No Respect for Life: Early Graves and Crippling Injuries Are All That Cats Who Dare to Set Foot in the Street Can Expect from the Bloodthirsty Motoring Public

 PCAT Was Killed by a Motorist in October of  2012

"When I see a cat in the street, I accelerate. Stray cats have no business in the street. So bang! I accelerate!"
-- Stéphane Gendron 

The recent crippling of a handsome and vivacious tuxedo named Eli by a hit-and-run motorist in Connecticut is yet still another rather poignant reminder of just how lethal the roads have become for cats. (See Cat Defender post of August 8, 2019 entitled "Hounded Down and Nearly Killed by a Hit-and-Run Motorist, Eli Desperately Needs Additional Surgeries in Order to Fully Restore His Previous Level of Mobility.")

Although it is truly wonderful that he survived and, hopefully, will soon be receiving the treatment that he requires in order to once again be able to move around without pain, that positive outcome is tempered by the sobering realization that he is nonetheless an extremely rare exception to the rule. Au contraire, the vast majority of kittens and cats that motorists draw a bead on, stomp down hard on the accelerator, and turn the wheel over in order to mow down do not survive and even the handful of them that do seldom, if ever, receive the topnotch emergency veterinary treatment that they so desperately need and richly deserve.     

Although a cat's socio-economic status should not make any difference, it is not merely those that are homeless that these licensed to kill mass murderers of the motorways go after but also those that have doting owners at home. Even those that have achieved international acclaim are not safe from their evil designs.

For example in October of 2012, Plymouth College of Art in Devonshire unforgivably allowed its beautiful PCAT to be run down and killed by a hit-and-run driver. (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.")

Later on September 8, 2014, Peat of the Glenturret Distillery near Crieff in Perth and Kinress was killed by another hit-and-run assassin. His premature death was made all the sadder given that he was only six months old and had been on the job as the booze merchant's mascot since only July. (See Cat Defender post of April 17, 2017 entitled "As Peat Tragically Found Out, Alcohol and Cats Are Such a Bad Mix That Even Working at a Distillery Can Be Deadly.")

Mr. Cheeky Was Catnapped, Dumped, Then Killed by a Motorist in 2017 

Neither cruelly cooping up cats indoors all the time nor providing them with enclosed gardens are foolproof alternatives in that, no matter how conscientious their owners may be, they still find ways of escaping. They also are sometimes catnapped and later dumped in the street with disastrous repercussions.

For example, both Fletcher of Bramley Crescent in Southampton, Hampshire, and Mr. Cheeky of Hove in East Sussex were killed by hit-and-run motorists after their abductors dumped them in the street. (See Cat Defender posts of November 16, 2007 and February 8, 2017 entitled, respectively, "Fletcher, One of the Cats Abducted from Bramley Crescent, Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton" and "The Long and Hopelessly Frustrating Search for the Kidnapped Mr. Cheeky Ends Tragically Underneath the Wheels of a Hit-and-Run Motorist.")

Even those that are fortunate enough to come away from such unprovoked attacks with their lives often wind up losing legs and, like Eli, suffering broken pelvises and dislocated hips. (See Cat Defender posts of October 16, 2007, April 29, 2010, October 30, 2010, November 13, 2010, November 17, 2010, January 5, 2011, May 2, 2012, November 10, 2014, and October 13, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Tourists from Michigan Save the Life of a Critically Ill Oregon Cat Named Marmalade," "Long Suffering River Finally Finds a Home after Having Been Run Over by a Motorist and Nearly Drowned," "A Drunken Bum Is Foiled in a Macabre Plot to Make a Meal Out of Kittens, Nirvana and Karma, That He Allegedly Ran Down Earlier with His Truck," "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.")

In a particularly gruesome attack, a two-year-old brownish-gray tom named Roo from Lower Windsor Township in the Keystone State was mowed down by a hit-and-run motorist on February 16, 2007. He also most likely had been knocked unconscious because the profuse loss of blood that he had suffered had combined with the frigid temperatures outside in order to bind his injured front legs to the ice.

