The petition says “an exceptional teacher” has been “unjustly accused.” The petition’s creator blamed “snowflakes” for sharing the video of the incident with police, who arrested the teacher on Aug. 25.
A new petition claims Texas high school teacher Emily Marie Benner has been “unfairly accused” of abusing a cat and demands Benner’s school district reinstate her as a teacher immediately, “no questions asked.”
The petition’s creator blames “soft, slow-minded” “snowflakes” for allegedly manufacturing outrage, claims Benner could sue police for arresting her, and demands authorities drop charges against her.
Benner was arrested on Aug. 25 after police and school administrators were provided with a video showing the 25-year-old teacher allegedly abusing a cat two days earlier. In the video, which was shot in a classroom at Westwood High School of Palestine, Texas, Benner tells her students to hold the screaming feline down as she staples shut an incision on the cat’s abdomen, according to police, who also said the cat was not given anesthesia.
Benner was teaching an animal science class but is not a veterinarian and isn’t licensed to practice veterinary surgery. It’s not clear how she obtained the cat, nor have authorities said who made the initial incision on the cat’s abdomen. Police said the feline is recovering in the care of a veterinarian.
According to the petition, Benner is “a dedicated agricultural teacher in Westwood” who “has been unjustly accused of animal cruelty.”
“Her charge not only questions her professional integrity but also jeopardizes her role as an influential educator in our community. As people who appreciate her significant contributions to education in Palestine, TX, USA, we understand how detrimental this baseless accusation is to our local education system. Considering she has been an exceptional teacher, we call for the immediate dismissal of these charges and the reinstatement of Emily Marie Benner in her role, no questions asked.”
A still image from Benner’s high school classroom on Aug. 23 shows students holding down the thrashing, screaming feline while Benner staples its abdomen.
While Westwood School District Superintendent Wade Stanford said the “procedure amounted to animal cruelty” and promised to take “immediate and decisive action to address this issue” in a letter to parents of Westwood High School students, he did not say Benner was suspended or comment on her current status.
Benner’s arrest and alleged suspension as an educator is a “grave actionable breach to a respected member of our community,” the petition claims, asking signatories to help “right this wrong.” It also claims Benner has not been afforded due process.
“It’s the Christian thing to do and the right thing to do!” one person who signed the petition commented.
The petition’s creator, Jim Hughes of Palestine, made a post in Benner’s defense on Facebook, arguing that people were “spreading hate” by criticizing Benner. The post sparked arguments among locals who said home surgical procedures on animals are common in rural communities, and others who disputed that assertion, insisting it’s cruel not to provide the professional care of a veterinarian.
“Do you think everyone has the money to take their pet to the vet?” Hughes wrote, blaming the criticism on “snowflakes” who live in a “soft, slow-minded world.”
Arguing that animal owners “would be broke” if they sought veterinary help “for every incident,” Hughes said home surgery is just the way it’s done: “Every farmer I know castrates with just a pocket knife and no pain medicine.”
Video shows teacher Emily Marie Benner telling her students to hold the screaming cat down as she stapled shut an incision on its abdomen. The students then cheered for Benner, who is not a veterinarian and not licensed to teach veterinary surgery.
Regardless of whether she’s convicted, Emily Marie Benner’s career as an educator needs to end.
Benner is an agriculture teacher at Westwood High School in Palestine, Texas, about 110 miles southeast of Dallas. The 25-year-old was arrested and charged with animal cruelty over the weekend after giving students in her animal science class an unimaginably cruel “lesson” in crude unlicensed veterinary “surgery” on a living cat, local media reported.
On Aug. 23, Benner had her students hold the cat down while she stapled an incision on its abdomen shut. The procedure was performed without anesthesia and footage shows the cat was terrified and screaming. Benner is not a veterinarian, nor is she qualified to teach anything related to veterinary medicine.
After Benner administered the staple, her students began cheering, the video shows.
Local media showed a still image but said the video was too disturbing to air. Credit: CBS KYTX
It’s not clear where Benner obtained the cat or whether she made the incision to begin with. KYTX, a CBS affiliate in Texas, said it had “obtained a copy” of a video showing the incident, but declined to air it.
“The video is graphic in nature and we are choosing not to share it online or broadcast it on television,” KYTX’s Zak Wellerman wrote.
The cat is now under the care of a licensed veterinarian and is recovering, according to local media reports.
Benner. Credit: Anderson County Jail
Benner did not appear to be remorseful. In a mugshot taken after her arrest, she beams as she wears a t-shirt that reads “Teach Ag.”
In a letter to parents, Westwood Superintendent Wade Stanford said Benner’s actions amounted to animal cruelty, and said he wanted “to make it absolutely clear that our district takes such matters extremely seriously.”
