Individuals and Groups Armed to the Teeth with Silicon Valley Snake Oil Are Now Vying with Traditional Abusers for the Coveted Title of Being the Number One Killers of Cats

Ally Failed to Survive a Ride in One of Albertsons' Trucks

"The charity regularly reunites owners with their much-loved cats, and in most cases this is only possible thanks to microchips."

- - Madison Rogers of Cats Protection

The laundry list of those individuals and groups who were complicit, to one degree or another, in the killing of Garfield by no means ends with his owners, David and Tina Villers, the Christians at Ely Cathedral, Cats Protection, and opportunistic artists such as Cate Caruth and Sally Dunham but rather it extends to, most notably, the management, staff, vendors, and patrons of Sainsbury's who used and exploited him for their own selfish designs without contributing anything positive toward his well-being and safety. (See Cat Defender post of August 27, 2024 entitled "A Tale of Two Cats: Garfield Is Long Dead and Teddy Is Being Led Down the Same Path in Order to Soon Join Him.") 

It should be obvious but a supermarket hardly qualifies as a safe and suitable home for a cat and Sainsbury's is far from being an anomaly in its naked exploitation and abject neglect of Garfield and his basic needs. Actually, such predatory, capitalistic enterprises have a long and checkered history of such utterly shameful behavior.

For example, on March 3, 2010 a simply gorgeous ten-year-old, brown and white Snowshoe Siamese subsequently dubbed Ally arrived in Billings in the back of one of Albertsons' delivery trucks. It never was specified but it is believed that she either climbed aboard or was shanghaied aboard in Salt Lake City and made the seven-hour journey on her own.

Upon arrival, she was taken to the Yellowstone Valley Animal Shelter (YVAS) in Billings where she was diagnosed to have sustained an unspecified injury to her back and possibly a broken hip. All of that was in addition to being famished and dehydrated. Despite the severity of her injuries, YVAS did not treat her but instead placed her in foster care where she either died on her own or, more likely, was killed off on March 9th.

Albertsons ordered its employees not to discuss the matter even though Ally's injuries were consistent with a heavy object, such as a case of sodas, having been either accidentally or purposefully dropped on top of her. It is only a guess but it nevertheless is believed that she could have been saved if YVAS and Albertsons had thought that her life was worth saving. (See Cat Defender post of April 18, 2010 entitled "Ally's Last Ride Lands Her in a Death Trap Set by an Uncaring and Irresponsible Supermarket Chain and a Bargain Basement Shelter.")

In January of 2015, a gray female with black stripes named Mango was, like Garfield, reportedly run down and killed by a motorist in the parking lot of a Tesco's in Tiverton, Devon. Her death was later contradicted. 

That which is not in doubt, however, is that she was cruelly evicted from the store shortly before her alleged death after having been allowed inside for four years by management. (See the Daily Mail, January 20, 2015 , "Is Mango the Cat Dead?")

Later that same year, a gray and white tom named Cecil, who had hung out inside Safeways in southeast Portland for seven years, was likewise rudely evicted. Afterwards he disappeared from the public's eye until an unconfirmed note posted on Reddit on December 30, 2018 reported that he was now living in the country and doing well. (See The Oregonian of Portland, December 3, 2016, "Portland Rallies Around Cecil, Beloved Safeway (sic) Cat.")

Supermarket cats additionally have been kidnapped. For instance, in 2014 a nine-year-old gray female with black stripes named Fudge was stolen from a Tesco's in Dumfries, one-hundred-twenty-seven kilometers south of Edinburgh in the South Uplands. Miraculously, she later was found in a garden but the only punishment that her abductor received was to be banned from the grocery store. (See Deadline News of Edinburgh, November 18, 2016, "Facebook Fight Erupts over Fudge the Celebrity Cat.")    

During 2016 and 2017, a brown tom with black stripes of an undetermined age named George visited Wilkos in the Kings Chase Shopping Centre in the Kingswood section of Bristol, one-hundred-seventy-one kilometers west of London. One day he was sickened by the food that someone had given him and  his family wisely got the message and thereafter reportedly kept him at home. (See the Bristol Post, articles dated February 13, 2017 and February 14, 2017 and entitled, respectively, "Celebrity Cat George Is Internet Famous Because He spends All Day at Wilkos and Refuses to Leave" and "Where Else in Kingswood Are You Likely to See 'Celebrity' Cat George?") 

In 2009, Claire and Adam Owens of High Street in Saltney, fifty–five kilometers south of Liverpool and on the border with Wales, adopted a brown and white homeless and formerly abused tom named Brutus. Like Villers with Garfield, they soon tired of him and when a year later Morrisons opened a supermarket across the street from their house they turned him loose to live there.

As Tesco was later to have done with Mango and Safeways with Cecil, Morrisons kicked him out its store in 2012. The cold–hearted, predatory capitalists did, however, permit him to still hang out in their unheated and drafty recycling center. 

 
Over the years he became both injured and lost from time to time but he only occasionally returned home for an odd meal and a nap. In 2013, he was diagnosed with kidney disease and the Owenses had him killed off on January 16, 2017.

Just as all that there now is left of Garfield is a bronze bust in Ely Country Park, all that remains of Brutus is a statue of him outside of Morrisons. (See the Chester Chronicle, January 16, 2017, "Heartbreak as Brutus the Morrisons' Cat Passes Away," The Telegraph of London, January 27, 2017, "Beloved Cat Brutus to Be Immortalized in Morrisons' Supermarket Statue," and Cat Defender post of April 24, 2019 entitled "The Life, Times, and Tragic Demise of a Supermarket Cat: Brutus of Morrisons, 2009–2017.")

So, what is the most common fate of supermarket cats? First of all, to be run down and deliberately killed by motorists and to die in their delivery trucks.

Secondly, to be nakedly exploited for profit only to be cruelly evicted into the elements and traffic as recompense for their loyal service. Thirdly, to b kidnapped, poisoned, and to disappear without so much as a trace.

All of that is on top of being forced to go without shelter, regular meals, water, veterinary care, and all protection. If mistreating cats in such a cavalier and inhumane fashion does not constitute animal cruelty, and in some instances felony animal cruelty at that, what the hell does? It thus seems clear to conclude that both owners and the operators of supermarkets who engage in such conduct belong nowhere but in jail and for long stretches of time at that.

Finally, the calling of the roll of what might best be termed as the traditional exploiters and abusers of cats never would be complete without giving the members of the thoroughly unscrupulous mass media their due. Most notably, they have been championing the abandonment, neglect, endangerment, abuse, and exploitation of cats like Garfield for as long as they have wagged their forked tongues and raced their stylos and pencils across the page. 

For example, in England, the capitalistic media have long supported cat food manufacturers and others who have sponsored dangerous roaming contests. (See Cat Defender post of December 5, 2006 entitled "Milo, Who Visits the Vet by Her Lonesome, Is Named Old Blighty's 'Most Adventurous Cat'.")

 Morrisons Cruelly Relegated Brutus to Its Drafty Recycling Center

When what they should be doing is campaigning for responsible cat ownership and the unqualified right of all members of the species to live and to be free from all abuse and exploitation, they are continuously beating a drum for the direct opposites. No improvement can be expected from the big liars and propagandists on Fleet Street but the taxpayers have every right to demand that the publicly-financed BBC stop cheerleading for the exploitation, abuse, abandonment, and killing of cats.

Or perhaps they support the conduct of the BBC? At any rate it would be interesting to observe their reaction if the network were to commence recommending that unwanted children be dumped in the street.

There never has been anything positive that could be said about the old mob of feline abusers but nowadays their efforts are being augmented by a new breed of dishonest and morally retarded villains: the Silicon Valley crowd and their stooges. First of all, there are the microchip manufacturers and database managers who have gone into collusion with shelters, veterinarians, and governments in order to shove these totally worthless devices down the gullets of a public already besotted by technology.

