This cat should not have been killed by this veterinarian. It was shoddy, lazy veterinary work at best. The story unfolds slowly and in a sinister way. In America rabies is a rare but active and very dangerous disease and therefore strict precautions must take place to prevent people contracting it.
“I can’t stop crying…..I feel like I let Oliver down..”
A veterinary technician, Kaitlin Neal, took a cat, Oliver (who I believe was owned by someone else), to what I believe was the Odenton Veterinary Hospital. This is in Maryland, USA. I don’t know why Oliver was taken to the vets but Kaitlin agreed to bloodwork and to the de-matting of his coat. In the consultation room Oliver purred. In fact he purred so much that they had to stop him by putting a cotton ball with alcohol on it in front of him. They did this because they wanted to check his heart beat and his purring masked the sound. Clearly, Oliver was friendly but no doubt anxious. He was a socialised, domesticated indoor/outdoor cat. He was elderly and perhaps a little neglected by his owner(s) judging by the photo (this fact may have encouraged the vet to adopt a less caring attitude). The video below shows him in a cat carrier.
Update: 4th August 2017 — A couple of visitors to this page have commented and provided the hospital’s response for which I am grateful (see below). Soon, I will write another article and publish the hospital’s statement. I will also comment on their statement. I am keen to present balanced, fair reporting (Admin).
Here it is:
Odenton Veterinary Hospital justifies the “euthanasia” of Oliver the cat
August 6th: there is a further update to complete the story. It’s a prequel, the time when Oliver was trapped. It tells us for sure that Oliver was completely domesticated but neglected. Click this to read it.
Oliver was examined by Dr Kellie Corcoran. Oliver was taken out of the consultation room. It appears he was carried out because his carrier was left behind. Kaitlin waited patiently. The veterinarian returned after a few minutes and told her that Oliver had jumped off the table after they had drawn blood. Because of this they said they wouldn’t be able to groom him. I’m not sure why they made this rather bizarre decision but read on.
The veterinarian took the cat carrier out of the room where Kaitlin was waiting. The veterinarian then comes back into the room and told Kaitlin that as they were putting Oliver back into the cat carrier he had bitten the veterinary technician. Comment: this is predictable for a cat under these circumstances. It does not mean anything other than that the cat is anxious and has become defensively aggressive. Anybody with experience of cat behaviour would realise this.
The fact that Oliver had bitten the veterinary technician created a problem. The problem was the question whether he had rabies or not, bizarre as that might sound to international visitors from countries other than America to this website.
The veterinarian made it quite plain to Kaitlin that she had no option but to euthanize Oliver. Kaitlin asked whether they could contact animal control to see whether Oliver could be placed into quarantine to check whether he had rabies or not.
CDC write: If you were bitten by a cat, dog, or ferret that appeared healthy at the time you were bitten, it can be confined by its owner for 10 days and observed. No anti-rabies prophylaxis is needed. No person in the United States has ever contracted rabies from a dog, cat or ferret held in quarantine for 10 days.
The veterinarian responded by saying “that would mean we would have to get postexposure shots”. This means that the veterinary staff would have to be treated as if they been bitten by a cat who had rabies (as I understand it).
Kaitlin requested that the veterinarian call animal control – she was desperately trying to save Oliver. She made it clear that the cat had had no issues in the past and was a house cat. Oliver deserved a chance she said. Veterinarians should know that cats in veterinary clinics can behave like this.
The veterinarian then walked out of the room and returns five minutes later claiming that she had talked to animal control. She did not provide the name of the officer with whom she had spoken. She said that she had to euthanise Oliver and that there was no quarantine option.
Kaitlin did not have the opportunity to speak to animal control. Oliver was immediately euthanized (killed is the better description). Kaitlin was not given the opportunity to say her goodbyes. Kaitlin says that when a veterinary technician or veterinarian handles an outdoor/indoor cat then they know they have to handle them properly to prevent being scratched or bitten. It could be argued that the veterinary staff mishandled the situation and are the authors of this catastrophe.
