Category: news

Someone Has To Rescue This Poor Cat

A real estate agent discovers a terrified, depressed cat left behind in a trashed rental home after the tenant vacated the place.

A real estate agent in Texas was filming video for his TikTok channel, sarcastically providing a voice-over in which he promises a “look at the beauty of rental houses when the tenants move out.”

As the agent, who goes by the name Felix Jaimes on TikTok, showed broken blinds, inexplicably removed wood floor panels, a cracked mirror, dirty bathroom and garbage left everywhere. Then he heard noise coming from another room.

“Honestly I got scared, I thought someone was in there because the house was pretty much empty,” Jaimes explained later in the comments.

But he didn’t find a burglar — just a terrified, depressed-looking cat huddling in the corner of a closet.

“He was obviously scared,” Jaimes wrote. “My heart broke” for him.

@felixjaimes9

Tenants moved out and left their cat behind. #catsoftiktok #KraftMacMeSkip #SimsSelves #realestateinvesting #buyandholdrealestate #abandonedcat

♬ original sound – user8019181143846

“Immediately I thought they left their cat behind. What kind of people do that,” Jaimes asked. “I thought they had just abandoned the place since they destroyed it.”

After calling and sending text messages to the tenant, she called Jaimes back and said she wasn’t finished moving out.

“When I came back, the cat was gone,” Jaimes said.

The video was posted on Dec. 7. It’s not clear from Jaimes’ profile exactly where he is — or where the home is located — in Texas, but perhaps some sharp-eyed Texan will be able to tell from the exterior shots at the beginning of the video.

Regardless, the video is distressing. It seems to me that organizations like county-level SPCAs — which employ animal welfare officers with law enforcement jurisdiction when it comes to animal abuse and welfare investigations — are made to handle cases like this, not just the “saving 50 cats from a hoarding situation” stories we hear all the time.

At the very least, the SPCA’s law enforcement division should locate the owner, interview her, check on the cat and have him brought in for a veterinary exam. If they don’t like what they see, they should confiscate the cat and take extra care to place him with people who know how to treat cats and will give him the love he deserves.

Maybe everything really is on the up-and-up and just looks bad, but someone who really knows cats — and loves them — would never leave their kitty in an empty apartment, cowering in a closet and believing he’s been abandoned. That’s why it should be investigated. Better safe than sorry.

Pa. Politician Resigns After Running Over Stray Cats With His Truck

“We don’t need his idea of animal control,” says one neighbor, who has been caring for the local cat colony for years.

Neighbors who live on a quiet street in rural Pennsylvania were horrified when a man in a white pickup truck intentionally tried to run over stray cats last week, hitting at least one.

Now, thanks to one neighbor who captured part of the attack on video, they’ve identified the man at the wheel, and he’s a local politician.

Frank Pagani Jr. resigned from his seat on the municipal council of Galilee, a rural Pennsylvania town with a population of 379. Video shows Pagani Jr. speeding up and swerving to hit one of two cats who were in the road at the time. He was going so fast he blew through the stop sign at the end of the street.

The brazen politician then made a left turn and casually pulled into his own driveway on a side street.

William Bittner, who captured part of the Dec. 1 hit-and-run on video, said Pagani called him afterward, admitted what he’d done, and said he would resign his council seat.

“He thinks that’s the end of it,” said Bittner, who takes care of the cats along with other neighbors on the street. “You just can’t let an act like that go on without someone being charged.”

The Beaver County Humane Society said its humane officers were investigating the incident, but Pagani Jr. hadn’t been charged as of Dec. 6. Neighbors told the Beaver County Times that police officers were going door to door on Dec. 3 to speak to witnesses. Pagani has not returned calls from at least two local media outlets.

Pagani works with his father in their family business, Pagani and Son Trucking LLC, which contracts with the United States Postal Service to shuttle mail in bulk to and from a processing facility to individual post offices in the area. The company has had three USDOT violations in 2020 and 2021, records show.

As for the cats, their fate remains unknown. The video appears to show Pagani’s truck hitting or running over the tail of one cat, who immediately bolted along with the other cat who was in the street at the time. Those two cats took off with a larger group that was on the nearby sidewalk. The injured cat hasn’t been seen since.

“He could have hit the undercarriage of the front, he could have had his tail run over, he could have been bruised,” Bittner told KDKA, the local CBS affiliate. “We’ve been searching and searching and we can’t find him.”

”And when I feed him in the morning and night, he’s not showing up. So we don’t know whether [he] ran off to die or…” Bittner said, trailing off.

In a follow-up post on Facebook, Bittner explained that the strays are part of a managed TNR colony, with neighbors pitching in to help feed the cats and adopt out kittens. So far, 28 cats have been trapped and fixed.

People in the neighborhood believe Pagani was taking matters into his own hands, which follows a disturbing trend of vigilantism toward cats by people who either hate them or think they’re protecting local wildlife by killing cats.

