What the Brighton cat killer died of (if it interests you!)

We have the inquest report on the death of the Brighton cat killer. You may remember him. He went around Brighton killing domestic cat that were outside on the street. He did it for quite a long time and killed a large number of cats but was eventually caught on a CCTV camera when he returned to the scene of one of his crimes.

Steve Bouquet, The Brighton Cat Killer. Photo: Eddie Mitchell.

He was a former Royal Navy gunner. His name was Steve Bouquet. I am writing in the past tense because he died in prison after he was convicted and sentenced to a prison term.

Yesterday, at an inquest held in Maidstone, Kent, coroner Patricia Harding confirmed his cause of death as Covid-19 pneumonitis and a secondary cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. At the time he had been receiving end-of-life care for thyroid cancer at the prison where he was incarcerated, HMP Elmley.

So, Mr Bouquet died of a Covid-19 infection which affected his lungs as this disease does. The coroner decided that it was not clear where he had contracted Covid. He tested positive on December 28. This was a day after he was admitted to Medway Maritime Hospital as he was having difficulty breathing and had a cough.

He was treated with antibiotics and oxygen and other medication specifically to treat coronavirus but his condition progressively deteriorated.

For the sake of completeness, he was jailed for five years and three months at Hove Crown Court in July 2022. He had been found guilty of 16 offences of criminal damage (i.e. the murder of or injury to 16 domestic cats). He was also found guilty of the possession of a knife.

As I recall, he stabbed the cats to death. He died on his 55th birthday on January 5, 2022. His cruel actions caused an awful amount of distress in the cats' owners as you can imagine. Nine cats were killed while another seven were injured. In memory of those killed their names are: Hendrix, Tommy, Hannah, Alan, Nancy, Gizmo, Kyo, Ollie and Cosmo.

During sentencing the judge, Jeremy Gold QC said that his behaviour was "cruel, it was sustained and it struck at the very heart of family life. It is important everyone understands cats are domestic pets but they are more than that. They are effectively family members. They are much loved by the adults and children who live with and care for them. Cats and all domestic animals are a source of joy and support to their owners, especially during lockdown."

Absolutely correct. It is nice to see a judge recognising that simple fact and the law is out of date because you may remember I referred to criminal damage above. If a person kills a cat in the UK, under the law, they are effectively damaging an inanimate object not a sentient being who is a family member. That's because the law regards domestic cats as chattels just like any other inanimate possession.

Did the cost-of-living crisis and the pandemic cause "an animal welfare crisis"?

NEWS AND VIEWS - UK: Online news media, today, is blaming the cost-of-living crisis in the UK combined with the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath for "creating an animal welfare crisis with vital services [which] are stretched to the limit".

Picture by the RSPCA.

Before I go into the details of two reports from different sources about this animal welfare crisis in different parts of the UK, I would like to add immediately that it is a very poor excuse that animal welfare becomes a crisis because people have less money in their pocket or it is after the pandemic.

The RSPCA reports that there were 1072 cat cruelty reports in 2022 in Wales, UK and out of these complaints, 600 were calls concerning neglect and 89 regarded intentional harm. The RSPCA received three reports every minute.

This, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the pandemic or money. When you adopt a cat - and it does not matter whether you adopt that cat during the pandemic, before it or after it - you do so with a commitment to care for that cat for the cat's lifetime. 

And if an emergency happens or a catastrophe occurs to you which affects your finances and you feel that you must release your cat to somebody else, you commit to rehoming the cat yourself with care and concern or you take your cat to a shelter and asked them to do it. 

The RSPCA run shelters. Also, in the UK Cats Protection run shelters via foster homes.

Running out of money because of the cost-of-living crisis or because it is post-Covid is not a reason for harming your cat or abandoning your cat or being neglectful of your cat. This is very poor reporting and thinking. It is not critical enough.

Everybody goes through difficult times but you can surmount them and you don't have to give up your cat in the process. I would bet my bottom dollar that all the cat cruelty reports reported to the RSPCA had no connection whatsoever, if you analysed it properly, to the cost-of-living crisis or the pandemic.

