Tag: animals

Worst Fears Confirmed As Cops Find ‘Dozens’ Of Dead Felines In Accused Cat Killer’s California Home

The suspect had been spotted by several people who live in the neighborhood, who said they saw him luring cats with food and injecting at least one feline with a needle.

For the past two years, people in Santa Ana, California, have sworn there was a serial cat killer in their midst.

The allegations picked up steam this week after a local TV station aired a segment from angry and confused neighbors whose pets disappeared, as well as others who saw the suspect injecting at least one cat and scooping up others. The neighbors shared information on a hyper local platform, zeroing in on one particular neighbor.

On Wednesday, the Santa Ana Police Department arrested 45-year-old Alejandro Oliveros Acosta and charged him with felony animal cruelty in connection with the case. Investigators were able to put together enough information to obtain a warrant, and a search of Acosta’s home turned up the corpses of “dozens” of cats, according to Officer Natalie Garcia, public information officer at the Santa Ana Police Department.

Heartbreakingly, Garcia said there were too many bodies in Acosta’s home for police to put an exact number on how many cats he’s allegedly killed. Police are still putting together the details, and more charges are likely.

A press release from Santa Ana police says the department is working with animal control and a neighboring police department. In addition to the evidence they collected in Acosta’s home, several neighbors positively identified Acosta as the man they saw luring neighborhood cats with food, scooping up a breed cat, and injecting another. One cat was left hanging from a tree, while others simply disappeared, preventing their people from finding closure.

“I saw this same man grab [a] neighbor’s cat, inject it with a needle and some sort of substance,” one local told KTTV, a Fox affiliate in Los Angeles. “And [the neighbor] saw him and she yelled, ‘Hey!’ at him to get his attention. He got up and ran, jumped in his truck and left. And from what we know that cat died, and the owner went and put in a police report.”

Santa Ana is about 10 miles southeast of Anaheim, not far from Long Beach. Acosta was charged and sent to county jail. It wasn’t immediately clear if he’d retained an attorney.

Little Buddy Demands Due Regard On National Respect Your Cat Day

Your feline overlord(s) want you to show more respect, human! What special things are you doing for them today?

Little Buddy has informed me that today is National Respect Your Cat Day.

Sounds made up, doesn’t it?

At first I was sure it was, just like the times he told me it was International Buy 100 Toys For Your Cat Day, and the 82nd Annual Feed Your Cat A Ridiculous Amount of Snacks Day.

But apparently it’s real, and Buddy made a big show of declaring its importance, dressing up as a judge with a black robe and gavel to emphasize his point.

“The court rules, inter aloha, that defendant subway sandwiches judice is mens rea when it comes to the ad hoc crime of not feeding me enough snacks! The court has concluded the accused has not met de minimus standards for snackis maximis deliciousness, therefore stare decesis!”

He cleared his throat.

“In plain meows, that means you must feed me more of those crunchy ball things, and a lot more of those decadently delicious soft treats so bursting with turkalicious flavor! And, uh, you have to apologize for not appreciating me enough!”

“It’s is the court’s opinion that you cook me a steak dinner!”

The feline shuffled his papers, adjusted his robe and began reading again.

“The court finds that Buddy the Cat has been a loyal, handsome, and handsomely loyal companion to the accused, and has enriched his life by simply being delightful, and also by purring contentedly, napping on him, helping him eat cheese, keeping his scooping skills sharp, and enhancing all aspects of his life through pure magnetic charm,” he said. “Respect me and my authoritah!”

So tonight Buddy will get plenty of yums, some catnip, extra play time, and I’ll tell him he’s looking particularly dapper today.

As for those of you reading this, better plan something before word gets out…or face your cat’s wrath when they find out it was Respect Your Cat Day and you did nothing!

RSPCA Wants Cat Cafes ‘Phased Out,’ Says Cats’ Needs Not Met

Cat cafes offer a unique way for adoptable kitties to find homes, as well as a stress-reducing experience for customers, but two groups in the UK say cafes are not appropriate living spaces for cats.

Two major feline advocacy groups in the UK are urging the government to stop issuing new licenses for cat cafes, arguing they’re not good living situations for the felines who are their main attraction.

Many people see the cafe model as a win-win for cats and people. The latter get to unwind and spend time with cute animals who have a knack for lowering blood pressure, helping the stressed to relax. The cats, who are adoptable, get to run, play and live in an environment much better than a shelter cage while they wait for their forever homes.

But the RSPCA and Cats Protection, the most prominent feline welfare organization in the UK, say its “almost impossible” to meet the needs of the animals, who may be stressed by living with other cats and, they argue, are used as “entertainment” for customers.

“We don’t believe these environments can consistently provide cats with a good quality of life and are hugely concerned that many cats will be unhappy as a result,” said Alice Potter, a cat welfare specialist with the RSPCA.

“Generally cats are not sociable, and many felines often prefer to live without other cats, or prefer to form social groups with their relations.”

A cat cafe in Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

I’m not sure how I feel about this, and I’m not particularly familiar with how most cat cafes are run. The only ones I’ve been to were in Japan, and they were miraculously clean spaces with lots of things to climb, as well as nooks and private areas where cats could hide. The cats were well cared-for, staff were friendly, and the environments were relaxed.

Cat cafes also offer a unique opportunity for finding homes for the little ones. They’re much more likely to meow their way into the hearts of would-be adopters when they’re given space to run around, play and enjoy themselves as opposed to the often sullen, frightened state they’re in at shelters.

Are the UK cats groups right, or are they making perfect the enemy of good?

