AN INVERELL cat-owner was distraught said discovered her cat in the car of a neighbour, heading to what appeared to be a very bad end.
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Rachael Sutton owns Bronte, a purebred Ragdoll cat.
Rachael has complied with every pet-owning regulation, and the sedate, fluffy white cat is de-sexed, microchipped and registered with the council.
She said Bronte is only allowed out when she is home, and had been sunning in the fenced front garden on Sunday when he went missing.
She looked for him at 11am, but he was not around, and Rachael said that was very out of character. As a Ragdoll, he normally sleeps the day away.
“And then I thought, I’ll just give it until five o’clock, and then he’s normally inside by then. He wasn’t home then, and so I started to really worry,” she said.
Rachael went up and down the street, calling for the cat, checking with neighbours, without success. She spent the night on the lounge, hoping to hear his call and even walked outside in the night calling for him.
By 6am Monday when she had to go to work, he had not returned. Then fate intervened. Her 7.30am class had cancelled and she got home to begin canvassing her neighbours again.
“And then I’d just come back inside and I just heard him meowing and meowing. I knew it was him, ‘cause I know his meow, and I ran outside,” she said.
She stopped a woman who was pulling out from a driveway nearby.
“I said to her, ‘I have lost my cat, it’s a white cat, have you seen him or is that him? Do you have him?’” she said.
The woman told her the cat she had in the cage was grey, but Rachel asked to have a look anyway, and found Bronte inside.
“I said, ‘That’s my cat. What were you going to do with him?’ And she said, ‘I was taking him up the road to shoot him’,” Rachel said, her own voice trembling.
She said she was in shock. She freed Bronte and clutched the cat to her.
“She went on to say, ‘I kill a lot of cats’, and she said ‘He was annoying that lady, so I’ve come to kill him’,” Rachael said.
Bronte stank of fish, and Rachael speculated the neighbour had lured the cat into a cage and felt grateful he wasn’t poisoned. She has since lodged complaints with Inverell Shire Council and the RSPCA.
“So I don’t know how many people - she must do it to so many cats. That’s the thing I’m worried about. For some reason, they think they have the right to do that,” she said. “It was just pure luck that I caught her in time.”
