There is only one word for the 5 youths who immersed a 6 week old kitten in a drum of motor oil
EVIL
According to our local newspaper report they are around 14 years of age. What a very frightening thought that at an age where those youths should know right from wrong, they tortured that tiny kitten.
If the man in a van hadn’t come along it’s more than likely those feral youths would have set that kitten alight.
This man bravely challenged the gang, took the kitten from them and brought him to Marion the co-ordinator of our Wear Valley & Darlington Cats Protection branch.
Marion named the kitten Chester and washed as much oil off him as she could, she is the most caring and compassionate lady and seeing Chester in the terrible state he was in must have broken her heart.
He survived the first night because of her TLC and yesterday had his oily fur shaved off at the vets.
They had to do it very slowly, with no anaesthetic and allowing him to rest in between. He had antibiotics but having swallowed some of the oil he is still in danger of pneumonia. Marion says he is still pooing black but he’s eating now and showing an interest in cat toys.
How very brave is that tiny kitten!
How very evil are those teenagers who did that to him!
Surely they went home with some oil splashed on their clothes, will their families protect them and keep quiet about their involvement?
It’s to be hoped not, because children starting out as animal abusers enjoy the thrill of it and want to do it again…..then many move on to abusing children……
Marion is inundated with offers of a home for Chester, we hope some good comes out of all this, that the people who are not chosen as his caretakers may adopt another of the many kittens in the care of Cats Protection, instead.
Local people and even people far away are donating to Chester’s vets bill:
This is very heart warming amidst the horror of what those youths did to that innocent defenceless kitten.
We are all hoping and praying Chester survives, I’m sure Marion will keep us updated as to his progress.
Oh he’s adorable, and such a spunky little lad! I loved seeing him play with his meeces, giving them a good killing.
I really hope he continues to recover well with Marion’s care and then his own wonderful forever home.
Latest good news from Marion:
‘Chester is now out of our hospital cage and in to socialisation play pen’
Hoping to have some videos posted on PoC soon, showing him playing.
Such a brave little cat, THANK YOU everyone hoping and praying for his recovery 🙂
Great news. We desperately want him to get well. Thanks Ruth for the news.
Thanks Michael. He’s much better and eating and playing, such a brave little cat, hopefully he’s over the worst now. Still no news of them catching the kids who did it but the police have posted it on their Chester le Street facebook page so someone might know them….we hope!
We care and love him. We want our love to beat the hate and crime.
Awaiting updates! 🙂 😀 🙂
Videos of him playing here Caroline
http://www.wearvalley.cats.org.uk/wearvalley/news/chesterwvdar
Chester today
Ruth, I’m goin to put my efforts towards his caretakers today, by doing a photomontage on lame fb and a few other sites. that I like.
That beautiful soul within that tiny yet mighty body, and the word behind him. “Love” .
Yes, our love will make him well again and overcome the hate and callous crime.
Caroline, that’s beautifully put.
He is like a bird on a perch. He is adorable. I think he will recover. Can you feel the love? I hope our love for him helps him recover. He has a nice home. I see a toy.
He’s in the best home in the world right now Michael, that is Marion’s home. I’m sure all the love and prayers sent to him from our PoC family are helping him to recover. Marion says he’s so much better physically but he’s still terrified of humans and no wonder!
She will get him through his mental trauma too, if anyone can and I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time he is well she won’t be able to bear to part with him although by then she will no doubt have more injured or traumatised cats and kittens needing her care.
So many offers of a home for Chester when he is better and over his trauma and we hope the people disappointed in not being chosen will take one of the other kittens in the care of CP, who also need homes. They are all so beautiful.
Excellent idea to promote the others, Ruth. They are just as deserving. People tend to respond to high levels of publicity.
Donation for Chester from PoC under the comments for charity scheme has been made:
This is a pic Marion has posted of Chester at his medicine time, bless him at least he’s showing a bit of spirit now in that he doesn’t want to take it.
Who can blame him, he doesn’t know all the washing and clipping and medicine is for his own benefit.
It’s sad that for his lifetime he probably won’t trust male teenagers, cats never forget!
