Place: MOBILE, Ala., USA.
This is another one of those shelter killings in breach of their own rules of when to euthanise cats. They happen quite a lot; too often sadly.
This is a young cat, Porkchop, who escaped his home and was, unfortunately as it happens, picked up by a neighbour, Matthew Sneddon, who took him the local shelter – Mobile County Animal Shelter. Why didn’t Matthew ask around a bit to see if he could locate the owner? Taking cats to shelters is dangerous for the cat. He should know that.
As I understand it, he took Porkchop to the shelter on his lap and not in a cage and he was not trapped. Within a matter of minutes he was dead. It was just the wrong time of day – time to sign off for the day and it appears the staff did not want the fuss of dealing with the latest intake. No attempt to find the owner or anything. Just a straight kill. Not only a breach of their own rules but obviously immoral, unethical and cruel.
What is interesting about this case and admirable too, is that this occurred on January 10, 2013, but the video above has only just come to light and has been produced as evidence in a claim for compensation by the cat’s owner, Kaitlyn Hughes. Well done Kaitlyn. I admire that because it forces this horrible incident out into the open and into court where evidence can be heard and where the press can report on it.
Shelters like this one should be shamed, I hate to say. They must do a lot of good things but this is a wanton act of casual cat killing. The shelter delivered the classic reason for killing the cat: aggressive and feral. BS. Sorry but that sort of excuse does not wash.
“The cat doesn’t ever appear to be acting uncontrolled or out of control. The cat moves very little,” said Barnard (the lawyer to the cat’s owner explaining that Porkchop did not behave as described by shelter staff)
The court case has forced the shelter supervisor, Andrew Stubbs, to admit in an affidavit (sworn statement) that Porkchop was not feral. The lies are being revealed.
The shelter staff concerned are still working at the shelter having received a written warning. I am certain Hughes, Porkchop’s owner will win her case but the amount awarded probably won’t be much. She was offered a new cat by the shelter. Not the sort of thing to do under the circumstances, I’d suggest.
One last point; this may be crime even though Porkchop was killed humanely. It depends on the law of Alabama. It is not cat cruelty under the law. It may be theft.
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The callous,ignorant,gestapo like behaviour I have seen here compares to nothing I have seen in my entire life.
Most shelter workers know nothing about animals. Their job is to pick up and dispose of them. They do not follow the rules,such as how long an animal is to be held. And when it comes to cats,every cat is viscious,out of control,more lies to justify the killing.Their ignorance is astounding. That poor cat and woman. I hope she gets a good sum of money from them. And why was the neighbor such a jerk? Precious cat dead because scumbags are not doing their jobs.
Geri, I know you’re here with me in Marion County and you are right on! I can hardly stand what goes on.
Stories like this make me more understanding of why people in the USA feel their cats are safer indoors.
We commonly hear about the dangers from cars, nasty people and wildlife, but I imagine that being taken to a shelter ranks high on that list.
Not easy to tell how outraged I am… Right?
Sick, sick, sick to death of county shelters!
If I knew that I was going to die tomorrow, I would spend my last night releasing all animals and torching all the shelters I could find.
Everyone who knows me knows that I am fired up over these shelters. It, further, infuriates me that anyone would sit behind a computer, claiming to save animals. My response is, “Get off your sorry ass and carry it down to the City Council and County Commissioners meetings and FIGHT.” It’s easy to sit in the safety of a home. It’s tough to put yourself out on “front street” for all to see.
Kaitlyn Hughes is no doubt taking this case to court to get justice for Porkchop, rather than any financial compensation.
Kudos to her for revealing the truth and pursuing this through the courts. Let’s hope the publicity brings about some positive changes at shelters.
I totally agree. And it always bothers me that people dismiss cases like this by saying “Well, it was just a cat.”
That poor little boy didn’t deserve that. Those people have no shame. I’ve rescued several cats in my time and I have never turned them into a shelter, not after that time I surrendered that litter of 2 month old kittens and later on that night I received a call from the shelter that all of the kittens were euthanized because one supposedly tested positive for FIV. Kittens that age can give off wildly false positive results for all sorts of diseases. Like Eva said they really should be tested at the age of 5 months, but they’re not going to keep the cat for that long so those kittens are put down, along with the special needs and the seniors.
I didn’t ask around the neighborhood who the owner was, either. I would quietly pick the kitty up and go inside my apartment quickly. I even had one nitwit ask me a week later if I had seen the kitten. He didn’t even know whether the kitten was male or female (he was a boy) and that made me even more determined to keep the cat.
I get what you’re saying, Michael, about the owners. That’s what Sneddon should have done, asked around, since it was obvious that Porkchop was not abused. The morons I rescued those cats from didn’t have the common decency to bring the kittens in during sub-zero weather or to loosen the collar before it was embedded in their skin. I would quarantine the cat (if I had others) and take the newbie to the vet. I’d ask for a blood test to be run, because I wanted to know what I was dealing with. The cats I rescued tested clean, no diseases, but no way would I ever sign the cat over to the shelter.
When I read these stories it drives it home to me how vulnerable cats are to the less than sensible behavior of people. They are in our hands. We should act responsibly and with intelligence.
The cat should not be dead. He was a domestic cat. Sneddon was too hasty to get him to a shelter. And the shelter was also too hasty to dispose of him. Poor thing. It is all about careless and on occasions immoral human behavior.