To run through the entire rigmarole one more time, implanted microchips do not afford cats so much as an iota of protection against those individuals and animals intent upon doing them harm. For instance, motorists who are intent upon intentionally running them down do not slam on the brakes because they suddenly remember that their intended victims are chipped.

Dogs, coyotes, foxes, and other animals do not spare the lives of cats because they might be chipped. What about serial killers, such as the Croydon and Brighton Cat Killers? Does anyone seriously believe that any of them are scared off by an implanted microchip?

Also, chips in no way deter poisoners, kidnappers, and a thousand other cat-haters, such as ornithologists and wildlife biologists, from perpetrating their foul deeds. The entire notion that microchips afford cats so much as a scintilla of protection is absurd. (See Cat Defender post of May 25, 2006 entitled "Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats.")

Secondly, the jury is still out on the matter but implanted microchips have been linked to cancer. (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.")

Thirdly, some shelters and governmental agencies are so incompetent that they cannot even properly implant these devices and their malpractice has in turn ruined the lives of some cats. (See Cat Defender posts of April 28, 2016 and June 23, 2016 entitled, respectively, "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" and "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.")

Fourthly, there are all sorts of difficulties with the databases that service microchips. For instance, administrators do not always cooperate in the return of lost cats to their owners. (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 Database to Keep Them Apart.")

Additionally, database operators are not running charities but rather they charge owners an annual fee for their services. Compounding an already considerably less than perfect scheme, many owners do not always keep their contact information current and that makes it almost impossible for shelters and veterinarians to contact them in the event that their errant cats should turn up out of the blue one day.

Fifthly, in the United States some shelters have admitted privately that they do not scan cats that they suspect of being homeless. Rather, they simply whack them as soon as they come through the front door.

Sixthly, other shelters are so incompetent that they cannot find and read the chips that are inside the cats that they impound. So, they too simply go ahead and kill them without so much as a second thought. (See WALA-TV of Mobile, May 16, 2008, "Cat's Microchip Didn't Save It from Being Euthanized" and WCAU-TV of Philadelphia, November 15, 2017, "Animal Shelter Euthanizes Man's Pet Cat after Failing to Find Microchip.")

Despite the mounting evidence against the efficacy of microchips, the lies continue to proliferate and the biggest prevaricator of all continues to be none other than Cats Protection. "The charity regularly reunites owners with their much-loved cats, and in most cases this is only possible thanks to microchips," the phony-baloney rescue group's Madison Rogers swore to The Independent of London on May 8th. (See "Cat Owners Urged to Take Action or Face £500 Fine Under New Laws.") "No matter how far from home they were found, or how long they have been missing, if a cat has a microchip there is a good chance that a lost cat will be swiftly returned home."

Despite her outrageous balderdash, it is highly doubtful that Cats Protection is reuniting all that many errant cats with their owners and that most definitely includes those that have been chipped and there are multitude of reasons for that. Topping that list are the machinations of some very clever cat-haters who steal, kill, and secretly dispose of the corpses of their victims. Still others transport them out of town and dump them at remote locations.

Secondly, although Cats Protection is loath to admit it, owners are arguably one of the biggest killers of cats. For example, some of them routinely drown kittens whereas others seal them up in trash bags and deposit them in Dumpsters. (See Cat Defender posts of July 3, 2006 and January 1, 2024 entitled, respectively, "Crooked Massachusetts Cops Allow an Elderly Politician to Get Away with Attempting to Drown a Kitten Named Lucky Girl" and "Seventeen Cats Are Found Dead in a Dumpster in Nashville in the Latest Sorry Chapter of Southerners' Longstanding Loathing for the Species.")

Quite obviously, implanted microchips do not protect cats and kittens from owners intent upon doing them harm. Even more damning, shelters such as Cats Protection are often complicit in the cold-blooded murders of these cats and kittens because they have failed to have done their due diligence in the first place.

They next compound their original mistakes by failing to conduct follow-up home visits in order to check on how the cats that they have adopted out a faring in their new environments. If the charity were willing to do at least that much it could save far more feline lives in a single month than all of its worthless microchips would in a year.

Thirdly, many kindhearted individuals take in homeless cats but since they do not own scanners they do not have any means of knowing if they have owners who want them back. Plus, they are not about to go to the trouble and expense of taking them to either a shelter or a veterinarian so that they can be scanned.

Fourthly, garbagemen and private citizens alike dispose of the corpses of cats that they pick up in the street and alongside roads every day by nonchalantly tossing them in the trash. None of them scan them for implanted microchips.

Fifthly, some of the miraculous reunions that shelters are able to facilitate do not occur until decades later and that puts the kibosh to Rogers' nonsense about cats being "swiftly returned home." (See Cat Defender posts of May 23, 2022 and October 16, 2023 entitled, respectively, "Tilly Is Returned to Her Owner after a Seventeen and One-Half Year Separation but Their Reunion Is Destined to Be, Sadly, a Brief and Bittersweet One" and "Daisy Is Found in Poor Health Wandering the Forbidding Streets of Caerphilly Eleven Years after She Vanished Without So Much as a Trace.")

Reliance Upon a GPS Tracker Killed Rather Than Saved Basil

Even more abhorrent, sometimes their former owners to not want any part of their long-lost cats and that raises the strong suspicion that they were the very ones who abandoned them in the first place. (See Cat Defender posts of September 22, 2020 and September 8, 2020 entitled, respectively, "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" and "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.")

Apparently it never has occurred to Cats Protection that owners dump their cats all the time and then something tragic happens to them. Even more sobering, no amount of electronic gadgetry is ever going to prevent them from doing so. Both cats and the charity therefore would perhaps be better served by requiring all would-be adopters to take and pass a brief course on the proper care of a cat instead of all the time blowing like a hurricane about worthless microchips.

It also seems clear that if Cats Protection truly believed any of the rubbish that it is all the time spouting about microchips it would at the very least purchase scanners and donate them free of charge to the public at large. It additionally would be lobbying for a law that would require local councils to scan all  deceased cats that are found in public for implanted microchips and then to inform their owners and return their remains to them.

That would at least provide them with some measure of closure. The mere fact that it is totally unwilling to undertake either of these two worthwhile measures calls into question its belief in the utter baloney that it is fobbing off on the public concerning microchips.

Nevertheless, Cats Protection's years of telling lies and brown-nosing the Tories, when it instead should have been saving feline lives, paid a huge dividend on June 10th when it became the law in England and Wales that all cats had to be microchipped by the time that they reach the tender age of five months. Violators will be fined £500 and the law empowers local councils to seize unchipped cats, arrange for their violation and subjugation, and then to stick their owners with the bills.

Quite obviously, the limeys have lost their minds. For example, after lockdown thousands of them cruelly returned the cats that they only shortly before had adopted. In doing so they ludicrously claimed that they no longer could afford to feed them.

That of course was a bare-faced lie but people who are too cheap to even feed a cat are not about to pony up for either its microchipping or to pay a whopping fine for failing to have done so. The only thing that this insane law is destined to accomplish is to lead to more and more cats and kittens being abandoned to the streets and dumped at shelters and there does not seem to be any way that will not translate into the wholesale slaughter of additional innocent felines.

Secondly, just how do the fool limeys propose to go about seizing unchipped cats?  Are they going to transform all of England and Wales into a police state whereby the local Gestapos regularly conduct midnight raids on individuals suspected of harboring an unchipped cat?

Other than being a sure-fire moneymaker for the manufacturers of microchips, database managers, veterinarians, shelters, and local governments, the only propose that England's new microchipping law serves is to put cats and their owners underneath the thumb of an ever-increasingly fascistic society.

