Charleston – Pain In The Bud

Another day, another story about a delivery driver stealing a cat.

This time it happened in Charleston, South Carolina, and while local police worked quickly to identify the woman behind the wheel and arrest her, the feline is still missing.

Daniel and Liza Layfield said they knew something was wrong on Jan. 15 when an AirTag attached to their cat’s collar showed she was several blocks away. After checking their own security camera footage and video captured by other cameras on the street, they saw a local food delivery driver stop her car, scoop up four-year-old Willa, then drive off with her.

The woman tossed Willa’s collar and AirTag nearby. Thankfully, police took the matter seriously and the local community helped spread the word, leading to a quick arrest.

The family is relying on help from the community to find Willa.

But there are two problems that are common to these thefts of opportunity: Willa is still missing, and the most severe charge police could lodge against the suspect is petty larceny. That’s a misdemeanor that carries light penalties (a fine and up to 30 days in county jail) on conviction. That’s not a deterrent.

We wrote about this problem just last week, when the quick recovery of a cat stolen by an Amazon delivery driver in the UK illustrated the difference a stronger law makes.

Stealing a pet in the UK can land the thief in prison for up to five years in addition to fines. Police are more likely to devote resources when the law gives them appropriate charges to file, and five years in prison would make most people think twice about impulsively stealing a family’s well-loved pet.

By contrast, most US states treat pets as property, meaning courts do not take into account their sentimental value, bond with their people, or trauma to animal and human when someone steals a pet. South Carolina is among those states: in that state’s penal code, petty larceny is a charge that applies when someone steals property worth less than $2,000.

The suspect, a DoorDash/Uber Eats driver, has not been helpful in the Layfield family’s efforts to find their feline family member. In the meantime, the family hopes a $1,000 reward will prompt someone to come forward, or that Willa turns up at a local shelter and has her microchip scanned.

“We want to find Willa, we want to know where she is. It’s going to be 20 degrees for the next several days,” Liza Layfield told the local NBC affiliate. “The idea of her being loose and on the run is horrific.”

The Layfields’ daughter holding Willa, who has been missing since she was stolen on Jan. 15 by an Uber Eats/DoorDash driver.

Juliet the cat and her two feline siblings were unceremoniously dumped outside their former home when their humans moved out of state a few weeks ago.

A Good Samaritan realized the trio had no one taking care of them and nowhere to go, and brought the cats to the Charleston Animal Society in South Carolina. After some time, Juliet stopped eating. A scan revealed why: The cream-and-white cat had an amorphous mass inside her stomach, a “seemingly endless bundle of strings” in the words of one veterinarian, which blocked Juliet’s stomach and prevented her from being able to eat or process food.

A vet performed emergency surgery on Juliet earlier this week and removed 38 hair ties.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Leigh Jamison, the shelter’s associate director of veterinary care.

julietcathairties — Hair ties removed from the stomach of Juliet the cat.

Vet techs monitored Juliet closely and fed her carefully, making sure she got the nutrients she desperately needed without overwhelming her shocked system, which had suffered a buildup of fat in her liver.

They thought Juliet would pull through, but the ailing kitty took a turn for the worse on Friday and died a few hours later, the shelter announced.

“Our expert veterinarians and lifesaving team perform what we think are miracles every single day. Unfortunately, even with the best care, not every animal makes it,” staff wrote in an Instagram post. “Even though Juliet was loved and was not suffering during her last days, she did succumb to this tragic accident. We are all heartbroken.”

Pica, an eating disorder that affects humans, also occurs with cats. Defined as the consumption of items which are not food, pica can manifest in cats as a predilection for things like paper, plastic bags, rubber bands, small pieces of plastic and, as was the case with Juliette, items like hair ties that are made of fabric, wool or synthetic materials.

While there are medical reasons pica can present in felines, it’s also sometimes brought on by environmental stress, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine the kind of people who would abandon their pet cats may not have been good caretakers. No one except her former caretakers know what Juliet’s been through, and they’re unlikely to come forward.

Likewise, adoption isn’t a part time, halfway or temporary thing. Adopting a cat means committing to taking care of the animal for his or her entire life. Despite the stubbornly persistent idea that cats are aloof, solitary animals who are indifferent to companionship, research studies show felines are just as sociable as dogs and form strong emotional attachments with their humans. They care deeply, but they express affection in different and less overt ways. That doesn’t mean they suffer less when they lose their homes and the people they’ve grown to love.