2 hours ago
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.

With so much exposed skin, the cat is vulnerable to infection, Hinkle said. It cannot leave its cage and must be handled only with gloves. It will need several more surgeries to cover the wound on its back with skin.

The kitten was among six wild litter mates and a male cat captured by a trapper on a farm. The plan was to have the cats spayed and neutered and then released back to the farm. The cages with the kittens were stolen and only Adam has been found.

According to Hinkle, the bill to keep the kitten alive could run between $20,000 and $30,000 even though the vet performing its surgeries has donated her services. The community's concern for the cat has prompted anger in some Sonoma County residents, who complain that the slaying of a 16-year-old boy in the same neighborhood last year did not receive as much attention.
[Edited 7/18/07 19:10pm]

disgusting

I heard this story a few weeks ago. I'm glad to hear he's still alive. Poor kitty

Horrible. If you don't think that god created a f***ed up world you've got to get your head examined. Humanity is a failure.

coolcat said:

ditto..but there is a good side to humanity,the people who reported the girls and the people saving the cat..while i don't support what the girls did and i hope they get fully punish..the goodness of humanity has to be real. right?
this why i am happy of this country, they have groups that care about the rights of animals..

what were those girls on?

it's odd to see such openly sociopathic behavior from teenage girls.

i hope the poor cat makes it.

You even copied the copyright restriction.


And to the girls, teenagers will do some bad stuff. we all did at one point. This is sad though.

I could kill those little bitches. (excuse my french...) Burning a cat? A kitten even? Score one for the study that claims teenagers hold no remorse.Good Lord...as badly as I want a kitten...and to know people who are blessed to have one are being cruel....ugh!! They need to give them a life sentence of working in an animal shelter for the rest of forever to make up for what they have done. THAT IS HORRID!!

ArielB said:

did i?

ArielB said:

Wtf?

Um no, I've never purposely hurt another living thing.

JustErin said:

neither have i.

i think the girls should suffer the same as their punishment. nasty cunts!!!!

JasmineFire said:

I was just about to mention how rare it is to see females in the news for this.

weepingwall said:

I kill bugs and flies.


[Edited 7/18/07 21:55pm]

The girls should just move to Spain so they can happily see bulls gored to death, donkeys kicked to death, horses made to walk through fire or goats thrown from the top of churches.

coolcat said:

I don't know about "failure", but such atrocities are a result of the human-made world, indeed ... if we're to say there's a God, He would be respite from such things.


Alright.. don't want to turn this into a P& R topic...



.
[Edited 7/19/07 3:08am]

ArielB said:

This is a bit beyond "bad stuff". This is "serial-killer-in-training" stuff.

HereToRockYourWorld said:

I think that people are becoming desensitized to animal cruelty for a number of reasons:

01. The relentless death & destruction within the Middle-East with it's flip-side of reprisals in the West. When we regularly see dead babies in the rubble, dead animals become a "moot point" in the minds of many;

02. "Fear Factor" type shows in which bugs are eaten alive. What's the difference between "It's just a bug" and "It's just a kitten" to a retarded mind?;

03. Animal Exploitation masquerading as education. Whether it's zoos, circuses or some reprehensible wildlife shows, they foster a mindset of not so much "us and them" as "us versus them". When kids see a fool like Steve Irwin demonstrating how animals can kill you by yanking a disinterested crocodile's tail, it makes animals seem like an abstract threat to be attacked before they attack you. It's sickening to me that the man was martyred for his "work".

.
[Edited 7/19/07 3:38am]

CHIC0 said:

Justin1972UK said:

Hasn't this type of horrific stuff been happening throughout humanity's history? We just hear about it more often now because of the modern media... I'm not sure things are any worse now than they were before...

mrdespues said:

Oops... I think I already did that... I better

coolcat said:

Well, I don't want to Google too much as I find this stuff upsetting, but a report on a news-site for British kids, indicates that cases of animal cruelty in the UK rose by 78% between 2003 and 2005.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbb...699341.stm

So, no. I don't agree with you I'm afraid.

I don't care how old those girls are, I wouldn't think twice about causing them great harm!

They should be burned alive so they can experience just how it feels.

And someone just lit a sheep on fire here in Holland the other day. Poured some sort of lighter fluid on it and lit it on fire.

Making animals scream is fun!



Fucking future serial killers in the making.

Those young ladies (Dahmers in training, I say) deserve whatever punishment under the law....however....



...this is also very troubling.....as I read online about this in many major cities (my hometown N.O. being one), I can only hope that at some point law enforcement officials take ALL crime seriously enough to care equally.....

just my

illicitkisses said:

Co Co sign.

Pour petrol on the girls hair and set fire to it. This shit makes me so angry, and I hate cats!

PREDOMINANT said:

illicitkisses said:

THats what is so absurd about this, I hate the lazy selfish creatures and I would never have one as a pet but I wouldn't burn one. What fucked up mental state does a person have to be in to do this.

It is almost understandable when people go and commit murder, people piss people off. The point about the 16 year old boy for example. But what harm can a caged cat do to anyone, what was there motive? To see what happened?

Ugh that makes me sooooo angry. Someone should burn them and laugh while they are on fire. An eye for an eye...

FunkJam said:

Right.....that makes a whole lotta sense.