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

Mark Cuthbert, Two of His Dogs, and What Appears to Be a Dead Fox

 "One harrowing video shows the three dogs attacking a domestic cat in a field which is fighting for its life. It's clear that the cat was caused horrendous suffering and many of the cats will have suffered long, tortuous deaths."

-- the Scottish SPCA

Acting upon a tip that he was keeping fighting dogs, undercover investigators from the Scottish SPCA on March 16, 2018 raided the home of forty-two-year-old Mark Cuthbert of Ayr, sixty kilometers south of Glasgow. Once inside, not only were their worst suspicions confirmed but they quickly were apprised of the petit fait that dogfighting claims the lives of far more animals than just canines. 

Right off the bat they discovered a trio of Patterdale Terriers that quite obviously had been used as fighting dogs. Digger, a brown female, had an injury to her lower lip. Tally, a brown female puppy, apparently did not have any visible scars.

Those two dogs were seized by the SPCA and were reportedly later rehomed. It did however unconscionably kill the third member of the trio, a black male with blotches of white named Billy, after he attacked an employee of the organization.

Such an unjust decision totally ignored the fact that it was not his fault that Cuthbert had brought him up to be violent. Moreover, the SPCA surely could have found a sanctuary that would have offered him a home and rehabilitated him.

Even if the organization had been too lazy and cheap to have done that much for him, it could have found either some capitalist or militarist to have hired him as a guard dog. There certainly was not any need for it to have killed him.

 

An undisclosed number of bait cats and one rat also were found in the home as well as an assortment of dogfighting paraphernalia, such as tracking collars, nets, and traps. Much like yobs who get their perverted jollies by beating homeless men to death with baseball bats and golf clubs, Cuthbert was not satisfied with merely killing dogs, cats, and other animals but he additionally could not resist the overpowering temptation to keep a record of his criminality so that he could continue to enjoy his acts of despicable cruelty over and over again for the remainder of his miserable existence.

The SPCA accordingly found on his mobile telephone a trove of videos and stills of dead cats, badgers, and foxes. "One harrowing video shows the three dogs (Billy, Digger, and Tally) attacking a domestic cat in a field which is fighting for its life," one of the inspectors told The Scotsman of Edinburgh on October 2, 2019. (See "Scottish Man Jailed after Buying Cats on Gumtree to Use as Bait for His Dogs to Kill.") "It's clear that the cat was caused horrendous suffering and many of the cats will have suffered long, tortuous deaths."

Billy Was Unjustly Killed Off by the Scottish SPCA

           

All of that goes without saying but while he had the wind up the undercover agent deemed it to be an opportune moment for him to treat the public to a proverbial feast of his highfalutin, albeit vacuous, rhetoric. "We investigate reports of animal fighting every week and the imagery and videos we discovered on his phone are some of the most depraved and upsetting we have seen," he swore to The Scotsman. "This is a truly horrific case of animal cruelty where we suspect dozens of animals have suffered mentally and physically at the hands of Mark Cuthbert."

After blowing off that head of steam, he quickly turned tail and ran for cover behind his organization's old familiar saw. "His inhumane treatment of animals is completely unacceptable," he swore no doubt with a puffed out chest.

Oh, really? Then why does dogfighting so stubbornly persist in Scotland as well as in practically every other country in the world? It is even perfectly legal in Japan, parts of Russia, Albania, and Morocco.

Even more revolting than the Scottish SPCA's total unwillingness to eradicate this scourge is its outrageous anti-cat bias. For instance, although it went overboard in order to describe Billy, Digger, and Tally, their injuries, and final dispositions, it could not be bothered with even mentioning the number of cats that it had seized from Cuthbert's house, let alone their names and injuries.  

The organization likewise refused to detail the number of images of dead cats and other animals that it found on his phone. C'est-à-dire, the SPCA is only concerned with the welfare of dogs that kill cats; the lives of the cats, rats, badgers, foxes, and rabbits that they kill count for absolutely nothing.

Whereas the lives of fighting dogs are undeniably brutal and brief, they at least are given an opportunity to defend themselves against opponents of their own species who are of comparable size and strength. Plus, they are generously fed and well cared for, at least for as long as they continue to bring in the big bucks. That is, admittedly, not much of a life but it is still far superior to the lot of bait cats.

A Dogfight Staged by the Bloods Street Gang in a Vacant Building

They, on the other hand, are seldom if ever given so much as a prayer in Hell of prevailing when they are pitted against fighting dogs. In short, there is not anything even remotely fair or sporting about these matches; the cats are sacrificial lambs and nothing more. 

From what little is known about their lot, some of them are not even fed and watered while that they are awaiting slaughter. Furthermore, since the teeth of bait dogs are often filed down to their gums and their mouths duct-taped shut so as to prevent them from defending themselves and thus injuring the trained pugilists, it would not be in any way surprising if dogfighters did not likewise divest bait cats of both their claws and teeth.

Their lives, feelings, and abominable suffering, count for absolutely nothing. With the deck stacked so hopelessly against them, those that survive, no matter how badly mangled, are indeed few and far between. (See Cat Defender post of October 22, 2021 entitled "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.")

Astute enough to fully realize that the game was up, Cuthbert made matters real simple for the SPCA by pleading guilty to keeping the dogs, cats, and a rat for gaming purposes as well as to procuring cats to be used as dog bait. While he was in the process of making a clean chin of things, he also confessed to killing one cat at home and another one at an undisclosed location.

For his willingness to be a good chap, Cuthbert was richly rewarded in the early days of October of 2019 by the stiffs who mete out their very own perverted sense of justice at Ayr Sheriff and Justice of the Peace Court with an insignificant sentence of ten months in jail and a ten-year ban on the keeping of animals. Considering the magistrates' low estimation of the value of animal lives, it is surprising that they did not order that he be given a ticker-tape parade through the streets of Ayr and that a statue be erected in his honor in the downtown area.

It is almost superfluous to point out but such a kindly tap on the wrists is not about to deter him or anyone else for that matter from engaging in dogfighting and that is especially the case when dogs that have been bred and trained for the ring can fetch as much as £2,698. On top of that, there are beaucoup bucks to be made by wagering on these cruel spectacles.

Since it is well-known that dogfighting rings exist not only throughout the United Kingdom but in neighboring western and eastern European countries as well, if either the courts or the Scottish SPCA were even the least bit serious about eradicating this diabolical sport they would have confined Cuthbert to some hellhole prison and left him there to rot until he spilled the beans on his confederates. That is the only way that so much as a dent is ever going to be made in this shameful business. (See the BBC, February 13, 2019, "Inside the Illegal World of Organized Dogfighting.")

Sinbad and Sailor Were Intended to Be Used as Alligator Bait

During the course of its investigation, the SPCA also discovered that Cuthbert had been purchasing his cats and kittens on the London-based web site, Gumtree. "After contacting Gumtree, we found correspondence between Cuthbert and people who had listed their cats on the site which led us to believe large numbers of cats were uplifted from pet owners who trusted their cats were going to a good, safe home," the SPCA investigator revealed to the BBC on October 2, 2019. ( See "Dog Fighting (sic): Man Bought Cats on Gumtree as Live Bait.")     

Unwilling to have left bad enough alone, the investigator added a few words of gratuitous advice. "If you are using an online service to find a new home for, or sell, your pet, please be vigilant and ensure your pet is going to a safe environment," he counseled. "If you are suspicious, do not continue with the sale and notify the Scottish SPCA as soon as possible."

The obvious problem with worn-out and trite palaver of that caliber is that owners who offer up their cats and kittens online and in newspapers do not care what is going to become of them; the only thing that they are concerned with is getting rid of them as easily and as quickly as possible. The same is equally true of those owners who abandon their cats to the streets and fields, dump them at shelters, and pay unscrupulous veterinarians (is there any other kind?) to dispatch them to the devil.

               

"We are shocked to hear of this case and we worked with the Scottish SPCA to provide the relevant information to help ensure this individual was brought to justice," a spokesperson for Gumtree crowed to The Scotsman. "We take the welfare of animals very seriously and work hard to ensure our site is a safe place to find pets in need of rehoming."

That is pretty lame to say the least. First of all, it only took action after it had been contacted by the SPCA and even then its only contribution to this investigation was to hand over routine bookkeeping data. By that time, countless cats and kittens had been devoured by Cuthbert's dogs.

Secondly, if its alleged commitment to the welfare of cats is to be taken seriously it needs to be proactive but so far it has not demonstrated a commitment to doing even that much. "We do not tolerate users on our site who we believe are encouraging or indicate signs of animal cruelty, and work with law enforcement and other organizations to prevent misuse of the platform," it would like the public to believe.

That is hardly good enough. For instance, by the time that Gumtree ever gets around to notifying the SPCA the damage already has been done and the cats are in all likelihood dead. Furthermore, it is hard to believe that it is about to go to the trouble and expense of thoroughly vetting those individuals who sell and buy cats on its web site. It most assuredly does not conduct follow-up home visits which would be the only way that it ever could determine the disposition of the cats that are sold on its platform.

Jaxson with a Cat and a Kitten in an Obviously Staged Photograph

Besides, dogfighters are most definitely not the only individuals who purchase cats and kittens on the dark web with nefarious purposes in mind. For example, doing so is a favorite tactic of vivisectors, fur traffickers, feline flesh purveyors, the operators of small animal circuses and stage shows and, perhaps, even breeders and the proprietors of pet stores.