“We don’t need his idea of animal control,” Bittner wrote.

With A Three-Fold Increase in Cat Thefts, UK Chooses Microchip Mandate

With breed cats commanding prices in the thousands, thieves see pet theft as a quick score. Lack of prosecution has made it an almost zero-risk crime in the UK.

Mandates in the wake of COVID-19 haven’t been especially popular with a weary public, but surveys show one proposed directive has almost universal support in the UK: Requiring all cat owners get their pets microchipped.

Cat thefts in the UK have tripled in the last five years, with the pandemic contributing to the increase since early 2020, police say. Authorities say they hope compulsory microchipping — and consolidating the many chip ID databases into one — will help discourage people from stealing while making it easier to reunite felines with their families.

Thieves mostly target pedigreed kitties over moggies, with Bengals as the most commonly-stolen cats, followed by British Shorthairs and Persians, according to police statistics. Thieves try for breed cats because of resale value, police say.

Dog thefts have skyrocketed as well, with thieves targeting Chihuahuas, Jack Russell Terriers and German Shepards, among other popular breeds. The price of breed dogs has ballooned by as much as 89 percent since the beginning of the pandemic, when demand for new pets and a slowdown in breeding created a boom market.

For context, an estimated 3.2 million British families welcomed new pets, mostly cats and dogs, into their homes since the first lockdowns in late winter and spring of 2020, the BBC reported. Like their counterparts here in the States, UK shelters experienced unprecedented adoption rates as people battled loneliness and depression during the initial COVID waves and last year’s long winter when the virus came back with a vengeance.

“The number one reason behind pet theft is because the prices for pets have gone up drastically,” Becky Thwaites, spokeswoman for UK pet charity Blue Cross, told SWLondoner. “This happened exponentially over lockdown, as responsible breeders stopped breeding due to social distancing guidance, but more people were wanting pets.”

Despite the spike in animal thefts, only about one percent of all such crimes have led to an arrest, according to a public information request by a UK animal welfare group. 

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Police have been reluctant to pour resources into those cases, partly because the law lacks serious consequences for people who steal animals. While the maximum sentence for stealing a pet is seven years in jail, under current UK law sentences are pegged to the value of the stolen item. (Unlike the US, the UK does not make a distinction between prison and jail.)

But for people who love their cats, it’s not about the monetary value — it’s about sentiment, love and the distress to human and animal when they’re separated.

Abductions instead of thefts

To change that, a new pet theft task force — set up earlier this year to study the growing problem — recommended a change in the law. Instead of treating pet thefts as property thefts, under the proposal they would be treated as abductions, with all the increased charges and consequences that come with the classification.

Treating animal thefts as abductions “acknowledges that animals are far more than just property and will give police an additional tool to bring these sickening individuals to justice,” UK Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC.

Advocates say treating pet thefts as abductions makes sense not just as a legal adjustment, but also as a reflection of the way cats and dogs are stolen. While some thieves stalk dog parks and lure pets away with treats, others have taken to more brazen and violent means like taking animals by force and jumping people while they’re walking their dogs.

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The change would require owners to have their kittens chipped by 20 weeks and adult cats chipped upon adoption from a shelter or rescue.  Failure to microchip a pet would result in a warning and a three-week grace period. After that, cat owners would face a steep fine of £500, equal to $660 in USD.

Consolidating chip databases

There are about 10.8 million pet cats in the UK, although widespread chipping alone won’t solve the problem of pet thefts and lost pets flooding shelters. There are currently 16 different microchip databases in the UK. They don’t always share information and scans don’t cover each of the databases, so even if a cat is recovered, brought to a shelter and scanned, there’s no guarantee the kitty will be returned home.

The existence of so many non-cooperating databases operated by private companies “can pose a huge barrier to successful reunification of pets” said the British Veterinary Association’s Malcolm Morley.

UK authorities and the animal welfare groups pushing for the change are cognizant of the problem and want to streamline the 16 existing database into one central repository of cat microchip registration. That will take time and will have to include compromise on the part of the various private companies running the existing fractured databases.

“Every day, we see how important microchipping is for cats and for the people who love them,” said Pet Protection’s Jacqui Cuff, “whether it’s reuniting a lost cat with their owner, identifying an injured cat, or helping to ensure an owner can be informed in the sad event that their cat has been hit and killed by a car.”

UPDATE: Airline Investigates Cat Breastfeeding Incident, Flight Attendant Speaks Out

There have been more than 5,000 confrontations involving unruly passengers on airlines in 2021, on pace for more than all other years combined.

When we first heard about an airline passenger grossing out her fellow travelers by breastfeeding her cat, we figured at least kitty was happy with the situation — but apparently not, according to a flight attendant who was involved in the incident.

