My Taxpayer Dollars Pay the Salaries of the Sadistic Assholes who Killed My Favorite Cat

Richmond County Animal Control took my Stripey away from me. She was my favorite cat, and we enjoyed a 4-year bond. She was a smart, loving cat and in the prime of her life when she was captured and shortly thereafter given a lethal injection before I could rescue her. She first adopted me when she was about 3 months old on days when I punched my punching bag in the shack behind my house. She would shyly come to me and let herself be petted while I was wearing boxing gloves. But when I took the boxing gloves off, she would run away from me. Gradually, she let herself be petted with my bare hands. When she was about a year old, she disappeared for 2 weeks, and I thought I would never see her again. One day, I went for a walk and found her trapped inside a vacant house where homeless people occasionally spend the night. I broke the door down, and she sprinted toward water. It was late spring and quite hot. Apparently, she survived 2 weeks trapped in a hot house without food or water. A day later, she was carrying her first litter from that house to our yard. She eventually had 5 litters, and I gave her the nickname Stripey, the Slut. She lost her first 2 litters, probably through inexperience (I don’t know what happened to them). Two kittens survived from her 3rd litter to be subadults, but both were run over by cars. One kitten from her 4th litter is still with me; another was swept up in the Animal Control raid. I think someone from my neighborhood adopted most of the kittens from her most recent litter.

This was my Stripey helping me wash the dishes. I miss the little nuisance. I was determined to try and rescue her from animal control because of the way she used to look into my eyes with love. No human ever looks at me like that. Richmond Animal Control didn’t give me a fair chance to get her. They were closed on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and they counted those holidays as business days. I am so upset.

Stripey always ran inside the house whenever she had the chance. To entice her outside, I would open the door and put food on the step. It was like a game for us. Sometimes, she just didn’t want to leave the house and would explore it, mostly looking for something to eat. She would eat food under the table where my wife sits (she’s disabled and drops lots of food). She would peek inside the trash, and she would jump on the sink and lick the dirty dishes clean.

Her final disappearance was at first a mystery. She disappeared on the Saturday before Thanksgiving along with 4 other cats that my neighbors and I were feeding. They were all breeding age females. I first feared my neighbors had something to do with it. One complained there were too many cats which there were. But then, he would turn around and feed them himself. I dismissed this idea because I couldn’t imagine them being cruel to animals. On Monday I took an edible marijuana product at midnight, and I was too high to fall asleep. I heard a coyote howling in my front yard. Maybe, a coyote got them. But this didn’t make sense either. How could a coyote catch 5 cats in less than a day? The cats run fast and climb trees. I also considered the possibility animal control picked them up. But I thought they had to set traps out to catch cats, and I didn’t see any traps. How could they trap that many cats in such a short period of time? Nevertheless, I called animal control to ask if they had caught any cats in my neighborhood. I discovered they never answer their phones. If I would have just gone in person, Stripey would still be alive today, but I wrongly underestimated their proficiency at catching cats.

My neighbor solved the mystery on Thanksgiving. He told me Animal Control came on Saturday, and he gave them permission to come on his property because he thought I called them. He was as surprised as I was that they caught so many cats so rapidly, and he was missing them. Richmond County Animal Control gives pet owners 5 business days to rescue their animals. I felt determined to save my cat and went to the pet jail the next day. The pet jail is located in a rural part of the county near the people jail. Unfortunately, Richmond County Animal Control was closed on Black Friday, a holiday dreamed up by the retail business, so people will spend money on shit they do not need. I waited outside the locked gate until an employee exited. He told me Thanksgiving and Black Friday counted as business days, but he assured me my cat would be alright. This gave me the false hope she would still be alive on Monday. I felt stressed all weekend, and a salty discharge kept leaking from my eyes as if I was a menopausal woman. I kept imagining how happy Stripey would be to see me after being trapped in a cold cage for 9 days.

Alas, it was not to be. We went again on Monday when they were finally open, but we were too late. The pet concentration camp smelled like shit, and the man in front of me in line was furious because Richmond County Animal Control would do nothing about the dangerous dog haunting an elementary bus stop in his neighborhood. I was directed to a lady in charge of the cats. She was friendly and helpful, and we would’ve been able to take our cat home without any of the rabies vaccination red tape I had unnecessarily worried about. She took us to the room with the captured cats. Most of them looked like pampered fat house cats…not stray or feral cats. I saw 1 cat that resembled Stripey, but it wasn’t her. The cages were spacious, clean, and well-supplied with food and water; but the cats were very vocal and stressed. I asked the lady how they killed my cat, and she told me it was a lethal injection–quick and painless. How would she know? Has she ever felt what it was like to have a lethal injection? If only I had come a week earlier. If only I had detained the cat inside the house that past Saturday.

I still have 4 cats to cherish. Stripey, the Next Generation is just like her mother. She first approached me when I was punching my punching bag and only let me pet her at first when I wore the boxing gloves. Now, she is a little nuisance just like her mother, but she doesn’t run inside the house yet. In addition there is a mellow orange tom cat, and a developmentally delayed cat.

The cat in the foreground is a developmentally delayed runt. I call him roly-poly. He’s from the same litter as the cat behind him.

I call this mellow cat, The Whistler…because he whistles.

This is Stripey’s daughter. She behaves just like Stripey did when she was younger, and I call her Stripey, the Next Generation. She is shyer and must have hidden in the woods when Animal Control captured the other cats. That’s where she came from the next day when I went outside to feed the cats. I miss the challenge of having an older, more experienced cat, however.

Richmond County Animal Control will NEVER have permission to come on my property. I have a poor opinion of them. Years ago, I called about a dangerous dog roaming the neighborhood, and they never sent anybody. The man in front of me in line when I went there was enraged because they would do nothing about a dangerous dog in his neighborhood. Yet, they come into people’s yards and kill their harmless cats. I’m also aggravated with whoever reported us. Maybe it was the police. They are probably supposed to report certain situations to animal control. Or maybe it was just some busybody in our neighborhood who doesn’t like cats. I could live with it, if Stripey had been run over by a car or killed by a coyote, but the thought she was deceived by humans, who I contribute tax money too, makes me sick to my stomach.