Why did this woman shoot her sick cat rather than take him to a veterinarian?
We are told that a 73-year-old woman, Nancy Just, allowed her cat to become ill for months and then asked a neighbour to shoot him (and offered to pay). When he refused she shot her cat the next day with two bullets. She buried her cat in the backyard. Eight days later her neighbour reported the matter to Animal Control. They found the decomposed body buried in the backyard after questioning her.
“The next day, in the morning… I heard, pop pop and I went over there and talk to her later on and I said ‘you did it didn’t you Nancy? She said yeah.'” (testimony of the neighbour who was asked to shoot her cat)
It is extraordinary that this long time (20 years) cat owner ended up doing what she did. It seems inexplicable. Perhaps she was short of money and had decided that her cat was terminally ill and wanted to euthanise him. Or she foresaw huge vet bills and wanted to avoid them. The only way she could achieve these objecives was to shoot him. At the time she felt that she was unable to do it herself so she asked her neighbour. He who refused and therefore in desperation she shot her cat herself.
This is my explanation but it is guesswork. In my view it is a version of animal cruelty and a violation of animal welfare laws but apparently allowed in certain places in America. Whether she is successfully prosecuted or not will be a different matter.
Animal Control rightly say that under no circumstances is a person allowed to shoot their cat. What they’re saying is that it would be a violation of the criminal law. Some cat haters would disagree with that and they would be wrong.
The story is reported on wavy.com and they say that a judge has released her from jail on condition that she returns at the next court hearing in July. That means that she has been arrested and charged but I have no details.
Some people, cat haters normally, would argue that she euthanised her cat with a bullet to the head and therefore the cat did not suffer. I am sure that that will be her defence if there is a trial.
It does, however, highlight the necessity to have sufficient funds to look after your cat properly. It can be expensive. People shy away from veterinarians because of the expense. This leads to all kinds of additional problems such as the one described.
FYI I called Animal Control numerous times and rehomed many cats that spilled from their refusal to S/N. Ok I called what passed for AC at the time. Their days of fun filled animal abuse are over and have now been fined for neglect and several other animal related charges.
The point is there are still places in the US where animal abuse is not taken seriously or even addressed when reported.
Thank you very much for your kind comment. I fully agree with you of course. And I do know quite a lot about America and Canada these days because I have written about these countries and their cats for a very long time now. Through research and reading on the Internet and reading in books one gets to know the cats and their relationship with people in these countries. And there is certainly a difference in attitude in general between Americans and British. Although there are also a great many similarities. As it happens, on my calculation, Americans love cats the most of all the countries in the world. That is not to say that their relationship with cats is always of the highest quality. But the same can be said about the British. Not all British behave decently towards animals and cats a particular. I guess that is common sense.