Instead of purring and kneading in a milk coma, the cat — likely a Sphinx — wanted nothing to do with feeding from the woman’s breast on the flight in late November, flight attendant Ainsley Elizabeth said.

“This woman had one of those, like, hairless cats swaddled up in a blanket so it looked like a baby,” Elizabeth said in a video about the incident. “Her shirt was up and she was trying to get the cat to latch and she wouldn’t put the cat back in the carrier. And the cat was screaming for its life.”

“What does she do at home if she’s doing that in public?” Elizabeth asked. “And then security met the flight just to tell her that she couldn’t do that again, cause it was weird and gross.”

Elizabeth has since deleted the social media account she used to upload the video.

As we noted in our earlier post, the woman was uncooperative when flight attendants asked her to stop, prompting the pilot to send a message ahead to the destination airport via ACARS, short for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.

acarscat
An ACARS message sent from Delta Air flight DL1360 to ATL, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The bizarre incident happened aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Syracuse, NY, to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia.

Meanwhile, Delta airlines has begun an investigation into the Great Breastfeeding At 40,000 Feet saga, after the incident went viral last week and garnered headlines around the world — including newspapers in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and dozens of non English-speaking nations.

Initially the passenger was reprimanded, but an investigation could result in more serious consequences, like a ban on using the airline.

Airline aisle during flight
In-air confrontations have skyrocketed in 2021, mostly due to disagreements over COVID-19 safety rules such as wearing masks. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The story comes amid a general surge in violent attacks and tense confrontations aboard passenger jets — and now the FBI is getting involved.

As of Nov. 4, the FAA had logged 5,033 cases involving “unruly passengers,” including 37 that were referred to the FBI for criminal prosecution.

That puts 2021 on track for more cases than all other years combined, according to the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. The majority of those incidents — as many as three out of every four — are related to confrontations over mask policies due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Teddy Andrews, a long time flight attendant with American Airlines, testified before a congressional committee in September, recalling an incident in which a passenger called him the n-word when Andrews asked the man to wear his mask.

“These days I come to work anticipating disruptive behavior,” Andrews told USA Today. “Our colleagues are anxious, fearful. What is going to happen on the next flight? How will this passenger react if I remind them to wear their mask? Will complying with airline policies set them off? Can I avoid engaging, or would that be an evasion of my duties?”

Do You Consider Your Cat Your ‘Child’?

Why do people expend so much time, money and effort on raising the young of other species? An anthropologist weighs in.

The Washington Post has an interesting story from an anthropologist who’s taken an interest in studying the relationships between people and their pets.

Anyone familiar with evolutionary biology has heard the oft-repeated idea that we’re hardwired to propagate our DNA, and every decision we make — from who we date, when we get married, whether we put career goals on the line to take care of children — is ultimately dictated by that goal.

If that’s true, then “parenting” pets doesn’t make sense. They aren’t our biological children. They won’t carry on our family names and history after we’re gone, they won’t go to college and have careers and take care of us when we’re old. In stark terms, we’re “wasting” resources on raising — and often pampering — the offspring of other species.

Yet we do it, so the question is: Why?

Shelly Volsche, an anthropologist at Boise State University, thinks the explanation can be traced back to our roots in pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies, when alloparenting — cooperative parenting — was key to raising children.

“If people evolved to alloparent, and our environment is now making caring for children more difficult or less appealing to some, it makes sense for people to alloparent other species entering their homes,” Volsche wrote. “Alloparenting companion animals can offer a way to fulfill the evolved need to nurture while reducing the investment of time, money and emotional energy compared to raising children.”

As readers of this blog know, I don’t refer to my cat as my “child” and I don’t see him as some sort of child replacement. He’s Buddy, my buddy. We’re best buds. Other people choose to “parent” their children, and that’s cool. Whatever works for you.

A female macaque takes care of two babies. Alloparenting is common in macaque troops.

I think Volsche’s ideas are interesting, especially in the context of our primate cousins and the way they raise their young. Orangutans are quasi-solitary, and children stick with their moms for about eight years because it takes that long for them to mature and learn how to survive in the jungle on their own.

But more social primates, like chimpanzees, Capuchin monkeys, macaques and vervet monkeys, live in groups and cooperative parenting is a major part of how they handle raising “kids” when there’s no daycare or schools.

A mother who goes out to forage, for example, might leave her baby with an aunt or a trusted female of the troop, and it’s common to see female monkeys caring for babies that aren’t theirs.

Human and proto-human hunter-gatherer societies were essentially upjumped primate troops, so it’s that ingrained behavior we’re talking about here.

Ultimately, Volsche says we’re driven by a “need to nurture.”

“Although the details may look quite different — attending training classes instead of school functions, or providing smell walks for dogs instead of coloring books for children — both practices fulfill the same evolved function,” she wrote. “Whether child or pet, people are meeting the same evolved need to care for, teach and love a sentient other.”