Marley Is Reunited with Her Family after Having Gone Missing Nine Years Ago but Her Deliverance Does Not Establish Either the Efficacy or Desirability of Microchipping Cats
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| Marley Vanished Without a Trace in 2012 |
"It's taken ten years to get her home. I just hope she lives a bit longer to appreciate home comforts with her family again. What a Christmas miracle!"-- Katie Hayes of PawPurrs Halfway House
Way back on 2012, a woman identified only by her first name as Pam went out for a walk with her then eleven-year-old black female, Marley, in Sale, eight kilometers southwest of Manchester City in Trafford. While they were strolling Marley somehow escaped from her harness and disappeared.
Pam allegedly searched for her but for how long and diligently is not known. With Marley nowhere to be found, she eventually abandoned the hunt and got on with her life and, over time, her cat became only a distant memory. The Fates have long memories, however, and they certainly never forgot about either her or especially Marley.
Unbeknownst to Pam, an unidentified man in Baguley, a ward in Wythenshawe, six kilometers south of Sale, belatedly decided on December 18th to do something about a black female that he had seen wandering the streets for the past three months. He accordingly picked up the cat and took her to PawPurrs Halfway House in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, seven kilometers north of Baguley, where he left her outside the front door. That is not quite as callous as it seems in that he surely must have later contacted the shelter because it otherwise never would have known that the cat had come from Baguley.
For whatever it is worth, the shelter's Katie Hayes insists that she was filthy and had matted fur but both of those allegations are likely exaggerations because even cats that are forced by necessity to sleep rough are usually fastidious. Besides, just about all individuals, including those who supposedly are fans of the species, routinely maintain that all homeless cats are filthy, emaciated, and have matted fur but as any fool knows that is hardly ever the case. To do so is just one more means of denigrating and devaluing them.
In any event, the cat could not have been all that unkempt because Hayes apparently did not do anything in order to upgrade her appearance. Instead, she simply scanned her for a microchip and, not finding one, put her to bed in a cage.
It therefore was not until the following morning that she eventually got around to cleaning up and grooming the cat. Once she had finished with that task she decided to scan her once more and that was when she not only discovered an elusive microchip but also received a big surprise to boot.
The database to which the chip was linked up to listed two telephone numbers and at least one of them led her to Pam. As difficult as it may be to believe, the female that Hayes had just finished grooming was indeed the long-lost Marley.
The difficulty in locating the implanted chip could be attributable to any number of factors. First of all, chips are known to move around inside a cat's body. Secondly, they operate at different frequencies and therefore sometimes require different scanners in order to be located and deciphered.
The most common problem, however, lies with individuals who either do not even bother looking for them or lack the intelligence and persistence in order to find them. For example, at some shelters the last order of business before killing a cat is to scan it for a chip and under those circumstances due diligence goes out the window along with the cat's life.
"We couldn't believe it," Hayes later told the Manchester Evening News of Chadderton on December 22nd. (See "Christmas Miracle as Cat Missing for Nine Years Reunited with Family.") "I don't know who was more shocked, her or me? They (Pam and her family) are completely overjoyed and in shock."
Marley was then taken to a veterinarian who was unable to find anything physically ailing her. That in itself is even more remarkable than her rescue in that she will be an astounding twenty years old sometime this month.
She certainly does not look her age. For instance, in a video posted on PurrPaws' Facebook page her fur is shiny and clean and she appears to be both spry and energetic.
"Nearly half her life she's been straying," Hayes speculated to the Manchester Evening News. "Someone must have been feeding her other than the man who brought her to me."
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| Marley Looks Really Well for Her Advanced Years |
Greater Manchester, of which Sale is a part, is home to 2.7 million people and that translates into approximately that many motorists and a good portion of them run down cats for sport. Dogs and foxes prey upon them and human abusers are every bit as common as fleas.
Besides, northern England is hardly conducive to living outdoors. Rather, the thermometer falls well below 40° Fahrenheit November until April and the area receives close to three inches of rain each month.
What most likely happened to Marley is that she has had one or more guardians over the course of the past nine years. By the time that she was reduced to wandering the streets of Baguley her last caretaker likely had either moved away or died.
Such cruel twists of fate are pretty much the norm for most cats. They are picked up off the street and taken in by individuals who feed and shelter them for years before turning around and callously abandoning them.