It'll be about carelessness, wanton neglect, callousness, hating cats, immoral behaviour; all these things about more likely to be behind cat cruelty.

Separately, the BBC reports also about the RSPCA cat cruelty reports regarding 2022. The BBC reports on the county of Lincolnshire in the UK. They say that hundreds of cats were intentionally harmed, neglected or abandoned in 2022.

Apparently, it is the RSPCA who think that the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis is to blame. Are they guessing? Are they just going along with the general flow because I see a lot of news media reports on the cost-of-living crisis and how it impacts people's finances. You don't make a presumption because people are short of money that they have to be cruel to their cat. That is not an equation which adds up automatically.

Nationally, the BBC reports, that almost 18,000 cat cruelty complaints were reported to the RSPCA in 2022 and they include abandonments, neglect and intentional harm. There were 1726 intentional harm incidents which included killings, beatings, poisonings and "improper killings". This represents a 25% increase from the year before.

The RSPCA pick up the pieces. They see an awful lot of cat cruelty but this cat cruelty is perpetrated by immoral, miscreants; people who are bad and who have no sensitivity towards animal sentience. Let's not pass the buck onto something which doesn't really exist.

White Coat Waste Project stops American taxpayer funding of Putin's Cat Lab (and more)

This is a cross post. It's important. The brilliant White Coat Waste Project (WCW) are an incredibly important organisation. They work independently and they lobby the US government to change their incomprehensible ways. They call it 'madness' that Americans through their taxes fund cruel animal experiments abroad. They are correct. It is mad on several levels.

And isn't just any old foreign country. The American government has been funding through the Department of Defence (DOD) and via a disgraced Wuhan lab funder, EcoHealth Alliance, experiments on the coronavirus found in bats discovered in a mineshaft in the north of China.

RELATED: Stronger evidence that COVID-19 started at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

On my research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been involved in military biowarfare testing. They have connections to the military. This novel coronavirus was discovered in bats. It killed people early on and it seems that it was decided to develop it as a biowarfare agent. 

And it is now believed by many that the Covid-19 pandemic started at the Wuhan lab. And to think that via EcoHealth Alliance American taxpayers were funding this laboratory.

It is madness as WCW state. But through tireless campaigning and lobbying, WCW have achieved a very important milestone. They have convinced the US government to stop this funding.

White Coat Waste Project stops American taxpayer funding of cruel animal experiments in foreign countries. Image: WCW.

RELATED: White Coat Waste Project pressured Biden administration into defunding Russian animal experiments.

The American taxpayer was also funding cruel tests on cats in Russia for, as I understand it, military purposes. Clearly, this went under the radar from the perspective of the American public. Through WCW the ridiculousness of this funding was exposed and through tireless campaigning they have stopped it.

I received an email from WCW which states that the US House panel that funds the Department of Defence (DOD) has passed its 2024 spending bill which includes key language that WCW wanted to see in the bill and which cuts DOD funding to the Wuhan animal lab and other laboratories in China, Russia and other adversarial nations.

And the bill also cats funding for other animal experiments and virus hunting as they call it or other projects in China.

The WCW campaign documented at least 32 animal testing laboratories in Russia and China which were receiving funding from American taxpayers.

Also, following their efforts, the NIH (National Institutes of Health) has recently disqualified the Wuhan animal lab and all animal lives in Russia from taxpayer funding.

If and when the bill is passed by the full US House and becomes law later in 2023 the then statute will disqualify all labs across China and Russia from Pentagon funding as well.

