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RSPCA DESTROY KELLY'S PET CAT(cutting Evening News 28/1/01 by Amanda Patterson) <<<LEFT Kelly with the mouse her cat used to play with. |
The RSPCA has apologised for putting down a seven-year-old girl's pet cat.
Aweek after her family reported him missing. Cuddles the ginger tom disappeared after Nicky McManus, of Keyes Close in Lakenham, Norwich, let him out for his morning stroll. She had bought himfor her daughter Kelly two weeks earlier from a cat shelter and had not yet had a chance to fix a name tag to his collar. But although the Norwich branch of the RSPCA knew Cuddles was missing, the department responsible for putting animals down did not . A tearful Kelly said: "He was a very good cat and was very good at cuddling. We have a folder where we keep our pictures of him and I keep looking at them. I miss him lots and want him back." Mrs McManus was in the process of having an identity disc made for Cuddles when he disappeared. Ginger Tom Cuddles Cuddles was handed in to the RSPCA, but staff had no idea he was a missing pet because the charity does not have a computerised register. Mrs McManus said: "He was a much-loved pet and this has hit my daughter really hard. "It simply should not have happened . . . Cuddles was 100 per cent healthy." John Atter, regional manager for the RSPCA, said he "very much regretted" that the cat had been put down, but staff were unable to identify Cuddles. "We do not like killing animals, it's the last resort," he said. "Hopefully this incident will highlight the importance of microchipping or at least fitting name tags to pets." He said the Dove Street branch of the RSPCA, where Mrs McManus reported Cuddles missing, was not obliged to contact charity HQ or the national RSPCA hotline about his disappearance. "I admit our lost and found register did not work but we do not claim to have a complete register," he said. "We put our resources into animal identification schemes. If people are not prepared to microchip their pets, then a disc is better than nothing." Mr Atter said the computer system was being updated so all branches would have access to a lost and found register. But Barry Nobbs, who helps run Country Cat Shelter at Rockland St Mary, where the family adopted Cuddles, said it should have been obvious he was not a stray. "Common sense tells you that if a cat has a new collar on, it has a home," he said. /cuttings ends |
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