As horrible as all of that sounds, it is still far preferable to dumping them at shelters where they are normally killed off shortly after they enter the front door. Furthermore, considering that Marley already was an elderly cat when she became separated from Pam she would not have stood much of a chance of being adopted given that most individuals desire kittens and much younger cats.
Such a scenario also explains why that cats like Marley so seldom wind up at shelters and, if so, not until years later. Having a home not only protects them from the evildoings of Animal Control officers, the cops, the RSPCA, PawPurrs, the managers of TNR colonies, and others who fanatically believe that they have a divine right to arrest, incarcerate, and kill every cat who dares so much as to walk the streets. To live and let live is a thing of the past; man has become so vile and ruthless that he cannot keep his filthy hands and forked tongue off of any creature.
Such a scenario is also supported by the fact that it would have been too far for Marley to have walked from Sale to Baguley. She accordingly must have been picked up by someone and transported there.
"I just can't believe nobody in ten years thought to get her chip checked," Hayes continued to the Manchester Evening News. "...if you feed a stray, please get it scanned for a chip, as someone somewhere will be missing them (sic)."
Since she has been rescuing cats for more than five years, Hayes should know better than to make an asinine statement such as that. First of all, the overwhelming majority of cats that wind up on the street have been cruelly abandoned and therefore no one is going to be missing them; au contraire, their former caretakers are glad to be rid of both them and their obligations to them.
Secondly, many rescuers realize that and therefore believe that they are doing them a favor by taking them in and providing them with a home. Doing so also cuts out the middle men, such as PawPurrs, and saves them from having to pay an adoption fee.
Thirdly, other individuals view owners who allow their cats to roam as irresponsible and therefore categorically refuse to return their companions to them. (See Cat Defender post of July 9, 2007 entitled "A Hungry and Disheveled Cat Named Slim Is Picked Up Off the Streets of Ottawa by a Rescuer Who Refuses to Return Him to His Owners.")
Fourthly, implanted microchips are not visible to the naked eye and therefore scanners are needed in order to read them. Although they can be purchased on the web for US$30 and up, no one is about to do that just to scan a cat. If Hayes truly believes the utter baloney that she espouses so freely she should purchase them and distribute them free of charge in her neighborhood.
Fifthly, even if members of the public were willing to do that they also would need, in most instances, to purchase humane traps and then to go to the time and trouble of trapping cats and then handing them over to shelters and veterinarians and that is the absolute last thing in this world that cats and their owners need. Hayes surely must be well aware that doing so is a favorite tactic of cat-haters who use shelters and veterinarians in order to get rid of their neighbors' moggies.
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| Marley Relaxing in a Basket |
Sixthly, without a scanner they would then need to take the cat to either a veterinarian or a shelter in order to have it scanned. Being the mad dogs for money that they are, veterinarians most assuredly would charge for this service and the same most likely is true of most shelters as well. At the very least, both groups of opportunistic capitalists and confirmed fascists would ask a lot of nosey questions which easily could morph into heated verbal arguments if not indeed protracted and expensive legal entanglements.
Nevertheless, while she had the wind up Old Hayeser Bird could not resist the temptation to preach the gospel of implanted microchips. "The most important basic essential for being a responsible owner is to microchip your pets," she howled like a raging typhoon to the Manchester Evening News.
On the contrary, the most important thing for both owners and those even considering adopting is for them to realize that a cat is much like a small child in that it must be constantly provided for and protected against the machinations of cat-haters, such as ornithologists and wildlife biologists, dogs and other predators, motorists poisoners, thieves, cops, Animal Control officers, and shelters such as PawPurrs.
Secondly, caring for a cat is a lifetime commitment. Unlike a child, a cat never grows into a full-fledged adult who is capable of thriving on its own, especially in such an extremely hostile world.
In some instances, that sacred commitment can extend beyond crippling illnesses, old age, and even the finality of the grave. (See Cat Defender post of August 31, 2019 entitled "A Devoted Robelerin Adamantly Refuses to Enter an Altersheim Until She Has Successfully Secured a New Guardian for Her Beloved Felix.")
In that regard, microchips are completely worthless in that they do not afford cats so much as a scintilla of protection against their myriad of enemies. They likewise do not feed, water, medicate, house, or offer them companionship. (See Cat Defender post of May 25, 2006 entitled "Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats.")
