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Cat Defender

Exposing the Lies and Crimes of Bird Advocates, Wildlife Biologists, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, PETA, the Humane Society of the United States, Exterminators, Vivisectors, the Scientific Community, Fur Traffickers, Cloners, Breeders, Designer Pet Purveyors, Hoarders, Motorists, the United States Military, and Other Ailurophobes

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Mr. Krabs' Young Life Has Been Placed in Grave Jeopardy Because of the Malicious Lies Spread about Him by His Vindictive Former Owners

Mr. Krabs Has Been Incarcerated for Five Months on a Bum Rap

"Sieht so ein Schlägertyp aus? Wir können es uns kaum vorstellen."
-- Tierheim Köln-Dellbrück

When it comes to chronicling the mistreatment of cats it is often difficult to even know where to begin. The abuse is that widespread.

Whereas the en masse liquidation of hundreds of them at a time in such backwaters as Taiwan rightfully commands a lion's share of the attention of whatever remnants are left of the civilized world, the naked abuse meted out to them in their own homes by their brutal and derelict owners is almost universally ignored except in cases of hoarding. (See The Guardian of London, August 23, 2021, "Decision to Euthanize One-Hundred-Fifty-Four Cats Found in Smuggling Operation Sparks Outrage in Pet-Loving Taiwan" and KATV of Little Rock, June 3, 2021, "At Least One-Hundred Cats, One Dog Rescued in 'Largest Cat Hoarding Case in History of Arkansas'.")

Furthermore, it often it is not even the physical and psychological abuses that cats are subjected to at the hands of their owners that have the longest lasting impacts upon their lives but rather it is the malicious slanders and libels that they spread about those of them that they dump at shelters. Whereas words can wound even those cats who are not fully capable of comprehending their meaning, malicious lies cannot only harm their chances of finding new homes but, even worse, serve as the pretext for initialing their death warrants.

For example, in a cage at Tierheim Köln-Dellbrück (Kölner Tierheim) in Köln there currently sits a strikingly handsome cream-colored British Shorthair with beautiful turquoise eyes who has been ignominiously misnomered as Mr. Krabs. He is three-years and nine-months-old and he has been falsely imprisoned at the shelter ever since March 30th.

In addition to branding him with with such an outrageously insulting and derogatory moniker, his previous owners claim that he is violent and aggressive. They in fact hated him so much that they went far out of their way in order to make an utterly ridiculous production of surrendering him to the Kölner Tierheim.

"Diese haben ihn noch nicht einmal selbst gebracht, sondern mit Feuerwehr abholen lassen, weil sie Angst um ihre Kinder hatten," the shelter informed Radio Television Luxembourg (RTL) of Köln on April 22nd. (See "Sieht so ein Schläger-Kater aus? Mr. Krabs sucht ein neues Zuhause.")

Although there can be little doubt that they resorted to such drastic action out of a maniacal desire not only to fix Mr. Krabs' little red wagon but to fix it good, their fiendish plot ultimately backfired on them and instead served only to, Gott sei Danke!, raise red flags at the charity. "Wer weiß, vielleicht lag ja genau da der Hase im Pfeffer?" the shelter speculated to RTL.

(Da liegt der Hase im Pfeffer is a very old and quaint German Sprichwort that warns that something is not quite right and is usually translated as either "that is the fly in the ointment" or "therein lies the rub." It most likely is derived from the more mundane Hasenpfeffer.)  

"Sieht so ein Schlägetyp aus," the shelter rhetorically asked Tag24 of Dresden on April 23rd. (See "Besitzer lassen 'Böse' Katze von der Feuerwehr abholen: Was hat das Tier auf dem Kerbholz?") "Wir können es uns kaum vorstellen."

Im Gegenteil, it has an altogether different opinion of Mr. Krabs. "Bei uns verhält er sich bisher vorbildlich, genießt seine Kuscheleinheiten und lässt sich auch mehrmals täglich seine Äuglein säubern," it added to RTL.

