Cat found hanging
A north Waikato woman is calling for tougher regulations around boarding kennels and catteries after she found her cat hanging dead from a galvanised chain-link fence.
Pokeno woman Helen Vance booked her nine-month-old Siamese cats, Lula and Sailor, to stay at the Beaver Road Pet Hotel in Bombay over the long weekend of Auckland Anniversary.
This was the second time Vance had booked her ‘‘babies’’ into the cattery since their first visit when they were five months old. ‘‘I didn’t have any issues at that point,’’ Vance said.
On the morning of January 30, she went to collect her cats from their enclosure with Beaver Road Pet Hotel owner Peter Abbott, but instead of being greeted by her cats, she found one stuck and unable to free itself.
Lula’s head had gone through the 50 millimetre galvanised chain-link fence.
‘‘She was hanging backwards,’’ Vance said.
Lula’s brother Sailor was there too, ‘‘crying madly’’ for his sister to respond.
‘‘I was excited to pick up my babies. It was complete excitement to devastation in a matter of seconds - it wasn’t something I was ever expecting to see.’’
Abbott rushed to the cat’s aid, but he was unable to free Lula.
Abbott then found some wire cutters and freed the lifeless feline, while Vance picked up Sailor and took him into the reception area.
‘‘After what felt like an eternity of wailing, clutching and apologising to Sailor, I took my two babies home - Lula dead in a cardboard box, and Sailor staring and crying madly in the carry crate.’’
She said that the lack of regulations in the cattery and kennel industry was to blame for Lula’s death.
‘‘Ignorantly, I didn’t know or understand anything about wire regulations and I didn’t think I needed to.
‘‘This isn’t about Lula, the industry needs to change.’’
According to a spokesperson from the SPCA , there are no specific regulatory tools in place that pet hotels are required to comply with.
There are however Codes of Welfare for cats and dogs, but these ‘‘do not provide specific conditions that apply to pet motels or boarding establishments’’.
‘‘The problem is that a range of conditions and operating protocols for boarding establishments are not covered in the current applicable odes.
‘‘For example, the SPCA would like to see conditions related to provision for an identification of vulnerable animals, minimum care regimes and training requirements for staff.’’
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