It is often overlooked but an implanted microchip is not a tracking collar and therefore cannot be used in order to locate a lost cat; rather, it only comes into play after someone else has found the cat and delivered it to either a shelter or a veterinarian. (See Cat Defender posts of June 11, 2007 and March 29, 2017 entitled, respectively, "Katzen Kameras Are Not Only Cruel and Inhumane but Represent an Assault Upon Cats' Liberties and Privacy" and "Archie Is Knowingly Allowed to Sleep Smack-Dab in the Middle of a Busy Thoroughfare by His Derelict Owners Who Are Content with Merely Tracking His Movements by Satellite.")
The one thing that they are very good at is providing the law enforcement community with an easy and warrantless means of linking individuals to crimes. For example, an implanted microchip found in the body of environmental activist Abbie Cooper's deceased dog, Sox, put the FBI on her trail in Nicholas Evans' 2005 novel, The Divide.
In addition to being worthless, they also can be detrimental to a cat's health. (See Cat Defender posts of September 21, 2007 and November 6, 2010 entitled, respectively, "The FDA Is Suppressing Research That Shows Implanted Microchips Cause Cancer in Mice, Rats, and Dogs" and "Bulkin Contracts Cancer from an Implanted Microchip and Now It Is Time for Digital Angel® and Merck to Answer for Their Crimes in a Court of Law.")
Some cats even have been left paralyzed by chips that have been incorrectly implanted, such as on top of their spinal cords. (See Cat Defender post of April 28, 2016 entitled "Sassie Is Left Paralyzed as the Result of Yet Still Another Horribly Botched Attempt to Implant a Thoroughly Worthless and Pernicious Microchip Between Her Shoulders.")
Other cats have been beaten up and left bloodied and bruised by shelter employees who were too stupid and brutal to successfully implant these devices. (See Cat Defender post of June 23, 2016 entitled "The State of North Carolina's Veterinary Division Is Covering Up a Savage Beating Dished Out to Cooper at the Rowan County Animal Shelter During the Course of a Microchipping Fiasco.")
Even when these devices perform as intended that does not necessarily mean that aggrieved owners always get their cats back anytime soon. For example, some microchip manufacturers side against owners in custody disputes. (See Cat Defender post of January 24, 2017 entitled "Tigger Is Finally Reunited with His Family Despite the Best Efforts of the Administrators of a Microchip Database to Keep Them Apart.")
Even on those rare occasions when a long-lost cat is taken to a surgery and an implanted microchip is found and its legal owner is located, the new guardian will refuse to relinquish custody of it. That is precisely what happened to a handsome one-year-old tuxedo named Cookie from Beaumont-en-Auge in Normandie.
His misadventures began in February of 2013 when his owner, Dan Bouchery, took him with her to Grasse, eleven-hundred-ten kilometers south of Beaumont-en-Auge on the Côte d'Azur, where she had accepted a three-month assignment writing poetry for children. Shortly thereafter on March 7th, Cookie disappeared without so much as a trace.
Eighteen months later on August 26, 2014, he mysteriously turned up at a veterinarian's office in Orbec, Normandie, only forty-one kilometers southwest of his original home in Beaumont-en-Auge, where an implanted microchip was found and Bouchery notified. His new caretaker, however, not only refused to give him up but fled with him as well.
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| Cookie Was at the Center of a Custody Battle That Spanned All of France |
The gendarmes were called in but even then it was not until October 14th that he finally was reunited with Bouchery. (See Nice Matin, December 12, 2014, "Un chat disparu à Grasse, parcourt un millier kilomètre pour retrouver sa maîtresse en Normandie," L'Express of Paris, December 13, 2014, "Un chat traverse la France entière pour retrouver sa maîtresse," and The Local of Paris, December 15, 2014, "Cat Returns after Twelve Hundred Kilometer Trek Across France," plus Cat Defender post of October 20, 2017 entitled "Beautiful and Noble Hamish McHamish Who Suffered Through Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect and Naked Exploitation Is Remembered as Cat of the Year for 2014.")
Considering the abject failure of both shelters and veterinarians to do their due diligence when searching for implanted microchips in cats, it is the very epitome of foolishness for owners to put any faith in them. For example, in early 2008 an unidentified cat-hating neighbor of Jacquelyn Bruno stole her cat, Hello, and gave him to a shelter in Mobile which killed him off less than an hour later.
He was microchipped but it is not known if the shelter even bothered to scan him for it. By way of attempting to make amends, the shelter gave her another cat but the microchip fell out of it even before the adoption process was completed.
"What they're doing is just scary to me," she later told Fox-10 of Mobile on May 14, 2008. (See "Cat's Microchip Didn't Save It from Being Euthanized.")
