A Death Watch Has Begun for King Loui I Who Has Been Abandoned to Wander the Dangerous Streets of Aachen by His Derelict Owner and the Ingrates at RWTH

King Loui I Outside the Hauptgebäude of RWTH

"Stoff für viele weitere Abenteuer der Fellnasenbande habe ich jedenfalls mehr als genug."
-- Nadine Biewer

The gargantuan lengths that some owners are prepared to go in order to exploit their cats for financial and professional gain continue to astound as well as to infuriate at the same time. Was noch schlimmer ist, they are so ruthless and callous that they knowingly and willingly place the lives of their companions in grave jeopardy without so much as a second thought.

That is precisely what thirty-six-year-old Nadine Biewer has done by turning loose her gray and brown cat, King Loui I, to roam the perilous streets of Aachen in Nordrhein Westfalen. In particular, she allows him to wander the six-hundred-twenty-one-acre campus of Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) where he has become a huge favorite of the more than forty-four-thousand students who attend Deutschland's largest technical university.

While on campus, he hangs out with the pupils and even attends some classes. That latter activity demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that his roaming is fully supported by the school's five-thousand-nine-hundred-thirteen instructors and three-thousand-three-hundred-fifty-one administrators.

Be that as it may, a college campus is hardly a fitting environment for a footloose cat and that petit fait is demonstrated by some of the students taking it upon themselves to feed Loui all sorts of inappropriate food. According to his Facebook page, Aachener Campuskatze, that in turn has led to him having been sickened once in May by Dönerkebab und Eis, again in June by an unspecified food, and at no doubt other times as well.

That, generally speaking, is pretty much standard conduct on the part of students. For instance, for more than a decade those in attendance at Plymouth College of Art (PCA) in Devon used to feed all sorts of food to a truly beautiful brown and white homeless cat named PCAT.

"She used to hang about and now and then you'd do something like hand her a cheeky bit of ham from your sandwich," sophomore photography student Dan Richards said back in 2012. "She was really chilled out and laid back -- pretty cool for a cat."

Loui and Nadine Biewer

Although it never was disclosed if she ever were sickened by the scraps and tidbits tossed in her direction by Richards and other students, that which is not in dispute is that the school did practically nothing in order to ease her plight. For instance, it never fed and watered her, provided her with veterinary care, sought to place her in a home, or undertook any measures designed to ensure her personal safety. The only positive thing that it is known to have done for her was to provide her with an unheated outdoor kennel in which to sleep.

As is the case with Loui and RWTH, no moral bond ever was established between PCAT and PCA and therein lies the rub. Captive audiences, whether they are to be found in either an academic or a business setting, think and behave much like prisoners doing time. Das heißt, their members are so bored by what they are doing that they will welcome almost any distraction that helps to relieve the tedium and thus makes the hours of drudgery go by faster.

They thus willingly accept all the attentions, amusements, and affections that cats like PCAT and Loui have to offer without returning anything other than a few kind words, pats on the head, and scraps of food. Beyond that, they could care less what happens to them.

It therefore was not all that unexpected when PCAT's life ended tragically underneath the wheels of a hit-and-run motorist one block south of campus in October of 2012. (See Cat Defender post of November 21,2012 entitled "Officials at Plymouth College of Art Should Be Charged with Gross Negligence and Animal Cruelty in the Tragic Death of the School's Longtime Resident Feline, PCAT.")

The academic world likewise long ago sullied its image through its wholesale eradications of homeless cats, opposition to TNR, and its abandonment policies. (See Cat Defender posts of February 12, 2007, September 11, 2006, July 31, 2008, and June 9, 2008 entitled, respectively, "God-Fearing Baptists at Eastern University Kill Off Their Feral Cats on the Sly while Students Are Away on Christmas Break," "Selfish and Brutal Eggheads at Central Michigan University Target a Colony of Feral Cats for Defamation and Eradication," "Cal State Long Beach Is Using the Presence of Coyotes as a Pretext in Order to Get Rid of Its Feral Cats," and "Pennsylvania College Greedily Snatches Up Alumnus's Multimillion-Dollar Bequest but Turns Away His Cat, Princess.")

