If you are a cat owner who has lost your cat and subsequently you are shown a security video of your cat being stolen it must be heartbreaking particularly if you believe that the thief used your cat to train dogs to catch rabbits at night. It is just awful. Here’s the video. This young man has done this before. Look how he puts his hand out first to check the cat is not aggressive. He then takes him by the scruff of the neck.
The cat concerned is very trusting. Too trusting in fact. It supports my liking for cats who are more cautious around strangers. The are safer. The cat’s name is Pepsi. He’s no longer young. He was owned by the current owner’s deceased father. Her father gave her Pepsi as at the time he was dying of cancer. Pepsi was an important family member.
“I was 12 when my dad died so a lot of the time when I wasn’t understanding what was happening, I’d have the cats with me. At the point when my dad was in a hospice bed dying, my mam would take Pepsi to see him and it was often the only normality he had.”
Let’s say that as usual Pepsi was a loved cat and a member of the family as mentioned which makes the video chilling in the casualness of the theft. It should be a warning to all cat owners to be vigilant and careful. It does call into question the laissez-faire attitude of many British cat owners and I am in no way criticising Pepsi’s owner. But domestic cats do simply disappear and here is an example of how it happens. It happens easily and quickly. Gone, never to be seen again.
How many cats disappear unreported? A huge number I would guess. The thieves know how easy it is to steal outside cats. They get away with it. This encourages them. So often I read comments from American visitors to PoC who correctly advise cat owners to keep their cats inside if they want to ensure their cat’s safety. There are monstrous people out there at night stealing, killing and poisoning wandering domestic cats. And I believe it is getting worse as the world become more competitive and hostile.
It surprises me how careless the British are with the safety of their cats. The vast majority (99%?) let their cats wander freely at anytime and the vast majority of cats survive but many thousands don’t causing a ton of heartache and soul-searching.
Yes, I wrote about. Horrible. Madness.
It never ends, now a cat has been found in Derby with 2 fireworks strapped to him/her and had been lit, it doesn’t take much imagination to think what state the cat was in when found, alive but he/she died. No owner found, but here as in the USA there are stray cats and feral cats, though not as many. Shouldn’t all outdoor animals be safe from evil monsters? We hear of dreadful things happening to horses, sheep etc, in fields, every day some cruelty to some species of animal. What is wrong with some humans that they can’t live and let live?