WCW worked with House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Members Reps. Chris Stewart (R-UT) and Dave Joyce (R-OH) to include this important measure in the bill. They commented as follows:

Statement from Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President, White Coat Waste Project:

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for foreign enemies’ animal experimentation labs, and we’re proud of the progress we’re making to find, expose and defund this waste and abuse in Wuhan and beyond. If signed into law, this bill would prohibit the Pentagon from sending tax dollars to white coats in dozens of animal labs run by China, Russia and other adversarial nations. Our Worldwide Waste campaign first exposed how the DOD, NIH, USAID, and other federal agencies recklessly ship billions of tax dollars to unaccountable foreign animal labs, including how EcoHealth funneled funds to the Wuhan lab for dangerous gain-of-function animal experiments that likely caused COVID and how taxpayer unwittingly funded a Kremlin-linked lab crippling cats. The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”

Statement from Congressman Chris Stewart (R-UT)

“Our foreign adversaries, particularly China, have proven they should not and cannot be trusted with American taxpayer dollars to conduct laboratory research and experiments. Cutting American funding to research labs in adversarial nations that pose a threat to our national security should never be a partisan issue. I’d like to thank my colleagues who have recognized the importance of this effort.”

An example of ridiculous, pathetic human madness in Vietnam resulting in black cat cruelty

OPINION: I want to briefly revisit the Covid-19 pandemic because in so many ways it illustrates humankind's madness. This particular example comes from Asia. In general, you will see more abuses and cruelty against the cat in Vietnam and China than anywhere else based upon my research. You simply can't avoid it when surfing the Internet.

Superstition is a human weakness. It is, for me, a form of human madness. It leads to animal abuse. Superstition is based upon fear. Humans are fearful of everything and anything.

Black cats farmed in Vietnam waiting to be boiled alive and turned into paste to cure Covid!! Image: SWNS.

In Vietnam in the middle of 2020, when the Covid pandemic was perhaps at its height, black cats were turned into paste and sold as coronavirus remedies. I can remember seeing a child eating black cat paste to protect them against Covid-19 (see link below).

Black cat paste packaged for consumption to cure Covid-19. Image: SWNS.

It was reported that at that time black cats were being boiled, skinned and cooked and then turned into a paste to be sold as a medicine against Covid-19 according to South West New Service (SWNS).

A barbaric, utterly cruel and mindless human practice that was centred around the city of Hanoi. The crazy concoction was sold online. They even fed it to a baby.

RELATED: Vietnamese toddler drinks liquid of dead black cats to protect from coronavirus.

There is a video online somewhere which I don't want to even search for which shows rows of dead cats drying out in the sun after being slaughtered as well as a live cat being boiled. This seems to be another superstition that if you kill cats in a brutal way they taste better and their "medicine" is more effective. How mad does it have to get? How cruel does it have to get before the international community does something to stop it?

Obviously, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever which supports the superstition that eating boiled black cat protects you against Covid-19, which, incidentally, has not died out yet. It is still there infecting people often in hospitals. Be aware of that. Don't visit a hospital to see your ill friend unless you really have to.

It's ironic, too, that the cat meat trade which includes the one mentioned above, can itself spread disease because of the way that they are killed; highly unregulated. Pathogens from this kind of animal slaughter can be transferred to the people doing the slaughtering. That's how people believe the Covid-19 pandemic started in the first place.

Like I said, how mindless does humankind have to be before something is done to stop these people.

I'm told, also, that in Vietnam and Indonesia other "exotic meats" were sold at the time as a cure for Covid-19.

2 instances when cat many owners destroyed their cats believing they'd catch a fatal disease from them

There have been a couple of high-profile instances when many cat owners deliberately destroyed their cat companions because they believed that they might catch a fatal disease from them.

AIDS in humans set off panic in nervous cat owners who killed their cats. Image: CNN.

FIV

Feline AIDS as it is sometimes called or Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) was discovered in 1986. In June 1981, the first cases of the illness now known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) were reported from Los Angeles in five young homosexual men diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and other opportunistic infections (CDC).

The news media reported on FIV in a way which scared the population into believing that they could catch the disease from their cats.

This led to some cat owners panicking and killing their cats. Within hours of the newspaper reports nervous cat owners were taking their cats to shelters and asking them to euthanise them or find new homes.