A similarly tragic situation occurred on November 12, 2017 when an unidentified neighbor of Cody Lesher of Fleetwood, ninety-seven kilometers northwest of Philadelphia, stole his beloved Diddy and dumped him at the Animal Rescue League (ARL) of Birdsboro, twenty-seven kilometers south of Fleetwood. After having allegedly unsuccessfully scanned him twice for a microchip, the shelter promptly killed him off the following day.
In an outrageously callous and dishonest attempt to justify its criminality, the ARL later claimed that Diddy was an aggressive cat. "I have a really hard time believing that," Lesher afterwards scoffed to NBC-10 of Philadelphia on November 15, 2017. (See "Animal Shelter Euthanizes Man's Pet Cat after Failing to Find Microchip.")
The ARL's other defense was to blame the chip rather than itself for murdering Diddy. "When the owner informed us that the cat was originally adopted (out) by us and it was microchipped, we did a third scan of the (now dead) cat and found that the chip had migrated high up on his neck, likely close to the base of his skull and the two previous scans did not identify the chip," the shelter's Tom Hubric told NBC-10.
How do you like that? The ARL is not only incapable of recognizing one of its own cats but also of properly implanting and relocating one of its own microchips!
Cats that are equipped with collars and tags do not fare any better when they are impounded by the ARL. For instance, about a month before it whacked Diddy the shelter killed off a young child's cat less than a day after it had arrived even though it was collared and tagged.
"I must have cried ten times today just thinking of the little stuff that he does," Lester told NBC-10. "It's just a really upsetting situation and he didn't deserve that."
Every bit as sobering, Hello and Diddy are doubtlessly only two of the tens of thousands of microchipped cats that have been killed off by both shelters and veterinarians over the course of the past twenty years. To put the dilemma succinctly, shelters and veterinarians aided and abetted by politicians are foisting microchips on cat owner but yet they are either incapable or unwilling to properly insert as well as to do their due diligence while supposedly searching for them.
The greatest harm that an overreliance upon Silicon Valley snake oil, such as microchips, does to cats is that it promotes irresponsible ownership. In the final analysis, technology never will be any substitute for knowledgeable and responsible guardians.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose and in that regard the only effective means of identifying a cat is an old-fashioned collar and a tag. They will not deter bloodthirsty, cat-killing shelters like the ARL but they are at least visible to the naked eye and therefore present members of the public as well as shelters and veterinarians with an opportunity, should they be so inclined, to return cats to their rightful owners as opposed to slaughtering them and, in this wicked old world, that is about the best that any owner can expect.
Perhaps one day it will be feasible to insert tiny transponders, alarms, and other recovery and safety devices in them. As things now stand, however, conventional, elastic, and breakaway collars all have their merits and demerits. (See Cat Defender posts of May 28, 2008 and June 22, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Collars Turn into Death Traps for Trooper and Que but Both Are Rescued at the Eleventh Hour" and "Hobson Is Forced to Wander Around Yorkshire for Months Trapped in an Elastic Collar That Steadily Was Eating Away at His Shoulder and Leg.")
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| Brandy with Charles and a Photo of Her as a Kitten |
In spite of being the equivalent of fool's gold, there apparently is not any way of derailing the microchip express. For example, England has already announced that it intends to make microchipping compulsory for all of its cats sometime this year.
The new law will apply to all felines over the age of twenty weeks and violators will be subject to a £500 fine. Presumably, the law will apply to all cats living in England, Wales, and Scotland but not to those residing in either Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom's overseas' possessions.
Microchipping for dogs has been mandatory since 2016. (See the BBC, December 4, 2021, "All Cats in the United Kingdom (sic) Will Have to be Microchipped Under New Rules," "the Vet Times, December 6, 2021, "Compulsory Microchipping for Cats to Become Law," and The Mirror of London, December 4, 2021,"Cat Owners Face £500 Fine Unless Pet Is Microchipped Under New Government Law.")
Since microchips are so quite obviously worthless, why have they become so popular? First of all, they are a huge moneymaker for shelters, veterinarians, chip manufacturers, and database administrators. For instance, with only 2.8 million of Old Blighty's estimated 10.8 million felines currently microchipped, predatory capitalists, such as PawPurrs and, especially, Cats Protection of Cheltenham Gate in Sussex, are already salivating over their anticipated windfalls.