Our cat Bryan we had years ago who was rescued from a pond as a tiny kitten never trusted men although he loved women. It must have been a man who put him in that pond in a carrier bag with a brick in, but that day three young boys rescued him and brought him to our door, they will be grown up by now and decent men. Thankfully there are many good people as well as bad ones.
Good picture. Shows he is anxious, I think. But he is warm and recovering and in great hands.
Here is the prayer I have been praying for Chester:
Dear Father in Heaven,
You are the maker of all things in heaven and on the earth, and we ask that you remember tonight this small kitten we named Chester, the work of your hands. We read in your Word that you love your whole creation, so that means you love Chester too. Our cold hearts have been warmed by Chester’s plight and we love him too, Lord, and ask that you would do what is best for him. But if it is your will, we pray for his health to be restored and his life to be spared. We ask also that you might bring those who did this to justice, for our sakes and for theirs, for without your light they are lost. We live in a dangerous world, dangerous to small cats and dangerous to us. Send your angels to protect us as you protected little Chester in his hour of need.
In Jesus name,
Amen.
Amen.
Thank you Ruth.
I hope St Francis of Assisi is watching over Chester too.
I should also have thanked God for Chester’s earthly guardian angels– his rescuer and those who are now caring for him. Poor little guy. I can’t wait for the next Chester update. I hope he is still doing ok.
Chester, little baby and survivor, you just know that all of us here believe in earthly Angels, and you, our little guy, are protected.
Those boys are monsters and dangerous too and they need to be caught and punished surely one amongst them must have a twinge of conscience at what they did.
I’d show them no mercy if I knew who they were they’d be sorry they were ever hatched out.
Absolutely Rose well said!
I’m so glad that brave chap saved Chester, even at only 14 years old that gang of 5 excited youths must have been scary but he still stepped in and stopped them, I’d like to shake his hand! And Marion, what can I say, I stand in awe at the things she achieves for cats, we are so lucky to have a branch of CP so near and more so with Marion as co-ordinator and her hubby Steven by her side, if Chester has a chance of survival it is definitely with Marion. I hope he makes it, if the power of love can help then I think he will as there has been such a loving response to this tiny little kitten’s plight. I also hope that if nothing can be done to punish the youths responsible that Mother Karma steps in and deals with them harshly at some point in their miserable lives.
agree with you completely. Well said! i would love to embrace him! XOXO, thank god for him coming along to the rescue…would we, if we had seen such cruelty? In a heartbeat–adrenaline surging to see such atrocious behavior. Certainly. Hope that he gets his heart restored by knowing that HE did “The Right Thing!” Bless Him! and the woman he took little oil-saturated Chester to, Marion.
the RSPCA and Police have been given all the information scanty as it is but it would be a miracle if they were able to get the culprits 🙁
The trouble is that the feral youths of today all look alike, their uniform scruffy clothes and more often than not hoodies on, make them unidentifiable unless you actually know them.
You can bet they ran away, cowards as they are, once that kind man had got the kitten from them.
At least the police and RSPCA will be able to keep an eye on that area, I hope the Neighbourhood police there will patrol like ours do here if there’s gangs up to mischief and this was far more than mischief it was downright cruelty!
It’s a shame for the decent teenagers that some are so evil and get them all disliked, because there are a lot of good ones too.
Ruth, my Kattaddorra, I may be naive, but I truly believe that they can change their ways, given the ideals of mentors, compassion and a new perspective. through the right sources of human intervention.
maybe?
Remove that ‘maybe.’ I know that it can be done. I’ve seen too much abuse as a child, yet I managed to see the world of animals as a very sensitive and loving world.
There are some people who just won’t or maybe can’t change, no matter what anyone does to try to help them. Take an ex friend/neighbour, to cut a long story short we helped her move here, she had a fresh start, we helped her make friends, we took her about with us, we helped her financially many times, looked after her and her cats when she was ill…only she wasn’t really ill, she was a conwoman, always had been, always will be. She used us Caroline and behind our backs called us worse than muck. She abandoned the 15 cats she was supposed to love, after robbing her friends and even worse promised to raise money for Kays Hill cattery….instead they ended up with 10 of her abandoned cats to feed and care for.