“This behavior is not in line with the values and standards we uphold within our district,” Stanford wrote, “and we are committed to taking immediate and decisive action to address this issue.”
It’s not clear if Benner has retained an attorney, and a preliminary hearing for her case has not yet been scheduled. She faces a maximum sentence of two years in state prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted.
“People aren’t ready for us to turn carnivore cats vegan but I’m going to do it,” the CEO of a vegan cat food brand has vowed.
In September of last year, a research paper about feline health was published to the open-access journal PLOS-One, going mostly unnoticed.
The paper’s authors claim their research proves cats fed a “nutritionally complete” vegan diet are not only just as healthy as their meat-eating counterparts, they’re actually less likely to need veterinary visits, less dependent on medication, and more likely to be given a clean bill of health by their veterinarians.
When a company called Wild Earth announced the launch of a new line of vegan cat food this month, the company pointed directly to that paper as proof that “cats fed nutritionally sound vegan diets are healthier overall than those fed meat-based diets,” as the paper’s lead author put it.
Wild Earth CEO Ryan Bethencourt, who does not have a professional background in veterinary medicine or feline nutrition, summed up his goal in a tweet: “People aren’t ready for us to turn carnivore cats vegan but I’m going to do it.”
Bethencourt calls the effort to put pets on vegan diets “vegan biohacking.” Credit: Wild Earth
He painted the new offering as a bold counter to skeptics who say vegan cat food is unhealthy.
“We expect aggressive resistance from the meat industry on the launch of this industry-pioneering vegan cat food, but we know there are A LOT of cat parents looking for healthier plant-based and more sustainable options and we want to be the leader in providing them with that choice,” Bethencourt wrote in a statement.
What he didn’t mention was the fact that the loudest voices opposing “vegan cat food” are animal welfare organizations like the SPCA and Humane Society, as well as veterinarians and nutritionists, the same people who see the consequences of cats who are deprived of meat. Over the years they have reiterated that felines are obligate carnivores who have evolved to get their nutrients from meat, with digestive systems that cannot process most plants, meaning they can’t break them down and derive nutrients from them. That’s why we don’t see servals or leopards foraging for fruit in the wild.
In addition, the announcement did not mention that the 2023 research was funded by ProVeg International, a non-profit dedicated to reducing global meat consumption, weaning people and animals off of meat and onto plant-based food.
That didn’t stop other credulous reports, like one from GreenQueen claiming Wild Earth’s vegan cat food is “built on research proving that felines can be healthy on a vegan diet.”
And that’s exactly the point — the “study” was conceived and published so that advocates of vegan cat food can point to it and say “science says” cats can survive on plants.
Bad data makes for bad science
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but the 2023 study did not examine veterinary records or log the results of vet visits over years. Instead, the data was self-reported by participants.
A total of 1,418 people responded to the survey, and only 127 of them said they feed their cats exclusively vegan diets. The claims that their cats get sick less often and do better in veterinary check-ups are based on their subjective assessments and recollections. The paper’s authors don’t know which vegan brands the 127 respondents were giving to their cats, nor do they have information on whether the food was wet or dry, how often the cats were fed, and how much they ate.
A cat eating Wild Earth’s Unicorn Pate, which is made entirely from plant products. Credit: Wild Earth
One of the metrics cited by the authors is “guardian opinion of more severe illness,” which means arbitrary feedback from people who aren’t experts in veterinary medicine or nutrition.
If including respondent opinions as “data” doesn’t bother you, consider how many people buy products like Airborne, concluding that it works because they didn’t get sick once on a cross-country flight. Airborne, you may recall, was “invented” by a teacher who claimed she figured out how to cure the common cold, something no physician has done in centuries of trying.
Like vegan cat food proponents, Airborne had its own “study” that claimed its efficacy. The company eventually paid out more than $23 million in a class action settlement for its false claims. That’s not to say vegan cat food makers are precisely like Airborne, but pointing to poorly conducted research is a tactic that works because most people won’t go to the effort of finding the study and reading it.
Current global meat consumption is unsustainable, but…
I’m a vegetarian and I’ve seen enough evidence to convince me that the current rate of meat consumption, especially in the first world, is untenable as the global population rises toward its expected 11 billion-plus peak. Those forecasts and the horrors of factory farming are motivation enough to hope human civilization consumes less meat in the future.
But I’m also a guy who loves his cat, and I think if you’re going tell me that my little pal, designed by nature to be an obligate carnivore with a digestive system and body plan that hasn’t significantly changed for ages, can stop eating meat entirely with no deleterious effects — despite the experts saying otherwise — then you really need to show me something better than a self-reported survey paid for by a vegan advocacy group.