Moreover, this is by no means the first time in recent history that the latter organization has put profits ahead of feline welfare. (See Cat Defender posts of August 26, 2015 and February 17, 2016 entitled, respectively,"A Myriad of Cruel and Unforgivable Abandonments, a Chinese Puzzle, and Finally the Handing Down and Carrying Out of a Death Sentence Spell the End for Long-Suffering and Peripatetic Tigger" and "Cats Protection Races to Alfie's Side after His Owner Dies and He Winds Up on the Street, Swears It Is Going to Help Him, and Then Turns Around and Has Him Whacked.")
Secondly, mandatory microchipping of all cats is another giant step down the slippery slope of fascism and totalitarianism in that it gives the authorities and their lackeys, such as PawPurrs, Cat Protection, the RSPCA, and others, the tools in which to put and keep cats and their owners under their thumbs. Far too many individuals and groups have always detested cats and their supporters and compulsory microchiping is tantamount to handing them their long sought after victory on a silver platter.
The first and most pressing item on the agenda of these groups, entities, and individuals is to reduce cats to second-class citizens of this planet by taking away their access to the great outdoors. For example, the diabolical Australians already have implemented strict anti-roaming and curfew laws in Canberra with identical measures sure to follow soon across the remainder of the country.
In England, the nanny state mentality always has run amok and accordingly the Limeys never will be satisfied with merely fining owners for failing to microchip their cats but they are sure to next force them into vaccinating, sterilizing, and licensing them as well. Owners therefore could be hit with up to four fines simultaneously as well as being denied custody of their confiscated cats until all of them are paid. During the interim, their incarcerated companions easily could succumb to either disease or malice aforethought.
Such draconian measures will in turn force owners into hiding their cats away indoors much like contraband; they will not even be able to seek veterinary help for them whenever they become ill. Moreover, once they grow old and die, their owners will not have any means, other than the black market, of acquiring replacements in that all shelters nowadays microchip, vaccinate, and sterilize all cats that they sell back to the public.
This deplorable situation is going to be even direr for homeless cats because once microchipping becomes mandatory there can be little doubt that anti-feeding bans will follow in hot pursuit and that will be the end of TNR and managed colonies as they are known today. It is not any coincidence that cities which have enacted anti-roaming and licensing ordinances, such as North Sioux City, not only do not allow TNR but also permit their cops and shelters to steal and kill cats with impunity. (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.")
In more practical terms, this means that more and more cats and kittens who are either born homeless or later abandoned are going to end up starving, freezing to death, lacking veterinary care, and going unvaccinated and unsterilized. In their weakened condition, they also will become more prone to predation by dogs, birds of prey, raccoons, skunks, foxes, coyotes, and fishers.
They additionally will become even easier targets for motorists, poisoners, and other despisers of the species. Worst of all, with no one left to protect them, shelters will be free to pick them up and kill them at will. Such a dénouement also will untie the hands of Animal Control officers and cops who then will be free to shoot them on sight.
Wildlife biologists already have either radio-collared or microchipped just about all wild animals and they accordingly now know where they are all the time and accordingly are able to track them down and eradicate them whenever they wish. Disbelievers need only to view videos posted online of radio-collared gray wolves being tracked in planes and helicopters by assassins from the USDA's Wildlife Services and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in order to grasp the enormity of the threat posed by technology and capitalism to all animals.
The wolves valiantly attempt to escape in the snow but little do they realize that with collars around their necks their situation is hopeless. (See Cat Defender posts of April 17, 2006, May 4, 2006, February 29, 2008, and May 22, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Hal the Central Park Coyote Is Suffocated to Death by Wildlife Biologists Attempting to Tag Him," "The Scientific Community's Use of High-Tech Surveillance Is Aimed at Subjugating, Not Saving, the Animals," "The Repeated Hounding Down and Tagging of Walruses Exposes Electronic Surveillance of the Animals as Not Only Cruel but a Fraud," and "Macho B., America's Last Jaguar, Is Illegally Trapped, Radio-Collared, and Killed Off by Wildlife Biologists in Arizona.")
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| Wishing Marley Many More Happy Years |
Since he is so incurably bloodthirsty, man should confine his control, domination, exploitation, and extermination games to his own species and leave the animals alone. Nobody has ever put the matter more passionately and succinctly than Paul McCartney did when he said:
"We've beaten into submission every animal on the face of the earth, so we are the clear winner of whatever battle is going on between the species. Couldn't we be generous? I really do think it's time to be nice. No need to keep beating up on them. I think we've got to show that we're kind."