The second recent development that ailurophobes have Silicon Valley to thank for are GPS trackers which, like microchips, endanger the lives of cats as opposed to protecting them. For example, on August 27th of last year Holly Mathews and Travis Lechner of Longmont, Colorado, outfitted a tuxedo named Basil that they had brought with them from Norway with one of these devices and then, apparently, went away for the day.

When they returned home at 9:05 p.m., her tracker alerted them that she was on the move inside an automobile in the eastern part of the city. They immediately gave chase in their old jalopy but when they reached St. Vrain's Creek they found her floating in a trash bag. Although her body was still warm, she had been shot in the head with either a conventional firearm or an air gun.

More than a year later no arrest apparently has been made in this shocking case even though it was immediately known which neighbor's house she had been visiting before she was taken on her last ride. 

A GPS tracker did not provide her with any more safety and protection than would have an implanted microchip. (See Cat Defender post of November 15, 2023 entitled "Basil Was Abducted, Shot in the Head, and Her Body Dumped in a Creek and Although a Neighbor Was Immediately Implicated in Her Death, Apparently No Arrest Has Been Made More Than Two Months Later.")

It is not known what motivated Mathews and Lechner to equip Basil with a GPS tracker and then to have turned her loose in order to have roamed the perilous streets of Longmont but most individuals who do so want to gather photographs and other information that they can use on social media. Others claim to foolishly believe that by occasionally knowing the whereabouts of their cats they can somehow still protect them.

Still others could care less what happens to their cats. (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.")

Whether owners who use GPS trackers are motivated by greed and a lust for fame or simply are too lazy and uncaring in order to take proper care of them, they are taking a terrible risk with their lives. For that reason, this new breed of irresponsible guardians are on a pace to someday supplant traditional ailurophobes as the number one killers of cats.

That is not meant to imply that all users of Silicon Valley Snake Oil are ailurophobes but they are at the very least misguided and the end result of their irresponsibility is often the same for their cats just as if they had deliberately killed them. Furthermore, it is pointless for them to plead ignorance because it long has been known that man always has used technology against the animals rather than to have employed it in protecting them.

For instance, wildlife biologists and meat producers have been using technology for decades in order to reduce all wild and farm animals to the status of inanimate objects that they can control, exploit, and kill at will. In doing so they have robbed them of all legal and moral protections. (See Cat Defender posts of April 7, 2006, May 4, 2006, February 29, 2008, and May 21, 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 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.")

As morally revolting as all of that is, the plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose and those owners who can still be bothered to care about their cats' lives and well-being fully realize that the responsibility for protecting them rests squarely upon their shoulders. Rescue groups, governmental entities, and Silicon Valley Snake Oil purveyors are the enemies of all responsible cat ownership and should be recognized as such.

For even that to occur, however, this world needs many more individuals like Thomas Harris' fictional Clarice Sterling who in his 1991 novel, The Silence of the Lambs, could still hear the bleatings of the lambs on their way to the slaughterhouse in her sleep. Above all, it never must be forgotten that every cat that meets with foul play as the result of its owner's negligence constitutes a victory for the species' innumerable enemies.

Photos: Larry Mayer of the Billings Gazette (Ally), Facebook (Brutus), and KDVR-TV of Denver (Basil). 

A Tale of Two Cats: Garfield Is Long Dead and Teddy Is Being Led Down the Same Path in Order to Soon Join Him

Garfield Spent the Last Seven Years of His Life at Sainsbury's

"It's almost as though the baton has been passed on. It's almost if he (Teddy) knows."

-- Hihine Lor

In 2007, the cathedral city of Ely, twenty-two kilometers north-northeast of Cambridge and one-hundred-twenty-eight kilometers due north of London, was gifted by the arrival of a good-looking, ginger and white tom. At some unspecified time thereafter he was adopted by David and Tina Villers who, in the tradition of Mark Twain, christened him with the long-winded, high-falutin name of Garfield Abercrombie Reginald Ferguson. Of course, no one ever called him that; instead, he was known to one and all as simply Garfield.

By 2012, if not indeed before, the Villers decided that they no longer wanted any part in his care and condemned him to spend the remainder of his days dividing his time between Sainsbury's and its dangerous parking lot. Who fed, watered, sheltered, and medicated him has not been so much as even broached in press reports but it would appear that he was pretty much left to scrounge around on his own for his daily needs.

Most importantly of all, he was forced to fight all of his battles alone against not only the elements but his species' multitude of sworn enemies as well. From the time that the Villers cruelly and inexcusably abandoned him, there is not so much as a shred of evidence in the public domain that a single, solitary soul in all of Ely ever took the slightest bit of interest in either his safety or well-being. A crueler and more unjust fate to have been foisted upon any cat is difficult to imagine.

According to Sainsbury's web site, its store on Lisle Lane is open from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Sundays. Garfield therefore apparently spent the vast majority of his days there lounging on a sofa in the lobby and in providing free amusement for the hordes of uncaring and exploitative shoppers who visited England's second largest supermarket chain. 

It has not been disclosed where he slept at night but the most logical guess would be that it was out in the elements somewhere near the store. Although the big shit capitalists at Sainsbury's were happy enough to have had him around during the day in order to have attracted paying customers, they were not about to have provided him with overnight lodging or anything else of value for that matter.

"I used to work security there at few years ago, and it always used to be a highlight of my day when the store closed and I had to carry him out to stop him getting locked in, telling him, 'Come on Garfield, time to go home'," JJ Senior, a former security guard at the store, testified to the Cambridge News of Waterbeach on July 2, 2019. (See "Ely's Much Loved Cat Mr. Sainsbury's also Known as Garfield Killed by Driver.") "One time we had a complaint that someone had left a cat in a shoebox outside the store; watching the CCTV back only to find that Garfield had jumped inside the box himself and closed the lid behind him."

From the general tenor of that testimony it seems safe to conclude that Senior did not want to know if Garfield had a home to go to or, if so, how that he was to have safely gotten there. That is the problem with all individuals like him in that they never want to know the pertinent side of any story.

Garfield Apparently Had the Run of the Supermarket

Based upon Senior's testimony, the Villers most assuredly did not even care enough about Garfield's welfare to have come and collected him at closing time. It is not even known if they ever stopped by the store during the day in order to have checked on his well-being unless, that is, such an expedition just happened to have coincided with their purchasing of provisions for themselves.

It thus seems perfectly clear that they did not care what he was doing or even if he were still alive. What they undertook instead was to establish the "Mr. Sainsbury's also Known as Garfield" page on Facebook in order to cash in on his growing notoriety. Over time, the page attracted a modest seven-thousand followers in Ely and around the world.

Since it is well established that cats who are fortunate enough to have owners who love and dote on them prefer to remain at home with them, the mere fact that Garfield sometimes attempted to get into the automobiles of shoppers as they were departing Sainsbury's attests to just how lonely that he was and how much that the longed for a real home and an owner of his own. The only notable exception to that rule are intact males who sometimes roam in search of females during Paarungszeit.

It therefore hardly came as any surprise to anyone when on July 2, 2019 he was run down by a motorist, presumably a hit-and-run one, in the parking lot of Sainsbury's. He was taken by an unidentified individual to a local surgery but, allegedly, he could not have been saved. He was only twelve years old.

His killer was never publicly identified, arrested, and prosecuted despite the fact that it is rather difficult for a motorist to run down and kill a cat in a parking lot unless he was acting with either malice aforethought or speeding. It likewise is a sure bet that the police never bothered to even look into his killing. What is another dead cat to an ailurophobe?

"With great sadness, we have to report that Garfield died a short while ago. He was hit by a car in Sainsbury's car park earlier this afternoon and was rushed to the vet but they (sic) were unable to save him," one of the Villers announced on Garfield' Facebook page later that same horrible day. "Garfield brought joy to all our lives and his memory lives on. Give your cat an extra cuddle tonight and remember Garfy with love."