Dogfighting and all other forms of blatant animal cruelty are a huge problem and Gumtree needs to decide if it wants to continue to be an integral part of that abuse and killing. Of course, banning animal trafficking on its web site will not eradicate it but at least that would cleanse Gumtree's blood-soaked hands and, quite often, that is the very best that any individual or entity can do under such trying circumstances.

Let Facebook and its affiliated sites have the abusers' business. After all, they not only richly deserve each other but are, in so many ways, two of a kind.

In the United States, dogfighting used to be thought of as the sport of rednecks but of late it has gained a substantial foothold within the black community. According to research conducted by Wikipedia, it is fairly common with street gangs such as the Bloods in Los Angeles.

National Football League (NFL) players such as Michael Vick, LeShon Johnson, and Nate Newton have been arrested for engaging in it and National Basketball Association (NBA) player Qyntel Woods was arrested for dogfighting in 2004. This odious practice likewise been championed by rappers such as Jay-Z and the late DMX.

Even Nike has embraced it in its advertising campaigns. "People have to understand the youth culture we cater to," representative of the shoe manufacturer pedantically lectured the Chicago Sun-Times on June 17, 2007. (See "The Sick Hipness of Dog Fighting.") "Our market is the urban, edgy, hip-hop culture."

In other words, Nike does not have any scruples whatsoever and therefore does not care how low that it is forced to stoop for its billions and much the same thing can be said for the NFL, NBA, the hip-hop music industry, and sans doute countless other entities to boot. Although it is not known if blacks use bait cats in order to train their dogs to fight and kill, it would not be surprising if they did considering their abject neglect of and antipathy toward the species. (See Cat Defender posts of October 5, 2006, July 30, 2009, May 1, 2010, and May 19, 2019 entitled, respectively, "New Jersey Teens' Idea of Fun: Beat Up a Defenseless Kitten and Then Burn It to Death," "Ferals Living at a Baltimore Church Find Out the Hard Way That Hatred of Cats Is Every Bit as Christian as Unleavened Bread and Cheap Wine," "When It Comes to Cats, Acts of Faith Count for Absolutely Nothing with the Good Christians at Northside Baptist," and "The Savage Beating Meted Out to a Volunteer in Los Angeles by a Racist Hooligan Vividly Demonstrates Just How Dangerous It Has Become to Feed Homeless Cats," plus The Fresno Bee, August 11, 2020, "Cats Found Dead -- and One Other in Pest Control Cage -- on Fresno Church Property" and the New York Post, January 25, 2021, " 'Mayor' of New York City Housing Authority Complex -- a Cat Named Tuxedo -- Killed by Pit Bulls.")

Wonder How Many Cats and Kittens That Laura Mattson Fed to Jaxson?

If the eating and mauling of cats and kittens were confined to dogfighters that would be horrific enough in its own right but that is hardly the case. They additionally are used as alligator bait.

For example, on July 18, 2010 a pair of four-week-old kittens named Sinbad and Sailor that were destined for the gators were found trussed up with fishing tackle and dangling from a vessel docked at a boatyard in Lake Worth Beach, one-hundred kilometers north of Miami. The fishing lines were wound so tightly around their tiny front paws that they were left disjointed and swollen three to four times beyond normal. 

It is estimated that they had been left in that position for at least forty-eight hours and by the time that their desperate plight was discovered by a kindhearted couple they were so weak and dehydrated that it was estimated that they would not have lasted for more than another three hours. Even in spite of their eleventh hour rescue, Sinbad, a tuxedo, lost his left front leg while his littermate, solid-black Sailor, was in grave danger of also losing one of her front appendages.

Nothing further ever was heard about the attractive duo so it, regrettably, is not known whatever became of  them. Suffice it to say, however, that losing a leg apiece was far preferable to being devoured by a voracious alligator. (See Cat Defender post of August 5, 2010 entitled "Sinbad Loses a Leg in a Foiled Plot to Use Him and His Littermate, Sailor, as Alligator Bait in Florida.")

Later on January 12, 2015, Animal Control officers raided the home of Laura Mattson in the 13200 block of Sylvan Avenue in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Van Nuys where they confiscated a forty-year-old female alligator named Jaxson. They had been called to the address following complaints from Mattson's neighbors that she had been feeding both pet and homeless cats to the reptile that she had been boarding in her house for the past thirty-seven years. 

Although she vehemently denied the charges, the two dead cats found with Jaxson inside a crate confirmed her neighbors' worst fears. Even more disturbing, an alligator can consume a huge number of cats over the course of four decades.

As for Jaxson, he wound up at the Los Angeles Zoo. (See the Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2015, "Eight-Foot Alligator Found in Yard Didn't Eat Cats, Family Says" and the Daily Mail, January 14, 2015, "Los Angeles Woman Has Her Eight-Foot Alligator Seized by Cops after Claims She Was Feeding It Feral Cats after the Creature Was Found Surrounded by Kitten Carcasses.")

Tinkerbelle Lucked Out When She and Elizabeth Found Each Other

On June 29, 2010, a pretty nine-week-old white kitten named Tinkerbelle was seized from a crabber in the Scarness section of Hervey Bay in Queensland who had threatened to use her as crab bait. As things were, he already had chopped off her tail and so badly abused her rectum that it was left swollen and bleeding.

Fortunately for her, she immediately was taken in and given a home by a woman identified only by her first name as Elizabeth. (See the Fraser Coast Chronicle of Hervey Bay, July 1, 2010, "Kitten Saved from Crab Pot Death.")

Whether it be for sport or just to save a few dollars on food, some individuals even have been known to feed cats and kittens to vipers. (See Cat Defender post of November 7, 2009 entitled "Jeremy Tuffly Feeds a Kitten to a Pet Python but When It Demurs He Does the Foul Deed Himself by Kicking It to Death.")

Whenever they are not busily feeding them to dogs, alligators, crabs, and snakes, residents of China, Australia, Denmark, Peru, Switzerland, Vietnam, the Koreas, Italy, and no doubt other countries as well kill and dine on cats themselves. (See Cat Defender posts of February 8, 2006, September 7, 2007, August 25, 2008, and December 1, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Stray Cats Are Rounded Up in Shanghai, Butchered, and Sold as Mutton in Restaurants and on the Street," "Australians Renounce Civilization and Revert to Savages with the Introduction of a Grotesque Plan to Get Rid of Cats by Eating Them," "Danish Journalism Students Procure the Corpse of a Murdered Cat and Then Skin, Cook, and Eat It in Order to Promote Their Careers," and "Peruvians Ludicrously Claim That as the Descendants of Slaves They Are Entitled to Massacre and Eat Cats with Impunity.")

"... the unfortunate feline specie seemed to be fair game for every kind of cruelty and neglect," noted author and practicing veterinarian James Herriot observed in his 1994 little book, Cat Stories. "They shot cats, threw things  at them and set their dogs on them for fun."

That certainly was true when he first uttered those sentiments and the mistreatment and wholesale killing of cats has only worsened since them. Moreover, so long as cats remain the nameless, numberless, and expendable nonentities that the Scottish SPCA believes them to be, nothing is ever going to change.

"This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in," Charles Dickens once declared. Therefore, if the SPCA is unwilling to mend its negligent ways and to begin taking its solemn responsibilities toward cats seriously, it is time that it be replaced.

Photos: Scottish SPCA (Cuthbert with his dogs and Billy), Wikipedia (a dogfight staged by the Bloods), WJXX-TV of Jacksonville (Sinbad and Sailor), Laura Mattson (Jaxson), KABC- TV of Los Angeles (Mattson), and the Fraser Coast Chronicle (Tinkerbelle and Elizabeth).

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

Buzz Has Been Put Through Hell During His Brief and Troubled Life

"The vet and Cats Protection had put his details online to try to trace his previous owner, and a lady contacted me to say she had lived next door to his original owner and confirmed that he had been used as dog bait."
-- Abbie Garland

It is just too bad that cats never make speeches or write books because if they did they surely would have some hair-raising stories to tell. Since that is not the case, however, their histories and past travails can seldom be pieced together other than intuitively, anecdotally, and serendipitously.

Abbie Garland most assuredly did not have much of an idea of what she was letting herself in for when on June 26, 2019 she accidentally stumbled upon a handsome black and white tom named Buzz while she was visiting her partner's parents and their nine cats who live on the Lizard National Nature Reserve near Helston in Cornwall. With an announced population of slightly more than eleven-thousand souls and located nineteen kilometers east of Penzance, Helston proudly lays claim to the prestigious title of being the most southerly town in all of England; beyond it there is only the Atlantic Ocean.

"When I first spotted Buzz he was sitting on their driveway and looked incredibly skinny and ill," she related to Your Cat Magazine of Bourne in Lincolnshire on January 21st of this year. (See "Cat Rescued from Previous Life as a Bait Cat Enjoys His Forever Home.") "I mentioned this strange cat to everyone and I don't think anyone believed me as they knew all the cats in the area and his description didn't match any of them."

Under most circumstances that would have been the end of the matter and their paths likely never would have crossed again except that Buzz and the Fates had other plans in store for them. "However, about thirty minutes later, Buzz climbed through the kitchen window and started helping himself to (the) cat food," Garland continued to Your Cat. "I put down more food, and he started purring and let me pick him up. We had an instant connection." In other words, their fates had been sealed.

"The course of true love never did run true," as Lysander reminded Hermia in Act I, Scene I of William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and that admonition applies as much to humans and their cats as it does to more conventional lovers. "Unfortunately, at that point, someone opened the door, which spooked Buzz and he ran off," she continued. "I followed him outside and spent the next three days in sixty mile per hour winds, crouching next to the bushes that he was hiding in, trying to coax him out, but he was too scared to move."