The shelter has even gone so far as to label him as being a real sweetheart. "(Er) zeigt sich hier aber bisher hier äußerst liebenswürdige," it wrote April 21st on Instagram.

All of that is rather revealing in that shelters are certainly not known for bringing out the best in cats. Au contraire, it quite often is precisely those cats that have been unceremoniously uprooted from loving homes that have the greatest difficulties in adjusting to strange environments and being incarcerated in cages.

For staffers at the Kölner Tierheim to have brought about such a transformational change in Mr. Krabs is a pretty good indications that he surely must have been unmercifully abused by his former owners. Otherwise, they are guilty of spreading a pack of malicious lies about him.

Why, the entire notion that cats are aggressive and would attack two-footed monsters that are ten-times their size is patently absurd. "These intelligent, peace-loving, four-footed friends -- who are without prejudice, without hate, without greed -- may someday teach us something," celebrated authoress Lilian Jackson Braun pointed out in her 1998 novel, The Cat Who Saw Stars.

A cat accordingly will only use its claws and teeth on a human in self-defense, such as when it has been directly attacked, threatened, or the victim of past physical abuse. Besides, what the hell would any cat ever gain by attacking a human? Even if it were possible for one of them to bring down one of these Goliaths it would be all but impossible for it to consume its flesh owing to its rancid smell, poor quality, stringiness and, above all, high acidity content. 

That is not meant to imply, however, that it does not sometimes take time and effort for a new owner to gain the trust and confidence of a cat that has been abused. "We were told that she could get quite nasty but when we saw her (at the shelter), she took to us straightaway and we just said 'we want her'," thirty-nine-year-old Carly Jose of Madron in Cornwall related earlier this year about meeting her beloved cat Mini for the first time. "She was scared when she came home. She'd been abused and she thought we might do the same but she grew to trust us and she was so affectionate."

Despite Jose's best efforts to protect her, Mini's life ended tragically. (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' Far More Than They Do Her Right to Live.") 

Nor will it pass intellectual muster for Mr. Krabs' detractors to argue that he is simply putting on an act for the benefit of the staffers at the Kölner Tierheim; cats do not behave that way. "A cat has absolute emotional honesty," Ernest Hemingway once observed. "Human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not."

As it is almost always the case whenever these types of issues arise, the circumstances which precipitated these alleged assaults on the part of Mr. Krabs have not been even taken into consideration, let alone publicly disclosed. Equally importantly, it has not been revealed how long that he had resided with his former owners.

For instance, if he had lived with them ever since birth or shortly thereafter, it would be strange for him to have suddenly turned violent three years later on down the road. On the other hand, if he had always been aggressive it is unlikely that they would have tolerated his presence for such a lengthy period of time.   

It therefore is entirely possible that he could have been bandied about between multiple homes and, by extension, abused in either one or all of them. Only the Kölner Tierheim knows his past history and it is playing its cards close to its vest on that subject.

The only other known black mark against Mr. Krabs is that he apparently was adopted out at some point following his internment at the shelter and subsequently returned because of, once again, aggression. Unfortunately, the shelter has not disclosed any additional information about that fiasco and that in turn makes it difficult to speculate on what went wrong.

It is the sad lot of all cats but Mr. Krabs' detractors not only have him over a barrel but, even worse, in a totally untenable position. "Mr. Krabs selbst äußert sich zu den Beschuldigungen nicht," the shelter pointed out the obvious to RTL.

With that being the case, a human's word never should be accepted as the gospel truth without it first being backed up by incontrovertible evidence. Reprehensibly, cats have zero rights under the law and accordingly never have been afforded so much as a speck of due process.

Quite often both individuals and organizations are so blinded by all the static and confusion as well as the hustle and bustle that clutters up their busy lives that they are unable to see the forest from the trees and that certainly has been the case with Mr. Krabs. C'est-à-dire, the missing clue in solving this puzzle is not necessarily to be found by sifting through the charges and countercharges that have been leveled against him, but rather it is where it always has been and that is in his name itself.