Discovered by a kindhearted woman who promptly notified the York SPCA, warm water was used in order to extricate his legs but even then his right front paw had to be amputated and it was feared at the time that he also might lose his broken left leg as well. (See Cat Defender post of March 5, 2007 entitled "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Roo Is Saved by a Caring Woman.")

Whenever they are not actually running down cats themselves, many motorists content themselves with tossing them out the windows of their speeding chariots and in doing so they are anything but particular as to where their victims land. For instance, they unload them inside tunnels, on busy freeways, country roads, overpasses, city streets, and bridges.

Such barbaric behavior thus affords their fellow lords of the public thoroughfares an opportunity to share in their merrymaking by doing their killing for them. (See Cat Defender posts of August 14, 2006, January 14, 2008, August 28, 2008, February 21, 2009, July 2, 2009, September 12, 2009, May 30, 2013, and January 10, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Austrian Officials Close a Busy Alpine Tunnel in Order to Rescue a Kitten That Was Cruelly Abandoned by a Motorist," "Freeway Miraculously Survives Being Tossed Out the Window of a Truck on Busy I-95 in South Florida," "In Memoriam: Trooper Survives Being Thrown from a Speeding Automobile Only to Later Die on the Operating Table," "A Daring Rescue in the Sky Spares the Life of a Cat That Was Dumped on an Overpass in Houston," "Three-Week-Old Lucky Is Rescued by a Staten Island Judge after She Was Tossed Out the Window of a Pickup Truck on Hylan Boulevard," "Luzie Sustains a Broken Hip and a Bloody Mouth Before She Is Successfully Rescued from the Busy Elbtunnel," "Stone-Broke, Homeless, and All Alone at the Crossroads of the World, Disaster Is Snatched from Harm's Way by a Representative of the Walking Dead," and "A Texas Judge Idiotically Allows Pastor Rick Bartlett to Get Away with Stealing and Killing Moody but a Civil Court May Yet Hold Him Accountable.")

Roo with Melissa Smith of the York SPCA

Such reprehensible conduct not only kills and cripples countless cats each year but it occasionally also jeopardizes the lives of the Good Samaritans who attempt to rescue them. For instance in late June of 2009, twenty-eight-year-old Rachel Honeycutt nearly lost her life when she stopped in order to rescue a pair of kittens in Cobb County, Georgia.

"I got out to save the kittens," she later affirmed. "Somebody was putting them in the middle of the East-West Connector."

If she had so much as thought that motorists would slow down and go around her, she was badly mistaken in that it did not take long for one of them to blindside her and to keep on going. As a result, she was knocked seventy-five in the air and when she landed she was on the other side of the roadway and unconscious.

Taken to a nearby hospital, she was diagnosed to have sustained a shattered pelvis as well as brain and organ damage. She was in a coma and on life-support for weeks but, incredibly, she not only lived but she did so without so much as a twinge of either regret or malice in her beautiful and noble soul.

"I can't believe I'm okay," she said as soon as she had regained the faculty of speech. "Everybody I've helped has helped me so much in a situation that brings it all around. Everything you give you get back."

Notwithstanding all of that, her long and tortuous road back to the land of the living was not an easy one to trod. In addition to her severe injuries, she also was saddled with sky-high medical bills, a citation from the gendarmes for leaving her car, and she also came perilously close to losing her house. (See Cat Defender post of August 10, 2009 entitled "A Georgia Woman Is Struck and Nearly Killed by a Motorist while Attempting to Rescue a Pair of Kittens That Had Been Dumped in the Middle of a Busy Highway.")

Rachel Honeycutt Was Nearly Killed by a Motorist while Rescuing Kittens

Then there are other motorists who hate cats so much that they endeavor to make doubly certain that they meet their Waterloos. They do so by dumping them on bridges whereby if they are not immediately run down and killed on the spot they are either knocked or frightened into the drink below where they drown. (See Cat Defender posts of July 6, 2009 and August 12, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Miracle Survives a Drowning Attempt on the McClugage Bridge and Later Hitchhikes a Ride to Safety Underneath the Car of a Compassionate Motorist" and "Gia and Mr. T. Survive Attempts Made on Their Lives after They Are Abandoned on Busy Bridges During Inclement Weather.")