Not much is written about longevity in cats but it seems clear that those who live for a very long time require conscientious guardians, favorable circumstances, and a ton of good luck. Above all, longevity appears to be strongly linked to genetics in that elderly cats quite often have not only parents but kittens as well who live for a relatively long time.
In Marley's case, since absolutely nothing is known about either her antecedents or descendants, if any, that is supposition but nonetheless a likely valid assumption to make. It most definitely is, however, an argument against all those who cruelly will not even consider adopting an elderly cat because an old one with long genes is likely to outlive many younger ones who are not nearly as well genetically blessed. (See Cat Defender post of May 27, 2016 entitled "Snubbed by an Ignorant, Tasteless, and Uncaring Public for the Past Twenty-One Years, Tilly Has Forged an Alternative Existence of Relative Contentment at a Sanctuary in the Black Country.")
One final drawback with microchips is that sometimes cats' previous owners do not want them back and that in turn raises the distinct possibility that they either intentionally abandoned them in the first place or, at the very least, they did not search very long and hard in order to recover them. Therefore, pressuring them into taking them back after so many years of separation is usually not a good idea.
For example, Amy Davies of Rochdale, also in Greater Manchester, did not want any part of her seventeen-year old gorgeous and long-suffering tortoiseshell, Georgie, after she was found in 2020 roughing it in the Scottish Highlands. (See Cat Defender posts of September 8, 2020 and December 27, 2020 entitled, respectively, "Cruelly and Heartlessly Abandoned in the Godforsaken Scottish Highlands a Dozen Years Ago, Georgie Is Amazingly Found to Be Still Alive but Her Former Owner Does Not Want Any Part of Her" and "Georgie Finally Finds a New Home and a Second Chance at Life after Having Been Cruelly Abandoned and Condemned to Spend a Dozen Hellish Years Homeless in the Wretched Scottish Highlands.")
Earlier in 2017, Rachel Wells of parts unknown in the West Midlands refused to retake custody of her elderly brown and white tom, Snitch, who had disappeared in 2003. As things eventually turned out, her heartlessness and abdication of responsibility condemned him to an early grave in 2019 when his new caretaker, Roger Colbourne of the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, ran out on him after he had suffered a stroke. (See Cat Defender post of September 22, 2020 entitled "Snitch Is Found Alive Fourteen Years after His Disappearance but His Old Owner Refuses to Take Him Back in Spite of the Shameful Neglect Shown Him by His New Caretaker.")
On February 21st of last year, a man identified only as Charles refused to take back his lovely brown cat, Brandy, after she had turned up at a shelter in Palmdale, one-hundred kilometers northeast of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. He had adopted her as a two-month old kitten in 2005 but she vanished a few months later.
Although he said that he was happy to see her again, he did not waste any time in fobbing off her care on a sister. (See The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 26, 2021, "Cat That Vanished Fifteen Years Ago Is Reunited with Owner.")
At least in Marley's case Pam, apparently, did not hesitate to take her back and that augurs well for her future. In recent years it has become en vogue to walk cats on leashes but Pam and all owners who do so need to make doubly sure that their beloved companions cannot wiggle out of their harnesses. They additionally need to keep an iron grip on their leashes.
Another vitally important lesson to be learned from the suffering of Marley, Georgie, Snitch, and Brandy is that when it comes to cats neighbors, shelters, and veterinarians can seldom be trusted. Most importantly of all, is never to give up searching for a lost cat no matter how long that it has been missing. (See Cat Defender post of September 30, 2017 entitled "The Love Lives on for Salem of a Long Island Farm Sanctuary Even Though She Has Been Missing for More Than Three Years.")
Sadly, this is likely the last that the outside world will ever hear about Marley in that it is highly unlikely that PawPurrs will keep her many fans updated on how that she is faring. In fact, the charity sounds like it already has washed its hands of her.
"It's taken ten years to get her home," is how that Hayes summed up her incredible saga to the Manchester Evening News. "I just hope she lives a bit longer to appreciate the home comforts with her family again. What a Christmas miracle!"
That is what microchipping zealots and nominal Christians would like the world to believe but their highfalutin rhetoric cannot obscure the salient reality that if Pam had taken better care of Marley she could have celebrated twenty or more holiday seasons with her instead of only ten or so. Clearly, when it comes to keeping a cat both healthy and safe neither technology nor religion have very much to offer.
Photos: PawPurrs Halfway House (Marley) and the Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control (Brandy).
posted by Moonraker @ 9:55 AM