Eventually the news media researched the facts and reported that the virus that causes feline AIDS was not zoonotic i.e., it cannot be transmitted to humans but the damage had been done and many cats were killed unnecessarily.

It is true that the viruses causing human and feline AIDS belong to the same group of viruses but they are distantly related. There is no way a cat can give a human the disease even by biting and scratching them.

Covid

When this disease was first reported in the news media, I can well remember the effect it had on nervous cat owners in China. Those in high rise apartment blocks began throwing their cats out of the windows to their deaths on the paving below.

Cats thrown from tower blocks in China during the early days of the Covid pandemic. Image in public domain.

I reported on this on Feb 1st 2020: SHOCK HORROR- CORONAVIRUS, CHINA: Panicked Chinese Are Throwing Their Cats Out of Tower Block Windows.

It was dire. And then as the pandemic progressed thousands of cat owners abandoned their pets in locked apartments for them to die of starvation. It was utterly mad.

At the time there was no media reports of the possibility of contracting the disease from companion animals so these cat killings were entirely out of panic. 

As it transpired it was found that Covid is zoonotic and can infect people. And people can get the disease from pets but even at the end of the pandemic there have been exceptionally few examples.

Republicans in America demand the release of FBI intelligence surrounding the origins of the Covid pandemic

The Covid pandemic story is still running. There is something outstanding and that is an answer to the question: from where did the virus originate? We still don't know because China has been uncooperative. They are being defensive. This is to be expected because one thing is clear: the virus did start in China. It is simply a question of whether it started in a wet market in Wuhan or in a bio laboratory in Wuhan.

Christopher Wray, FBI Director. Image in public domin.

And I've read a lot about this and some scientists think that the DNA structure of the virus indicates that it has been manipulated in the laboratory. This argument is counteracted by that of The Times' science editors: Tom Whipple and Hugh Tomlinson. They say that the virus has not been manipulated in a laboratory. Or there are no signs that it has.

They also state that it has been established that a cluster of infections of people occurred around the Wuhan wet market. Those are the first signs of the virus infecting people in the world. This of course strongly indicate that it started at the Wuhan wet market. That market has been cleaned up as have 22,000 other wet markets in China or that is the report that we have received.

However, the Republicans in America are asking for the FBI to release their information about the origins of the virus because Christopher Wray, the head of the FBI said that a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan was the probable cause of the pandemic.

Roger Marshall, a senator from Kansas said that he was pleased that the FBI was "finally coming forward with their assessment that Covid-19 leaked from a Wuhan laboratory."

The problem is that there is no consensus about where it started thanks to China's defensiveness. In the West we simply do not have sufficient information or sufficient clarity to assess the origin with accuracy.

Therefore, Christopher Wray's statement doesn't really help. In fact, it muddies the water further.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman said that there was no consensus within the Biden administration on the origin of the virus. He said:

"The intelligence community and the rest of the government is still looking at this. There's not been a definitive conclusion. What the president wants is facts."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning, said:

"A lab leak is extremely unlikely, and that's the authoritative scientific conclusion reached by a joint team of experts from China and WHO after they had visited related labs in Wuhan."

However, the WHO investigation was hobbled by China's defensiveness. Their investigation was widely criticised for involving people with links to the Wuhan laboratory and its scientists and for the lack of access to materials. Therefore, we cannot take with any seriousness what the spokeswoman said.

There needs to be a further study and there needs to be access provided by China to make any further study meaningful. The outstanding question as to how it started is a question of world importance.

Covid-19 is a zoonotic disease. That's why it caused a pandemic. It jumps from animals to people and back to animals. That means all our pets and everyone on the planet is vulnerable to it and mutations of it.

However, it seems that China is more interested in protecting their interests rather than helping to protect the animals and the peoples of the planet.

Bosses have decided that homeworking is a disaster. What happens to your cat?

During the long Covid lockdowns both myself and my friend, Barry, agreed that the extensive periods of working from home which employees enjoyed would lead to disasters in terms of productivity. 