In addition to the countless cats that vivisectors at universities all over the world torture to death each year, some students also have been known to commit horrific crimes against the species. (See Cat Defender post of September 22,2005 entitled "College Students in South Africa Cook a Cat to Death in a Microwave Oven.")

Loui Attends Class

Wildlife biologists, ornithologists, and other cat-haters that are on the payrolls of these disgraceful degree mills not only defame and kill cats with impunity but shanghai them into servitude as guinea pigs as well. (See Cat Defender posts of November 18,2016 and July 18,2011 entitled, respectively, "A Clever Devil at the University of Adelaide Boasts That He Has Discovered the Achilles' Heel of Cats with His Invention of Robotic Grooming Traps as the Thoroughly Evil Australians' All-Out War Against the Species Enters Its Final Stages" and "Evil Professors Have Transformed College Campuses into Hotbeds of Hatred Where Cats Routinely Are Vilified, Horribly Abused, and Systematically Killed.")

In keeping with the inherent dishonesty of their profession, the professors then have the chutzpah to turn around and not only cavalierly excuse their wholesale offenses against the species but to additionally claim that its members can take care of themselves. (See Cat Defender post of October 9,2015 entitled "A Lynch Mob Comprised of Dishonest Eggheads from the University of Lincoln Issues Another Scurrilous Broadside Against Cats by Declaring That They Do Not Need Guardians in Order to Safeguard Their Fragile Lives.")

The most pressing concern as far as Loui is concerned arises whenever he leaves campus and ventures into the clogged streets of the Innenstadt. The Aachener Cathedral (the Dom), where Karl der Große was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800 A.D. and subsequently buried fourteen years later, is one of his favorite haunts and he often can be spotted at the entrance to the Domschatzkammer, a museum containing religious relics that date back to the early Middle Ages. He also is known to frequent Burgerservices am Katschhof as well as many businesses and cafes in the vicinity.

With two-hundred-fifty-thousand residents, Aachen is a big city and the area around RWTH and the Dom is unquestionably its most congested part. It is so dangerous in fact that scarcely a day goes by without either a pedestrian or a bicyclist being run down and that is despite the willingness of the Aachener Polizei, in stark contrast to their utterly worthless American counterparts, to take these matters seriously.

It is a debatable point, but it nevertheless could be argued with some force that motorists are the number one killers of cats worldwide. (See Cat Defender posts of April 17, 2017, June 25, 2015, June 18, 2015, March 18, 2009, and August 17, 2006 entitled, respectively, "As Peat Tragically Found Out, Alcohol and Cats Are Such a Bad Mix That Even Working at a Distillery Can Be Deadly," "Kayden Is Run Down Three Times in Succession by a Van Driver in Yet Still Another Graphic Example of How So Many Motorists Intentionally Kill Cats," "Harry Is Run Down and Killed by a Pair of Derbyshire Police Officers Who Then Steal and Dispose of His Body in an Amateurish Attempt to Cover Up Their Heinous Crime," "Eco, Who for Years Was a Mainstay at a Small Massachusetts Police Department, Is Run Down and Killed by a Motorist," and "Brave Little Fred the Undercover Cat Has His Short, Tragic Life Snuffed Out by a Hit-and-Run Driver in Queens.")


Even those cats that are able to survive these deliberate attacks not only suffer egregiously but often end up crippled for life. (See Cat Defender posts of March 5, 2007, September 12, 2009, April 29, 2010, January 5, 2011,May 2, 2012, November 10, 2014, and October 13, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Roo Is Saved by a Caring Woman," "Luzie Sustains a Broken Hip and a Bloody Mouth Before She Is Successfully Rescued from the Busy Elbtunnel," "Long Suffering River Finally Finds a Home after Having Been Run Over by a Motorist and Nearly Drowned," "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," "Pregnant, Abandoned, and Deliberately Almost Killed by a Hit-and-Run Driver, Sugar Crawls Back to Her Subterranean Abode in Order to Feed Her Kittens," "Freya, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Resident Feline, Cheats Death Once Again When She Survives Being Run Down and Injured by a Motorist but Her Good Luck Cannot Last for Much Longer," and "Bart Has Courageously Overcome Being Run Down by a Hit-and-Run Motorist and Subsequently Buried Alive by His Owner but Another Dark Cloud Is Looming over His Future.")