Presumably, that derogatory moniker was given him by his former owners and since naming a cat is usually the first thing that new owners do, they surely must have taken an intense disliking to him at first sight. After that, it was all downhill for him.

As most fans of the Nickelodeon's long-running animated series SpongeBob SquarePants are already aware, Mr. Krabs is a fictional crab who owns and operates the Krusty Krab Restaurant in the undersea town of Bikini Bottom which is located below the real-life Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Much more importantly, he is a rather unsavory character.

For starters, he talks like a sailor and runs his restaurant as if it were a pirate ship. Not surprisingly, he is obsessed with making money but at the same time is a real tightwad.

He gouges his customers and charges his employees for the use of the services of his eatery. He even attempts to drive a rival restaurateur out of business. Worst of all, he got his start in business by killing all of his fellow crabs in Bikini Bottom which he then ground up in order to produce his best selling Krabby Patty. 

In everyday parlance, the word crab is slang for an irritating person. Even worse, when used in the plural it is used to denote pubic lice.

It accordingly is superfluous to point out that individuals who would so verbally slander a cat for life do not have any business owning one in the first place. Even more alarmingly, considering the amount of spite that his owners harbored in their malignant bosoms for him, Mr. Krabs is indeed fortunate that they elected to hand him over to the Feuerwehr instead of taking the law into their own hands and doing away with him.

"The naming of cats is a difficult matter," T.S. Eliot postulated in his 1939 magnum opus, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. "It isn't just one of your holiday games."

From that starting point, he went on to argue that a cat requires no fewer than three names and that none of them, most assuredly, should be in any way derogatory. There is first of all the "sensible everyday name" that the family uses, "such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James" und so weiter.

As far as a cat's second name is concerned, Eliot wrote the following:

         "But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,

A Name that's peculiar, and more dignified,

Else how can he keep his tail perpendicular,

Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?" 

Try doing any of that with an appallingly insulting moniker like Mr. Krabs! Needless to say, that would be near impossible for a handsome and self-respecting cat such as him.

Eliot then continued as follows:

"Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,

Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,

Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum --

Names that never belong to more than one cat."

It is in no way germane to the inquiry at hand but for the sake of completeness, the third name that Eliot speaks of is destined to forever remain a mystery. For example:

"But above and beyond there's still one name left over,

And that is the name that you never will guess;

The name that no human research can discover --

But the cat himself knows, and will never confess!"  

It therefore is somewhat comforting to know that Mr. Krabs has been left with at least that much dignity and, more importantly, that no one can take that away from him.

Mark Twain also had a habit of bestowing highfaluting names upon the numerous cats that he cared for throughout the course of his lifetime but even he, apparently, came to belatedly realize the dangers inherent in overdoing the job. "They died early -- on account of being overweighted with their names, it was thought," he said of four of his departed cats in an April 2, 1890 epistle to the editors of the long defunct Echoes Magazine.

"Sour Mash, Appollinaris, Zoroaster, and Blatherskite -- names given them not in an unfriendly spirit, but merely to practice the children in large and difficult styles of pronunciation," he went on to explain. "It was a very happy idea. I mean, for the children."

If he is to be taken even halfway seriously it would appear that the objective would be to give cats dignified and distinctive names but not overly exaggerated ones. As far as the youngsters are concerned, they can surely find other means of practicing their pronunciation.

This is not any laughing matter in that for owners to publicly malign their former resident felines is not only harmful to them but also totally superfluous in that there certainly is not any shortage of groups who have dedicated their existences to doing exactly just that. For instance, ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and PETA only trouble themselves to breathe so that they can denigrate and kill cats.

There likewise is not any shortage of private individuals who have found their raisons-d' être in picking up that gauntlet. For example, in the spring of 2006 seemingly every cat-hater in Fairfield, Connecticut, spilled out of old mattresses in order to physically and verbally attack a five-year-old, longhaired, black and white polydactyl named Lewis.

