Lady moves home to a more civilized place after her neighbor shoots her cat

Cohasset, Minnesota, USA: Pam Dowell’s neighbor, Steven Lee Mishow, always said that he hated cats. He said that he would shoot cats who came onto his property. He said he could do it because he’d be defending and preserving his property.

Pam Dowell knew about the man’s hatred of cats. She invited him into her home and begged him, “please don’t harm my pets”.

Pam Dowell is a community leader. She has a voice and has contributed hugely to the community. There is a page on her on the Herald Review.

One stormy night in late September three cats went missing, one of them was Olivia, the cat companion of Pam Dowell. Another was a feral cat named Emerald who slept at her house and the third was Pumpkin a neighbor’s cat.

Olivia was very important to Pam Dowell. Olivia loved to play outside with Pumpkin. She was a family member and often slept with Pam under the covers. This was a typical close relationship, and Olivia was much more than “just a cat”.

It seems that she informed the local authority about the missing cats who were unwilling to help. She went to the police who informed her that it was unlikely that they would investigate the matter. Dowell is a retired cop so she took the matter into their own hands. Dowell worked as a licensed Minnesota Police Officer between 1988 and 1996. She retired after she was assaulted while on duty which left her disabled.

Dowell and a neighbor went public. They went before the local City Council and pleaded their case. This got back to the local newspaper and television station. As a result, Itasca County prosecutors became interested.

Then gradually Mishow’s attitude towards cats leaked out. It transpired that he told authorities that he shot at the cats intending to kill them. One of Dowell’s neighbors enticed Mishow to admit shooting Dowell’s cat and the conversation was recorded.

Then bit by bit Mishow’s hatred of domestic and feral cat became public knowledge.

“I will say this, there is a bad feral cat problem… Are you writing this down? That’s the reason I did what I did. I shot at them to protect and preserve my property.”

It appears that the police have enough evidence to charge Mishow with a felony but prosecutors say that they did not have enough evidence to charge him with killing the other cats. I take this to mean that they could charge him with killing Olivia.

Some cat haters will say that Mishow had a right to do what he did and once again I will say that he did not. Zach Nugent, spokesman for the Minnesota Humane Society said:

“Despite what some people think, you do not have the right to shoot a domesticated animal in your yard especially if you know it someone’s pet.”

That is stating the obvious but it needs to be restated. Then there was a backlash against Pam Dowell because there are people who would support Mishow. They too hate cats and believe that there is a feral cat problem although in this county the authorities take a neutral stance towards feral cats.

Fellow cat haters tried to verbally attack Dowell on social media with the objective of undermining her. They brought up her past history and tried to dig up some dirt. This became a war between cat owners and cat haters which is commonplace.

At the end of the day, Pam Dowell became fed up with the situation. She believes that Mishow will receive a slap on the wrist with a misdemeanour charge and nothing will change. She decided to leave the area. She’s put her house up for sale.

Audio recording of Steven Mishow admitting to shooting neighbors’ cats

She appears to be disillusioned with the police. She says that the loss of any pet is hard when the loss is because of an act of violence; it’s traumatic. She wanted to make some noise about it and to make sure people know that they can’t do this and get away with it. She wanted the sheriff’s deputies to be aware that a crime had taken place.

“I’m going to move to someplace more civilized, that’s the only thing that’s going to change.”

Sources: Google Images, Herald Review and Star Tribune.

P.S. Note from Michael (Admin). There are a lot of comments, the majority of which are mud slinging. They are indirectly relevant to the article and shine a light on the human relationships behind the cat shooting, which is why I allow 99.5% of them. Some are removed because of the level of insult in them. IF YOU COMMENT AND CRITICISE SOMEONE EXPECT THE SAME IN RETURN. DON’T COMPLAIN TO ME ABOUT IT.

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