Bosses have decided that homeworking is a disaster. What happens to your cat or dog? Image: MikeB

It was a common-sense assessment. Notwithstanding this, the government promoted the benefits of working from home and of course employees in general loved it. 

They had found utopia and many took the opportunity to adopt a cat or dog. They might have been thinking about it for a long time.

However, very often this was a short-term decision. Adopters during Covid lockdowns were often not looking long-term. They was simply taking advantage of that moment and seeking animal companionship.

And now, getting on for three years after those early days of Covid, bosses are gradually becoming enlightened about the lack of productivity that working from home brings to their corporation.

It is human nature to take advantage of a lack of supervision. Humankind is essentially lazy. And if humans can gain advantage for free, they will. Not everyone falls into this mentality but the vast majority do.

It seems that many leaders simply forgot this basic characteristic of human nature. There is an article in The Times today by Gerard Baker - an opinion piece - which he has titled: "Zoom and bust: why homeworking's a disaster".

He states that Netflix streaming data used to show that peak usage was during the weekends but now, in the UK, it is weekday afternoons! Does that surprise you?

Homeworkers are taking an extended break in the afternoon to watch a movie on Netflix or one of their series. Richmond Park is inundated with cycle riders mid-afternoon, mid-week.

There are numerous tales of a sharp drop-off in aggregate work performance over the past years according to Gerard Baker. Labour productivity has plummeted since the middle of 2020. And he says that "anecdotal evidence of the inefficiency of working from home is plentiful".

The tech companies of Silicon Valley are shedding staff in their tens of thousands. They hired extra staff during Covid lockdowns. There's been a big falloff in activity and share values have also plummeted. Even Google's market value is down by one-third from its peak about a year ago. Meta's value (formerly Facebook) has dropped by nearly two-thirds.

The truth of the matter is that these big tech companies got very fat, lazy and sloppy. They were making too much money. It was too easy. I have visited Google's offices in London several times to work with them. Compared to the average office theirs is a like a playground for adults. Rows and rows of computer stations without anybody using them. Free food, free this and free that. The average wage is £250,000 according to my research. And many of the employees are in their mid-20s. It was unsustainable in my view. Perhaps that unsustainability has come to fruition.

That is the long introduction. The bosses want the workers to come to the office and return to the status quo and work harder, I guess. Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter points to a radical rethink on how big tech operates.

James Gorman, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, had a warning for employees: "They don't get to choose their compensation. They don't get to choose their promotion. They don't get to choose to stay at home five days a week."

They've got to come in. For the cat loving aficionados and dog owners this can spell the end of a good relationship if they were thinking short-term or if they hadn't really foreseen the possibility of being forced back to work at the office.

They're going to have to give up their companion animals. For someone like me the critical issue is not the person but the animal. What's going happen to them - the animals? They're going to end up in a shelter. They're going to end up being sold online, on Facebook. They going to end up, some of them, being euthanised at shelters because suddenly the marketplace is full of unwanted cats and dogs.

I have painted a very bleak picture and I don't think it is actually that bleak because many people will retain their companion animal. But even under those circumstances the animal is going to be left alone all day. Some dog experts say that a dog should not be left alone for more than four hours.

Many people believe that the domestic cat is temperamentally ideally suited to being left alone all day. Wrong. Cats are sociable animals. They rely on the human caregiver very often for the only company and interaction that they have. We can't expect them to be alone all day, snoozing and killing time and be content. They are liable to suffer stress, over-groom and perhaps develop cystitis.

All these problems are due to a lack of foresight. The whole of the UK was lockdown for many, many months. Sweden did not employ the lockdown. They relied upon their citizens to use common sense to socially distance. They lived normal lives with this modification.

This was a much cheaper way of reacting to Covid. The £400 billion borrowed in the UK to give 80% of their salary to people confined to their homes plus grants to businesses has left this country with a £17 billion monthly bill on interest payments alone. 

This is killing any possibility of spending into welfare which is greatly needed. For example, there is a great need to fund social care. That's impossible now because the money has run out and we are being bled dry by interest payments.