Still other motorists dispense with abandoning them on bridges and instead imprison them in cages that they weigh down with large rocks before tossing them into the water. (See Cat Defender posts of January 13, 2006 and May 20, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Montana Firefighters Rescue a 'Lucky' Calico Cat Who Was Caged and Purposefully Thrown into an Icy River" and "Malice Aforethought: an Upstate New York Cat Is Saved from a Watery Grave by a Dead Tree and a Passerby; a New Hampshire Cat Is Not Nearly So Fortunate.")

In an especially graphic example of just how emboldened these monsters have become of late, a female kitten named Splatt was thrown off of a bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, on July 18, 2010. Luckily for her, she landed in Clouter Creek just as boaters Dennis and Karen Allen were sailing past and they were able to pluck her from the water. (See Cat Defender post of August 9, 2010 entitled "Sunday Afternoon Boaters Pluck Splatt Out of Clouter Creek after She Is Thrown Off of the Mark Clark Expressway Bridge in Charleston.")

The principal reason that the wholesale maiming and killing of cats as well as the dumping of them in traffic continues unabated is traceable to the law enforcement community's ingrained hatred of the species. For instance, some cops not only intentionally run them down with their cruisers but seemingly jump at every available opportunity to finish off those that already have been injured by hit-and-run motorists.

The very thought of ever doing the right thing, such as transporting an injured cat to a veterinarian for emergency treatment, never seems to so much as cross their warped gourds. Rather, the only thing that an injured cat signifies to them is another golden opportunity to either discharge their service revolvers or to get out their night sticks. (See Cat Defender post of June 18, 2015 and March 22, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Harry Is Run Down and Killed by a Pair of Derbyshire Police Officers Who Then Steal and Dispose of His Body in an Amateurish Attempt to Cover up Their Heinous Crime" and "In Another Outrageous Miscarriage of Justice, Rogue Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Is Let Off with a $50 Fine for Savagely Bludgeoning to Death an Injured Cat.")

In spite of their antipathy for cats, cops are not above nakedly exploiting them as station house mascots. Even under those seemingly benign circumstances they are such derelict guardians that they allow them to be killed by motorists as well as stolen. (See Cat Defender posts of March 18, 2009 and May 29, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Eco, Who for Years Was a Mainstay at a Small Massachusetts Police Department, Is Run Down and Killed by a Motorist" and "Corporal Cuffs, a Beloved Station House Mascot, Is Abducted Right Under Cops' Noses.")

Splat Was Saved from a Watery Grave by Dennis and Karen Allen

Some district attorneys likewise use cats like they use the toilet. For example, in early 2006 a previously homeless kitten named Fred was recruited by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes to go undercover.

He was so successful at acting out the part that he had been assigned that Hynes was able to nab twenty-eight-year-old Steven Vassall of Kingsborough Community College for practicing veterinary medicine without a license. Afterwards he was adopted by Assistant Brooklyn Attorney Carol Moran who callously allowed a hit-and-run motorist to kill him outside her Howard Beach residence on August 10, 2006.

Little Fred will accordingly forever be fifteen months old. (See Cat Defender posts of February 14, 2006 and August 17, 2006 entitled, respectively, "Special Agent Fred the Cat Goes Undercover in Order to Help Nab a Quack Vet in a Brooklyn Sting Operation" and "Brave Little Fred the Undercover Cat Has His Short, Tragic Life Snuffed Out by a Hit-and-Run Driver in Queens.")

When it comes to protecting feline lives, the political classes are another complete washout. Since cats neither vote nor make campaign contributions, they long age dismissed them as nonentities.

Closely related to the crimes that motorists perpetuate against cats are those that are committed against the species by the operators of farm machinery. Combine operators in particular exact a heavy toll from them each harvest season.