Kaitlin had to pay her bill even though her cat was taken from her and euthanised without her permission. She is very upset. She is angry. Kaitlin writes:
“This cat was let down. Let down by his owners, by the community, and quite honestly by this vet. This has to stop.”
Kaitlin did not want to leave the matter without resolving some outstanding issues. She called the veterinary clinic again requesting the name of the animal control officer that the veterinarian had telephoned. She was told that they spoke to Officer Herbert. Kaitlin spoke to Officer Herbert who told her that Dr Corcoran had never spoken to her. Officer Herbert said that she had received a call that the veterinary clinic and a “pick up”. The protocol would have been a ten-day quarantine in Kaitlin’s home and then to vaccinate for rabies afterwards. The animal control officer said that the veterinarian was in the wrong.
It is quite clear that animal control did not tell Dr Corcoran to euthanize the cat. Animal control also said that they were told by the veterinarian that Oliver was feral and had no family and was fractious. Because of this misleading information from the veterinarian animal control informed the veterinarian that a ten-day quarantine could be done but if he was fractious and could not be touched then it would be impossible to quarantine him.
It would appear that the veterinarian misled animal control and received back information which supported what she wanted to do in the first place which was to kill Oliver to avoid the inconvenience of being given postexposure shots.
As mentioned, Kaitlin never signed a release form allowing euthanasia and was never given the option of putting Oliver into quarantine for 10 days even though animal control had said that they were the options. Kaitlin made it clear that she wanted the quarantine option for Oliver.
To me it is clear that Oliver was unnecessarily killed by the veterinarian because it was more convenient to do so than to put him into a ten-day quarantine. A bad veterinarian and extremely upsetting. May Oliver rest in peace bless him.
Update: A subsequent test on Oliver (I believe this is obligatory) showed that he did not have rabies. This does not surprise me as there were no signs of it. Oliver’s behavior was normal.
Source: Facebook post by Kaitlin Neal.
Cat’s meow exactly! So perhaps the Vet recommended euthanasia because the cat was very sick and the OP wanted some attention and some donations for her supposed home run cat rescue.
Thanks a lot Miss Dee for taking the time to write a full update and provide very useful information. I will make your comment into an article today.
Here’s an update on the Oliver the cat situation. On Aug. 6 Kaitlin Neal was seen back in the Beechfield neighborhood where she got Oliver from to set up more cat traps. She was seen again in the morning on August 8 collecting the cats caught in the traps. Kathy Wright, who owned Oliver, was outside her house when she saw Kaitlin come to get a trap with a kitten in it. A woman who lives across the street told me that she was getting ready to leave for work when she saw Kathy scream at Kaitlin to get the kitten out of the trap because it belonged to her and told her to take the traps and not come back. Then she asked Kaitlin when she was bringing Oliver back, and Kaitlin said in a few days. I couldn’t believe it not only because Kathy didn’t know yet but because Kaitlin lied to her. Oliver has been dead since she took him about 7 or 8 days before then. Then Kaitlin said something to Kathy about calling animal control to come get the rest of the cats in the neighborhood.
Now none of the neighbors on the block or around the corner that I talk to say they have seen Kaitlin come back.And they said she never brought back any of the adult cats she trapped and said she was going to have spayed and then bring them back. They don’t think she called animal control either because they would have already come out here since this all happened almost a week ago. Makes people wonder why Kaitlin just didn’t call animal control to handle the problem in the first place if she works at the dog shelter in Severn like she told people. I tried to find her facebook account to see if she posted anything more, but it looks like she may have deleted it. She might have took it down to cover her trail so people can’t find her and report her for what she did.