Garland was not about to give up, however, and after four fruitless days of trying she finally was able to successfully trap him on June 30th. Sadly, the estimated six- to eleven-year-old tom was in even worse shape than she had originally thought.

"He came to me purring and he was absolutely filthy and in a very poor state," she informed Your Cat. "He was so thin and I could see that his ears were badly infected."

Not only that but half of his left ear was completely missing and he was emaciated. Those and possibly other undisclosed ailments necessitated that Buzz was forced to spend the following three weeks in the hospital.

It is, however, the fateful trip to the surgery itself that sticks out in her mind. "Throughout the journey, Buzz rested his head in the palm of my hand and when the vet took him off me, he actually screamed," she recalled to Your Cat. "I will never forget that noise. I was in tears and just wanted to get him back."

It did not take her long, however, to abruptly change her mind and to cruelly dump him at Cats Protection's shelter in Carnon Downs, five kilometers southwest of Truro. Even so she did not completely forget about him.

"I was able to visit (him) and he became really excited each time he saw me," she told Your Cat. "The lady looking after Buzz said she never heard him make a noise, but whenever I visited, he purred and meowed all the time."

It was thus during Buzz's incarceration at Cats Protection that Garland belatedly learned the terrifying truth concerning how that he had lost half of his left ear. "The vet and Cats Protection had put his details online to try to trace his previous owner, and a lady contacted me to say she had lived next door to his original owner and confirmed that he had been used as dog bait," Garland informed Your Cat.

Most everyone is somewhat familiar with the cruel fate that awaits all dogs that are trained to fight. Those that are fairly proficient in the practice of their craft are, sooner or later, mauled to death in the ring. Even those that are able to persevere are eventually electrocuted, strangled, hung, shot, and drowned by their  owners who are too cheap and lazy to continue feeding, housing, and medicating them once that they have become either too old or injured to fight. Violent, pain-filled existences and early graves are the only thanks that any of them ever receive for all the money and fame that they have brought to their ungrateful and uncaring owners.

That which is considerably less well known is the large number of kittens, cats, puppies, dogs, rabbits, foxes, and badgers that dogfighters sacrifice while training their pugilists for the ring. Moreover, the dogs and puppies that these cretins use as bait often have had their teeth ground down to their gums and their mouths duct-taped shut so that they cannot defend themselves and thus harm the fighting dogs.

It therefore would not be surprising if dogfighters also removed the claws and teeth from their bait cats so as to also prevent them from defending themselves. This world has so little regard for feline lives that neither anyone nor any group is even willing to speculate as to extent of this barbaric and inhumane practice, let alone to eradicate it.

Given His Past, Buzz Urgently Needs to Be Protected from Dogs

Considering what little is known about bait cats, it does not take much imagination to realize that it is truly a miracle that Buzz was able to have lived through that god-awful period of his life. All things considered, he actually was pretty lucky to have only lost half of his left ear to the dogs but at the same time it would be 

rather naïve not to believe that he also was not bitten and mangled on numerous occasions.

No indication has been offered as to how long that he was forced to endure such outrageous abuse but it could not possibly have been for a protracted period of time based solely upon the fact that he is still alive. Likewise, it is not known how that the dogfighter was able to have gotten his hands on him in the first place.

 

Quite often these despicable monsters are able to purchase their cats and kittens on such popular web sites as Gumtree. They also have had some success in perusing the classified sections of newspapers as well as community bulletin boards, such as those located at launderettes, for "Free to a Good Home" and "Cats and Kittens for Sale" advertisements. They additionally have been known to abduct cats from gardens and the street. 

Considering his age and the way that Buzz immediately took to Garland, it would seem likely that he at one time had had a home and a caring female owner. That individual in turn likely either dumped him or unwittingly gave him to a dogfighter and that sealed his fate.

He ultimately, however, more than likely owes his survival to the dogfighter's disdain for cats. "He'd never been allowed into the house and the RSPCA had been called out several times," the unidentified neighbor informed Garland.

C'est-à-dire, the man most likely had been too lazy and cheap to have gone to the trouble of regularly trapping and feeding him and that petit fait in turn allowed him to avoid tangling with the dogs most of the time. As far as the RSPCA is concerned, its reprehensible dereliction of duty in this instance is merely par for the course for it.

If it had acted responsibly, it would have arrested and jailed the dogfighter on the spot and seized all of his cats and dogs. On the other hand, given that the charity steals and kills an alarming number of the animals that it seizes, perhaps it was better after all that it is a good-for-nothing animal protection group.

There cannot be any denying, however, that cruelty to cats, dogs, and other animals is rampant throughout all of England and that the poor performance of the RSPCA is a huge part of that problem. (See the Daily Mail, December 30, 2012, "Revealed: RSPCA Destroys Half of the Animals That It Rescues -- Yet Thousands Are Completely Healthy," The Independent, March 29, 2016 editorial, "After Forcing Family to Have Their Cat Put Down, the RSPCA Needs to Rethink Its Priorities," and Cat Defender posts of June 5, 2007 and October 23, 2010 entitled, respectively, "The RSPCA's Unlawful Seizure and Senseless Killing of Mork Leaves His Sister, Mindy, Brokenhearted and His Caretakers Devastated" and "The RSPCA Steals and Executes Nightshift Who Was His Elderly Caretaker's Last Surviving Link to Her Dead Husband.')

Once his owner found out that the neighbor was feeding Buzz he cruelly abandoned him to fend for himself. Some time thereafter the neighbor, for whatever reason, also stopped feeding him.

So in the end although Buzz had, thankfully, escaped the clutches of the supremely evil dogfighter, he was now all alone in the world without any visible means of support and as a result he was half starved to death by the time that Garland came into his troubled life. No estimation has been given as to how long that he was forced to have gone without adequate sustenance but based upon his emaciated condition a good guess would be several months if not indeed longer.

Just as it so often is the case with individuals who have been abused, the scars inside of Buzz have proven to be longer lasting than those that are visible on the outside. "When I first brought Buzz home, my dog, Loki, was still a baby and slept in a crate in my room at night," Garland revealed to Your Cat. "The problem was that this was where Buzz wanted to be as well, and for weeks I had to put Buzz outside the room until Loki was safely in his crate, otherwise he would try and attack him, as he hated all dogs."

Garland has not disclosed how that she was able to have pulled off such a herculean feat, but Buzz has made peace with the now nearly three-year-old Border Collie. "Thankfully, he gets on with my other two cats, and Loki and Buzz are now the best of friends," she told Your Cat. "They sleep in the same bed at night and Loki leaves some of his biscuits to share with Buzz when he is eating."

Old injuries, insults, and prejudices die hard, however, and Buzz's newfound affection for Loki does not extend to other canines. "Buzz often comes out with us on local walks, but if he sees another dog in the distance, I have to put him up, or Buzz will go and attack it," Garland told Your Cat. "Recently, I had to pick him up and hold him close as he was about to attack a Husky!"

Such aggression is quite obviously the byproduct of being confined with dogs where he had no other choice but to fight back if he were going to survive. Normally when confronted by dogs, especially large ones, all cats will flee if given the opportunity.

Buzz's ingrained antipathy for canines is nonetheless a huge headache for Garland. She presumably puts him in a harness and on a leash whenever she takes him out for walks with Loki but that is not sufficient. Rather, she needs to either fence in her garden or to confine him indoors at all times for his own safety.

Buzz with What Appears to Be a Real Sweetheart of a Playmate

Although it has not been disclosed exactly where that Garland hangs her hat in Cornwall, Helston is only twenty-four kilometers east of Madron where back on March 6th a pack of out of control foxhounds belonging to the Western Hunt invaded Carly Jose's garden and killed her cat, Mini. (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.")

Besides marauding packs of foxhounds, Garland needs to be concerned about the presence of dogfighters in Cornwall. The mere fact that Buzz was found near Helston is a pretty good indication that they very well could be operating in that area.

After all the fine work that she has done in rescuing and socializing Buzz it would be a tragedy beyond words if she were now to lose him to either a Husky, a pack of foxhounds, another dogfighter, or some other vicious canine. Fortunately, now that he has been sterilized he apparently does not do all that much roaming.

"He rarely moves off the sofa or my bed," Garland told Your Cat. "He goes out for an hour, but just sits near my car and then comes back in and goes back onto my bed"

By allowing him out into her driveway and garden for even brief periods of time Garland is playing Russian roulette with his life. That is because neither dogs nor most of their owners have so much as an ounce of respect for either private property or the lives of cats.

Most harrowing of all, it only takes a few seconds for a dog to stray onto private property and to kill a cat. Worst still, there are many owners who deliberately sic their dogs on them.  (See Cat Defender posts of March 24, 2010,  October 28, 2013, July 18, 2015, and September 22, 2019 entitled, respectively, "Seven-Month-Old Bailey Is Fed to a Lurcher by a Group of Sadistic Teens in Search of Cheap Thrills in Northern Ireland," "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," "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," and "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.")

Now that he is all grown up, even Loki poses a potential threat to Buzz. After all, it is awfully easy for seemingly innocuous playing and horsing around between a cat and a dog to turn deadly. (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.")

In addition to persuading Buzz to get along with Loki, Garland has additionally succeeded in getting him to accept her partner and other people as well. "Buzz also used to be very fearful of other people and would try to bite them whenever anyone tried to stroke him -- particularly my partner," she told Your Cat. "Now however, Buzz will let total strangers stroke him; he's so trusting and happy."

That is all right but only so long as Buzz is confined and Garland is present. People are far more evil than vicious, unsocialized dogs and no stranger can ever be trusted to be alone with a cat.