For example, in late July of 2009 a combine operator in Alaidon Township, Michigan, ran down a black male kitten with a white underbelly named Howard and in the process cut off his front paws. Like just about all motorists he, too, left him in a ditch to die. (See Cat Defender posts of August 20, 2009 and November 24, 2009 entitled, respectively, "A Combine Operator Severs Howard's Front Paws and Leaves Him in a Ditch to Die but He Is Saved at the Last Minute by a Pair of Compassionate Lads" and "Howard the Combine Kitty Is Adopted by the Lads Who Saved Him from a Sure and Certain Death in a Ditch Alongside a Michigan Wheat Field.")

 Fred Was Killed by a Motorist on August 10, 2006

Along about that same time but half a world away a black cat named Oscar lost both of his rear paws to a hit-and-run combine operator in the parish of Grouville in the Bailiwick of Jersey. (See Cat Defender post of November 20, 2010 entitled "Celebrated as the World's First Bionic Cat, Oscar Now Has Been Turned into a Guinea Pig with a Very Uncertain Future.")

Motorists additionally inflict considerable grief upon cats simply through callousness and indifference. For instance, very few of them even so much as bother to check their engines and undercarriages for their presence before starting out on cold mornings.

Their thoughtlessness is all the more unpardonable given that it is well understood that warm motors attract hypothermic cats like a magnet. (See Cat Defender posts of January 5, 2006 and March 16, 2013 entitled, respectively, "A 'Miracle' Cat Survives a Seventy-Mile Trip Down the New Jersey Turnpike by Clinging to the Drive Shaft of an SUV" and "Mausi Is Saved from a Potentially Violent Death on the Fast and Furious Autobahn Thanks to the Dramatic Intervention of a Münchner Couple.")

The operators of not only passenger cars but especially delivery trucks and vans inadvertently cause innumerable cats all sorts of distress through their unwillingness to check their vehicles for stowaways. These unfortunate cats thus become involuntarily and, usually permanently, separated from their families and at the mercy of their unwitting transporters and shelters. (See Cat Defender posts of November 6, 2006, December 12, 2007,  April 18, 2010, June 25, 2014, and April 26, 2018 entitled, respectively, "Trapped in a 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," "Ally's Last Ride Lands Her in a Death Trap Set by an Uncaring and Irresponsible Supermarket Chain and a Bargain Basement Shelter," "Poussey Overcomes a Surprise Boat Ride to Dover, a Stint on Death Row, and Being Bandied About Like the Flying Dutchman in Order to Finally Make It Home to La Havre," and "Schneewittchen Gets Accidentally Trapped in a Lorry and Winds Up in Wien but in Doing So She Brought Along with Her Considerably More Than Just Her Pretty Face.")

The motoring public additionally poisons to death countless cats each year through its abject failure to properly handle antifreeze and its indiscriminate spreading of deadly chemicals on both roadways and pedestrian walkways in order to melt ice and snow.  (See Cat Defender posts of July 2, 2007 and March 25, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Cats Are Being Poisoned with Antifreeze in San Francisco but Animal Control Refuses to Take the Killings Seriously" and "Compassionate Construction Workers Interrupt Their Busy Day in Order to Rescue Chabot-Matrix from a Stream in Maine.")

A Combine Operator Cut Off Howard's Front Paws and Left Him to Die

Far from being completely guileless in some of these types of totally preventable deaths, some owners actually help to facilitate them through their failure to take responsibility for their cats' safety. For instance, some of them allow their beloved companions to cross dangerous intersections in order to reach bus stops. (See Cat Defender posts of April 19, 2007 and January 25, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Bus-Hopping Mccavity Earns High Praise from His Fellow Commuters for Being the 'Perfect Passenger' " and "The Innocence of the Lambs: Unaware of the Dangers That Threaten His Very Existence, Dodger Charms Commuters on the Bridport to Charmouth Line.")

In one particularly tragic incident, a beautiful twelve-year-old longhaired tuxedo named Casper from Plymouth in Devonshire was killed by a hit-and-run taxi driver on January 14, 2010 while crossing the street in order to get to the bus stop. His premature death was made all the more inexcusable in that his elderly owner, health care worker Susan Finden, knew the grave dangers that she was exposing him to by turning him loose to ride the buses by his lonesome.

"...he has no road sense whatsoever," she candidly acknowledged several months prior to his death. "He just runs across the road to the bus stop."

