There is a video online of a young woman, Charli Gowland, from Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, throwing her friend’s cat about 20 feet with her dog nearby. Gowland said that she did it because the cat attacked her dogs. The episode was filmed by a friend of Gowland, Jamilla Pearcy, and posted on her Instagram page with a caption that was intended to be amusing, ‘caption this’. As I assess the video, it seems that Gowland intended to throw her friend’s cat out of her backyard. You can see what I presume is Gowland’s dog briefly chasing after the cat.
Gowland later apologised for her ‘inexcusable and wrong’ actions. This is the sort of video that goes viral on the Internet. There have been comments asking why she has dogs in the first place if she treats companion animals this way. And what kind of friend is she to the cat’s owner?
The RSPCA have been notified and I presume they are investigating. Merlin is the cat who was thrown. He is a brown tabby. We don’t know if it’s true that Merlin attacked Galland’s dogs or not. Merlin is obviously well domesticated because he is passive in the hands of Gowland as she throws him. The police are also investigating. A Wagga Wagga police officer said that the act was absolutely disgraceful and that she had seen the video.
We also don’t know whether Merlin was injured. Fortunately he landed on grass which would have broken the fall. It appears that the cat’s owner said that her cat was killed but this is denied by Gowland.
Comment: It is another example of people failing to realise the severity of their behaviour in terms of animal welfare and the law. This must be the case because they often upload their videos of animal cruelty to social media where they are shared and eventually seen by law enforcement. They have no comprehension that what they’re doing might break the criminal law and is animal cruelty.