Garfield Did Not Have Much but at Least He Had Access to a Sofa

For the Villers to be dispensing such outrageous gratuitous advice to other owners when they never had so much as an ounce of love for Garfield in their black hearts is beyond hypocritical but perhaps that is the type of sottise that social media engenders in its users. It did, however, smooth the way for their subsequent naked exploitation of his memory.

Lauren Shereard, a patron of Sainsbury's, was a good deal more sincere. "This is so sad. He was a legend and will always be remembered," she told the Cambridge News. "I'm so shocked. I only saw him chilling by the doors just this morning."

His killing brought tears to the eyes of patron Sue Farrow. "Poor Garfield. Rest in peace beautiful boy. (I was) always thinking of you and you're always in my heart and always will be," she told the Cambridge News. "You gave me happiness and smiles."

"Happy memories, a sad day," security guard Senior added simply.

Even though there is scant evidence that the English ever have profited very much from their faith, they nevertheless like to pass themselves off as good Christians. So, it was anything but surprising that approximately four-hundred-fifty nominal animal lovers gathered for a blessing of the animals that was held in late September at ancient Ely Cathedral, the construction of which was begun by William the Conquer in 1083. This was not, however, a memorial service in honor of Garfield but rather for all cats, dogs, donkeys, ferrets, guinea pigs, and birds.

Not much time and effort therefore was put into eulogizing Garfield but author Cate Caruth of Bury St. Edmonds, forty-three kilometers southeast of Ely, did attend. Earlier in February of 2019, she and David Villers had published a tome about Garfield entitled What's THAT Doing There? A Garfy Book. It must be selling reasonably well because at last glance it was out of stock on Thrift Books but still available on Amazon.

As for Villers, he quite obviously had already started grabbing for shekels even while his cat was still alive. On the other hand, Caruth's appearance at Ely Cathedral afforded her not only another opportunity in order to flog her book, but also to showcase her morally warped and perverted soul.

Garfield Was a Big Hit with Little Boys...

"He was a pet for all of those who could not have no pet of their own," is how that she began her nonsensical homily according to the BBC's September 22, 2019 account of the proceedings. (See "Ely Cathedral Eulogy to Sainsbury's Cat Garfield.") "Garfield touched thousands of lives around the world. In remembering Garfield, we remember all those pets."

What she is really saying is that it is perfectly permissible for individuals to adopt cats on the pretext of being caring and responsible owners and then to only turn around soon thereafter and do an about-face by abandoning them to the street in order to fend for themselves. It often has been remarked that a cat has the intellectual development of a four-year-old child and even in decadent old England anyone who abandoned a toddler to the street would not only immediately lose custody of it but likely wind up in jail to boot. So, why is it morally and legally acceptable to do likewise to a cat?

Secondly, those cretins who pretend to adore homeless cats like Garfield and those that are found at cat cafes are guilty not only of being outrageous hypocrites but they also are tacitly endorsing the abandonment, neglect, and naked exploitation of them. (See Cat Defender post of June 5, 2008 entitled "Teahouse Cats Are Given Shelter and Work but Precious Little Job Security and No Legal Protections.")

If any of them really cared so much as one whit about footloose cats they would either take them home with them or sic the authorities on the likes of the Villers and Sainsburys of this world. In reality, however, they only take an interest, and it is a passing and fleeting one at that, in those cats that they do not have to feed, house, medicate and, above all, be morally responsible for throughout their lives. 

Caruth concluded her spiel by denying all reality. "As the fictional Garfy might say, 'I'm not really gone,' she blew long and hard to the attendees according to the BBC. "'I'm just off on another adventure'."

Actually, Garfield is really and truly dead. He died a violent and painful death underneath the wheels of a murdering motorist on July 2, 2019 because absolutely no one is Ely cared enough about him in order to have taken personal responsibility for his well-being. He therefore died as he lived, alone and unloved.

Furthermore, he is not off on any new adventures and he definitely will not be coming back from the crypt as the Christians have long claimed that Jesus did all those years ago. The only thing that she got right is to have chosen Ely Cathedral as the ideal venue in order to have promoted the abuse, abandonment, and neglect of cats.

... and Especially Little Girls

"On New Year's Day (in) 1638, in Ely Cathedral, a cat was roasted alive on a spit in the presence of a large and boisterous crowd," John Gray disclosed in his 2020 book, Feline Philosophy. Cats and the Meaning of Life.

The English's long history of committing despicable acts of cruelty against the species is by no means however limited to what occurred in Ely Cathedral. Gray continued:

"A few years later Parliamentary troops, fighting against Royalist forces in the English Civil War, used hounds to hunt cats up and down Lichfield Cathedral (one-hundred-eighty-six kilometers west of Ely in Staffordshire ).

'During pope-burning processions in the reign of Charles II, the effigies were stuffed with live cats so that their screams would add dramatic effect. At rural fairs a popular sport was shooting cats suspended in baskets'."

It accordingly has taken the good Christians of Ely Cathedral only a measly four-hundred years in order to have advanced from roasting live cats on a spit to consecrating their abandonment, neglect, and abuse. At that exhilarating pace in another thousand or two years they could be worshiping them as the ancient Egyptians once did or, more likely, killing and dining on them as their Aussie cousins are doing today. (See Cat Defender posts of September 7, 2007 and November 18, 2016 entitled, respectively, "The Australians Renounce Civilization and Revert to Savages with the Introduction of a Grotesque Plan to Get Rid of Cats by Eating Them" and "A Clever Devil at the University of Adelaide Boasts That He Has Discovered the Achilles' Heel of Cats with His Invention of Robotic Grooming Traps as the Thoroughly Evil Australians' All-Out War Against the Species Enters Its Final Stages.")

Predictably, no mention has been made of what was done with Garfield's remains. It would seem likely, however, that the Villers did not want any part of them and therefore left them at the surgery for the veterinarians to have either incinerated or to have tossed out with the day's trash. Since they cared absolutely nothing about him while he was above ground, they were not about to have afforded him a memorial service, a proper resting place, and a suitable tombstone.

Moreover, Garfield has proven to have been significantly more lucrative to the Villers in death than he ever was in life. First of all, they hit up the public for £2,000 which they in turn gave to the local branch of Cats Protection which, although it most assuredly was fully cognizant of how horribly that they were neglecting and endangering him, did absolutely nothing in order to have saved him. If the charity had had any interest whatsoever of living up to its name, it would have taken Garfield from them, placed him with a responsible guardian who would have been willing to have safeguarded his life, and arrested the Villers and charged them with animal cruelty.

The Memorial Bench and Bronze Statue of Garfield in Ely Country Park

Failing to have done its job is not anything new for Cats Protection which regularly kills off cats instead of medicating them. (See Cat Defender posts of August 26, 2015 and February 16, 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.")

Earlier this year, its branch in North East Lincolnshire condemned "lots" of kittens to early graves long before their lives had hardly begun due to a lack of shelter space. The death toll was reportedly the highest in Woodhall Spa, Grimsby, and Horncastle and Louth. 

"Over the last few weeks we've not got to calls quick enough due to a lack of spaces in the branch, so when we've gone to meet the people and bring cats in there have been lots of kittens dead on arrival which is really distressing," the branch's Michelle Mohamed confessed to the BBC on May 31st. (See "Kittens Being Found Dead a Charity Flounders.")

The only way to interpret that admission is that neither Mohamed nor any of the hundreds of staffers that Cats Protection employs at its many shelters were willing to have fostered the kittens until shelter space became available. Saving so many young and innocent lives surely would have been worth the inconvenience if Cats Protection had cared anything at all about them.

