There have been threats to storm the hospital to grab him. It is difficult to know where to start in this updating story. You may remember Bart the cat who has been unkindly called “Zombie Cat” because he dug himself out of a grave where he had been placed after his owner, Hutson, thought he had been killed on the road. That is his story. There are doubts.
Mr Hutson has a neighbor whose name is Dusty Albritton. Dusty made a video which you can see below. In the video a voice says that when they found Bart on the road he was “moving and stuff”. This indicates he was alive when found. Dusty Albritton says that the woman who thought that Bart was moving was mistaken. She claims that the woman was in shock and made a bad judgement.
http://youtu.be/fpHzfQt12EY
The people who are now looking after him, Humane Society of Tampa Bay, say they will not return Bart to his owner after extensive treatment at their hospital.
They are not convinced of the veracity of Hutson’s account. They suspect foul play and cat abuse but have no firm evidence. There are suspicions that he might have been alive when he was buried, if he was buried at all.
The whole thing is highly confusing which is now being compounded by the fact that Dusty Albritton started a crowd funding page to raise cash for Bart’s medical expenses. She has raised over $7,000 thus far, which is far more than she had envisaged.
The money is not required for Bart’s medical expenses because the Humane Society hospital are able the fund medical treatment themselves through an emergency fund and donations.
As a result, Dusty has stated that she will return the money to those who donated and any money remaining will be given to charity including the Tampa Bay Veterinary Emergency Service. Will this happen when the dust has settled (pardon the pun).
In the meantime, it seems Bart is being attended to around-the-clock. He needs extensive medical care. He has regained his appetite and has even purred but we know a cat can purr for all sorts of reasons other than being content.
Bart is making progress but has some way to go. What is not making progress is the search for the truth. What exactly happened? Was Bart assaulted by his owner? We don’t know. Mr Hutson denies any wrongdoing and is demanding his cat back, when he is well. Indeed, there are calls from other people on the internet supporting him in his demand.
It actually goes further than that. As mentioned, there has been a phone call threat from an anonymous person or persons that people will be storming the Humane Society hospital to reclaim Bart for his owner. This has put the hospital on notice and they have been advised by the police to call them should the threat be carried out.
To add to the confusion, Bart not only has his celebrity name “Zombie Cat” but he also has a nickname which is Markie.
How will this saga end? Well, Hutson is going to have to go to court to obtain a court order to recover his cat because the Executive Director of the Humane Society of Tampa Bay, Sherry Silk, is determined to ensure Bart’s safety and she is not convinced that by returning him to his owner he will be safe. Accordingly, she declares that she is prepared to fight in the courts if needs be but she has stated that she may lose the court battle.
I believe that she is saying this because like everybody else we don’t know the truth behind the injuries suffered by this black-and-white random bred cat who’s lost his eye and his privacy.
Where there is abuse there are lies and there is fog. I am on the side of the Humane Society. They are asking that Hutson hands his cat over to them. Although he currently refuses, I believe he’ll comply in due course. Update: Hutson has sued for the return of his cat! He must be confident.
LOL. They are cruel.
And it’s good if you are competing with other news sites as long as you keep the balance. My thought is once a person likes a cat news site they return to it daily to see if anything has happened that they wish to read about.
Need to go now. Spelling police just knocked on the door 🙂
That’s why I’m picky for what I submit to you. I do best with breaking news but I tend to know what PoC readers wither would like or need to know. A lot of my writing has to be done when I’m in the mood. I’ll continue to float ideas to you because many need to be covered but I just don’t feel like covering them. I have to back off on dogs shot by police articles from time to time. Those are mentally draining. I have learned dogs get preferrential treatment at shelters. Both in promotion and in the ratio of dog vs cat rescues.
I never hear from the administrators. I have to write original content for each article and I have the option of checking Google news if story is within 48 hours of breaking or Evergreen if its good forever. I usually just leave it blank because they make critical remarks that have nothing to do with what I’ve written and it’s not worth the headache. My problem is shares dropped from 76000+ in November to less than 25000 shares for January. In other words I’m not making much money and the animals in need aren’t being shared so more are at risk of euthanasia. I had 2 emergency dog articles for tonight but I do as many cat articles as either people send me or I come across. I have several Facebook walls I check daily for ideas.
Thank you Elisa for feeding me these ideas. It is very good of you. Although I don’t like to do too many news stories because that means this website begins to compete with news websites which is difficult to do. That said news about cats tells us a lot about our relationship with cats and therefore the stories are ultimately about our behaviour and cat behaviour which is a subject matter suitable for this website.