The objective therefore should be not to socialize a cat too much. A healthy distrust of all individuals, except their owners and other family members, is highly beneficial for the continued safety and well-being of any cat. 

On the other hand, trusting strangers has led to many cats being murdered. (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.")

Judging from the photographs of him that have been posted online, Buzz appears to have put on a considerable amount of weight and that, although fairly common for castrated toms that no longer roam

as well as for those cats that have been forced to endure prolonged periods of hunger, does not bode well for his long-term health. Considering that it is far too dangerous to allow him to roam, that leaves Garland with the only alternative of either reducing his caloric intake or of improvising a safe way in order to get him more exercise. If she has not done so already, putting him in a harness and walking him on a leash would be an option worth considering.

"...Buzz is without a doubt the most affectionate cat I've ever had," she vouched to Your Cat. "I love Buzz

to bits and we are so lucky to find each other."

Although it is highly commendable that she feels that way, love is not always sufficient in itself. Rather, she additionally needs to be willing to adopt measures that will keep him both safe and healthy.

Considering all the hell that he has been put through, he most assuredly is deserving of at least that much. He is above all else a survivor and that is not any mean achievement for a cat in this miserable, ailurophobic world and that goes double for one that has survived being used as dog bait.

Photos: Your Cat Magazine.

A Florida Woman Is Arrested and Sent to Jail after She Goes Berserk and Throws Her Lover's Cat, Stanley, into the Intracoastal Waterway

Stanley Became the Victim of a Lovers' Spat

"...she demanded to be taken to jail so she could make a phone call, bond out and kill her ex-boyfriend."
-- the Volusia County Sheriff's Office

Fifty-three-year-old Christa Anne Thistle is a big and powerfully-built woman who looks like she could play middle linebacker for the Green Bay Packers. She also has a vile temper and is prone to violence.

The details are rather shaky but for an undetermined period of time she had been living with an unidentified man in her RV at the Riverwood Park Campground in Oak Hill, forty-three kilometers south of Daytona Beach on the banks of the three-thousand-mile-long Intracoastal Waterway. Not only is that facility open year-round, but it offers campers such much needed amenities as restrooms, hot showers, and a laundry.

For an undisclosed reason, that relationship went up in smoke early on the evening of August 19th when she ordered her boyfriend to vacate her RV. When he failed to have shaken a leg as quickly as she would have liked, she took matters into her own hands by tossing out his belongings and upturning some food that he was preparing for dinner.

If she had had the bon sens to have stopped there, the outside world likely never would have known that she even so much as existed. Thistle, however, is anything but either a rational or a law-abiding woman.

So, in her rage to get back at her boyfriend, she grabbed the cage containing his brown and white cat, Stanley, and hurled it into the Intracoastal Waterway. That woman who in Hughie Cannon's 1902 Dixieland classic tossed out Bill Bailey with "nothing but a fine-tooth comb" has not got anything on her.

Not about to stand idly by while his beloved companion drowned, the man promptly jumped into the waist-deep water and pulled Stanley to shore. Although the attack had left him soaking wet, shivering, and no doubt frightened to death, he came away from that terrible ordeal unharmed.

Nevertheless, he had been submerged for about twenty seconds and most assuredly would have drowned if it had not been for the heroics of his faithful owner. He now hopefully understands that the welcome mat that the campground keeps out for cats only applies to management and not necessarily to all campers, especially wild and violent women. 

Either her boyfriend or another camper then notified the Volusia County Sheriff's Office in Deland, fifty-nine kilometers west of Oak Hill, but when the deputies arrived on the scene Thistle vehemently denied throwing Stanley into the drink. Based upon the readily observable facts that he was soaking wet and his owner was wet up to his waist, the deputies wisely believed the boyfriend's version of events and arrested Thistle and charged her with animal cruelty. (See the New York Post, August 23, 2021, "Florida Woman Throws Cat into River During Fight with Ex-Boyfriend: Cops.")

Unwilling to let bad enough alone, she continued to shoot off her mouth and that in turn served only to land her in even more trouble. She thus was additionally charged with simple assault after "she demanded to be taken to jail so she could make a phone call, bond out and kill her ex-boyfriend," the Volusia County Sheriff's Office announced the following morning on its Facebook page. 

Christa Ann Thistle Is a Violent Woman

Always willing to accommodate deserving members of the public, the deputies honored her request by treating her to a free ride to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach where her bail was set at US$5,000. Since no additional press reports regarding this matter have appeared online, it is not known how quickly that she was able to have made bail.

Some good did come out of that exercise, however, in that the time she was forced to spend cooling her heels as a guest of the county did allow her to calm down a bit because, as far as it is known, her boyfriend is still being counted among the living. 

This episode does, however, highlight the utter travesty of the animal protection laws in this country. For instance, if she had not made that threat against her boyfriend's life, the most that she would have received for attempting to drown Stanley would likely have been a desk appearance ticket. In other words, human life counts for everything but the life of a cat counts for little or nothing.

If the boyfriend should fail to testify against her in court, Thistle will in all probability walk. In an attempt to make sure that does not happen, Lady Freethinker of Santa Monica has started an online petition imploring R.J. Larizza, the state attorney for the Seventh Judicial Circuit which includes the counties of Volusia, Flagler, Putnam, and St. Johns, to prosecute her to the fullest extent of the law. (See Lady Freethinker, September 18, 2021, "Justice for Cat Trapped in Crate and Thrown into River.")

The only thing positive that can be said in her defense is that her behavior appears to have been a spur of the moment aberration brought on by eros whereas just about all other drowning cases involving cats are acts of premeditation. (See Cat Defender posts of January 13, 2006, May 20, 2008, August 9, 2010, September 27, 2010, March 25, 2011, and July 9, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Montana Firefighters Rescue a 'Lucky' Calico Cat Who Was Caged and Purposefully Thrown into an Icy River," "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," "Sunday Afternoon Boaters Pluck Splat Out of Clouter Creek after She Is Thrown Off the Mark Clark Expressway Bridge in Charleston," "Caged, Shot Thirty Times with an Air Gun and Then Tossed into the Bay to Drown, Lovey Is Rescued in the Middle of the Night by a Good Samaritan," "Compassionate Construction Workers Interrupt Their Busy Day in Order to Rescue Chabot-Matrix from a Stream in Maine," and "Dumped in the Normans Kill, Chance Did Not Have a Prayer in Hell Until a Jogger Who Had Turned Off the Music Heard His Plaintive Cries for Help.")

The same is most definitely true of those cats that are dumped on bridges. (See Cat Defender posts of July 6, 2009 and August 12, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Miracle Survives a Drowning Attempt on the McClugage Bridge an Later Hitchhikes a Ride to Safety Underneath the Car of a Compassionate Motorist" and "Gia and Mr. T. Survive Separate Attempts Made on Their Lives after They Are Abandoned on Busy Bridges During Inclement Weather.")

The one thing that the majority of those cats share in common with Stanley is that they were all caged before being tossed into the water. Although the owners of Splat, Chabot-Matrix, Miracle, Gia, and Mr. T. elected not to confine them, that only means that they were too cheap and lazy to have gone to the trouble of purchasing cages.

Neither the cops nor animal protection groups ever bothered to so much as to look into any of those cases and, considering the high level of corruption that exists throughout the judiciary, it would not have made much difference anyway. For example, when Laurence E. Thayer of Brookfield, Massachusetts, and Donald Curtis Hunt of Norge, Virginia, were caught redhanded drowning kittens they were not punished. (See Cat Defender posts of July 3, 2006, October 23, 2007, and May 14, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Crooked Massachusetts Cops Allow an Elderly Politician to Get Away with Attempting to Drown a Kitten Named Lucky Girl" "Virginia Does It Again!: A Farmer Who Drowned at Least Five Cats Gets Off with a Slap-on-the-Wrists," and "Virginia Is for Cat Killers, Not Lovers, Now That Its Legal Establishment Has Sanctioned Donald Curtis Hunt's Drowning of Five Kittens.")

As for Stanley, he was taken to Volusia County Animal Services in Daytona Beach as a precautionary measure. Presumably he has now been reunited with his owner but the dust-up with Thistle has left them, at least temporarily, without a place to call home.

Christa Anne Thistle Is Handcuffed and Led Off to the Pokey

No reason has been advanced as to what precipitated Thistle's violent outburst against her boyfriend, but it is always possible that she was jealous of the time and devotion that he was lavishing on Stanley. On the other hand, he could have been merely a convenient bystander that she singled out as the object of her spleen. 

While it is conceivable that they could have patched things up by now and be back together, such a lovey-dovey arrangement does not augur well for Stanley's safety and continued good health. The boyfriend accordingly would be a bloody fool if he were to ever again allow Thistle anywhere near Stanley.

It is one thing for lovers to fight tooth and nail but once either party commences attacking the other's cat it is time to end the relationship. Moreover, it is risky business for cat owners to hook up with partners who do not like members of the species.

Although it is overwhelmingly men, such as Joseph Petcka and Declan Garrity, who assault their girlfriends' feline companions, Thistle's assault upon Stanley is living proof that at least some women are more than capable of the same abhorrent behavior. (See the New York Daily News, September 28, 2008, "Cat-Killer Joseph Petcka Treated Me Like an Animal -- Ex-Girlfriend," the New York Post, December 18, 2009, "Cat-Killer Petcka Sentence (sic) to Community Service," the New York Daily News, February 26, 2016, "Cat-Torturing Goon Tricked Pet's Owner into Thinking He Was 'Best Roommate Ever' while Sadistically Burning, Beating Animal for Three Months," and the Belfast Telegraph, March 3, 2016, "New York Cops Rearrest Northern Ireland Man Accused of Cat Torture after He Ignores Ruling by Judge.")