Secondly, the Villers conned another £7,000 out of not only the residents of Ely but Americans, Thais, and Kiwis in order to retain the services of Sally Dunham of Soham, nine kilometer southeast of Ely, to sculpture a life-sized bronze statue of Garfield. Unveiled on October 14th of last year, it now sits, mounted on a plinth, and alongside a memorial bench in Ely Country Park, one-tenth of a mile southeast of Sainsbury's via Cresswells Lane. The engraving on the bench reads: "In loving memory of Garfy -- sit and relax for a moment with me."

"It's so overwhelming, just phenomenal," David Villers gushed to the BBC on October 16, 2023. (See "Bronze Memorial to Garfield the Ely Sainsbury's Cat.") "We started raising money for the memorial about a year ago, but I never thought we'd get there."

"We really hope people who loved Garfy will come along to the park sit and stroke his statue -- we're actually looking forward to seeing it worn a little from all the attention," Dunham, perhaps angling for another commission, told the BBC.

Since she had met him so many times at Sainsbury's while he was still alive, she easily could have saved his life if only she had acted. Instead, she bided her time until long after he had been violently killed so that she, like all the other vultures who swooped in and out of his life, could join the gold rush after his death.

Teddy Has Developed an Uncanny Affinity for Garfield's Bench

"I still miss the little fella, but the statue is amazing -- bittersweet because the memories come flooding back -- but wonderful to have a statue," Villers concluded to the BBC.

Three things need to be said about such outrageous hogwash. First of all, it strains all credulity that he could possibly still care about a cat that he abandoned to the streets a dozen years ago. Secondly, he could not possibly have very many cherished memories of a cat that he had not cared for and had only rarely laid eyes upon during the last seven years of his life.

Thirdly, he likely was sincere, however, in his praise of the statue. After all, it not only is enhancing his presence on Facebook but also bringing in the big bucks.

The limeys and the Scots (Irish) always have much preferred their cats to be dead and profitable as opposed to alive, healthy, safe, and at home where they had to take care of them and to be morally and legally responsible for their well-being and staying alive. For instance, Hamish McHamish's owner, former BBC producer Marianne Baird, and the citizens of St. Andrews inexcusably abandoned him to tough it out on his own in the cold and on the street for fourteen years without so much as a second thought as to either his needs or to what he wanted out of life.

Consequently, when he became ill in 2014 Baird had him killed off rather than treated. (See Cat Defender posts of June 20, 2014, October 18, 2014, and October 20, 2017 entitled, respectively, "St. Andrews Honors Hamish McHamish with a Bronze Statue but Does Not Have the Decency, Love, and Compassion in Order to Provide Him with a Warm, Secure, an Permanent Home," "Hamish McHamish's Derelict Owner Reenters His Life after Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect Only to Have Him Killed Off after He Contracts a Preeminently Treatable Common Cold," and "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.")

According to a December 3, 2023 posting on Garfield's Facebook page, the Villers are now raking in £350 apiece from their sale of miniature statues of the cat that they long ago abandoned. Individuals residing outside of England must also pony up an undisclosed amount in shipping and handling. Their take from these mementoes accordingly must make what they raked in from the book that he co-authored with Caruth and the bronze statue that now sits in Ely Country Park look like chicken feed.

Even more deplorably, the simply god-awful example that they have set not only by their abandonment and neglect of Garfield but their crass exploitation of his fame for monetary gain has found a copycat adherent in the person of Hihine Lor who has now placed the life of her three-year-old, ginger-colored tom, Teddy, in grave danger by deliberately grooming him to follow in their dead cat's pawprints. Specifically she has turned him loose in order to roam Sainsbury's deadly parking lot by his lonesome but it has not been disclosed if he is allowed inside the store. Actually, he would be far safer inside than outside.

Teddy Is Still Alive but Garfield Has Been Reduced to Bronze

"Teddy seems to love Sainsbury's and, like Garfield, he gets into customer's automobiles," she disclosed to the BBC on June 1st. (See "The Cat That Sits Quietly Near a Feline Memorial.")

Unlike the Villers, however, she does appear to be in possession of something remotely resembling a conscience, albeit a stunted, underdeveloped, and warped one. "It does worry me sometimes. He is a hunter and a wanderer," she continued to the BBC. "He has tags and a GPS so I can see where he is, and where he's been, but I've lost count of the times people have rung me to ask if I have lost my cat."

Also in marked distinction to the conduct of the Villers, she apparently still plays some minimally constructive role in Teddy's life. "I say no, I know exactly where he is -- but sometimes I do have to go and fetch him home," she quickly added to the BBC. 

First of all, knowing the occasional whereabouts of cat hardly qualifies as acceptable guardianship of it given that it only takes a split-second in order for either someone or some animal to kill it. Secondly, building an online presence clearly counts for considerably more with her than safeguarding Teddy's fragile life.

"This page is dedicated to Teddy, (a) little ginger cat that is getting well-known around the Ely area," she wrote in the introduction to his Facebook page, Teddy of Ely. At last check, the page has attracted three-hundred-eighty-two followers.

In addition to irresponsibly allowing Teddy to hang out in Sainsbury's dangerous parking lot where he has been photographed in front of passenger vehicles and delivery vans alike, she also is allowing him to roam the grounds off Ely Country Park where he now spends considerable time on the bench beside the bronze statue of Garfield.

Most astounding of all, Lor is the one who has put Teddy up to imitating Garfield. "I'd taken him there once to show him, then I took him home," she frankly admitted to the BBC. "But he kept going back and now he seems really comfortable there."

Minka on the Last Day of Her Life Before Daniella Gasda Had Her Killed Off

That admission raises the strong suspicion that she additionally is the one who introduced him to Sainsbury's parking lot by dumping him out there. She therefore is knowingly and intentionally playing Russian roulette with his life.

Being far too dishonest and mindlessly greedy, however, to admit such a thing, she is instead attempting to fob off on an equally callous public the absurd notion that Teddy's rambles are being motivated by something akin to either intuition or fate. "He could go anywhere but he's choosing these places, Sainsbury's and the park" she equivocated to the BBC. "It's almost as though the baton has been passed on. It's almost as if he knows."

Although cats often have been alleged to possess psychic powers, it is difficult to believe that Teddy could conceivably have any knowledge of a cat that was killed two years before he was even born. It is even more insane to think that he would have any psychic connection to either Sainsbury's deadly parking lot or to a bench and a statue in Ely Country Park.

The only connection that he has to both venues is Lor. Perhaps he is waiting for her to come and take him home with her and to be a proper guardian to him?

As if any additional evidence were needed as to what she is up to it can be found in the following revealing note that she posted August 3rd on Teddy's Facebook page:

"Teddy is out and about without his tracker for a week as we are away. Food will be left for him daily but I doubt he will come back. I think he will make the most of his freedom. Would love to see what he is up to whilst away so photos welcome if you spot him around." 

Considering the myriad of ailurophobes that there are in this world coupled with the seemingly endless number of calamities that have been known to befall them, leaving a cat alone for so much as a minute, even in a locked house or an apartment, is not totally without its risks, but to sashay out of town for a week while leaving a cat to roam constitutes the very epitome of irresponsible ownership as well as insanity. Nevertheless, that is precisely what fifty-four-year-old Daniella Gasda of Mühlgraben Street in the Volkstedt section of Rudolstedt in Thuringia also did with her two to four year old (press reports differ) tortoiseshell, Minka.

A Bronze Statue Is Hardly Any Substitute for a Live Garfield

When she finally returned home on September 27, 2020 she found her cowering in her basement covered in blood and with her rear paws cut off. Since she had been inexcusably left to roam while Gasda was away, she apparently had been abducted in the street, mutilated, and afterwards hurled into Gasda's cellar through a window.