The Majestic and Unforgettable PCAT

Because of his friendly disposition and trusting nature, Loui is his own worst enemy and it is precisely those qualities that have gotten him into trouble more than once. For instance, back in May he wandered into a delivery truck and was AWOL for an unspecified length of time.

He also would make an easy target for kidnappers. Malevolent individuals could snatch him from the street and in turn sell him to vivisectors and that would be the end of him. Others could abduct him for the best of reasons but quickly tire of his presence and in turn dump him back in the street with disastrous consequences. (See Cat Defender post of February 8,2017 entitled "The Long and Hopelessly Frustrating Search for the Kidnapped Mr. Cheeky Ends Tragically Underneath the Wheels of a Hit-and-Run Motorist.")

It additionally is entirely conceivable that a caring and conscientious member of the public sooner or later is going to steal him and refuse to give him back because of the gross negligence displayed toward him by his owner. (See Cat Defender posts of July 9,2007 and June 26,2012 entitled, respectively, "A Hungry and Disheveled Cat Named Slim Is Picked Up Off the Streets of Ottawa by a Rescuer Who Refuses to Return Him to His Owners" and "A Family in Wiltshire Turns to Social Media and Leaflets in Order to Shame a Veterinary Chain and a Foster Parent into Returning Tazzy.")

Unleashed dogs, like the one that nearly killed Mayor Stubbs of Talkeetna a few years back, are another potential danger that could spell the end for Loui. (See Cat Defender post of October 28,2013 entitled "Slow to Recuperate from Life-Threatening Injuries Sustained in a Savage Mauling by an Unleashed Dog, Stubbs Announces His Intention to Step Down as Mayor of Talkeetna.")

It is far from clear exactly how long that Loui has been wandering the forbidding streets of Aachen. Although Biewer's Facebook page was established in 2010, it strains credulity that any cat could survive for seven years in streets as congested and violent as those in Aachen.

The ambiguous title of her Facebook page also invites the suspicion that Loui may have had predecessors. If there is any truth in that supposition, that in turn brings up the disturbing issue of what has become of them.

Loui's Rambles as Tracked by Satellite

Another piece of incriminating information comes courtesy of an untitled August 14,2015 posting on RWTH's Facebook page wherein Loui is identified for the first time as the cat that has been visiting its sprawling campus. If, on the other hand, Loui had been Biewer's original Campuskatze, it does seem rather odd that it would have taken the college five years to have tumbled to his presence.

That is important because what could be going on here is a case of long-term and serial abuse of multiple cats. If so, RWTH has become complicit in Biewer's crimes.

It likewise is not known how much time that Loui spends on the street but the impression, rightly or wrongly, is that it is all day with him returning home only at night. According to information contained online, Biewer lives in a four-story building located at 20 Annuntiatenbach which is located between the Dom and RWTH.

Moreover, since the ground level of her building is devoted to a photography shop, it would appear that she carries him downstairs in the morning and subsequently dumps him in the street to fend for himself. Either she or a confederate then has to locate him in the evening and transport him back home and up the stairs.

What she does with him on weekends, holidays, when classes are out, in times of inclement weather, and whenever special events are held in the Innenstadt has not been explained. It is strongly suspected, however, that at such times his care often is fobbed off on others.

It accordingly is clear that this is not a usual case of whereby a cat is allowed out into the yard and then strays to parts unknown; rather, Loui is deliberately dumped in the street and condemned to spend his days there until he meets his Waterloo. Every bit as revolting, he is being treated this way so that Biewer can make money and advance her career as a writer.

In Order to Publish This Book, Loui Has to Die

For example, he already has attracted more than five-thousand fans on Facebook, two-hundred-eighty people follow him on Instagram, and he has his own accounts on both Twitter and Jodel. Most promising of all, Biewer recently published an e-book on Amazon under the Schriffstellername of Dina Bell entitled Die Fellnasenbande. Hinter dem Gartenzaun.