They were so successful in their vicious campaign of slanders, libels, and outright lies that they were able to convince a local stench-of-the-bench to place him under house arrest for the remainder of his natural days. They were, mercifully, denied his scalp but his owner, real estate agent Ruth Cisero, was placed on probation for two years and ordered to perform fifty hours of community service.

Upon thorough examination, however, it readily became crystal clear that it was Lewis's enemies, and certainly not him, who were at fault. First of all, some of them were unmasked as amateur ornithologists who, as every cat-lover knows, are nothing but outrageous liars and unabashed criminals.

Secondly, some of his accusers idiotically intervened in standoffs between him and their cats. Thirdly, several of Cisero's neighbors physically assaulted Lewis with water, eggs, and other assorted debris.

Fourthly, others stepped on his tail and slammed doors on him. Fifthly, at least one of his detractors illegally trapped him and attempted to fob him off on a shelter to kill.

Mr. Krabs Is Hoping That Brighter Days Are Ahead

Fortunately for him, that feline extermination camp was closed on that particular day. (See Cat Defender posts of April 3, 2006 and June 26, 2006 entitled, respectively, "Free Lewis Now! A Connecticut Tomcat, Victimized by a Bum Rap, Is Placed Under House Arrest" and "Lewis Cheats the Hangman but Is Placed Under House Arrest for the Remainder of His Life.") 

A few years later, a supposedly violent thirteen-year-old black tom named Bingo from the Maihofquartier of Luzern suffered the same fate when he was placed under house arrest by a local tribunal. His travails also ended up costing his owner, forty-eight-year-old Ana DeVito, CHF487.

As was the case with Lewis, DeVito's neighbors had provoked these incidents by foolishly intervening in spates between their cats and Bingo and by throwing objects at him. (See Cat Defender post of October 17, 2009 entitled "Bingo Is Placed Under House Arrest for Defending Himself Against a Neighbor Who Foolishly Intervened in a Cat Fight.")

Dogs and their owners likewise never have been anything but trouble for cats. For instance, on May 20, 2009 a nineteen-year-old black tom named Hoppy became involved in a fracas with a man and his dog outside his home in Minneapolis and that in turn led to him being jailed for three days by Dan Niziolek of Minneapolis Animal Care and Control (MAAC). 

Hoppy's owner, eighty-two-year-old Lee Noltimier, was eventually able to regain custody of him but not before MAAC had mandated that he be microchipped, vaccinated against rabies, registered with the city, and not be allowed outside unless he was first placed in a harness and walked on a leash. The overzealous agency even went so far as to decree that he be both caged and confined in a separate room whenever Noltimier entertained guests. 

As was the case with Lewis, MAAC vowed to seize and kill him if he got into any more scraps. The man and his dog, however, were allowed to get away scot-free with their violent and aggressive behavior toward Hoppy. (See Cat Defender post of October 18, 2009 entitled "Minneapolis Is Working Overtime Trying to Kill an Octogenarian's Cat Named Hoppy for Defending His Turf Against Canine Intruders.")

The situation is far worse for homeless cats who are hideously abused by dogs and their owners. For example, on September 18,2009 in the Chatham Pavement section of Pitsea in Essex a four-year-old Jack Russell Terrier named Scrappy attacked a colony of them. His owner, fifty-two-year-old John Russell, joined in the merriment by going after the cats with his walking stick. 

Even Klare Kennett of the RSPCA, which never has been known for either its integrity or smarts, had a difficult time swallowing Randall's outrageous lie that he and his dog had been victimized by the cats. That was especially case considering that the latter had been residing at the housing complex for at least five years without any prior incidents.

"It  is not unusual to get communities of feral cats but it is unusual for them to attack someone," she said. "I can only imagine they had a litter nearby and felt threatened by the presence of the dog."

That last statement of hers was pure baloney in that she knows as well as everyone else that dogs and their owners routinely attacks cats and other animals. Moreover, ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and other governmental officials employ Jack Russell Terriers as their feline exterminators of choice.

