Humane society urges more respect for cats
MILFORD – People who are upset about the mercy shooting of an injured cat this week should direct their energies toward starting a spay-and-neuter program and hiring an animal control officer, says the head of the Nashua humane society.
Milford police were called to the Woodland Heights apartments shortly before noon on Sunday after a cat and a kitten were hit by a car in the parking lot, said Police Chief Fred Douglas.
The kitten was already dead and the cat was so badly injured, he said, that the officer took the animal to the edge of the woods, where there were no people around, and shot it with is service revolver.
That promoted a resident of the Powers Street apartment complex to e-mail the Humane Society for Greater Nashua.
If people want respectful and humane treatment of cats, said Karen Bill, the society’s executive director, they have to do something about the numerous stray cats.
“This is an issue because people don’t spay and neuter,” she said, “and it’s not a local issue.”
Pat McCurry said some of his neighbors at Woodland Heights “went ballistic” because, “we all thought the humane thing would be to take the cat to a veterinarian and put it to sleep.”
McCurry said he didn’t arrive in the parking lot until he saw the police officer going into his car trunk to get a garbage bag. Later he heard a loud popping sound from the direction of the woods, and he learned that the cat was shot.
Douglas said the cat was so badly maimed that his officer did the most humane thing possible. After he shot the cat, the officer put the bodies of both cats in a garbage bag and took them to the Department of Public Works building where a worker disposed of them, which is standard procedure, said the chief.
“That’s what we’ve done in the past and will do in the future,” he said. “Someone ran over these cats and left them – that’s the issue.”
Douglas also said the officer noticed there were many stray cats near the apartments.
Bill said that at the bottom of the stray cat problem is society’s generally disrespectful attitude toward cats.
In the South people have a similar attitude toward dogs, she said, and there are no lease or licensing laws. Dogs “are roaming the countryside and are put down by the thousands. That’s exactly how we treat our cats,” she said.
In the North, “there’s really a disparity in the esteem we hold for our cats” compared with dogs.
Milford residents ought to petition the town to hire an animal control officer and start a trap-and-neuter program for stray cats, said Bill.
There are veterinarians, she said, who spay and neuter at a low cost, including All Pets Veterinary Hospital, a tenant of the humane society in Nashua.
There are currently 225 cats and kittens in the care of the Nashua Humane Society, and to encourage adoptions it has lowered their adoption fee to $25 for the rest of the year. If the humane society has neutered the cat, the fee is $50 fee. All adoptions include a free first visit to a veterinarian. A microchip registration fee applies to all adopted pets.
For more information call 889-2275.
The Humane Society of Greater Nashua is at 24 Ferry Road in Nashua, Hours are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from noon-5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and closed on Wednesdays.