This cat is not happy. Credit: r/cats(reddit)
Especially when veterinarians who have no financial interest in the pet food industry relate horror stories of their four-legged patients slowly going blind and cats with no other ailments suffering catastrophic consequences, with their organs shutting down because they’re not getting the vital nutrients and proteins they need to survive.
It’s a horrific way to die, and it happens because misguided people think human morals should apply to cats. Notice in the press releases and marketing materials from vegan cat food manufacturers, there’s no mention of what’s in the best interest of cats — it’s all about people making “bold” choices, “disrupting” industries and leading the Earth to a shiny future without meat or suffering.
The truth is, felines cannot synthesize the proteins that are absolutely necessary for their survival, and their digestive systems aren’t evolved for breaking down nutrients from plants. Those are well-established facts, and ignoring them will not change reality. So anyone who claims “vegan cat food” is healthy faces a much bigger task than asking people to take a self-reported survey. A survey paid for by a nonprofit that lobbies for veganism isn’t proof, it’s wishful thinking masquerading as science.
Even if the authors of the paper had the complete veterinary records of the same cats, it would only be one tentative first step toward challenging everything we know about cat nutrition. Questions aren’t settled after one study, especially with such a small data set. Studies must be repeatable, and the difference between correlation and causation isn’t settled with a single well-designed, unimpeachable study, much less a self-reported survey.
When the stakes are the lives, happiness and health of innocent animals, we should be absolutely sure we’re doing right by them.
A Virginia man created National Black Cat Appreciation Day, a celebration of melanistic house panthers, in honor of his late sister, who loved her 20-year-old black cat named Sinbad.
Happy National Black Cat Appreciation Day!
A few years after the death of his 33-year-old sister, June, Wayne Morris wanted to do something in her honor. June adored her black cat, Sinbad, who died at 20 years old, just two months after she passed.
So the Virginia man teamed up with Rikki’s Refuge, a sanctuary where he volunteered, and created National Black Cat Appreciation Day in 2011. Morris chose the day of June’s passing, August 17, in her memory, and that first year marked it by holding a fundraiser for Rikki’s Refuge.
Morris was delighted by black cats as well. He often posted about Norman and Batman, his own melanistic miniature panthers, advocated for the adoption of black felines, and painted whimsical scenes of cats, which were auctioned to raise money for Rikki’s.
Morris often posted about his cats, including Batman, seen here. Credit: Wayne Morris
Wayne Morris founded National Black Cat Day.
Morris also liked to show off his other black cat, Norman. Credit: Wayne Morris
Morris painted scenes involving black cats, which were auctioned off to raise money for feline rescues. Credit: Wayne Morris
Batman. Credit: Wayne Morris
(Above, clockwise from top left: Batman, Wayne Morris, Norman, Batman again, and one of Morris’s paintings.)
Wayne Morris died in 2022, but the day he founded has continued to grow in popularity. In the 14 years since its inaugural celebration, National Black Cat Appreciation Day has spread via fundraisers for shelters across the country, as well as sites within the online catosphere, like this one.
Morris was motivated beyond honoring his sister and raising money for his favorite rescue. Black cats — also affectionately known as voids — have suffered unfortunate reputational damage over the centuries.
Melanistic felines are actually considered good luck in Japan, China and most of Asia, where they can be found in temples and their likenesses are used as maneki neko, the ubiquitous “lucky cats” in homes and businesses. (Black maneki neko are said to ward off evil spirits, diseases and people with bad intentions, while the golden cat statues are associated with wealth and the white neko are thought to bring good health.)
But in much of the western world they’re associated with bad luck, “evil” forces in folklore, and they’ve been invoked in outbursts of moral panic over things like witchcraft.
Big cats can be voids too, like this stunning black jaguar in Scotland’s Edinburgh Zoo. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
A black cat — or a statue of one — was said to be involved in Satanic rituals in Spain by Konrad van Marburg, an inquisitor known for his brutal zealotry. While the effect of that accusation has been exaggerated for years in internet discussions and posts (Pope Gregory IX’s papal bull dealt with a small area of Germany and did not declare that black cats were Satanic), it naturally comes up in superstitions about the animals.
A 2020 study of 8,000 adoptions found black cats were less likely to be adopted and more likely to be euthanized. That study and others found there was “scant evidence” for the dramatic margins suggested by anecdotal accounts circulating online and in some publications, but confirmed the problem is real. Research also suggests that negative perceptions of black cats isn’t correlated to religious preferences, but is tied to general belief in the supernatural.
Interestingly, additional research has hinted at a decidedly more modern and petty reason people may hesitate to adopt black cats: they think voids are more difficult to photograph, which is an issue for people who want to show their pets off online. (We’ve written about that particular hang-up before, and noted it’s possible to take beautiful photographs of voids by being mindful of factors like lighting and contrast between fur color and the background.)