For example, the diabolical South Africans used them in order to track down and kill at least eight-hundred-ninety-seven cats on Marion Island between 1986 and 1989. The breed also is employed to hunt down and illegally kill foxes in England and elsewhere. (See Cat Defender post of October 23, 2009 entitled "An Essex Welfare Bum Who Sicced His Dog on Cats and Beat Them with His Cane Is Now Pretending to Be the Victim of an Assault.")

A confrontation with a dog and its owner also played a part in a beautiful, four-year-old, ginger and white tom named Rocky from Rotherham in South Yorkshire being slapped with an Anti-Social Behavior Order (ASBO) by the local authorities back in 2014. Another resident provoked him by pulling his tail and yet still another citizen physically assaulted him while attempting to evict him through a window that he had carelessly left open so as to have allowed Rocky to have gained entry in the first place.

The only offense that Rocky was guilty of committing was that of scratching a fence. (See the Yorkshire Post of Leeds in West Yorkshire, June 25, 2014, "Safety Claws as Council Slaps ASBO on a Cat" and the Daily Mail of London, June 25, 2014, "Must Be Feline (sic) Pretty Antisocial: Cat Slapped with an 'Animal ASBO' for Biting People and Damaging Property in 'Campaign of Terror'.")

Abject stupidity is, arguably, even more disgusting than either body odor or incest and seventy-four-year-old Bruce Gough of Tower View Apartments in Chartham, Kent, certainly has plenty of that. For example, after he had carelessly allowed a cat to enter his pad through an open window he went totally berserk and started chasing and yelling at it.

When the quite obviously frightened to death feline took refuge underneath a bed, he went after it with a broom. Once he was able to have gotten his mitts on it he attempted to pick it up and was promptly rewarded for his effort by a scratch on his arm.

Afterwards the big crybaby ran to the capitalistic media blaming the cat that he had assaulted for his troubles and boohooing about the injury that he had received. While he had the wind up he also took the time to excoriate the cat for the loss of a Victorian ewer which had fallen to the floor during the melee as well as for having emptied its bladder and colon on his bedroom floor.

If Gough had ever considered using his head for anything other than a hat rack he would have realized that if he were being chased, yelled at, and beaten with a broom by a deranged monster he, too, probably would have pissed and shit in his drawers. Instead of doing that, however, he also called the RSPCA to complain but all that he received for his effort was a lecture and a rather public acknowledgement of his own unforgiving ignorance.

"We would advise anyone who finds a feral cat has entered their home to keep a distance and ensure they (sic) have a clear and easy exit route -- such as an open window or a door -- so they (sic) can make their (sic) own way out," the charity told Kent Online on July 3, 2014. (See "Devil Cat's Invasion Makes Life Hell for Couple Bruce and Eileen Gough of Chartham.") "The RSPCA is an animal charity and our donors expect us to use our limited resources on animals who are suffering or in distress or danger."

Quite obviously the RSPCA does not consider a cat being attacked by a maniac wielding a broom to be either suffering, in distress, or danger. Besides, what is it with Limeys and open windows? Are they on some kind of a fresh air kick? Have they never heard of burglars and insects? Or are they simply too cheap to purchase screens, latches, and bars?

In every single report of a cat allegedly attacking a human that has been looked into in recent years it has invariably been the two-legged beasts who have initiated the physical and verbal abuse. Moreover, they have attacked cats with flying projectiles as well as having illegally trapped them.

Some of them have been confirmed cat-haters while others have been unmasked as devious bird-lovers with their own agendas. Most of these incidences also have involved extenuating circumstances, such as the presence of other cats and dogs.

The only case that does not hold true to form concerned a twelve-year-old black tom named Blackie from Ramsgate in Kent who was accused of assaulting thirteen humans over the course of a six-year period. Five of the alleged attacks can be easily dispensed with in that they involved him swatting at letters and the hands of postmen as they shoved mail through a slot in the front door. Besides, it is dogs that are infamous for chasing and biting letter carriers but absolutely nobody ever goes to the media and the RSPCA whining about them.