Most perplexing of all, it is difficult to fathom what any mature man would ever want with a woman. First of all, there is the dilemma of finding a suitable partner and that immediately eliminates all youngbloods; they are cemetery bait.

Secondly, there is he problem of desirability. "Someone asked (an elderly) Sophocles: 'How is your sex life now? Are you still able to have a woman?' " Plato relates in Book I of The Republic. "He replied: 'Hush, man. Most gladly am I rid of it all, as though I had escaped a mad and savage master'."

Thirdly, there is the fear of being driven so mad by eros as to commit unjust acts. "When one is doing evil 'tis madness to stop halfway," archdeacon Claude Frollo, who resorted to all sorts of criminalities in his futile attempt to win the heart of the provocative Esmeralda, lamented in Victor Hugo's 1831 novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. "The extremity of guilt has its delirium of rapture."

Fourthly, keeping a cat is undeniably cheaper, less bothersome, and considerably less exhausting than doing likewise with a woman. (See Cat Defender post of February 17, 2018 entitled "Forget about Women! Adopting a Cat Is a Far More Rewarding Alternative for Some Guys Who Are Searching for Their Forever Valentines.")

Of course, it is an entirely different matter for young bucks who simply must have what only a woman can provide. Nevertheless, even if contrary to all reason Stanley's love and companionship is not enough for the boyfriend and he still insists upon having a woman, he surely can do better than the rough and tumble Thistle.

Photos: Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

Keller and Anne Are Waging Heroic Battles in Order to Stay Alive but They Are Trapped in Cruel and Inhumane Sioux City Where It Is a Capital Offense for a Cat to So Much as Dare to Exist

Keller, Tragically, Does Not Have Any Eyes

"They wanted to test it (the tumor) but we felt we just really didn't want to know."

-- Cindy Rarrat of Sioux City Animal Adoption and Rescue 

To abandon a cat under any circumstance is a simply horrific thing to do but to abandon two of them in one fell swoop is even worse. That is especially the case if both of them are suffering from life-threatening ailments.

As unconscionable and heartbreaking as that may be, it is nevertheless the cruel fate that has befallen a pair of good looking young tuxedoes named Keller and Anne. Their desperate plight first became known on August 9th when they were reportedly picked up by Animal Control officers belonging to Sioux City Animal Adoption and Rescue (SCAAR), which in turn is a privately owned business. Known as Hannah Incorporated, it does Sioux City's dirty work for it by rounding up, incarcerating, and exterminating en masse its unwanted, abandoned, and homeless cats.

The tuxedoes were supposedly snared on the 3300 block of Pierce Street and then impounded at SCAAR's shelter at 2400 Hawkeye Drive. Keller, who has been named in honor of the world famous pioneer for the blind, Helen Keller (1880-1968), is believed to be between nine and twelve months old and is, like his namesake, sadly blind. 

"It was obvious at the time that the male had visual impairment to the point of having no eyes," Chris Wall, vice president of Hannah, pointed out the obvious to the ever obliging  KCAU-TV of Sioux City on August 13th. (See "'Seeing Eye' Cat Helps Feline Friend at Animal Rescue.") "He's just sort of got the sockets where the eyes were."

As far as it is known, Keller's condition is congenital as opposed to having been the result of some despicable act of ailurophobia. It also would appear to be irreversible, save for him being adopted by a tycoon. Bad luck, like a malevolent shadow, just seems to follow the vast majority of cats from womb to tomb.

No mention whatsoever was made at that time about Anne's health but in a video that accompanied the story as well as in photographs of her that have been posted on SCAAR's adoption page there certainly did not appear to be anything wrong with her. Equally importantly, it was immediately evident that she serves not only as Keller's protector but as his eyes as well. The shelter accordingly named her in honor of Helen Keller's longtime teacher and companion, Anne Sullivan (1866-1936).

Owing to their striking similarities in appearances and the way that they walk in step and bounce off of each other in order to safely get around, it also was apparent that they are closely related and most likely mother and son. "Now these cats are probably the most bonded cats that I've ever seen," Wall swore to KCAU-TV.  

Their appearances and personalities additionally strongly indicated that up until fairly recently they had had a home and an owner. " ..."because they  appear to be so well kept, so nice (and) affectionate, we think that somewhere there is an owner," Wall speculated to KCAU-TV.

It could be that Keller's owner wearied of looking after him and decided to get rid of both him and his mother. Also, many owners go en vacances during the month of August and cruelly leave behind their cats with the hope that they will no longer be around once that they return home.

SCAAR therefore pledged to hold them for seven days, until August 16th, just in case their former owner should have a change of heart. The obvious problem with such thinking is that individuals who abandon cats do not have hearts to change.

When, not surprisingly, no one came forward to reclaim them they were put up for adoption with only two restrictions. First of all, the shelter  mandated that they should go only to a home that did not contain any other pets and children that could potentially make life difficult for Keller. Secondly, because his handicap would make it far too dangerous for him to go outside, it stipulated that he and his mother be kept indoors. 

Although most individuals are far too uncaring and selfish to ever even entertain the notion of adopting a blind cat, Keller's and Anne's scintillating personalities should have turned the tide in their favor. "They appear to be fabulously friendly cats," Wall added to KCAU-TV. "They were very, very lovey. As soon as I opened the cage door they came forward and wanted their loving."

Despite their obvious merits, SCAAR was unable to find any takers. It thus would appear that the hard-hearted citizens of Sioux City do not have any more regard for friendly cats than they do for those that are standoffish, unsocialized, and just plain frightened to death of humans..

Undeterred, the shelter vowed not to give up on them but even more importantly not to split them up. "I couldn't separate them with a crowbar," Wall swore to KCAU-TV.

That was the first indication that SCAAR was not being completely truthful with the public because in some early photographs of them that were posted on its adoption page they appear to be housed in separate cages. It was only later that photographs were posted of them together in a much larger cage euphemistically referred to as a condo.

A few weeks later, the slippery eels at SCAAR threw another monkey wrench into the works by announcing out of the blue on their adoption page that they had successfully introduced an eight-week-old brown female kitten named Trixie to Keller and Anne and that the trio was now up for adoption. That was especially odd given that the shelter had been unable to find a home for Keller and Anne and it is undeniably more difficult to secure a home for three cats than it is for two of them. 

Lovely Anne Is Fighting an Uphill Battle Against Nasal Cancer

For whatever it is worth, the story that the shelter is peddling to the public is that Trixie and her sister, Traci, 

were picked up by its Animal Control officers on the 400 block of West 03 (sic) Street and that she had been placed in Keller and Anne's condo because she could not stop crying. That in itself certainly seems plausible enough in that she surely was justifiably frightened to death after having been separated so early from both her mother and Traci.

 

As for Traci, nothing further has been heard about her and her photograph has not been posted on Hannah's adoption page. Like millions of other kittens and cats, she seemingly has vanished into the nether world of shelters, Animal Control, and cops.

Nothing further was heard about the trio for several weeks but when SCAAR finally did break its drought of silence it wasted little time in demonstrating that it had lied to the public about quite a few things. "It was a unique situation in the respect that we impounded the blind cat first, and the blind cat had no eyeballs and was not neutered," is the latest version of events that Cindy Rarrat, president and owner of Hannah, was peddling to her lackeys at KCAU-TV on September 23rd. (See "A Purrfect Trio: Kitten Introduced to 'Seeing Eye' Cat and Blind Feline.") "As soon as we got him in and he was lost, very confused. Within a day or so, we ended up getting the female in which we assume is his mother."

 
Several things need to be said about Rarrat's revelations. First of all, it was the very epitome of cruelty for her Animal Control officers to have taken Keller away from his mother in the first place. Secondly, it was callous of both them and the shelter to have believed for one moment that he would have been anything other than frightened to death and worried sick as the result of being subjected to such an upheaval.

Thirdly, that certainly was an odd way for Animal Control to operate in that its officers surely must have known from the very beginning that the cats were a pair and that Keller depended upon Anne to serve as his eyes. One possible explanation could be that they had frightened away Anne and thus were forced into returning to Pierce Street in order to subsequently trap her.

Fourthly, the mere fact that the officers were able have relocated and trapped Anne so quickly raises the possibility that she and Keller were not abandoned as Rarrat and Wall have claimed all along but rather voluntarily surrendered. The shelter accordingly could have willingly taken in Keller but once it found out just how difficult it is to care for a blind cat it ordered its Animal Control officers to go back and collect Anne. That also would explain how that they were able to so quickly relocate her.

While she was at it, Rarrat went on to admit that Trixie was not the first cat that the shelter had attempted to introduce to Keller and Anne. "The mother cat did not accept any other cats because she'd been protecting him all of his life, and so we took a kitten," she finally confided to KCAU-TV on September 23rd. "And it was one of our kittens that was very unique, he (sic) was, he's (sic) got a ton of personality and he (sic) just was just a different and a unique personality."

That ploy worked out even better than she could have imagined. "So we put him (sic) in with them and they love each other," Rarrat continued to KCAU-TV. "I've been here thirty-seven years and I've never come across a situation like this."

She even went so far as to disclose a tiny bit of her shelter's methodology. "We use balls, a ball with a bell in it, so that he can hear exactly where the ball is," she explained to KCAU-TV on September 23rd. "The kitten, it's just great to see them walk together because they walk together in unison, especially him and his mother, and the kitten is learning as well. So it's just learned behavior. They know that he has an eye issue."