She is still doing the same, she moves from county to county changing her name ….
It makes us very wary of who to trust since that and she devastated a lot of peoples lives here.
I am very sorry. That was so kind of you and your kindred spirit. I am so very sorry to hear that. I hope that she was an exception to what we love in our friends and humankind. Shrimp and I are so sorry. 🙁
Thanks Caroline, we have met bad people before but this was truly traumatic because we had trusted her, made her welcome in our home, I don’t think we will ever get over her betrayal.
Yes, Ruth, the trouble with these experiences is that they make one lose trust in people. This is not good for us. It makes life less enjoyable if you can’t trust people. I think this aspect of life has got worse over the years.
Worse is the law doesn’t stop people like her, it’s taken over 2 years to get her to Court and she’s still not sentenced for another fortnight even though found guilty.
Meanwhile she’s been devastating more peoples lives and will go on doing that if they don’t lock her up….. and they probably won’t !
All it will take is one brave person who know who these scumbags were to tell the police. It might take a while, because scum like this don’t always “boast” about their repulsive activities in the hearing of brave animal lovers, but someone, somewhere will know who is involved.
I hope the fear of reprisals doesn’t stop them doing the right thing.
Jane
I hope not Jane.
Chester le Street where it happened is about 20 miles from us I think and really in the Durham CP area but the kind man brought Chester to Marion I suppose because he knew of her or maybe lives in our town. He’s a genuine hero and must be a modest man as he wants to stay anonymous.
Someone’s sons must have gone home oily after that but I doubt their mothers will report them.
He certainly is a hero.
Even kids who are good and kind can look really intimidating. Fashion (and a lot of awful behaviour) seems to have developed out of the Gangster Rap culture.
If I had kids and I thought they had done something like this, I’d drop them off at a) social services or b)off a cliff.
Ruth, do you think that he is already doing what the rest of us had been doing? I’ll just bet you 😉
I hope so as well Ruth however I’m sad to say that their parents no sorry that should be PARENT singular that is mostly the case these days are very likely the cause of their Feral brats evil doings.
Leah, I was a single parent, with the help from my child’s paternal grandfather, and I can tell you, with all of my heart and soul, that she was never neglected, nor raised to be anything but respectful towards ever species on any planet/universe. I really feel helpless in trying to understand these children…don’t know what should happen to make a change, other than education and love.
It’s like the book “A Clockwork Orange.” I you haven’t read it you hardly need to because we are living it. It’s not even like we are on a slippery slope toward it, we’re there. We’ve lost most of (not all but a great majority of) our youth. They are just soulless monsters, exactly like in the book, preying upon decent people who live in fear of them. That took courage to stand up to those brats. In America one of them would have had a gun and Chester and his rescuer would both be dead now.
And two, with comrade who couldn’t persuade them to do the right thing,” tormented and ended up killing that poor female at the San Franciscan Zoo. Tatiana, my baby.
I may have told you that Martin Stucki of A1 Savannahs, Oklahoma (a smart guy) thinks the American youth are often feckless and lazy. He finds it hard to get good employees. It is similar in the UK. In the UK employers prefer to employ Polish people because they have a better work ethic. Something went wrong. The old school (people like me) are only happy when we work 😉 Being active in mind and body is important for health. Getting older though it tough.
I know Michael I find myself more and more dismayed by the world I see around me and the people in it; lazy lumps who think being on the dole is a right as is breeding more kids to get more benefits not caring what their brats get up to provided they are not in their way leaving them to terrorise their neighbourhoods…….yes sorry to say their is so much wrong with the world I don’t think there is a way to right the balance 🙁
I wish that I could apply to be the one who scoops out the barns and enclosures. I’m still physically way beyond my years; used to work for a Navy Seal who started his own business as an arborist in Nebraska,USA. I’ve lost a bit of muscle-mass, but sure could use the workout, and the camaraderie of not only my colleagues, but the Cats. Will they hire a hard-working, responsible female at 127 lbs w/ a red tabby intow?