Since none of the particulars surrounding his five run-ins with paper boys and one each with a bobby, a fastfood delivery man, and a construction worker ever were made public, it is impossible to know exactly what transpired on those occasions. Nevertheless, it would be surprising, not to mention both out of the ordinary and contrary to all logic, if there were not extenuating circumstances in all of those alleged attacks. (See Cat Defender post of March 8, 2007 entitled "Blackie Has Postmen, Bobbies, and Deliverymen Looking over Their Shoulders in Ramsgate, Kent.") 

Looking ahead, it is fervently hoped that Tierheim Köln-Dellbrück will not weary of Mr. Krabs' presence and thus throw in the towel on him, but rather that it will remain steadfast in his corner no matter how long that it takes in order to secure a proper home for him. Not only is that the correct course of action for it to take but he certainly is well worth the time, effort, and money.

That in no way, however, makes the shelter's job any easier. First of all, he is a cat who, like Charles Dickens' fictional Pip, has high expectations. Secondly, he needs a guardian who is knowledgeable about cats.

In particular, he must not be either crowded or harassed and an owner needs to be able to readily recognize whenever he is becoming agitated. "Die mir an der Nasenspitze ansehen, wann sie besser einen Bogen um mich machen sollten," the shelter confided to Tag24 on July 25th. (See "Böser Kater! Diese Samtpfote sieht aus wie ein Engel, doch hat es Faustdick hinter den Ohren.")

The presence of other cats might possibly be tolerated but children would not be a good idea. "Mit seinen Artgenossen hat er nichts am Hut und Kinder sollten aufgrund seiner angeblichen Vergangenheit nicht mir in Haushalt leben," the shelter added to RTL. 

Other than that the Kölner Tierheim is looking to place him in a home where he will have access to the great outdoors. It has not specified, however, if a fenced-in garden would suffice or if he requires more space in order to roam. He has been sterilized and that sometimes is a big help in keeping toms at home.

This is a vitally important matter because if he were to have a run-in with an individual not connected to his new family he easily could wind up in the same boat as Lewis, Bingo, Rocky, and all the other cats who have been falsely accused of being public menaces. If that were to happen it would be a case of Mr. Krabs having gone from the frying pan into the fire in that life at a shelter, no matter how horrible, is still far preferable to being forced to stand in the dock. 

Most shelters do not like cats in the first pace and they accordingly endeavor to get rid of them as quickly as possible whether it is via the back door in black plastic trash bags or out the front door in the clutches of totally unsuitable guardians. By contrast, what they should be doing is taking the time in order to learn all that they can about their past lives, medical history and, above all, personalities.

The notion that a cat is only a cat and that one size fits all can only be labeled as a prime example of stupidity working overtime. All of them have different histories and personalities. Aristotle understood that twenty-four-hundred years ago and even he was still two-hundred-years behind Pythagoras in his thinking.

Shelters and rescue groups who fail to heed that admonition run the risk of doing far more harm than good. In particular, placing a cat in the wrong home can not only be dangerous to its safety, but it also can so unnerve and stress it as to make it even less adoptable.

It therefore is imperative that the Kölner Tierheim take its time and do its due diligence before placing Mr. Krabs in another home. It already has botched one adoption and repeatedly bandying him from one home to another is sure to exact a terrible toll on him.

In a particularly sad and disturbing saga that began to unfold in December of 2016, Yorkshire Cat Rescue (YCR) in Keighley, West Yorkshire, took in a handsome thirteen-year-old, brown, gray, and white tom named Harvey after his owner had suddenly died. Over the course of the following year, the shelter unsuccessfully attempted to fob him off on no fewer than three owners and fosterers and that in turn led to him being returned to a cage at the shelter on four separate occasions.

It took YCR an astonishingly long time in order to figure things out but it eventually learned that Harvey had spent his entire life living alone with one owner and therefore could not tolerate the presence of other animals and children. By that time he also was rapidly aging, suffering from a wobbly gait, and exhibiting signs of  forgetfulness.