It took Rarrat seemingly forever to get around to explaining the presence of Trixie but when she finally did the answer to that conundrum proved to be even more heartbreaking than Keller's blindness. "We found out that there was something wrong with her mouth, so after she was spayed, we took her back in and she had to have all of her teeth removed, and she had a large tumor in her sinus cavity," she revealed to KCAU- TV. "That has since been removed." 

It therefore is entirely possible that her former owner knew about the tumor and for that reason decided to get rid of both her and Keller. If so, that individual should be hounded down, arrested, and jailed for a very long time.

Given that nasal tumors account for only one per cent of all such afflictions in cats and even then they are primarily found in those that are middle-aged and elderly, it thus would be fair to conclude that Anne's luck is even far worse than that of her ill-fated son. The only positive thing that can be said about this tragic turn of events is that she, at least in the videos and photographs of her that have been posted online, has not exhibited any of the ugly bulges on her nose or the swelling and facial deformities that are found in many feline victims of this terrible disease.

There accordingly must have been other less obvious symptoms which first attracted the attention of SCAAR's veterinarians, such as difficulties in chewing, bad breath, weight loss, lethargy, and possibly even anorexia. Other common symptoms of the malady include, inter alia, nasal discharges, bleeding, sneezing, and breathing difficulties. Some cats even have been known to suffer seizures and ocular impairments.

These tumors are usually treated with either radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery. It is only one opinion, but the practitioners at Long Island Veterinary Specialists in Plainview do not recommend surgery because it usually is extremely difficult to excise all of the abnormal growth. (See "Feline Nasal Tumors" an undated article posted on the surgery's web site.)

Furthermore, it normally takes several weeks for a cat to recover from one of these procedures and even then the administration of powerful NSAIDs, such as Piroxicam and Meloxicam, are sometimes prescribed in order to treat the pain and they in turn can be rather hard on the stomach, kidneys, and heart. Even after putting a cat through all of that hell, only an estimated fifty per cent of them live for as long as a year or longer.

Sometimes these cancers can not only return to their noses but also spread to their lungs, stomach, and brains. Fungal infections are another concern.

It therefore is imperative that Anne be closely monitored by periodical blood tests, urinalyses, radiographs, CT scans of her lungs, abdominal ultrasounds, and fine needle aspirations of her lymph nodes. Reprehensibly, SCAAR apparently does not have any intention whatsoever of providing her with either any monitoring or follow-up care.

Anne and Keller Together -- but for How Much Longer?

"They (the surgeons) wanted to test it (the tumor) but we felt we just really didn't want to know," Rarrat shamelessly acknowledged to her buddies at KCAU-TV on September 23rd.

Her refusal to provide Anne with the follow-up care and monitoring that she so desperately needs and so richly deserves in order to go on living is so cruel, cheap, immoral, and irresponsible as to constitute an egregious offense under the animal cruelty laws. Likewise, the veterinarians who are conspiring with her in order to let Anne flounder and die should have their licenses to practice veterinary medicine permanently revoked.

It thus is at long last finally became clear why that SCAAR has been making such a fuss over Trixie: she is being groomed to take Anne's place as Keller's eyes and protector once that she is gone.

There is not anything wrong with that but SCAAR has moral and professional obligations to Anne that it should not under any circumstances be allowed to shirk. Most pressingly, she needs monitoring and follow-up care. Beyond that, she needs a special diet because she no longer has any teeth and is battling cancer as well.

As for Keller, he should be fine so long as he has his mother to guide and watch over him. He might even be able to make it if Trixie remains faithful by his side but whether or not she is going to be willing to faithfully fulfill that role remains to be determined.

No cause has been given as to the source of Anne's cancer but secondhand tobacco smoke very well could be the culprit. If so, Keller undoubtedly has been subjected to not only the same toxic fumes but he also likely has ingested some of the carcinogens as well while grooming himself.

Therefore, if he has not already been tested for cancer, it is imperative that SCAAR not only do that immediately but continue to vigilantly monitor his health. (See Cat Defender post of October 19, 2007 entitled "Smokers Are Killing Their Cats, Dogs, Birds, and Infants by Continuing to Light Up in Their Presence.")  

The only thing percolating through Rarrat's warped gourd, however, is getting rid of Keller, Anne, and Trixie as quickly and as inexpensively as possible. "We have to find somebody that will adopt three cats, and let alone two cats and let alone one cat," she told KCAU-TV on September 23rd. "So, we've been looking for that special home, that special someone that would give these guys a chance."

Barring the unexpected materialization of a white knight in shining armor from out of the ether, that is not about to happen. If SCAAR were even halfway serious about finding them a home it would volunteer to pick up the tab for their continued veterinary care for anyone who would be willing to either foster or to adopt them but that does not seem likely. 

Even as things now stand, the only reason that SCAAR has not already whacked them is that all three of them have financial sponsors within the community. In particular, Kayla S. is financially backing Anne and Keller whereas Diane and Aubrey B. are generously doing likewise for Trixie.

Sooner or later, however, the money is going to run out and they are going to find themselves up the spout. The local PetSmart does take a few cats off of SCAAR's hands but it is not known how much patience that it has with those that are difficult to place.

Noah's Ark Animal Rescue at 2601 Myrtle Street is another possibility but it only accepts animals that it is able to place with fosterers. Besides, its primary interest lies in helping dogs.

It thus would appear that the only way that Keller's, Anne's, and Trixie's lives can be spared is for either an individual or a feline rescue group from outside of Sioux City to intervene and ransom them off of death row. It is a foregone conclusion that a bloodsucker like Rarrat is never going to voluntarily surrender them unless she is first paid and handsomely at that.

Like all professional cat killers, she is also a highly skilled liar. "Absolutely no animal is put to sleep just because he or she has been with us for a long time," SCAAR declares unequivocally on its web site. "There is no 'clock' ticking as soon as an animal is brought in."

Those are totally disingenuous statements because there are, quite obviously, other reasons besides time constraints that prompt shelters to kill cats. "We rehome one-hundred per cent of the adoptable pets that come into the shelter -- regardless how long it takes; until a suitable placement is found, our home is theirs," the shelter continues with its verbal leger de main.

The operative words in that last declaration are "adoptable" and "pets." What Rarrat does is to simply classify all the cats that she does not want to be either feral, wild, aggressive, and sickly and in turn to slaughter them in droves. It likewise is superfluous to point out that she most definitely does not consider any of them to be pets.

Trixie Is a Noble and Kindhearted Kitten

The same load of malarkey is to be found on the web site of SCAAR's fellow partner in crime, the Siouxland Humane Society, at 1015 Tri View Avenue. "We find homes for one-hundred per cent of adoptable cats," it boldly declares.

In fact, SCAAR already has greased the skids for both Anne and Keller by refusing to provide them with the veterinary care that they so desperately require. It never will come clean in a million year but it most definitely whacks scores of cats for both financial and spatial reasons.

After all, Hannah is above all else a sleazy, bloodsucking capitalistic institution concerned only with how much money that it can get its hands on with, predictably, the least amount of effort. For example, according to Buff File it was founded in 1999 and has annual revenues of US$152,714.

Without being privy to either the minutiae of SCAAR's financial arrangement with Sioux City's equally greedy and murderous politicians or its actual operating expenses, it is impossible to know exactly how much to make of that limited data. Nevertheless, it would be surprising if Rarrat were not raking in the greenbacks with both hands. Needless to say, she is not operating SCAAR out of the goodness of her black heart.

Compounding an already abhorrent situation, Rarrat is too cheap to hire anything other than a skeleton crew. For instance, according to Buff File Hannah only has five employees and two of them are surely herself and Wall. Plus, as recently as 2010 two of the remaining three workers on Hannah's payroll were Animal Control officers Jake Appel and Cody Harrington. 

If the information contained at Buff File is accurate, that leaves only one other employee to take care of all the animals that its Animal Control officers round up and impound. The remainder of its manpower is supplied by unpaid volunteers.

It thus relies upon its web site, KCAU-TV, and PetSmart to save the handful of cats that it does not kill. That in a nutshell is Hannah's business model and it is sans doute a highly profitable one at that. 

Perhaps most damning of all, the Happy Tails section of its web page does not include a solitary cat; all of the successful adoptions that it advertises involve dogs. Its Facebook page likewise contains more of the same in that there are story after story about dogs but the only ones that relate to cats are lost notices that have been posted by aggrieved owners.  

SCAAR advertises cats and kittens for US$50 but it is surprisingly silent as to how much that it charges for its dogs. Based upon practices elsewhere, it surely must be getting either double or triple that amount for them.

It is the same old story with shelters everywhere in that their operators treat cats like second-class citizens and go out of their way in order to give them the shaft. Perhaps worst of all, almost none of these wretched hellholes even bother to so much as to bring them out alive whenever conflagrations erupt.

For example, when a fire broke out at the Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando on Conroy Road on September 15th staffers safely rescued all twenty-six of their canine inmates but deliberately left twenty-three cats behind to be burned alive. (See WESH-TV of Orlando, September 26, 2021, "Officials Believe Twenty to Thirty Cats Killed in Fire at Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando.")

 

Mark Twain was most assuredly well aware of not only that difference in people but the corresponding prejudice that is manifested in their behavior. "A man's treatment of a dog is no indication of the man's nature, but his treatment of a cat is," he argued in 1902 in "Winter-end Excursion to the Sutherd." "It is the crucial test. None but the humane treat a cat well."

Furthermore, the feline death toll in Orlando was not by any means an isolated incidence. On the contrary, hardly a week passes by without there being at least one such report in the media with the same identical results.