Not surprisingly, she was singing an entirely different tune in the wake of his demise. "I never dreamt I'd miss an animal so much as I miss him," she admitted. "He was lovely and loved people so much. He was such a different character."

He is now just a memory although it is conceivable that his image may still adorn some of First Bus's chariots.  (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.")

Since getting to and from train depots can be every bit as dangerous as walking to bus stations, those owners who allow their companions to ride the rails unaccompanied are likewise exposing them to the machinations of motorists.  (See Cat Defender posts of June 7, 2007 and January 31, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Rascal Hops on a Freight Train in South Bend and Unwittingly Winds Up in Chattanooga" and "A Northumbrian Shrink Lays Claim to the Title of Being the World's Most Irresponsible Cat Owner by Turning Loose Jasper to Roam the Perilous Tyne and Wear Metro for Weeks on End.")

Casper Was Run Down and Killed by a Taxi Driver on January 14, 2010

The worst rotters in the woodpile, however, are those owners who, although well aware that their cats like to play in the busy streets, yet stubbornly refuse to take any remedial measures to dissuade them otherwise.  (See Cat Defender posts of December 5, 2006, September 17, 2012, October 7, 2016, March 29, 2017, and September 20, 2018 entitled, respectively, "Milo, Who Visits the Vet by Her Lonesome,  Is Named Old Blighty's 'Most Adventurous Cat,'" "Contrary to the Neighborhood Scuttlebutt, Krümel Is Alive and Well, at Least for the Time Being, at the Hotel Garni Herold," "Declared Dead and Prematurely Interred, Gus Gets the Last Laugh for Now but the Next Time Around He May Not Be Quite So Lucky, Especially if His Inattentive Owner Does Not Start Taking Better Care of Him," "Archie Is Knowingly Allowed to Sleep Smack-Dab in the Middle of a Busy Thoroughfare by His Derelict Owners Who Are Content with Merely Tracking His Movements by Satellite" and "Pirate Pleasantly Surprises the Thespians at the Bush Theatre by Turning Up after a Six-Month Absence but He Is Far from Being Out of the Woods Just Yet.")

As dreadful, distressing, and seemingly hopeless as the situation appears to be, a few tentative baby steps have been taken in recent years in order to rectify matters. For example in Norwalk, Bobette Moore and Gary Caufield successfully lobbied local politicians back in 2007 to follow the example set by the Japanese on remote Iriomote and thus to erect a cat crossing sign at Erna Avenue. (See Cat Defender post of November 27, 2006 entitled "After Surviving on Its Own for at Least Two Million Years, a Rare Japanese Wildcat Faces Its Toughest Battle Yet.")

"It appears to have made a big difference," Bruce Kolwicz of the city's Department of Public Works said at that time. "It's not really enforceable, but it's working and that's what really matters."

Even though he is to be commended for constructing and erecting the sign, he is dead wrong to argue that the city is powerless to protect the lives of cats. For instance, since all municipalities employ school crossing guards they do not have a valid excuse for not hiring others to work at cat crossings.

In fact, the only reason that Kolwicz and Norwalk are unwilling to do so is that they do not believe that feline lives are worth protecting. (See Cat Defender post of January 26, 2007 entitled "Cat Activists Succeed in Getting a Connecticut Town to Erect a Cat Crossing Sign.")

Bobette Moore and Gary Caufield in Front of Their Cat Crossing Sign

Certain residential communities in both England and Deutschland have successfully agitated for reduced speed limits as a way of cutting down on the number of cats being killed on their streets. (See the Sheffield Telegraph, April 17, 2012, "'Speeding Motorist Killed Our Pet Cat' Says Sheffield Man.")

As far as it is known, however, their American counterparts have declined to follow suit. On the contrary, just about all denizens of the land of the dollar bill and assault rifles fervently believe that they not only have a god-given right to run down cats but pedestrians as well.

For as long as it can be remembered, motorists in England have been required under penalty of law to report every dog that they kill but not cats. Earlier this year that gaping and outrageously discriminatory loophole in the law was closed and now motorists who fail to inform veterinarians of the cats that they run down could face a fine of up to £20,000.

