being well looked after, for sure," he vouched to the CBC. 

Considering how disgracefully that he and Keisha failed her the first time around it is impossible to be optimistic on that score. For instance, both Keisha and Donny likely have jobs, a busy social calendar, and they could even be going to school on the side and that most assuredly does not leave much room in their lives for Sophie. Judging from the photographs posted online, the intervening years appear to have, for one reason or another, taken quite a toll on Keisha and she may not be up to properly caring for Sophie. 

The sad truth of the matter is that, except for elderly dowagers, relatively few individuals have either the time or care enough in order to provide their cats with the attention that they deserve and require. That is in spite of them living such terribly short lives. Blink once and they are not only gone but gone forever and all time.

Not many owners therefore ever get second chances with their cats. Rather, they usually die suddenly, meet with foul play or, as was the case with Sophie, simply mysteriously disappear.

Since there is not any way of undoing the dirty work of the Grim Reaper, owners who truly care about their cats but nevertheless fail them in some way are destined to be left with profound regrets that intrude upon every waking hour and haunt every night. Perhaps worst of all, there is not any way that they ever can forgive themselves for their sins of omission. 

Even all the happy memories, photographs, and videos are of little comfort. Welcoming a new feline into one's life helps but the pain never goes away.

Hopefully Keisha fully appreciates the rare gift that she has been given and that she will endeavor not to fail Sophie this time around. Doing so could turn out to be just too painful for her to bear.

Photos: Community Cats of Edmonton (Sophie by herself, at the car wash, with Hood, and with Stupar and Hendricks) and Glenn Stupar (Sophie and Keisha).