It's a disaster both of people and their pets. They should never have believed that working from home was viable for the long term. It suits some professions but even then, employee should not stay at home because they lack productivity.

People have to come into work and interact and be stimulated and supervised. When they do that, they will have a different perspective on whether they are in a position to adopt a companion animal. Very often they should not because they cannot provide quality caregiving.

Abandoned INBRED cats due to Covid and cost-of-living crisis

NEWS AND OPINION: This story tells us how market forces due to the Covid pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis has shaped what goes on in animal rescue and before that in animal breeding and purchase. Adopting kittens and puppies should never be impacted by market forces.

The story about this form of animal abuse comes from the St Francis Animal Welfare Re-homing shelter in the UK. It is located at Sunnyside Cottage, Mortimer's Lane, Fair Oak, Eastleigh in Hampshire. I know this is a well-reported issue, but it needs to be stressed. Covid has highlighted a poor attitude by many UK citizens to pet ownership.

Boxes of cats and kittens dumped outside the shelter. Image: the shelter.

They say that in the summer of 2022 seven "very neglected and inbred" cats arrived from a kitten mill breeder. These cats had numerous health issues according to the rescue. And cats and kittens have been dumped anonymously outside the shelter as you can see in the photograph supplied by the shelter.

Boxes of cats were found outside the shelter. Three of the cats passed away. Two were kept by the shelter but they had severe heart murmurs.

Surge in demand during Covid leading to kitten mills

The information here then is that during Covid-19 there was a surge in demand for kittens and puppies because people were stuck at home on furlough doing nothing.

This surge in demand resulted in a surge in backstreet breeders in the UK producing kittens or the importation from Eastern Europe of puppies from puppy mills. And now, post-Covid, we have the cost-of-living crisis due to high inflation which in turn is mainly due to Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Surge in abandonment of kittens and puppies post-Covid and due to high inflation

The cost-of-living crisis has resulted in people giving up their cats and dogs because they can't afford to keep them.

And so, there is a surge in abandoned cats and dogs some of whom find their way to the St Francis Animal Welfare shelter. And they, as you can see, report on inbred kittens which clearly indicates very poor breeding practices with mothers mating with offspring for example and this happening numerous times in uncontrolled breeding or forced breeding with no concern for health.

The manager at the shelter, Helen Shaw, said that they've seen "some of the worst cases of inbreeding". And they've got 40 cats waiting to come into the rescue which is four times the normal number.

Helen rightly says that the Covid-19 pandemic is a major factor in the breeding of the kittens. And the abandonment of kittens and cats is due to the cost-of-living crisis.

Both the adoption and the abandonment are due to impulsive purchasing and impulsive throwing away of sentient creatures due to market forces created by these big events.

Bad breeders and equally bad customers

It's all down to unscrupulous breeders taking advantage of market forces and silly customers buying unhealthy kittens and cats during the Covid lockdowns then deciding to give them up when they return to work, and they can't find the time to look after them. And/or the cost-of-living crisis means they have to give them up because they can't afford to look after them. One of the first things to go is the impulsively purchased cat not the smartphone contract costing £50 per month.

The point of this discussion is that people should not be driven by market forces when adopting cats. They should not make impulsive decisions about the adoption of a cat or dog. This is a considered decision to adopt a companion animal for the life of a companion animal. There are no other considerations. This should not be an impulsive, self-indulgent decision. 

It is a long-term decision and financial provision should be made. People need to research the cost and ensure that they have the money and will do going forward. If not don't adopt.

Rescues pick up the pieces

As usual, it is the rescue centres dotted around the country which pick up the pieces. They are the ones cleaning up the mess caused by the problems created by ill informed, ill-educated frankly silly people who just think they can adopt an animal like they can buy a new television.

It is no wonder that we have animal welfare issues in this country and other countries. The attitude towards sentient creatures is simply not good enough.

My thanks to the Southern Daily Echo.

