In order for you to understand where I am coming from in my comments, I need to share a few things with you.
I love cats. Nothing would taste better than a California Mountain Lion slow-roasted over a spit on a mesquite fire. I have to confess that I have not actually tracked down a mountain lion here in California nor shot one nor even tasted its meat, but I imagine it tastes good.
In fact, you cannot even defend yourself from one in California, as these killers are protected. You can hear Brian Sussman and Melanie Morgan discuss the flyer I submitted to him posted by some radical open-space movement. Click here to listen.
I love cats. I probably ate the furry pet-kind in a Chinese restaurant when I was a kid. At the restaurant, they were well-done and people would flock from all over the United States and Canada to order the Chicken Chow Mein.
The City of Brotherly Love (no, not San Francisco, but Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the United States of America) was home to this restaurant. Over 20 years after leaving home for the Left Coast of California I found out that the Chinese restaurant our family visited on a monthly basis was busted for raising the own line of cats for their secret ingredient in that world-famous dish. Sort of makes you wonder about all those “special sauces” we consume in our favorite eateries.
On the flip side of the cat coin, several four-legged cats have endeared my heart and owned me over the years. They have sat on my chest waiting for the briefest flutter of an eyelid to signal my readiness to feed them and attend to their needs, ignoring the time of day of night.
Now that I have set the table, so to speak, I can tell you a story and add my comments.
Holly Crawford is a pet groomer. Now please don’t jump to any wild conclusions that I hate pet groomers. I unequivocally state that I hold them no harm. In fact, my sister owns a grooming business in the Philadelphia area, and I love her.
What Holly did was a bit strange and she may be in hot water (no pun intended), as Wilkes-Barre District Judge Paul Hadzick ordered her to stand trial for her actions. Holly, in this time of financial upheaval, came up with an innovative revenue generating product. She is selling cats on the Internet.
I personally have no qualms about selling pets via the Internet, as long as the buyers are proven to be responsible cat-loving people who will take care of the cats. This act, however, does not have anything to do with the charges against her. She is accused of selling “Gothic Kittens”.
What immediately comes to mind is an Internet advertisement showing a black cat dressed in black clothes with black lipstick and black nail polish as an added bonus. This would be unusual, but not cruel.
Alas, Holly is not doing this. She is selling her Gothic Cats with piercings in their ears, tails, and even necks. And these are selling for hundreds of dollars. Breitbart reports “Crawford’s attorney says state law says nothing about piercing cats or docking their tails.”
I believe she should stand trial and be punished if she is found guilty of animal cruelty.
Fred: I can hunt mountain lions here in Texas. We also have more mesquite than any where else in the US. I have not tried the lion because I have only seen tracks. I think they know they are fair game here.
In response to the point of this post I do not abide cruelty to animals either.