There are two reasons as to why the outcome is always the same. First of all, dogs are far more valuable to shelters in that they are able to sell them back to the public for double or triple what they can get for cats. Secondly, since most shelters kill just about all the cats that they impound they do not see any reason to rescue them; consequently, they are more than happy to stand back and watch them being burned to a crisp.

Although SCAAR claims to save one-hundred per cent of its "adoptable" cats, it does not claim to be a no-kill facility and it would not make much difference if it did because most of them admittedly kill up to thirty per cent of the animals that they impound. (See Cat Defender posts of July 29, 2010 and October 23, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Benicia Vallejo Humane Society Is Outsourcing the Mass Killing of Kittens and Cats All the While Masquerading as a No-Kill Shelter" and "A Supposedly No-Kill Operation in Marblehead Betrays Sally and Snuffs Out Her Life Instead of Providing Her with a Home and Veterinary Care.")

In fact, SCAAR does not publicly disclose any of its intake and adoption statistics and even if it did they surely would be nothing but fabrications. First of all, for such statistics to have even so much as a shred of validity they would need to be compiled by an independent ombudsman not connected in any way to either SCAAR or Sioux City. Secondly, an outside monitor would need to accompany all Animal Control officers and cops as they make their daily rounds in order to record every cat and kitten that they summarily execute in the field and then surreptitiously dispose of their corpses.

For example, in North Sioux City, twelve kilometers northwest of Sioux City, a cop was caught in 2019 rounding up cats and kittens and then taking them to a graveyard and shooting them. It accordingly would not be the least bit surprising if the same dastardly deeds were not being perpetrated in Sioux City. (See Cat Defender posts of June 14, 2019 and January 2, 2020 entitled, respectively, "A South Dakota Police Officer Is Unmasked, Fired, and Arrested for Shooting Cats but It Is Highly Unlikely That He Will Be Punished or That This Will Be the Last of These Illegal Executions" and "A North Sioux City Police Officer Who Stole and Shot Cats Is Shown Nothing but Love by a Morally Depraved Good Old Girl Jurist Who Is Not Even Fit to Clean Toilets.") , 

Keller, Trixie, and Anne in Their Condo

If per chance there should be any lingering doubts as to the gargantuan amount of greed, laziness, cheapness, mendacity, and ailurophobia that lurks in Rarrat's malignant bosom, she quickly dispelled them when she appeared before city council about a year ago in order to demand that the seven-day holding period for feral cats be reduced to three. 

"We just ask that with the feral cat population, because we get so many of them, that we be able to reduce our time to keep them, so that we can place them, get them spayed or neutered and place them in farm homes or, sometimes euthanasia is going to have to happen," she told that five-member panel, which is comprised of Pete Groetken, Dan Moore, Julie Schoenherr, Alex Watters, and Mayor Bob Scott, according to the Sioux City Journal on October 26, 2020. (See "Sioux City Council Votes to Revise Ordinance Involving Feral Cats.")

First of all, nobody can distinguish with any degree of accuracy between a homeless and a domiciled cat. Much more importantly, the entire notion of dividing cats into domestics and ferals is just downright dishonest and stupid. Like humans, cats also exhibit varying levels of friendliness and sociability.

Secondly, those that are homeless should have just as much of a right to go on living as do those that have owners. Thirdly, any shelter that impounds and kills cats is not about to waste very much in the way of resources on either finding them homes or sterilizing them. Fourthly, euthanasia is not something that just happens; rather, it is cold-blooded, calculated murder that is carried out by diabolical monsters like Rarrat.

From that inauspicious beginning, she quickly moved on to align herself with the arch villains at PETA by endorsing the fraudsters' dogma that it is cruel to cage a cat for seven days. (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.")

In making such a morally repugnant and asinine statement, Rarrat is implying that killing a cat is not cruel and that is more of her outrageous balderdash. (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.")

After throwing up that smokescreen, Old Rarrat Bird then proceeded to divulge her true motives. "It's dangerous for the people who are handling it," she declared to the Sioux City Journal. "It's very stressful for the animal. And, we're just trying to expedite this more quickly." (Note how that she is all the time referring to cats at "it" and is unable to even keep straight the sexes of her cats.)

C'est-à-dire, whacking cats and kittens soon after they are impounded is not only cheaper but it saves manpower as well. Being every bit as morally bankrupt and patently dishonest as she herself, city council wasted little time in unanimously endorsing her cost-cutting initiative.

To his credit, old Groetken did briefly broach the subject of TNR but Rarrat was not having any part of that. "We get a lot of complaints that come in from citizens that do not want them (the cats) in their neighborhoods," she countered to the Sioux City Journal. "They are destroying property and things like that, so we still have to deal with them no matter what we do."

In other words, dead cats are not only easier to deal with but cheaper and less trouble to boot.

If any of the lackeys who sit on city council had either any intelligence or responsibility they would have demanded that Rarrat quantified the number of complaints that she has received from the public. Considering the huge number of cats and kittens that she and her henchmen liquidate every day there could not possibly be all that many of them left in town.

Secondly, the politicians should have demanded that she explained exactly what "property and things" that cats have been accused of destroying. When not so much as a dissenting voice was anywhere to be heard in council chambers, the old fire-breathing capitalist hurried on to argue that TNR was expensive to implement and to maintain.

"It would have to be a collaboration of veterinarians, of ourselves, along with getting grants and things like that to be able to provide a good program," she, with an eye trained on her own bottom line, howled to the Sioux City Journal. 

It is difficult to imagine a bigger and fatter lie than that! On the contrary, all TNR programs are run by private individuals who not only foot the bill for their cats food, water, and shelter but additionally pay for their sterilization vaccinations, and emergency veterinary care.

As far as members of the scurvy veterinary medical profession are concerned, their only involvement in TNR is the exorbitant fees that they charge TNR practitioners in order to sterilize, vaccinate, and medicate their cats. They dearly covet all the money that they make off of TNR but, being the colossal hypocrites and phonies that they are, they expect a bonus for their meager toils and they get it by constantly publicly denigrating all cats but especially those that are homeless.

In that respect, their attitude is much like that of the honky-donkeys and Asians who get filthy rich by peddling rotgut at their highly profitable ghetto liquor stores but yet are all the time running down their clientele for being drunkards and bums. (See Cat Defender post of August 14, 2021 entitled "Amazing Little Juicebox Overcomes Not Only a Near Fatal Mauling at the Hands of His Owner's Dog but also Penury and Being Cruelly Abandoned to Shift for Himself Inside the Snake Pit World of Veterinary Medicine.")

It is almost superfluous to add but shelters and Animal Control never have had much of anything to do with TNR. Finally, if any TNR practitioners ever waited around for a grant to come through both they and their cats would be long dead and their bones turned to dust before any moola was forthcoming from either the public or the private sectors.

Rarrat next went on to claim that it was virtually impossible to locate a neighborhood where cats could be safely released. On the face of it that is an amazing admission considering that Sioux City has an area of sixty square miles but a human population of only eighty-three-thousand.

Grace with a Three-Inch Nail Embedded in Her Brain

If that is indeed the case, then the blame for the rabid ailurophobia that grips Sioux City can be laid at the feet of Rarrat and city council for fostering such a toxic environment. Besides, it is her responsibility to enforce the anti-cruelty statutes but she is too cheap and lazy to do even that.

For example, in May of 2010 a beautiful, brown-colored female named Grace was robbed of the vision in her left eye when she was shot in the face by an assailant armed with a nail gun. The only justice that she ever received from Rarrat, however, consisted of a feast of insincere public posturing.

"If we've got somebody out there with a nail gun that's doing things to animals, the whole community should be concerned 'cause this is just a (sic) horrific act the owners need to be prosecuted for and they will be" she vowed to Radio Iowa on May 24, 2010. (See "Sioux City Cat Recovering from Nail Driven in Its Head.")

That certainly never occurred and it is extremely doubtful that Rarrat even bothered to so much as to open a cursory investigation into that despicable act of cruelty to a cat. (See Cat Defender posts of June 1, 2010 and July 6, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Grace Survives Being Shot Point Blank Between the Eyes by a Monster with a Nail Gun but the Authorities in Sioux City Refuse to Even Investigate the Attack" and "Grace Is Out of the Hospital and Has a New Home but Her Nail Gun Assailant Remains as Free as a Bird Thanks to the Authorities' Dereliction of Duty.")

By this time Old Rarrat Bird was wound up as tight as a spring, blowing like a hurricane, and feeling her oats even more so than usual. Not surprisingly, she next informed the blockheads on city council that if they wanted to implement a TNR program they would have to amend the city's leash and licensing laws pertaining to cats.

Like North Sioux City, Sioux City requires that all cats be vaccinated, licensed, and walked on leashes whenever they are outside. Such draconian laws in effect criminalize cats for so much as daring to exist and legalizes their seizure and extermination without first providing them with so much as an iota of due process of law.

Worst of all, there are not any known feline protection groups in either Sioux City or the Siouxland and that in turn has left all cats to the mercy of Rarrat, her Animal Control officers, and the cops. No one speaks up for them at city council meetings and the only thing that the local media are good for is parroting the lies and sottise that is being spread so profusely by Rarrat and Sioux City's disgraceful and heartless politicians.

Not about to rest on her considerable demerits, Rarrat polished off her anti-cat screed by falsely claiming that all homeless cats are diseased. "Then, you've got the disease factor as well. Most of these wild or feral (cats) before you release them, have to be tested for feline infectious peritonitis or leukemia," she continued in her customary tortured syntax to the Sioux City Journal. "If they test positive for that (sic), you cannot release them because they will infect the whole colony of cats."