The book concerns the adventures of not only Loui but her other resident feline, Mia, and two purely fictional strays. A print edition is expected out soon.

It is described as a work about friendship, courage, and the right to be different. "Eigentlich habe ich es für Kinder geschrieben, aber es ist näturlich auch für die Aachener Studenten," she told the Aachener Zeitung on May 27th. (See "Campuskater King Loui I stellt die Stadt auf den Kopf.")

What Biewer is doing to Loui should be illegal but, regrettably, that is not the case. Furthermore, she is far from being the only individual to ever have so nakedly exploited a cat for financial gain.

For example, between 2006 and 2010 a handsome, longhaired tuxedo named Casper from the Barne Barton section of St. Budeaux in Plymouth, Devonshire, was allowed to ride First's buses around town all by his lonesome. His owner, sixty-five-year-old Susan Finden, put up with that madness even though she knew from the very outset that she was playing Russian roulette with his life.

"We think he's about twelve years old but he has no road sense whatsoever," she early on admitted. "He just runs across the road to the bus stop."

Long Gone but Not Forgotten Casper

On January 14, 2010, he stepped into Poole Park Road where he promptly was mowed down by a speeding taxi driver. Like Biewer, Finden got at least one book out of Casper's exploits and his image still adorns some of First's buses.

For whatever it is worth, his death did, apparently, cause her a few pangs of belated conscience. "I never dreamt I'd miss an animal as much as I miss him," she later confessed. "He was lovely and loved people so much. He was such a different character." (See Cat Defender posts of August 27,2009 and January 30,2010 entitled, respectively, "Casper Treats Himself to an Unescorted Tour Around Plymouth Each Morning Courtesy of the Number Three Bus" and "Casper Is Run Down and Killed by a Hit-and-Run Taxi Driver While Crossing the Street in Order to Get to the Bus Stop.")

It is not known with absolute certainty, but it is believed that both Loui and Mia were adopted, most likely from a local rescue group. Although there may be certain similarities in their backgrounds, their personalities are as different as night and day.

Whereas Loui is a gregarious and outgoing male, Mia is a shy female who still carries around with her the psychological scars of her difficult upbringing. It therefore seems unlikely that she could be anything other than an exclusively indoor cat.

The picture of Biewer that emerges from all of this is that of an ambitious professional who is either too busy or uncaring in order to take proper care of Loui during the daytime. While it is true that she has equipped him with a satellite tracking collar, that would appear to have been done more so in order to gather information for her various writing projects than as a safety device.

Other than alerting her as to where to search for him each evening, such devices are thoroughly worthless when it comes to protecting cats from humans and other animals intent upon doing them harm. That in turn relegates them to the same category of Silicon Valley snake oil as implanted microchips and surveillance cameras. (See Cat Defender posts of June 11, 2007, May 25, 2006, and February 22, 2017 entitled, respectively, "Katzen-Kameras Are Not Only Cruel and Inhumane but Represent an Assault Upon Cats' Liberties and Privacy," "Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats," and "The Months of Unrelenting Abuse Meted Out to Elfie by a Roommate Graphically Demonstrate the Advantages as Well as the Limitations of Using Surveillance Cameras in Order to Protect Cats.")

Loui with His Tracking Collar

Just how idiotic and irresponsible it is to rely upon technology in order to safeguard the lives of cats was demonstrated writ large a few years back when Iain Simpson and Clare Smith of Quarrington in Lincolnshire fitted their four-year-old cat, Archie, with a satellite tracking collar. Even though they soon learned that he was sleeping in the middle of a busy motorway, they did absolutely nothing in order to remove him from harm's way. (See Cat Defender post of March 29,2017 entitled "Archie Is Knowingly Allowed to Sleep Smack-Dab in the Middle of a Busy Thoroughfare by His Derelict Owners Who Are Contented with Merely Tracking His Movements by Satellite.")

The same criticisms are equally applicable in regard to Biewer's irresponsible guardianship of Loui. The case against her is furthermore compounded in that she is having difficulty even keeping batteries in his tracking collar.