I feel so sick and angry that anyone could ever sink so low as to abuse an innocent animal. I have other words than “evil” to describe the scum who did this to darling little Chester, but I won’t sully this page with them. What a lovely little mite he is.
Thank you Ruth for writing up about Chester. What a brave little soul he is, he has been through hell.
I hope he survives and thrives, oil is so toxic to cats, his tiny liver and kidneys face a bit of a battle, but it sounds like he is in the very best of hands with love from Marion and good vet care.
I saw the post about the poor little kitten in Cyprus yesterday and I was so upset I could not comment. I can no longer travel to countries like Greece, Malta or Cyprus because of the ever present active disdain and hatred so many of the people have for animals. The distress I went through was mentally killing me when I was there. I try to help in other ways now and will always help any animal that crosses my path who is in need here.
In the past, I have ruined the holidays of friends who were with me abroad by refusing to walk past animals in need of help or by trying to intervene when someone is being cruel. Needless to say these people aren’t my friends anymore. I do know that there are people in these countries who work tirelessly to help these animals, but the messagea about spay/neuter, kindness and compassion have a very long journey to travel before the overall welfare of these wonderful animals improves.
Anyone capable of carrying out atrocities like this, and what happened to Chester, is never going to grow up to have a happy fulfilled life. I am quite glad about that. I know my argument is fallacious, because without effective intervention, scum who hurt vulnerable living beings just continue to do so. Oh lets be honest, just shoot them in the head. There are no workable answers when dealing with people like this. The interventions needed are like single rain drops in the sea when you look at how badly the human world has buggered things up. I’m sorry if that offends anyone.
Huge purrs and love to Chester and those helping him.
Jane
Thank you, Jane. We are all one here on Michael’s page, and we need you.
Thank you, Jane. We are all one here on Michael’s page, and we need you, like that pure raindrop in the shimmering sea of hope… and Justice.
You make a good point about being a tourist in Greece, Malta and Cyprus. If you care about animals visiting these places can be difficult.
I visited Malta to meet Martha Kane who runs Kitty Appeal. There are quite a lot of strays in Malta and she cares for the ones she can. She also teaches kids at school how to respect animals. Great. She is ill herself. A heroine. She has a very good smart and kind husband.
Brave little soul, he is just so gorgeous, I hope he keeps on recovering and gets the perfect home.
Thank you Ruth and everyone for your kind wishes and concern for Chester, here he is on his heat pad curled up in a sun puddle omitting an occasional purr. Heart melts. ….
Poor sweet boy – I’d take him if I were nearby, I’m glad people are offering to help – it puts a balance to the depressingly evil outlook of humanity. Do we know if the hero who saved Chester will be able find and idnetify and get those kids taken by the law – I know they are young but they shouldn’t be able to carry on with their lives without at least something happening even if the law can’t do much with them because of their age.
I think whenever something like this happens the people involved should be made examples of and I also think their names should be made public. If it was children they would be in alot of trouble ….so..
If their names are made public then the neighbourhood will know who it is and even when the law reaches a dead end with them they will go home knowing everybody around them knows what they did and that would be a good thing. They need to know it’s serious, very serious. Personally I don’t have alot of faith in the law, although I do more so in the UK, but still I believe their names need to be made public even if it’s not legal to make them public. How else can we do anything about these horrible things.
Caroline made a decent point: if these kids are caught they should be re-educated as well as punished. Their parents should also be involved. This does not happen.
I really want him to be well again. My heart melts too.
Sweet, innocent little boy. Who knows what his thoughts are. Thank goodness for you, for coaxing him as best as you can for the rest of his life [May it be long, and strong!] to forget those recent memories. He’s in my prayers. Bless You.
