NEWS AND COMMENT-FLORIDA, USA: I don’t have an awful lot on this story which is of interest to me because it’s about a domestic cat being used in a dispute between two women who apparently live together. I want to get something off my chest before I discuss the story. A lot of American news websites ban readers from Europe. This is because there are privacy laws in Europe which don’t apply in America. And some American website owners don’t want to bother to comply with those privacy laws. They would rather simply bar the website from being viewed by Europeans. I think this is lazy and irresponsible. Fortunately, one or two website’s do publish the story. My source is Penn Live.
In this story, 53-year-old Susan Freudenthal of St Petersburg, Florida, got into an argument with her girlfriend. Apparently, she was accused by her girlfriend of infidelity. A pretty typical argument between lovers. It was then that Freudenthal picked up the family cat and held it close to the other woman’s face.
As reported, she swore on the cat’s life that she was not cheating on her girlfriend who is unnamed. And I’m going to have to guess here because the reporting is very sketchy. The two women were arguing and the cat was held close to the girlfriend’s face. The atmosphere must’ve been fairly aggressive and hostile. The mood was tense. This appears to have motivated the cat to scratch the girlfriend’s face. Another reason why that might have happened is because the cat was too close to the face of the girlfriend. It is not sensible to place or push a cat into the face of another person because cats become nervous under those circumstances. When you add to that the atmosphere it is no surprise to me that the cat attacked.
And, by all accounts, it was quite a nasty attack because the girlfriend was scratched multiple times. Couldn’t she have pulled the cat away immediately? The police were called it seems and they have a sworn statement from Freudenthal’s girlfriend on charges of domestic battery.
It seems that the girlfriend has accused Freudenthal of using her cat to attack her and therefore this is a domestic violence accusation with criminal connotations. I don’t know the full facts but on my reading of what happened this might have been an accident and not a deliberate act to attack a woman with a cat.
Freudenthal has said that she is the true victim. I don’t know what that means but it probably means that she is the victim of infidelity. Of course, we don’t know everything that was said between them when they were arguing. And perhaps Freudenthal more or less stuffed her cat in the face of her girlfriend which if that was the case it might be argued that it was an act of premeditated violence against her girlfriend. Although in my opinion that wouldn’t work either because you cannot control a cat to the extent where you demand that they scratch somebody. There is a lack of causation.
P.S. Although it is not mentioned by Penn Live, this story is also about domestic cat abuse. You don’t use cats in this way if you are a decent cat caregiver. The cat is a victim too in my book. And the story is also indicative of how a domestic cat’s environment can become unpleasant in a home where a couple are arguing.
There are some more articles on domestic violence and cats below.