Even though she is now laughing all the way to the bank and has forged a budding literary career for herself, she nonetheless insists that none of that was planned. "Ich habe die ganze Aufmerksamkeit nie beabsichtigt oder geplant," she vowed to the Aachener Zeitung. "Loui liebt einfach die Menschen, und die Menschen lieben ihn."

All over the world it is always the same auld lang syne: bad things generally can be counted upon to happen to cats that become too friendly disposed toward humans. For their own safety and well-being, they never should be encouraged to go anywhere near strangers and, above all, to accept food from anyone other than their owners.

Even under the best of circumstances cats are sometimes going to be sickened by raiding garbage cans and, worst still, killed by eating rodents that have ingested d-CON and other poisons. Owners who fail to heed these admonitions are asking for big trouble. (See Cat Defender post of July 14,2016 entitled "Missy, Who Was Too Kindly Disposed Toward Humans for Her Own Good, Is Memorialized in Wood at the Bus Stop That She Called Her Home Away from Home for Almost a Decade.")

Much more poignantly, a cat is said to have the intellectual development of a four-year-old child and absolutely no halfway conscientious parent ever would turn loose a toddler in the street. Since cats accordingly do not have any conceivable way of anticipating the multitude of dangers that lurk around every corner in this highly ailurophobic world, that makes it doubly imperative that they have responsible owners who are willing to ensure their personal safety.

Biewer's claim that Loui loves strangers also does not ring quite true. Unless they have not been sterilized and therefore are on the prowl for mates, cats generally are more than content to be homebodies. Loui, who most likely was sterilized long ago, therefore does not have any valid excuse for living on the street.

Wohin nun, Loui?

Furthermore, it is an outright lie for Biewer or anyone else for that matter to claim that a sterilized cat would prefer to live in the street as opposed to being at home with a loving and caring owner. In Loui's case, he has not freely chosen to live as a Vagabund; im Gegenteil, that is the lifestyle that she has foisted upon him for her own selfish and exploitative reasons.

If, on the other hand, she were willing to stay home with him, to entertain him, and to sprinkle in a few treats now and again, he not only would be infinitely happier but, much more importantly, safe as well. Besides, anyone who is unable to write with five or six cats drapped on top of her and pestering her nonstop needs to find another vocation.

As if her abject neglect and naked exploitation of him were not bad enough, Biewer hypocritically claims that she is passionate about animal welfare issues and in furtherance of that objective has pledged to donate half of the proceeds from her new tome to animal protection groups operating in the Aachen area. Given that such monies have been raised at Loui's expense, it is hard to imagine how that any such organizations could accept them while at the same time remaining true to their missions.

The roll call of shame does not merely include Biewer and those charities that accept money from her but it also extends to Rector Ernst M. Schmachtenberg and the other administrators, professors, and students at RWTH, the holy men of the Dom, social media, Amazon, and the Aachener Zeitung. Since none of them have raised so much as a finger in order to protect Loui's precious and fragile life, they are every bit as responsible as Biewer for how that he currently is being treated as well as for what ultimately becomes of him.

Make no mistake about it, for addition to being callous and exploitative what is being done to Loui constitutes a textbook case of animal abandonment, neglect, and endangerment of the first degree. Consequently, anyone even so much as tangentially involved in Biewer's machinations is richly deserving of substantial time in jail.

"Stoff für viele weitere Abenteuer der Fellnasenbande habe ich jedenfalls mehr als genug," she declared to the Aachener Zeitung. Quite obviously, she does not believe a word of that because if she did she would immediately bring Loui home and keep him there with Mia.

Given her unwillingness to do even that much for him, coupled with the intransigence of local animal protection groups, the time has come to, sadly, start a death watch for him. Under such perilous and utterly hopeless circumstances, it is all but impossible to envision any other dénouement for him than the ones that robbed the world of both PCAT and Casper.

Photos: BuzzFeed (Loui outside RWTH), Katharina Menne of the Aachener Zeitung (Loui and Biewer), Facebook (Loui in class, PCAT, map, book jacket, Loui in the grass, and close up), and The Sun (Casper).