Initially, Gasda had elected to have the attending veterinarian treat and bandage Minka's stumps but on October 11th she changed her mind and had her killed off. That was in spite of the fact that it would have been relatively simple and inexpensive for her to have had her fitted with a rear end support with wheels (a feline wheelchair) and with it she could have lived a long and relatively normal life.

Most importantly of all, Minka's eyes were bright and she certainly did not appear in photographs to have been in any pain. Cats are highly resilient animals who are fully capable of adjusting to just about any tragedy but they must first be given a chance in order to do so.

It is almost superfluous to add, however, that anyone who would go on vacation and leave her cat unprotected to roam the perilous streets was not about to care for her once she had become handicapped. As far as it is known, no arrest was ever made in this horrifying case; none ever is whenever the victim is a cat, no matter how despicable the crime. (See Thüringen-24 of Berlin, October 2, 2020, "Rudolstadt: Wer hat Minka das angetan? Katze erlebt abscheuliches Martyrium," the Osthüringer Zeitung, October 16, 2020, "Verstümmelte Katze gestorben: Rudostädterin sammelt Spenden, um Tierquäler zu ergreifen," the Wetterau Zeitung of Geißen, October 7, 2020, "Katze furchtbar verstümmelt: Polizei veröffentlicht Shock-Photo, das nicht nur Tierfreunde wütend macht," the Ostthüringer Zeitung, November 9, 2020, "Mysteriöser Katzen schwund in Rudolstadt-Schwarze," and Saalfeld Polizei press release of October 2, 2020, "Zeugen nach Verstümmeling einer Katze gesucht.")

Mercifully, nothing tragic happened to Teddy during the week that Lor was out of town and according to his Facebook page he was still alive and, apparently, in good health at last check on Tuesday, August 20th. In that same posting, Hihine revealed that he does sometimes come home in order to eat and sleep but she failed to disclose how often that occurs.

Since it is not known where in Ely she lives, it is impossible to speculate if she is endangering his life by allowing him to travel back and forth at all hours of the day between Sainsbury's and her house. As for the park itself, it poses all sorts of dangers for him with dogs and unspecified wildlife topping that list. Poisonous plants, kidnappers, and the machinations of ailurophobes are additional concerns.

Lor is right about one thing, however. The baton has indeed been passed but what she is totally unwilling to admit is that her cat is running in a relay of death where the only winner is destined to be the Grim Reaper.

Unless she has an epiphany and comes to her senses and immediately brings Teddy home and keeps him there, his days above ground are surely numbered. It therefore is not too early to begin a death watch for him.

Photos: the Cambridge News (Garfield on the floor and with a boy and two girls), the BBC (Garfield in front of an escalator and up-close), Dawn Sykes (Garfield on a sofa), Sally Dunham (memorial), Faye Moore (Teddy on the bench and beside Garfield's bust), and Daniella Gasda (Minka).

Beautiful King Hercules Is Condemned to an Early Grave by His Derelict Owner Who Did Not Care Enough about Him to Have Kept Him Out of the Street

While He Was Alive, King Hercules Liked to Survey His Realm

"I actually saw my world flash by when I saw him. He had a blue collar (and) it was lying next to him. I screamed his name: Hercules!"
-- Luisa Motta

Another beautiful cat has been run down and killed by a hit-and-run motorist. He thus has joined the legions of moggies that are senselessly dying every day of the week all because their totally irresponsible owners stubbornly refuse to shield them from the machinations of motorists.

The latest victim to have made the news was an elderly Persian named King Hercules from the affluent Primrose Hill district on the northern edge of Regent's Park in the borough of Camden in London. The dastardly and unconscionable foul deed took place on Fitzroy Road at some undisclosed date during, presumably, the last week in March and involved two motorists.

"I went to do the recycling and I saw two cars there with safety lights on flashing. I thought 'what's going on?'," King Hercules' fifty-six-year-old owner, Luisa Motta of the Oldfield (Housing) Estate at 54 Fitzroy Road, told the Camden New Journal of London on March 30th. (See "Kit-and-Run: Devastated Owner Says Drivers Who Run Over Cats Should Face Penalties.") "I could see something on the floor (sic). It was orange and I thought it was a fox. But as I got closer I realized it was not a fox, it was my baby."

The mere fact that the motorists had their emergency lights on coupled with Motta's admission that she was taking out the trash when she happened upon King Hercules are two indications that his murder possibly could have occurred after dark and sometime during the early evening hours. Much more pertinently, Motta did not have any business of allowing him out of doors after dark, especially in an area as vehicularly congested as Fitzroy Road.

It has not been disclosed where on Fitzroy Road King Hercules was killed but most likely it was near his residence at Oldfield Estate, which is a six-story, brick building that contains two-hundred-fifty-one studios and one-bedroom apartments for senior citizens. That accordingly makes it one of the few affordable places for the poor to live in Primrose Hill where victorians start at around £1.5 million.

                                         

Unless she should happen to reside on the ground floor, Motta in all likelihood would have needed to have carried King Hercules downstairs in an elevator before turning him loose. She then at some later time would have needed to have gone outside, located and collected him, and returned him to her flat.

That in turn raises the specter that she may have been in the habit of allowing him to have roamed the perilous streets of Primrose Hill both day and night. If there should be any credence to that assumption, it is difficult to think of a more deliberate way for her to have killed her cat.

For whaever it is worth, however, her grief seems to have been genuine enough. "I actually saw my world flash by when I saw him," she told the Camden New Journal. "He had a blue collar (and) it was lying next to him. I screamed his name: Hercules!"

What happened next is not exactly clear. According to the muddled and elliptical account of events contained in the Camden New Journal, Motta called out for the motorists to wait while she hurried off in order to fetch an unidentified neighbor who is a nurse.

That in itself is odd to say the least. Under such traumatic circumstances, her first instinct should have been to immediately checked on the condition of King Hercules and, in particular, how seriously that he was injured and, most importantly of all, if he were still alive.

Her second action should have been to have removed him from the road and out of harm's way. Her third move unquestionably should have been to either have driven him to the closest, twenty-four-hour surgery or to have transported him there in a taxi. It also would have been a good idea for her to have telephoned en route in order to have alerted the veterinary technicians on duty as to what had happened and to have let them known that she was on her way with King Hercules. Most full-fledged veterinarians are far too bone-lazy, uncaring, and unprofessional to even work nine to five, Mondays through Fridays, let alone evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays.       

It therefore is largely a case of potluck for owners who must secure emergency treatment for their injured and sick cats during after-hours. This glaring hole in veterinary care also highlights the urgent need for the establishment of some type of ambulance service for cats but the only way that such a direly needed public service is ever going to become a reality will be through the efforts and funding of cat owners; neither the veterinary medical profession nor the politicians would ever be willing to kick in so much as a lousy nickel for such an invaluable service that undoubtedly would save countless lives.

The fact that just about all veterinarians keep bankers' hours coupled with their only interest being in cleaning out the pockets of distraught owners demonstrates once again that the practice of veterinary medicine is a complete sham. After all, cats get sick, injured, and even die twenty-four-hours a day, seven days a week, and even on holidays just as humans do but practitioners treat them as if they were no more than the play pretties of the affluent and that their lives are therefore of no account.

With that being the harsh, unbending reality, owners who care must do the very best that they can for their injured and sick companions and in that regard it is, admittedly, extremely difficult for most people to even think halfway clearly in emergencies and for that reason it is imperative that owners not only already have an emergency plan but know it by rote as the result of having rehearsed it many times in their minds. Above all, they need to know where to go and how to get there in the fastest way possible. Minutes, indecision, and missteps cost lives.

The slipshod Camden New Journal has not disclosed what was the point of Motta's running off in search of the nurse or even if she was able to have located her. Rather, all that it has been willing to divulge to the public is that at some point she returned to the scene of the crime, collected King Hercules, and somehow was able to have gotten him to an unidentified surgery.