In early 2018, YCR finally was able to place him with a so-called permanent foster mother. It undid all of its good work a year or so later, however, when it hired a veterinarian to kill him off. (See Cat Defender posts of August 31, 2017, March 12, 2018, July 29, 2019, and October 27, 2020 entitled, respectively, "With His Previous Owner Long Dead and Nobody Seemingly Willing to Give Him a Second Chance at Life, Old and Ailing Harvey Has Been Sentenced to Rot at a Shelter in Yorkshire," "Much Like a Nightmare That Stubbornly Refuses to End, Harvey Continues to Be Shuttled from One Home to Another at the Expense of His Health and Well-Being," "Repeatedly Shunned, Maligned, and Bandied about from One Place to Another, Harvey Is Now Engaged in the Most Important Battle of His Life," and "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.") 

As far as Mr. Krabs is concerned, the most pressing issue facing the Kölner Tierheim is for it to immediately stop calling him by that simply god-awful moniker with which he was branded by his dastardly former owners. In fact, that should have been its first order of business after it impounded him.

The good news, however, is that it is not too late for it to correct that faux pas. Mr. Krabs is a beautiful young cat who richly deserves an equally sublime name.

The shelter additionally did him an immense disservice when it went to the media and repeated the same blatant lies and unfounded allegations that had been leveled against him by his former owners. On the one hand, doing so has only served to scare away qualified potential adopters while on the other hand such unthinking behavior is bound to attract precisely those types of individuals who do not have any business whatsoever of owning a cat in the first place. 

Denigrating and abusing cats and other animals is most definitely not any joking matter. "Boys throw stones at frogs in fun, but the frogs do not die in fun, but in earnest," the ancient Greek philosopher Bion of Borysthenes (325-250 BC) once correctly observed.

Reprehensibly, that is how that YCR repeatedly mistreated Harvey. While he was left to languish in limbo month after month, the charity was busily making fun of him on social media as being loud, wonky, difficult to get along with, and a troublemaker.

It is difficult to fathom how that shelters such as the Kölner Tierheim and YCR can expect to adopt out cats that they are all the time maligning and denigrating themselves. Rather, it would have been more than sufficient for the Kölner Tierheim to have simply changed Mr. Krabs' name and then to have introduced him to the public as a cat that had been previously abused and therefore now required an understanding owner who would be willing to provide him with the time and space that he required in order to recover.

His good looks then should have been sufficient in order to have sealed the deal. There never was any need for the shelter to have dredged up the old lies from out of his past.

Regrettably, no additional information regarding Mr. Krabs has appeared online over the course of the past five weeks but he, presumably, is still marooned at the Kölner Tierheim. In the photographs of him that have been posted on Instagram he certainly looks to be as healthy as a horse but being confined to a cage for such an extended period of time can take its toll on even the healthiest of cats.

In particular, the shelter's oblique reference to RTL on April 22nd about having to clean his beautiful eyes several times a day is a cause for concern but it is difficult to know what to make of that admission. Hopefully, he does not have anything seriously amiss with his vision.

There cannot be any denying, however, that all mass living arrangements are, invariably, reservoirs of disease and that is especially the case during a pandemic. The Kölner Tierheim therefore is far from being the best place for Mr. Krabs but another failed adoption would not do him any good either, physically or psychologically.

So, all that he can do for the time being is to hold on and to hope that there is at least one person in this big, wide world who possesses enough bon sens in order to realize just what an extraordinary cat that he is and the simply marvelous addition that he would make to either his or her life. He will be turning four years old on November 29th and hopefully by then he will be celebrating his birthday in a new home with a guardian who loves him to bits.

Should anyone be interested in relieving his plight, the Kölner Tierheim can be reached by telephone at 49-0221-684926 and by e-mail at tierheim-dellbrueck@gmx.com. Its web site is www.tierheim-koeln-dellbrueck.bmtev.de. Donations for his continued care at the shelter would also be very much appreciated.

Photos: Tierheim Kölner-Dellbrück.