This is the story of a Missouri mother who recently went to jail over the family cat. Andrea Boenker, a resident of Wentzville, was arrested recently, all because her then 2-year-old daughter let the new family cat out of the house. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, Wentzville is a city located in western St. Charles County and has a population of around 30,000.
Andrea is the mother of two daughters and a nurse. Her story began last summer when the family got a new cat. Thriller, a black and white beauty, was let out of the house by Andrea’s daughter Morgan , who was only two at the time. Thriller ended up at the local shelter. Andrea went down to the shelter, where she paid the fines to the shelter and the city to bail Thriller out of kitty jail. She thought that was the end of things.
Andrea recently got the shock of her life when she came home from work and her husband told her two police officer’s had come to their home with a warrant for her arrest. There was an outstanding animal at large ticket, which is given when someone violates a leash law. Many areas now consider cats running free illegal, and not only pertaining to dogs. So Andrea went down to the local police station to clear things up about their cat. The doors locked behind her when she went inside the station, and Andrea was informed she was under arrest.
The problem started when Andrea says a clerk and an alderman told her she wouldn’t have to go to court if she paid the fines. Apparently the information given Andrea was unreliable, and Andrea missed the court date because she was told she didn’t have to show up. She admits receiving the notice to appear, but disregarded it. The warrant the officer’s had come to serve was a “failure to appear,” meaning she had failed to show up for court, which automatically puts you on the bench warrant roster. Sometimes it takes awhile to be served, due to there being so many people out there committing small crimes that police don’t have the manpower to deliver warrants in a timely manner for minor offenses.
Andrea was in jail for less than three hours, but she wants to warn others out there of how little it takes to get locked up these days. KSDK5 News spoke with the mayor of Wentzville, who admitted there are problems with cats being on the animal ordinance. He said the board of alderman will be discussing kinks in the system in the near future.
Meanwhile, Andrea now has a criminal record. If she’s never been in trouble with the law before, she can likely get it expunged by a circuit court judge. I wanted to do this article because so many cat lovers who reside outside the United States don’t realize some of the lame laws we have to put up with. It’s illegal to allow a cat outside unsupervised in many areas. Cat owners who live within city limits usually have more strict rules than those living in a country environment. I wanted to share Andrea’s story so no more cat ladies have to spend time in jail over an escaped cat. If you ever get a citation for animal at large, be sure you know what you’re required to do, and be sure that information comes from a dependable source.
I’m curious what the readers here think of this, especially those living outside the U.S.
Thank you, Christine for a very comprehensive and excellent comment. I agree with you. To an outsider like me, looking in, it seems that what is happening is reactive. The ad hoc creation of a mishmash of regulations and laws is ultimately down to a reaction to careless cat ownership. And it is almost impossible to enforce these laws accurately and fairly across-the-board so the better course of action is to put much more by way of resources into proactive measures to improve cat ownership. This would be long-term thinking. In fact every aspect of cat ownership all the way down to the euthanasia of unwanted cats should be looked at in a proactive sense. As you say it’s about a broken model and the model needs to be totally revamped root and branch starting at the grassroots namely highly irresponsible cat ownership. Nothing but highly responsible cat ownership should be acceptable and this includes respect for the cat, any type of cat while long-term changes are being made and then into the future indefinitely.
This is a broken system. That lady was treated harshly by an unjust and arbitrary law. Her city should be ashamed. It’s another example showing that people should not trust that their animal services department is being run properly. Poor leadership has been demonstrated in that community; residents there should be outraged and get involved.
Enforcement of this law actually discourage people from being responsible and reclaiming lost pets, let alone visiting the shelter to volunteer or adopt. If this is happening, what else is going on there? So glad it made the news.
I study up on animal laws and animal services/sheltering. I’m involved in trying to create a community where are all necessary life-saving programs and services are in place. There are a growing number of communities we can look to as examples now. Many people are not even aware that they exist.
I believe domestic animals in our communities and in our care have limited rights, and do have the right to proper treatment. To me, good animal laws and not killing cats and dogs for population control is more about cities showing good leadership where they demonstrate animals are not disposible. I am an advocate for shelter reform, pet owners, taxpayers, and animals. All stakeholders bear some responsibility to help change things. Citizens deserve to be treated fairly and should receive excellent customer service when dealing with animal services or any agency.