Just look at him he is so innocent it breaks my heart! He is an innocent baby he deserves for this never to have happened, never to have known that fear, anguish and pain……I hope with all my heart that Karma creeps up very slowly on the thugs that did this and makes them wish they had never been born………
Sweet, tiny mistreated, shaved kitten Sleep, bebe. Sleep…
when you awaken, eat/drink dtink drink, all of that water bowl… purrs, loves; you’ll MAKE it, little guy…
Chester yesterday after his fur was clipped at the vets
Brave, brave little man 🙁 how he’s suffered
He needs Vitamin E, d-alpha, in his left eye, even more than down his sweet, liile scarred throat. He needs it, 200units down his esophagus, and a min. of 50units applied to his bottom eyelid, so that he can blink it into his eye, w/o getting distressed over that.
Give hinm at least one cage-free, free range egg yolk/day mixed with brown rice and wakame (seaweed). he will love it, if he has any appetite left in him; otherwise, shoot a puree of that down his throat, if you can…
Caroline, what is that medicine for?
did I post that on the wrong page? This is for our Chester.
Who are you?
My liittle Chester , after beng suffocated, gets everything THAT I jst told you….
Thank you Michael for allowing me to write articles for PoC, it would be a wonderful help to our Cats Protection branch if Chester does get the July comments donation, how incredibly kind you are!
Harvey you are so right, abuse like this happens all the time in Cyprus and in some other countries because there are evil people everywhere and also people who turn their backs on cats needing help.
We are very lucky here to have our Cats Protection, I wish it was worldwide.
Day after day I have a heavy heart when I hear of needless cruelty the thought of a cat screaming in pain (or any animal that matter) because of someone torturing that animal then doing it all the more and having no mercy or regret just makes me want to kill them.
I know how you feel Leah, I too feel hatred for anyone who abuses animals and like you I want to kill them, I’d show no mercy to the cruel snivelling cowards even as they begged, because they surely would if they were the victims instead of the abusers.
Quite right Ruth after all how can they truly know how much anguish and fear they’ve caused unless they have a taste of it themselves?
Exactly Leah! The old Bible adage ‘an eye for an eye, a life for a life’ should still apply, the world would be a much better place if cruel people knew they would have to suffer the same as what they did to other living beings.
For a change a happy ending. How many thousands of cases like this occur in Cyprus but nobody intervenes to help
Its a very sad thought – probably many – a true living hell for the cats and kittens of Cyprus. I would go there and take them away in groups if I could and at least take them to a country where people don’t have this primitive “blood lust” as you say. It’s disgustingly horrible. If I were witness to something like this I would be at risk to end up in jail.
I feel the same Marc my husband knows only too well that would wade right in to protect an innocent animal whatever the cost to personal cost.
If you have any more suggestions for the situation with animal/feline cruelty and slaughter in Cyprus, other than making the phonecalls and signing petitions, please comment, and do it again in case any of us missed it. Thank you, Harvey. You are a true blue advocate.
Yes, I always think of the thousands upon thousands of community cats living tough, short and unpleasant lives.
Is it true, Michael that nations at war make it political, cruelly? Or, is it due to culture? mostly?
What would you like to see the rest of us do? i’m all EARS…
Thank you Ruth for writing this and supporting the recovery of this cat. I think he is a prime candidate as a recipient for the July PoC comment charity scheme.
No doubt, Michael, Ruth. I was just thinking what I could manage to send them. (And will, tonight.)
We just hit by a huge storm, si I’m a bit busy rounding up Shrimp, who always ill-times it, wanting out only when the air feels interesting to him. 😉
We all feel the exact same way about cruelty to animals/children. I would so love to have some type of aversive conditioning for these children who act out in such a cruel way. They need to be educated outside of their parents’ homes, obviously. Would it do any good to get their local governments involved when these cases are reported? I believe so. Is this where I should, is this where we begin a quest for
a quest for positive reinforcement for these children to act out of kindness towards animals especially cats/kittens who seem to take the brunt of it. ;(
It is a good point: what do social services do to re-educate children like this? I suspect the answer is nothing at all. If they are found they will be punished and that will be that. They need educating as well.
Yes, Mr. Michael. So give me some insight.
Any child who tortures an animal should undergo physciatric evaluation.
That, is certainly correct. By more than one agency, faulting those who are employed by that agency. That’s why we use at least three, or should be. Not working together, but certifiably independent.