Now some people think she was totally doing wrong by those cats, not only because of the lies she told the neighbors about Oliver and what she was doing with the kittens and adult cats she caught. They told me they found out she set up an account on a crowdfunding site about her activities and bragging about the “hauls” of cats she was trapping in the neighborhood: https://www.youcaring.com/kaitlinneal-886807 The cat in the big picture is one of the ones that used to be in the alley I described in my other post. Now why if she’s working with the dog shelter in Severn is she fundraising under her own name where all the money pledged goes directly into her pocket? A bunch of suckers already given her $2,300.
She writes on this crowdfunding page that it “all started with a call about some kittens near Spring Grove Hospital in Catonsville.” That’s another lie. This alley in this neighborhood where those kittens were is in southwest Baltimore city, not Catonsville in Baltimore county. Spring Grove hospital is about 3 miles away. She also said there are 70+ cats in this area. That’s not true. Wasn’t even 20 or 25 before she started trapping them. Why would she tell these lies on the internet? To make money for herself, and she didn’t want to identify the exact place because she knows that other people who go around trapping cats will come here and do the same, then sell them to labs to get money. If she advertises that she’s doing these good works catching cats in Catonsville, maybe she figures people there will give her more money because 21228 is a much richer area than 21229. That’s another reason why she is a con artist and she doesn’t have the best interest of the cats at heart. Maybe you can tame feral kittens while they still small, but it’s not the case with the adult feral cats she was catching. The only thing you can do with them is put them down or sell them to labs for experiments. There’s plenty of people who go around this city catching cats and doing just that to make money, and she’s likely one of them.
Second thing why people think she’s a con artist. She’s trying to raise money on the same crowdfunding site saying she’s a single mother and needs to start over with her baby Jaycee: https://www.youcaring.com/kaitlinneal-764200. I had to laugh when I read that she’s “not one to ask for help” and “it really hurts her to ask her for help.” She got more than $1,000 from people off this request. Now why if you a single mother you not out working full time or looking for a job to support yourself and your child, and instead running 20 miles from Severn up to Baltimore to trap cats? With your baby in the car in a car seat while you are doing it in the morning, in the late afternoon, and sometimes in the evening. Because you are making your living from catching cats and selling them to labs. That’s what her full-time job is, and I guess its not providing her with enough cash. Who knows if she’s a single mother because the neighbors I talked to said sometimes when she came here she had the baby and a man in the car with her.
Somebody else told me they looked her up online and found out she’s been in some trouble with the police in Anne Arundel county for refusing to show a car registration document after getting pulled over. They gave me the site, and I looked it up. http://atlaspublicrecords.com/name/kaitlin-c-neal/severn-md/9a6d2c42a09f
The whole thing is shameful–the lies, the cat trapping, and making money off all of it. Especially when shes telling people she works at a shelter And it’s shameful that she using her child to lie and make money.
The people who live in the neighborhood where Oliver was taken from learned about what happened to him from this website. I have lived in this Beechfield neighborhood in southwest Baltimore for 13 years and know most of the people from walking my dog, so let me set the record straight. Oliver’s owners are Leroy and Kathy Wright who live at…..
Note from Admin: This extensive comment has been converted into an article and therefore its content has been removed here to avoid duplicating the words which is not good search engine optimisation. You can click on the link below to read the entire comment and an introduction to it. It is very useful and very helpful. It provides a prequel if you like to the story about Oliver who was unnecessarily euthanised at the Odenton Veterinary Hospital.
https://pictures-of-cats.org/what-happened-to-oliver-before-he-was-taken-to-odenton-veterinary-hospital-and-euthanized.html
My thanks to Miss Dee. I believe this is a pseudonym to enable the person to remain anonymous to avoid any possible abuse from trolls et cetera.
and…umm…Your fact checks?? NOW….Sir….who is exaggerating?
Sir….you endangered lives bigtime, you think this is a “what not game”? The cat was ill, Miss Kaitlin lied to you, super sorry your a nitwit who believes a pretty girl would tell you the entire truth. I hope where-ever you are policy and people are more honest. BTW, get a new VPN. 😀