Some people just shouldn't be allowed to have pets

[electricland]

I'm subscribed to the CP feed for the next two weeks. I foresee that it will be a rich source of entertainment. Or something. Like this story it pointed me to:

Horror attack on child forces family to kill cat

Margo Dawson says her family had no choice but to shoot a cat to death after its companion attacked her 16-month-old granddaughter Emma.

"The cat just jumped on top of her head and wouldn't let go," said Dawson.

"I screamed and kicked the cat in the butt to get it away. Emma was hysterical - she had cuts on her ears and the back of her head."

Serenity, the cat that attacked Emma, ran away and hid before the family could shoot her, said Dawson.

But Serenity's companion, Faith, was "hissing and growling" and Dawson's family decided she too should be shot.

"So we went after her and shot her."

Faith and Serenity were among five cats Dawson's family took into their Beaumont-area home about two weeks ago after responding to an ad offering cats free to a good home.

Dan Tanguay, the cats' former owner, contacted the Sun this week after finding Faith shot to death outside the home of the family they'd given her to.

Tanguay said he and his girlfriend Krista were forced to give up Serenity and her three five-and-a-half-week-old kittens because Serenity didn't get along with his dog Storm.

He sent along Faith to be a companion for Serenity.

Tanguay said he got a call Monday morning from the cats' new owner who said Serenity had attacked his one-year-old daughter and was now hiding in the rafters of a building.

Tanguay offered to come out to the acreage and call Serenity out. When he and Krista got there they made the grisly discovery of a dead, frozen Faith.

Dawson said the family left Faith outside because they'd been at the hospital all night with Emma, who she said received six stitches in her head.

She said Serenity "got spooked," and broke into a crazed run throughout the house before jumping on Emma.

"Emma was defenceless - the blood was just gushing."

Dawson said Serenity should never have been brought to the home, where there are "all kinds of animals," if she couldn't get along with Tanguay's dog.

"We had to do what we had to do to save little Emma. I would do it again."

The Alberta SPCA says there's nothing against the law in shooting your own animal providing it's done humanely, and a gunshot is an accepted means of euthanasia.

(All emphases mine. I should mention that the CP story is considerably less purple than the Edmonton Sun.)

So, children, what have we learned from this? I would suggest:
1. It's an excellent idea to bring five animals at once into your home.
2. Especially if you have a toddler.
3. And especially without asking why the animals are being given away.
4. If you can't track down and kill the animal that hurt your small child, another will do just as well! Really!
5. And then you can blame someone else for inflicting this savage animal on your household.
6. Giving pets away free is a wonderful way to find them a loving, caring, knowledgeable new home.

And what is UP with Alberta? (or at least its SPCA?)

Comments

[raithen.livejournal.com]

1. fair warning on this would be good - started to read then realized that no, I don't want to know! And with the bolding, skimming past the icky bits is challenging...

2. It ain't just in Alberta that people are horrid and inhumane to their pets, and I somewhat resent the geographical generalization.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that.

Re 2, the geographical generalization is not so much for the being horrid as for the SPCA's response. Although for all I know the same is true everywhere. It just seems a tad lackadaisical.

[raithen.livejournal.com]

Thanks sweetie!

The SPCA is fairly limited in the action it can take - it's a question of the legal definitions for abuse/neglect etc - they can only act when laws are being broken. And the laws tend to need to be a bit less stringent than more stringent, because they can wind up applying in situations where they would be unnecessarily restrictive and could even LEAD to animal harm. This is true everywhere. And to be honest, frustrating as it is in some cases, in others, it is damn good. We *HAVE* euthanized animals using gunshots. Nice? No. But it beats the hell out of the animal suffering for another few hours till the vet can get there. IF we could be brought up on cruelty charges for this, well, then, ya.

and for the record, that was how Brigadier was euthanized, too.

When the stallion next door was looking thin to us, we asked our vet if we should call in a report. She looked at the horse and said, a bit ruefully, nope, he'd have to be WAY thinner for the SPCA to act. And yes, that is frustrating. But it also avoids situations of good pet owners with hard-to-keep weight on horses from being constantly checked out and under suspicion.

I have issues with the SPCA, of course (and different ones from you, often - their stance on Rodeo stock still seems foreign to me - those animals are often VERY well cared for). But the nature of the rules they have to follow is a complicated one, and is not simply a question of "too lax."

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

WTF is wrong with those people!? things like this send me over the edge. grrrr.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Yup.

I would love to know the full sequence of events. I suppose it makes a change from dogs...

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

the cruelty of human beings always stuns me...even though on some level i know that's how the species has always been. still, i keep hoping that some day people will catch a clue....

*hugs*

[jaanquidam.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to be unsympathetic, and admittedly, most of my knowledge of cats comes either from Get Fuzzy or through the haze of allergy medication, but, uh, aren't cats carnivores? Just a thought.

Is the Sun a Murdoch paper? That could explain the headline. I think a better one would've been: "Family Kills Cats for Acting Like Cats."

But maybe I'm just bitter.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Sun Media (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Media), but the principle is similar.

I'm much like you on the cat question, but, um, yeah. I would love to know WHY the cat "suddenly went crazy", but I suppose we'll never know...

[jaanquidam.livejournal.com]

Okay, that makes sense. I do seem to remember Sun Media being the scary right-wing of Canada's newspaper industry. Mostly I read the Toronto Star and Globe & Mail.

Having lived my whole life among humans, I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that it's their fault the cat attacked....

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

Cats are carnivores. They eat mice. Not 1-year old children. The kid is bigger than the cat, unless it's a tiny tiny kid and an overfed Maine Coon cat.

I'll bet almost anything someone was harassing the cat. They don't just "go crazy". Some cats are VERY sensitive about being handled, but they don't just attack people without provocation. Unlike dogs, cats have a sense of size. People are just way too big.

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

And frankly, the cat shouldn't have been able to get to the kid. Where was it, anyways?

[electricland.livejournal.com]

That was kind of my thought as well. Either her or her kittens. Same with dogs -- they don't, generally, "just attack". There are warning signs. A lot of people don't know what they are.

Sigh.

[jaanquidam.livejournal.com]

But you have to admit, it does make for a funny story, that people bring carnivores into their home, and get eaten!

Or not.

I guess no matter how you slice it, though, it's probably the human's fault, huh?

[stlscape.livejournal.com]

They couldn't do anything with Faith's body because they were at the hospital with the little girl - but they could take the time to shoot the cat first?

FWIW, I *have* known a cat that was just bone mean. He was owned by a good friend of mine, who's a good, responsible pet owner, and got him as kitten (he was out of a litter by her vet's barn cat), along with his brother. The brother was as sweet as he could be. Hobbie Bear, though, was just a mean, nasty cat.