Local animal control laws (ordinances in the USA and by-laws in Canada) vary widely. Many are based on recommendations from groups where public safety is supposedly the first priority. Many laws and practices are still based on the old dog catcher model which does not serve citizens or animals all that well.
An ineffective law is one that is not enforceable, or is not universally enforceable/enforced, and frequently does not accomplish what it intends. Some laws are designed more to generate revenue than to be effective, with some cities even agreeing publicly with that statement, using it as a reason why they won’t do away with certain laws. As mentioned elsewhere, bad laws make criminals out of ordinary law abiding citizens. Some animal laws exist for arbitrary reasons, where no one knows the true purpose or them or if they cause more harm than good.
The anti roaming laws were designed to help protect people and livestock from dogs at large. This type of law still makes sense for dogs. Implementation can be ineffective though.
Taking that law and applying it to cats is supposed to try and curb nuisance complaints, but it is really deadly for cats and costly for taxpayers. Some cities round up stray cats and take them to the pounds where the huge majority are killed. Some pounds do not follow their stray hold law and kill animals before it has expired. Common reclaim rates are 55 percent for dogs and only 4 percent for cats. Cats can end up dead before their owners even know they’re missing. There are many barriers that reduce reclaim rates and lead to more killing. (It’s not euthanasia unless an animal is irredeemably suffering.)
Many cities now also require cats to be licensed and wear tags, but compliance is usually very low. While the idea of putting ID on all owned cats and dogs is admirable, costs are usually too high in relation to benefits and services that license fees pay for*; it’s questionable and usually seen as a tax grab, another way to fine pet owners. It often leads to more shelter animals being killed and is proven ineffective for controlling the free-roaming unowned cat population.
Fixing the broken model.
I believe the solution is already proven many times over.
Those concerned need to get involved and join or create their local animal welfare committee, educate yourself about the progressive life-saving programs and services in these communities, get your city and shelter to commit to this mission to try copying the success of others.
Surveys show the public is already on board, ready to support you. They are taxpayers who expect and deserve modern and progressive services as well as good laws and good, accountable leadership to help put things in place.
I agree that “shelters absolutely could adopt their way out of killing, IF they really tried.” And, as this blog illustrates, many already are
– http://outthefrontdoor.com/2014/04/17/adopting-our-way-out-of-killing/
Increasing adoptions is only one part of the comprehensive solution. Separating myth from fact allows people to focus on solutions, not rely on excuses that maintain the status quo,
– http://www.examiner.com/article/the-earth-is-flat-pet-overpopulation-exists-and-other-myths-we-ve-been-told
*Calgary, Alberta is often pointed to as a model due to their much higher than average return to owner rate for stray pets. Their funding model has some very good parts and they have some progressive laws, but is not complete or comprehensive on it’s own.
Michael, for someone to have “rights”, he or she needs to know the difference between right and wrong as a moral choice. Animals make intuitive or instinctive choices, not moral choices. What an animal does have is the right to be treated humanely in keeping with its species. That is what animal WELFARE is about. If your treatment of animals is deficient in some way (e.g., not enough shelter, food, veterinary care, even just personal attention), then you can and should improve that deficient treatment, but the animal’s right to humane treatment remains the same–that one right. You are trying to find degrees of animal rightism. All you need is to understand that animal rightism is a cult religion, whereas animal welfare is treating animals humanely.
I think there are different types of animal rights people and the ones you talk about, the ones at the extreme end are difficult to deal with but a person who loves cats and animals and respects them could be called an animal rights activist in a very mild way because in this world where there’s lots of animal abuse. It depends what sort of animal rights person you are really. After all, a person concerned with animal rights simply want animals to have more rights and there’s nothing bad about that because they deserve and need them.
Harvey Harrison is right. Animal rights cultists are not interested in animal welfare. What they ARE interested in is mind control–control of everyone’s mind, just like any other cult religion. Think Kool-Aid. Michael, what you see as the benevolent and caring end of animal rights is animal welfare. Most of us who are genuinely interested in animals do indeed promote respect and caring in species-specific ways for all animals. The animals lose out when animal rightists use them to promote their brand of Kool-Aid.