Thursday, July 19, 2007

More Sonoma County News

A reader pointed me to this horrifying story of animal cruelty in Sonoma County:


COTATI, Calif. — A 3-month-old cat is clinging to life at a Sonoma County animal hospital after having been set on fire by two teenage girls who now face charges of animal cruelty.
The kitten, named Adam by hospital staff, has undergone two surgeries and had its tail and the tips of its ears amputated. The skin on its back was burned off in the attack, leaving nothing but raw tissue.
"The degree of injury is greater than our normal level of trauma that we care for," said Katheryn Hinkle, the head veterinarian and owner of the Animal Hospital of Cotati. "He's our most critical patient, and we're watching him constantly."
The cat, one of several feral felines trapped for spaying and neutering, was in a cage outside an apartment in Santa Rosa when two 15-year-old girls allegedly poured flammable liquid on the animal and set it on fire last month.
An 11-year-old boy and his friend saw the smoke and heard the cat, then eight weeks old, shrieking while the girls laughed. The girls, whose names have not been released, were charged with cruelty to animals in Sonoma County Juvenile Court last week.
My reader tells me:
Like you, I lived there too - in the 80's. What an absolute wasteland of common sense. I could relate a few stories about the absurdity of thinking there, especially when it came to my two sons in school.
I have driven back through there on vacation since. The experience is almost like visiting the zoo, kind of like driving through Haight-Ashbury used to be.
UPDATE: Another reader asks why the cat wasn't euthanized? The injuries must be extremely painful.

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