Given that Scotland Yard has recently refused to go after the Croydon Cat Killer as well as the attackers of Mr. Solly, it would be nothing short of shocking if it and its fellow police forces across the country could be prevailed upon to stir so much as a muscle in order to enforce this new edict.  (See Yahoo News, May 16, 2019, "New Laws Could Mean Drivers Face Massive Fine (sic) for Running over Cats," The Guardian, September 20, 2018, "'Croydon Cat Killer' Hunt Ends after Three-Year Investigation," and The Evening Standard, September 21, 2018, "Croydon Cat Killer: Outraged Pet Owners and Animal Charities Insist Killer Is 'Still Out There' Despite Police Saying No Evidence of Any Human Involvement," and Cat Defender post of December 18, 2018 entitled "The Brutal Attackers of Mr. Solly Walk in a Lark All Because the Rotters at Scotland Yard Were Too Bone-Lazy, Derelict, and Ailurophobic to Even Examine the Evidence Supplied Them by His Distraught Owner.")

Cats Matter of London has had considerably more success in convincing several local councils to scan the corpses of cats killed by motorists for microchips so that their owners can be notified of their deaths and their remains returned to them. That is far from being an insignificant development in that the charity estimates that motorists across England run down a cat every two and one-half minutes. (See the BBC, February 3, 2018, "'Hope' for Rule Change to Check Found Pets for Microchips.")

As things now stand, street sweepers and private citizens remove their bodies and casually toss them into the trash and even those that are left unattended can decompose beyond recognition in a day or two if exposed to the torrid summer sun. Under either scenario, the victims' owners are deprived of not only being able to reclaim them for burial but of even ever knowing what had happened to them. Any measure of closure that might be hoped for under such trying circumstances is therefore reduced to an utter impossibility.

Stéphane Gendron Loves Nothing Better Than to Run Down and Kill Cats

Since societies all around the world are so dead set against criminalizing the running down of cats, it is therefore incumbent upon their owners to keep them out of traffic. They can still be allowed outdoors in enclosed gardens and sometimes in quiet residential and rural areas that are far removed from major thoroughfares and speeding motorists.

Regrettably that is about the extent of the liberty that they can safely be allowed to enjoy. None of that, however, is of any benefit whatsoever to homeless cats such as Eli and those that belong to managed colonies since they do not have anyone to look out for their safety.

It additionally is important to bear in mind that owners who turn their cats loose in traffic are playing directly into the hands of cat-killing monsters such as Stéphane Gendron who formerly served not only as mayor of Huntingdon, Quebec, but also worked as a talking head on the radio. "When I see a cat in the street, I accelerate. Stray cats have no business in the street," he once told his radio audience according to the July 13, 2013 edition of The Globe and Mail of Toronto. (See "Quebec Mayor in Cat Scandal Under Investigation by Animal Rights Activists.") "So bang! I accelerate!"

Not only is he a serial cat killer, but he also derives immense joy from the commission of his dastardly deeds. "The other day, I backed up on one; it was a newborn. I'm sure he didn't feel a thing," The Huffington Post reported him as informing his listeners on July 13, 2013. (See Stéphane Gendron Killed Kittens with Truck, He Admits on Radio Show.") "The pickup truck ran on it like nothing. I was so happy, yes! One less."

Even those owners who do not have all that much regard for the safety of their cats, perhaps ought to think twice about making it possible for planetary filth like Gendron to continue to carry out their despicable crimes. An even scarier thought is that this world is chock-full of individuals who think and behave just like him and wherever there is either a street, farm, or motorway they are sure to be on the prowl for new victims.

Photos: Facebook (PCAT and Mr. Cheeky), Bill Bowden of the York Daily Record (Roo with Smith), WXIA-TV of Atlanta (Honeycutt), The Sun News of Myrtle Beach (Splat with the Allens), Joel Cairo of Newsday (Fred), Ingram County Animal Control and Shelter (Howard), The Sun of London (Casper), the Connecticut Post (cat crossing sign), and the Globe and Mail (Gendron).