Regardless, the combined effect of the superstitions and negative associations has harmed black-coated felines, and National Black Cat Appreciation Day is also an attempt to push back and show people that black cats are just, well, cats.
New York magazine’s article included difficult-to-read details about the severe neglect of a pet cat, and didn’t offer any reassurances that the forsaken feline was okay.
Happy Thursday! Before we get into today’s cat news, I’d like to share my current Google News search string, which has helped me keep my sanity over the last few weeks. It’s simple:
“cat -doja -vance -shot”
And voila, no more stories about Doja Cat, fewer blood pressure-raising articles about people who think shooting felines is a sport, and you’re mercifully saved from the 17,457th “think piece” about JD Vance and cat ladies.
The “relatable” column about severely neglecting a cat
New York magazine’s editors knew they were wading into a minefield with this week’s pet ethics issue, and the author of a story about neglecting her cat knew it too, which is why she took the preventative step of using a nom de plume.
In a column titled “Why Do I Hate My Pet After Having A Baby?” (later softened by the editors to “Why Did I Stop Loving My Cat When I Had A Baby?”), “Audrey” writes about severely neglecting her cat, Lucky, after having her first child.
She not only developed what she calls a “postpartum loathing” of Lucky, she admits to not feeding the poor feline for so long that Lucky ate plants out of desperation, then predictably threw up. The forsaken feline began eliminating on the floor because her litterbox was not being scooped. She lost “at least one tooth” and because even water was denied her, she had to drink out of the toilet. The life-threatening neglect and emotional abuse lasted months.
“If I treated a human the way I treated my cat, I would be in prison for years,” Audrey admits, describing Lucky’s own descent into depression as the cat became the scapegoat for all of Audrey’s negative feelings.
Cats (and dogs) understand a lot more than we give them credit for, especially when it comes to our emotional states, to which they are hyper-attuned because they are directly impacted. We’re talking about animals who have been companions to humans for 10,000 and 30,000 years, respectively. Not only does their companionship predate human civilization and the concept of recorded history, they have evolved to intuitively read human facial expressions and body language. They can even smell our pheromones, which means they’re often consciously aware of our moods before we are.
I’ll never forget what my brother said to me a few weeks after I adopted Bud, upon meeting the little guy for the first time: “You’re his whole world.” I’ve tried to make that world as loving, safe and fun for my cat as I can, because he deserves it. He’s given me back so much in return.
Adopting comes with responsibility. It’s not just about meeting an innocent animal’s basic needs, like food and water. It’s about providing our four-legged friends with good lives and never taking our bad days out on them.
“Audrey” says she tried to get rid of Lucky, leaving the windows of her home open, and because the original version of the story dealt almost exclusively with the author’s mental health, readers were disturbed by the lack of any follow-up on Lucky’s situation.
The negative reaction was so strong that New York’s editors took the unusual step of attaching a note to the story claiming they “confirmed the welfare of the cat prior to publishing the story.”
That didn’t satisfy the magazine’s critics, who accused them of behaving “callously” by presenting the author’s abuse of Lucky as a “relatable” symptom of post-partum depression.
“Why are you ignoring one of the most controversial articles you’ve ever published instead of addressing it?” one reader wrote. “It’s not going to just go away – we will not forget … The people will not stop until that cat is safe and loved, and your publication is held responsible.”
Insisting the magazine’s editors be “held responsible” is a bit much, and I’m not a fan of censorship. The bigger issue is the lack of concern for the cat even in retrospect, and the attempt to normalize postpartum animal abuse, as if it’s just a thing people do. It feels like a missed opportunity to explore why such things happen, and to examine the problem with compassion for all involved, human and animal.
Buddy the Cat’s Le Handsome Club is now open to le handsome cats
This is really just an excuse to show off my latest poster promoting PITB, but readers will recognize the concept of Le Handsome Club from earlier satirical stories about the Budster.
Le Handsome Club: The club for le handsome cats!
I’ve written before about “real Buddy” and “cartoon Buddy,” which is the version of him that exists in PITB’s world of absurd satire. Cartoon Buddy is real Buddy with his quirks, narcissistic qualities and amusing lunacy dialed up to 11.
Someone once asked me how to write a children’s book because they want to write one about their pets. Since I’ve never written a children’s book I wasn’t much help, but I did share the basic process for Buddesian hijinks: Imagine a situation, then imagine how Bud would respond to it if he could speak.
So yes, Le Handsome Club. I could definitely see my cat, who thinks he’s Catdonis and Arnold Schwarzenegger rolled into one, founding a club for really, really, ridiculously good looking cats, to paraphrase Ben Stiller’s Zoolander.
Pain In The Bud 