 Luisa Motta's Love for King Hercules Was Not the Right Kind

Sadly, even in that belated effort Motta was way too late because King Hercules was declared dead upon arrival. No mention has been made of what killed him or even if he was struck by one or both motorists.

Could he have been saved if Motta had promptly gotten him to a surgery instead of foolishly wasting valuable time chasing down the nurse? Perhaps. At least that is the complaint that she has lodged against King Hercules' killers.

"Maybe, he could have been saved?" she argued to the Camden New Journal. "I would have stopped. They must have heard the bang. He wasn't a small cat."

Actually, both drivers did stop, if ever so briefly, but they did not do a solitary thing in order to have helped King Hercules. The mere fact that his collar had been removed and was lying on the pavement is one indication, however, that they might have at the very least checked on him.

It has not been disclosed what type of collar he was wearing but it would have been unusual for it to have been knocked off by the impact with a motorist. On the other hand, if that was indeed what occurred King Hercules likely had been struck, once or twice, in the head and died either instantaneously or soon thereafter.

It likewise has not been disclosed if his collar also had a tag listing Motta's name and telephone number. It is almost superfluous to point out but there is not any point of equipping a cat with a collar that does not contain a name tag.

Predictably, both motorists had vamoosed by the time that Motta had returned to Hercules' side. She likely was able to have ascertained some description of them as well as the makes of their instruments of death. The Camden New Journal fails to mention, however, if she even filed a complaint with Scotland Yard.

What precious little public debate that there has been in the aftermath of the violent killing of King Hercules has followed a predictable script. Most notably, Motta has called for the enactment of legal penalties against drivers who run down cats and then flee the scene.

This issue has been debated in public, Fleet Street, 10 Downing Street, and in the House of Commons for years without so much as a glimmer of success. The most recent legislative initiative occurred in 2022 when an online petition garnered one-hundred-two-thousand, four-hundred-thirty-seven signatures within the legally-mandated six-month-period. That in turn allowed the measure to have been debated in the House of Commons on January 9, 2023.

By that time, however, it was long dead because the government of then Prime Minister "Porous" Boris Johnson had already rejected it outright. "The government has no plans to make it an offense to drive off after hitting a cat," it declared with relish. "A focus of this government is to make roads safer for all users, which will in turn reduce the risk to all animals." (See "Make It a Legal Requirement for Drivers to Stop and Report Collisions with Cats" at http:// petitions.parliament.uk/petitions/607317.) 

That in itself is an outrageous load of hypocritical balderdash considering that under the Road Traffic Act of 1988 motorists in England, Scotland, and Wales are required to notify the police whenever they run down dogs, cows, horses, sheep, donkeys, mules, pigs, and goats. Besides, neither the Tories nor the Laborites have ever been known to have done anything beneficial in order to have made the roads safer for animals and pedestrians.

Such blatant discrimination against cats under the law is, however, merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to how shamefully the English have relegated them to being second-class citizens in their own country. For starters, foxhunters routinely get away scot-free with negligently allowing their hounds to kill and eat cats. (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 Support of the Uneatable' Far More Than They Do Her Right to Live.")

Secondly, although the Dangerous Dogs Act has been on the books since 1991, canines still routinely kill cats with impunity because the authorities stubbornly refuse to enforce the strictures of the law. For example on August 22, 2019, an unleashed dog, possibly a lurcher, killed an eleven-year-old gray, brown, and white female named Sparkle while she was sitting on the stoop of her house in the Sudden section of Rochdale in Greater Manchester.

Her heartbroken owner, fifteen-year-old Jacob Hazley, started a petition that would have allowed owners to have taken direct action against the owners of dogs that kill cats but his well-intended and long overdue initiative did not go anywhere. (See Cat Defender post of September 22, 2019 entitled "Sparkle Is Killed on the Front Stoop of Her House by an Unleashed Dog in the Latest of Centuries-Old Attacks That Bear the Unmistakable Imprimatur of the House of Commons.")   

Another initiative that would have required councils (local governments) to scan the corpses of cats that are found dead in the street and elsewhere for implanted microchips has likewise yet to see the light of day. As a consequence, garbagemen continue to collect these cats and to dispose of them by either burning or recycling them while their aggrieved owners are left in the dark as to what has become of their beloved companions.

Oldfield Estate Is Too Congested an Area for Footloose Cats

The little regard that the English authorities have for the lives of cats is further exemplified by the refusal of Scotland Yard and other police departments to even investigate cases of cruelty. (See Cat Defender posts of November 7, 2022 and December 18, 2018 entitled, respectively, "In a Sad and Violent Dénouement to a Long and Happy Life, Cleo Is Brutally Slain and Mutilated in a South London Park, Reigniting Fears That the Croydon Cat Killer May Have Struck Again" and "The Brutal Attackers of Mr. Solly Walk in a Lark All Because the Rotters at Scotland Yard Were Too Bone-Lazy, Derelict, and Ailurophobic to Even Examine the Evidence Supplied Them by His Distraught Owner.")                                                                                                      

It therefore is pretty much a foregone conclusion that Scotland Yard has never so much as even looked into the killing of King Hercules. His killers therefore have gotten away scot-free with their heinous crime and sans doute will go on to kill many more cats before they are done. Running down and killing felines with an automobile has become the perfect crime.

Fleet Street likewise continues to cash in on cats from all sides. On the one hand, it continues to champion the exploits of cats that are allowed to play in the street by their irresponsible owners while simultaneously offering up nothing more than crocodile tears whenever they invariably come to tragic ends. On the other hand, once it has milked that side of the issue for all that it is worth, scurrilous old rags such as The Guardian and the Daily Mail waste little time in hopping on the bandwagon started decades ago by the utterly despicable and patently dishonest New York Times by wholeheartedly endorsing the clarion call of ornithologists and wildlife biologists that the entire species should be promptly exterminated.

Even cat food manufacturers, such as an English branch of Purina, do not have any qualms about urging  owners to endanger the lives of their cats by entering them in roaming contests. (See Cat Defender post of December 5, 2006 entitled "Milo, Who Visits the Vet by Her Lonesome, Is Named Old Blighty's 'Most Adventurous' Cat.")

People always get this wrong but when searching for the absolute worst rotters in any society's many woodpiles, it is a waste of time to look to the bottoms of the piles; on the contrary, that search should begin with the scumbags who straddle the tops of them. For although the politicians on Downing Street are able to cash in like bank robbers by pretending to like cats, their aberrant behavior toward them exposes them as nothing more than exploitative phonies.

Most prominently, while he was serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne not only callously allowed Freya to roam the congested streets of the City of Westminster, just as hop, skip, and jump removed from Primrose Hill, unescorted but he also allowed her to be run down and injured by a hit-and-run driver.

He finally woke up and took her off the street but it is not known what has become or her or even if she is still alive. (See Cat Defender posts of November 10, 2014 and November 13, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Freya, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Resident Feline, Cheats Death Once Again When She Survives Being Run Down and Injured by a Motorist but Her Good Luck Cannot Last for Much Longer" and "Gutless Georgie 'Porgie' Osborne Gets Rid of Freya but in Doing So Lies About the True Reason Behind His Second Cruel Abandonment of Her.")