‘Relax, It’s Just A Cat’ Guest Says After Shoving Kitty Off Couch

A woman asks Reddit if she overreacted when she tossed her friend out over the way the friend treated her cat.

A Redditor has been assured she didn’t overreact after recounting a disturbing incident involving one of her friends and her cat.

Describing her cat as “super friendly, but a little skittish” and prefacing the anecdote by noting she always asks guests “to be gentle with her,” the Redditor relayed what happened when her cat jumped onto the couch near the seated guest.

“Out of nowhere, my friend shoved her off the couch. Not a little nudge—an actual shove that made her hit the floor hard. My cat ran and hid under my bed, and I lost it. I asked them what the hell that was, and they just laughed and said, ‘Relax, it’s just a cat.'”

“I told them to get out immediately. They acted like I was overreacting, saying they didn’t mean to hurt her and that it wasn’t a big deal. But my cat was terrified, and I don’t care if it was intentional or not—that kind of reaction to an innocent animal is not okay with me.”

The offending party is telling mutual friends that the Redditor “threw them out over ‘nothing,'” but others in their social circle have “admitted they never liked how this friend treated animals.”

Still, some told the woman she may have been too harsh for telling the cat-shover to leave immediately.

What do you think?

Tornado of claws!

For what it’s worth, most people who responded to the AITA (“Am I The Asshole?”) thread sided with the poster, and others pointed out that someone who will casually shove a cat off a couch while the caretaker is right there might do much worse if no one’s around. In other words, don’t let that person watch your cat under any circumstances.

I have never had this problem, obviously, because no one would dare shove my incredibly ripped and meowscular cat.

Jokes aside, I can’t imagine anyone I’m friends with would harm him when they know how much little dude means to me.

And as much of a wimp Bud is when it comes to vacuums, loudly crinkling paper bags and Swiffers, he has absolutely no fear of people. If someone tried to shove or toss him off a couch, I’d actually feel sorry for them, because the next instant would involve 11 pounds of furball screeching like a furious Elmo while producing a tornado of claws.

Reddit’s AITA is a reliable source of insight into antisocial behavior and social faux pas, which makes it fun to browse, but it also offers people a chance to gauge if they’ve overreacted in heated situations.

What would you have done if you were in the Redditor’s shoes?

‘Why Are Cats Such A Medical Black Box?’ New York Times Columnist Asks

Veterinary science and research still focuses primarily on dogs, but scientists are trying to change that and help us better understand how to care for our little feline buddies.

“It’s just a cat.”

I’ve heard that so many times, and if you’re a cat lover, you probably have too.

It’s an insinuation that cats are throwaway animals, fungible pets who can be replaced by others of their species because, some people claim, they don’t express themselves as individuals, never really warm to humans in the first place, and besides, it’s not like they have emotions.

Countering those persistent myths is one of the reasons I write this blog. I still didn’t have a full appreciation for how singular and smart cats can be until I brought Buddy home. I never fathomed the depth of his emotions, the strength of his convictions or his willingness to make his opinions known about everything.

In some ways, I’m still shocked at how much he communicates and how well we understand each other.

However, one of my biggest fears is not doing right by him, especially missing signs of declining health as he gets older.

That’s the subject of a column today in the New York Times, in which science write Emily Anthes recalls the subtle signs that her cat, Olive, was sick, and the veterinarian’s assessment that she wasn’t just ill, she was on death’s door.

Credit: Pexels

Anthes points out that, to this day, veterinary training uses canines as the default, and treatments for cats are often just adapted from treatments for dogs, even if there’s no data suggesting those methods actually work for feline patients.

“My anatomy book was ‘Anatomy of the Dog,’” Maggie Placer, veterinary science programs manager at EveryCat Health Foundation, told the Times. “We had PowerPoints and supplements for the cats.”

The differences go beyond body plan, organs and behavior: drugs that work for dogs can be ineffective or dangerous for cats. Treatments otherwise regarded as effective in other animals could be harmful to felines too.

“It’s not reasonable to assume that everything that works in a dog will work in a cat,” Bruce Kornreich, director of the Cornell Feline Health Center, told Anthes. “There’s a lot that we still need to learn.”

Credit: Pexels

The situation with feline veterinary science mirrors the gap in behavioral studies between cats and dogs.

Over the past decade, research teams in countries like the US and Japan have made efforts to close the gap by recognizing that studies must be crafted to feline points of view, and that laboratories are not suitable places for studying the behavior of such notoriously territorial animals. Cats behave differently outside of their environments, rendering data useless if it’s captured in settings where kitties are stressed, unsure of themselves or even just miffed that they’re not at home enjoying a nap.

There are unique challenges when it comes to studying effective veterinary treatments in cats as well. Primary among them is feline stoicism, an evolutionary adaptation.

Simply put, cats will do everything they can to mask injury and sickness because they don’t want to become prey. Unfortunately that means by the time a cat cannot conceal an ailment anymore, the disease or injury has progressed. Even if a cat has lived indoors her entire life, the directive to disguise her pain is hardcoded into her DNA.

Anthes’ cat, Olive, didn’t make it. But her litter mate is chugging along, and to help advance the cause of understanding cat health, Anthes submitted both cats’ fur clippings to geneticist Dr. Elinor Karlsson’s Darwin’s Cats, a “non-profit community science project” that uses DNA submitted by cat owners to better understand our furry friends and unlock the secrets of their health and behavior.

Let’s hope that such projects spark a renaissance in studying cat health, like they have with research into feline behavior, so we can do right by our little buddies.