Rarrat, like everyone and every group that preaches the gospel that all homeless cats are dirty and diseased, is a bare-faced liar. For example, the Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV) cannot be spread from cats to humans and although it can be transmitted to other cats via the use of shared feeding dishes and litter boxes even that is rare. Besides, outdoor cats do not use litter boxes and whatever remnants of the virus that might be left in their food and water dishes can be easily killed with an application of soap, water, and diluted bleach.

In fact, not all cats that test positive for the virus actually come down with it. Moreover, cats can live normal lives for many years with it and it even sometimes goes away on its own.

Furthermore, studies have shown that FeLV is not any more prevalent in homeless cats than it is in domesticated ones. (See the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, March 1, 2002, "Prevalence of Leukemia Virus Infection and Serum Antibodies Against Feline Immunodeficiency Virus in Unowned Free-Roaming Cats.")

Much more to the point, tests for FeLV are unreliable at best and for that reason Alley Cat Allies (ACA) of Bethesda, Maryland, strongly recommends against testing homeless cats for the disease. "There is no need for particular concerns about community cats, who thrive in their outdoor environments," the charity declares in an undated article entitled "Feline Leukemia Virus" that can be found on its web site. "In addition to low rates of FeLV and poor viability of the virus, the cost of testing makes regular community cat FeLV testing irresponsible. Plus these costly tests can provide inconclusive results."

There is yet another far more important reason as to why homeless cats should not be tested for FeLV. "Not only can testing needlessly endanger community cats' lives if their results are positive, it simply isn't worth the money spent," ACA continued.

To make a long story short, ACA persuasively argues that testing for FeLV should be only undertaken "with a plan to help the cat if she tests positive, not to end her life." By contrast, Rarrat and her cronies on city council only use such testing in order to kill cats and as an excuse not to sanction TNR. 

In furtherance of its worthy goals of not only safeguarding all felines but of helping them to live long and healthy lives, ACA counsels that sterilization, not extermination, is the key to controlling the spread of disease. Not only does such an approach interrupt the cycle of the congenital spread of diseases such as FeLV but it also helps to curtail the unnecessary biting that often occurs during mating season. 

Much of ACA's reasoning concerning FeLV applies equally to Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). Although that disease can be transmitted congenitally as well as through saliva and feces, it is not highly contagious.

In fact, it is more of a concern in domesticated cats as opposed to those that are homeless. "FIP most commonly affects cats in multi-cat households and is not as common in outdoor cats," Alley Cat Rescue (ACR) of Mount Rainier, Maryland, states in an undated article entitled "Feline Viral Diseases: FIP, FeLV, and FIV" which can be found on its web site. "This may be because outdoor cats bury their feces away from other group members, while indoor cats usually use the same litter boxes."

The Cat-Killing Monster of Sioux City, Cindy Rarrat

By way of prevention, ACR recommends that food and water bowls be cleansed with soap and water and then rinsed with a 1:32 dilution of bleach and water. Tragically, there is not yet any cure for this almost always fatal feline malady. (See Cat Defender post of September 15, 2016 entitled "Lacey and Her Devoted Owner Wage a Lonely, Terrifying, and Grossly Underfunded Battle Against Feline Infectious Peritonitis but in the End the Deadly Malady Refused to Yield.")

Finally, even a five-year-old child should have the prerequisite smarts in order to see through the dishonest game that Rarrat and the politicians in Sioux City are playing. Every bit as bogus as the common practice that shelters have of shoving pens and pencils into cages in order to allegedly test the aggressiveness of cats, slandering and libeling them as being dirty, diseased, wild, unsocialized, ferals, and strays are simply made-up excuses and derisive monikers designed to justify killing of them in droves.

If Rarrat and her buddies on city council had so much as an ounce of honesty in their rotten bones they would simply come out and admit that they not only hate cats with a passion but that they kill every one of them that they get their filthy on, but they are far too devious for that.  Instead, they attempt to cover their tracks by spewing a pack of lies and in doing so they provide the rationales and sow the seeds for the commission of horrendous acts of animal cruelty against the species.

It therefore is difficult to imagine are more loathsome group of rotters. In this wicked old world, however, it is always the supremely evil people who prosper whereas the animals, Mother Earth, and decent individuals are plowed under and forgotten.

That is the so-called good news. The bad news is that Rarrat has been with SCAAR in one capacity or another for thirty-seven years and she, like the rock of Gibraltar, is not going anywhere. For instance, earlier this year city council renewed her contract for another three years. (See KTIV-TV of Sioux City, May 10, 2021, "City Council Renews Animal Control Contract with Hannah Incorporated.")

Moreover, considering the underhanded way in which business is conducted in Sioux City, she is a sure bet to remain in the catbird's seat until the day that she keels over and dies. As everyone knows, it is hard to kill a bad thing. 

"It's not a fair process, never has been a fair process. I have a problem with the process around here," Mayor Scott belatedly told the Sioux City Journal after the vote on May 10th. (See "Sioux City Council Votes to Negotiate with Hannah Incorporated for Animal Control Services.") "It's weighted for the incumbent in everything we do around here."

He then went on to spell out the shady details. "That means somebody that is inexperienced and younger is never going to get this contract, so I don't know why we bid it. We bid this stuff when we know what the answer is. I don't get it," he continued in that same vein to the Sioux City Journal. "When you automatically give an incumbent extra points, you automatically eliminate any other bidders on a point system."

Scott, quite obviously, has never heard of either bid rigging or public relations stunts but those issues are small potatoes when compared with several far more important issues which, apparently, do not concern him in the least little bit. For starters, the four-person panel that selected Hannah and Rarrat was made up of Sioux City police captains Chris Groves and Marti Reilly, retired police chief Doug Young, and city finance director Teresa Fitch; Scott and his cronies on city council merely rubber-stamped their decision.

Historically, the police always have operated Animal Control and municipal shelters and, not surprisingly, they have always done a terrible job. (See Cat Defender post of August 31, 2006 entitled "An Animal Control Officer Goes on a Drunken Binge and Leaves Four Cats and a Dog to Die of Thirst, Hunger, and the Heat at a Massachusetts Shelter.")

Whether acting in their capacity as Animal Control officers or as uniformed fascist cops with licenses to kill, police officers never have been known to be anything other than notorious cat killers. (See Cat Defender posts of March 31, 2008, September 16, 2009, July 8, 2010, September 22, 2011, March 22, 2012, September 27, 2014, June 18, 2015, July 2, 2015, and September 1, 2016 and entitled, respectively, "A Cecil, Pennsylvania, Police Officer Summarily Executes a Family's Beloved Ten-Year-Old Persian, Elmo," "Acting Solely Upon the Lies of a Cat-Hater, the Raymore Police Pump Two Shotgun Blasts into the Head of Nineteen-Year-Old Declawed and Deaf Tobey," "A North Carolina State Trooper Who Illegally Trapped and Shot His Next-Door Neighbor's Cat, Rowdy, Is Now Crying for His Job Back," "The Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Coldblooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop," "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," "Falsely Branded as Being Rabid by a Cat-Hater, an Animal Control Officer, and the Gorham Police Department, Clark Is Hounded Down and Blasted with a Shotgun," "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," "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," and "The Legal and Political Establishment in a Small Pennsylvania Backwater Close Ranks and Pull Out All the Stops in Order to Save the Job and Liberty of the Bloodthirsty Cop Who Murdered Sugar," plus The Orange County Register, August 23, 2017, "Police Are Killing a Shocking Number of People's Pets.")

Big cats do not fare any better whenever the cops come calling. (See Cat Defender posts of January 28, 2008, May 5, 2008, and November 3, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Hopped Up on Vodka and Pot, a Trio of Miscreants Taunted Tatiana Prior to the Attacks That Led to Her Being Killed by the San Francisco Police," "Chicago's Rambo-Style Cops Corner and Execute a Cougar to the Delight of the Hoi Polloi and the Capitalistic Media," and "Sheriff Matt Lutz Settles an Old Score by Staging a Great Safari Hunt That Claims the Lives of  Eighteen Tigers and Seventeen Lions in Zanesville.")

Considering how that they have always mistreated cats, cops and Animal Control officers should not under penalty of law be allowed to come within three-hundred yards of any of them. Shelters likewise should be outlawed from impounding them. (See The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 11, 2011, "Shelter Shock. Cats Can Get Sick from Stress. One Proposed Remedy? Keep Them Out.")

All matters relating to cats should in turn be handled by legitimate feline rescue groups and volunteers. Those group likewise should be allowed to investigate cases of cruelty and to make arrests as well as to practice veterinary medicine.

Considering that cops, Animal Control officers, shelters, and veterinarians are only good for denigrating and killing cats, who needs them? The time therefore is long overdue for getting all of those rotten, no-good bastards out of the game.

As far as Sioux City is concerned, it is quite a racket that Rarrat and Hannah, the Siouxland Humane Society, the cops, city council, local veterinarians, and KCAU-TV and other media outlets have going for themselves. They are making money hand over fist and a lion's share of it can be traced back to their wholesale slaughter and outrageous denigration of cats and kittens.

Even more disturbingly, the mere fact that they have been able to get away with their despicable crimes for such a very long time is a rather telling indictment of the moral depravity of the citizens of Sioux City. It therefore would be surprising if anyone or anything in Sioux City operates on the level.

Photos: Sioux City Animal Adoption and Rescue (Keller, Anne, and Trixie), KCAU-TV (Keller, Anne, and Trixie together), and the Sioux City Journal (Rarrat).