Long-Suffering, hideously neglected, and slandered and libeled to the hilt by Fleet Street, Larry has survived as the resident feline at 10 Downing Street ever since 2011 but it has never been an easy row for him to have hoed. Yet, during that time he has been fortunate enough to have seen David Cameron, Theresa May, "Porous" Boris, and Liz Truss all come and go and he now lives with incumbent Rishi Sunak. Most recently in October of 2022, he was however irresponsibly allowed to tangle with a fox outside his home. (See the Daily Mail, October 11, 2022, "Larry the Cat Lands a Promotion! Downing Street's Chief Mouser Takes On a Fox Outside Prime Minister's Home -- and the Feisty Fifteen-Year-Old Tabby Successfully Chases Away the Intruder," plus Cat Defender posts of July 21, 2011 and August 1, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Larry Faces Many Challenges and Dangers in His New Role as 10 Downing Street's Resident Feline" and "Unmercifully Maligned and Treated Like Dirt for So Many Years, Larry Nevertheless Manages to Stick Around Long Enough in Order to See the Last of David Cameron and His Uncaring Family.")

Other recent feline residents of Downing Street have been subjected to disparagement, neglect, and banishment. (See Cat Defender posts of April 6, 2006, September 19, 2007, August 13, 2009, and August 8, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Humphrey, the Cat from 10 Downing Street Who Once 'Read' His Own Obituary, Passes Away at Age Eighteen," "After a Dreary Ten-Year Absence, Number 10 Downing Street Has a New Resident Feline and Her Name Is Sybil," "Sybil, 10 Downing Street's Former First Feline, Dies Unexpectedly from an Undisclosed Illness," and "Palmerston Is Recruited for a Prestigious Post in Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service but Then Disgracefully Relegated to Makeshift Living Quarters Out in the Cold," plus the Daily Mail, August 7, 2020, "'Thanks for the Memories': Foreign Office's Chief Mouser Palmerston 'Retires' after Enjoying Working from Home During Lockdown.") 

Considering the god-awful examples set by the politicians, it is not the least bit surprising that most English cat owners behave as if they could care less if their supposedly beloved companions live or die. For example, in recent years such famous felines as Casper and PCAT have been run down and killed by motorists. (See Cat Defender posts of August 27, 2009, January 30, 2010, and November 21, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Casper Treats Himself to an Unescorted Tour Around Plymouth Each Morning Courtesy of the Number Three Bus," "Casper Is Run Down and Killed by a Hit-and-Run Taxi Driver While Crossing the Street in Order to Get to the Bus Stop," and "Officials at Plymouth College of Art Should Be Charged with Gross Negligence and Animal Cruelty in the Tragic Death of the School's Longtime Resident Feline, PCAT.") 

Most reprehensibly of all, Clare Smith and Iain Simpson of Quarrington, a suburb of Sleaford in Lincolnshire, the East Midlands, knowingly allowed their cat, Archie, to sleep in the middle of a busy road. Nothing further has been heard about him over the course of the past decade but he is surely long dead by now. (See Cat Defender post of March 29, 2017 entitled "Archie Is Knowingly Allowed to Sleep Smack-Dab in the Middle of a Busy Thoroughfare by His Derelict Owners Who Are Content with Merely Tracking His Movements by Satellite.")
 

Nevertheless, anyone who would take his cues on how to treat a cat from the politicians, the blowhards on Fleet Street, Silicon Valley, organized religion, and other elites is not only an unfit owner but a goddamned fool to boot. With each passing day it is becoming increasingly clear that the politicians are not the answer to anything. That in turn makes individuals, such as Motta, who expect them to compensate for their glaring inadequacies as owners the most dishonest players in these totally preventable tragedies.

Furthermore, if rescue groups in London cared anything about cats, which they most assuredly do not, they would ban Motta from adopting another moggy. Her killing of King Hercules is more than sufficient justification for such action.

In addition to motorists, foxes, and serial killers, owners who turn their cats loose to roam without supervision are additionally exposing them to predation by dogs, thieves, yobs armed with air guns, and poisoners. Three and one-half kilometers north of Primrose Hill in Gospel Oak, crows are attacking humans and, presumably, cats as well. (See the Camden New Journal, June 8, 2024, "Watch Out!! It's the Return of Gospel Oak's Dive-Bombing Crows.")

It thus seems preeminently fair to conclude that the limeys are living a lie. Actually, most of them do not even like cats; rather, what they like is neglecting, exploiting, and abusing them.

Motta most assuredly was well aware of the dangers that she was exposing King Hercules to by turning him loose to roam the roads and byways of Primrose Hill. Even more inexcusably, she has even run down cats herself.

Summer Has Finally Arrived in Primrose Hill but King Hercules Is Long Dead

"I hit a cat many years ago and I remember the bump. I remember thinking I had to make sure the cat was okay otherwise I couldn't live with myself," she freely confessed to the Camden New Journal on March 30th. "But this person (King Hercules' killer or killers) just ran off. It's awful. It has killed me."

Although a confession is rumored to be good for the soul, her mea culpa in no way exonerates her from the commission of her foul deed. For instance, was she in her cups, on drugs, speeding, texting, or gassing on her mobile phone? There is not any valid excuse for any motorist who is alert behind the wheel and following the rules of the road to be running down any animal.

 

King Hercules had lived with Motta for a decade so he was slightly older than that. She additionally claims to have acquired him from a rescue group and that is odd because Persians fetch between US$1,000 and US$5,000 apiece on the open market and it is rare for any of them to turn up at shelters.

He is said to have loved the great outdoors and in particular sunbathing and climbing trees. That too is odd in that an outdoor Persian is every bit as rare as finding one at a shelter.

It does occasionally occur, but owners usually do not turn them loose to play in the street. There is not any way of knowing what transpired but it would appear that Motta unwisely transformed King Hercules from an indoor to an outdoor cat and that decision spelled his doom.

"Everyone in the estate where I live knew him," she continued to the Camden New Journal. "He became like a mascot for the Oldfield Estate."

That admission proves conclusively that she is not right in the head. Cats are not to be shared with the vulgar, ailurophobic public. Au contraire, their safety, well-being, health, and happiness are to be guarded even more jealously than gold itself. Disbelievers need only to acquaint themselves with how that the ancient Egyptians felt about them.

Motta goes on to disclose that King Hercules "followed me like he was a dog" and that presumably implies outdoors as well as inside her flat. It has been said before but it nonetheless bears repeating: a cat is not a dog and individuals who are partial to the latter species should get a representative of it and stay away from cats.

"He was my family, my baby. He was called King Hercules," Motta declared to the Camden New Journal. "He was big and mighty, very suited to his name."

That is simply more of her self-serving sottise. No cat, big or small, has any conceivable means of comprehending the malevolence, malice aforethought, and pure, unadulterated evil that lurks in the hearts of men for it. Their owners, who most definitely are not ignorant of what man is capable of doing, therefore must be their eyes, ears, protectors, and defenders.

Summer has finally arrived in Primrose Hill. It is warm again outside, the grass is green, and the trees are in full foliage. There is only one thing missing from that idyllic tableau and that is King Hercules who, sadly, has seen his last summer.

"Now I cannot bear to stay home, because I live alone," Motta concluded to the Camden New Journal. "When I open the door he used to greet me. I can't stay home. I miss him terribly."

There cannot be any denying that losing a cat is hell but King Hercules has lost a good deal more than Motta. She should now and again think of that instead of all the time crying in her beer and feeling sorry for herself. 

No mention has been made as to what she did with King Hercules' remains but more than likely she left them on the examining table at the surgery for staffers to have either burned or tossed out in the trash. If there should be any truth in that assumption, it speaks volumes more than all of her declarations of undying love to the contrary.

There are not any words of consolation that can make the senseless loss of such a beautiful cat as King Hercules any easier to accept. With a different owner and a measure of good fortune, he easily could have lived for another ten years, if not indeed even longer.

His regal appearance alone made this often dreary old world a more beautiful place and, now that he is gone, it has lost some of its luster. Even more depressingly, he likely already has been all but forgotten in both Oldfield Estate and on Primrose Hill. Generally speaking, cats are seldom remembered for very long anywhere.

Photos: Camden New Journal (King Hercules) and Housing Care.org (Oldfield Estate).