NEWS AND COMMENT: This is sheer horror. It is gut wrenching and it makes my heart race. I have to comment on it. This is not just about news. Although the news about this act of gross abuse by a veterinarian on an elderly cat (about 19 years old) is emerging on news media websites. It concerns Dr Richard Timothy Logan at Andrews Avenue Animal Hospital in Ozark. It is a stark breach of trust by a terrorist medic in a cold consulting room where the cat is vulnerable.
There is a video online on Facebook at the moment. I do not expect this video to be on the Facebook website for much longer because its presence is in breach of Facebook policy, as I understand their policy (2022: it is still there with a warning). Nonetheless I’m providing a link to it if you have strong enough stomach to look at it. I cannot look at it without shaking. I have simply looked at about five seconds of it, perhaps a bit more to allow me to make a couple of screenshots which you can see below.
WARNING IT IS HORRIBLE – This is the link to the page: https://www.facebook.com/100065683333019/videos/105759451623499/
Here is a link to a YouTube version which may also disappear please note (it is still there at April 2022 with a warning):
https://youtu.be/mRmZq_pEbVE
Some screenshots:
Dr. Logan is clearly abusing this cat in a most horrendous way. His lawyer has been instructed to file a lawsuit against anyone and everyone who has smeared his reputation on Facebook and other social media sites. His lawyer says that people are destroying the veterinarian’s good reputation.
How did he come to get a good reputation if he treats animals like this? It’s a laugh. This is not a question about an allegation of animal abuse by a veterinarian. It is all on record on video. A lot of people have seen it. Unfortunately, I can’t download the video to my computer to save it.
Apparently, and it has to be said, there are also still photographs of this particular calico cat on Facebook showing a bloodied face. It is said that the injuries that caused the blood were not a consequence of the abuse meted out by Dr Richard Timothy Logan. They happened prior to the video being made. I don’t know if this is true. If he punched the cat, I’d expect a bloodied face. The person whose posted these words on FB would agree:
“This is an anonymous post. This will be concerning the abuse and trauma of the 90% of animals that come through Andrew’s animal hospital. What happens behind closed doors, does not mean it is okay!! The people of Ozark need to know what is happening!!!!”
It’s reported that the video shows Logan punching the cat, slamming the cat’s head into the exam room table. In the bit of the video that I have seen he forcefully holds the cat by the scruff and sticks what appears to be a sharp object into the cat to try and keep the mouth open. The cat complains bitterly and strikes out. This no doubt made the veterinarian more angry and more abusive. He whole demeanour is of a person who is highly unsuited to being a veterinarian. He must hate cats.
It is reported that the cat survived and is improving with their owner. Logan has been arrested and charged with animal cruelty. The video has outraged people in Ozark. Protesters had gathered outside the hospital demanding action which appears to have led to the arrest. They want him to lose his licence. They argue, rightly, that all veterinarian should love animals and if not, they should choose a different profession.
Update 19th May 2021: the owners of the cat in question, Richard and Christina Miller, tell us that their cat is 21 years old. They have filed a lawsuit, a civil claim, against this veterinarian which claims “Logan brutally abused and injured the feline in two separate attacks. However, he sought to conceal the incident from the Millers.”
Logan’s attorney is confident that they have a good defence, “We have the best defence there is-not guilty”. He believes that people have rushed to judgement.
Comment: it is hard not to see this man as guilty bearing in mind that it is all on video. It is not a case of rushing to judgement it is a case of stark evidence staring us in the face.
A big question for me is who did the filming? Why did Dr Logan allow his behaviour to be filmed? Perhaps it was secretly filmed by a disgruntled and shocked employee. That would appear to be the more logical deduction. It must have been an insider, a whistleblower. Is so, we salute you.
Logan’s attorney says that he’s been misjudged. He said that, “He is a good veterinarian and people are destroying this man’s reputation”. If he is convicted, he will not face a prison sentence I am told. However, if and when the Alabama Veterinary Medical Examiner’s Board examine his behaviour, they might revoke his licence.
Update
The person who filmed Dr. Logan was indeed a disgruntled employee who had noticed misdeeds before and decided to do something about it. Her name is Carrie Pritt. She was vilified by Dr. Logan’s lawyer who put out information via a news media website that muddied the water, as I would put it, in trying to defend Dr. Logan’s behaviour which is clearly indefensible. They even put out a false story that Carrie Pritt had taken her dog to be treated at that hospital after the incident. That was false. She was there to get some paperwork apparently.
We know that Dr. Logan was charged with animal cruelty. What is sad about the Internet is that I cannot find an update as to whether he was convicted. And there is no information about whether his license to practice veterinary medicine was suspended or indeed whether he was banned from being a veterinarian. There appears to have been no hearing by the regulatory authority to remove his licence to practice.
The only information that I have is that he left Andrews Avenue Animal Hospital, Ozark, Alabama which is where he practised and where the incident took place. That news was published on January 12, 2022 on the News 4 website.
So, the question remains is where he has gone to practice veterinary medicine. People need to know and people need to avoid him at all costs based upon the information reported. And it is good evidence. This is my opinion and I am entitled to make that opinion in the interests of animal welfare.
Thanks for the input Tamara. The man disgusts me.