Man, who has eight companion animals struggles to survive under the cost-of-living crisis

In case you have missed it, in the UK, there is a cost-of-living crisis. This is due to inflation and inflation has primarily been caused by Putin's invasion of Ukraine compounded by post-Covid pandemic inflation caused in part, in my opinion, by greedy profiteers who've inflated their prices because people expect there to be inflation.

Ashely Goudou. Image: Mirrorpix. If there is a problem in using this picture here, please contact me in a comment. Thanks.

In this instance, a 20-year-old factory worker, Ashley Goudou, near Bristol, UK, struggles to pay his energy and food bills.

He is paid £6.81 per hour which is substantially under the national minimum wage at £9.18 an hour, which means that he has to work 10 hour shifts seven days a week to make ends meet.

But the key aspect of the story for me, is that he has eight pets according to the Mail Online. These are rescue animals and they cost him £3000 a month to support (seems inflated to me)! He earns £2000 a month!

He says that he bridges that income and expense gap with donations from his veterinary clinic. But to be honest, and I don't want to be critical of a man who is kind animals, he doesn't have to have eight companion animals comprising four cats and four dogs. And the vet can't be a charity to the tune of £1,000 per month. That's ridiculous.

It's expensive maintaining a companion animal. Even one cat is expensive if you do the job properly. Cat food is as expensive as human food. And according to the newspaper, the cost of looking after cats and dogs has surged in recent times in fact tripling from £1000 a month to £3000 a month for this man.

Ashley refuses to give up his pets because he is concerned that nobody else will be able to look after them to the same level.

He told the Mirror Newspaper that: "Handing them into a rescue isn't an option for me. I wouldn't have the heart. I rather not feed myself."

Ashley said that the presence of his animals is good for his mental health. But you could argue, too, that the stress that they place upon him in terms of their maintenance is bad for his mental health. He lives in a one-bedroom flat which is hardly ideal for one man and eight animals.

The underlying point that I want to make is that, in the UK, a lot of people plead poverty because of the cost-of-living crisis but they are not managing their outgoings properly.

You can make savings in a whole range of ways without detrimentally impacting one's life substantially. And in the case of Ashley, I think he needs to talk to his employer who appears to be in breach of the law in paying him two-thirds of the national minimum wage!

It almost looks like that he has an animal hoarding problem. That's being a bit harsh but really you can't have eight pets in a one-bedroom flat.

There are stories in the UK of people abandoning or relinquishing their companion animals to shelters in large numbers because of the cost-of-living crisis. In a lot of cases, I suspect, that the abandoned pets are those that were adopted during Covid in order to keep their owner company during those long lockdown periods.

If a person adopted a dog during Covid and then relinquished them after Covid, we have to be critical of that person. This is because you adopt a companion animal for the life of the animal. There is no other way to do it.

I would like to see less moaning about the cost-of-living crisis and a greater emphasis on how to manage expenses or outgoings in the family home in a way which minimises the impact upon the lifestyle of that person.

What about pay-as-go mobile phone contracts that cost £10 per month and not £50! Buy a cheap smartphone (sim only) and go for a cheap contract. And reduce TV streaming services. That kind of thing. And no takeaways. 

Prepare your own food cheaply. There are ways and means to cut costs.

Mouthwash can kill Covid virus which is mutating and bouncing back

The news at the moment is that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is mutating and in a substantial percentage of cases is defeating the modern vaccines. There is a current "hybrid vaccine", one of which is manufactured by Moderna and another by Pfizer, which is meant to be effective against the Omicron variant.

Mouthwash can kill Covid virus, and this virus is mutating and bouncing back. This product contains cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) which as study has found kills the Covid virus. Image: MikeB

However, my reading of the situation is that there is a current surge in Omicron infections in the UK and I suspect that this is playing out in a similar way in other countries. Plus the original COvid-19 is hanging around and still infecting people.

People, therefore, need to do all they can to prevent an infection because they are now somewhat exposed. And I also learned that if you have had the Omicron variant and therefore have developed antibodies against it, you can still be reinfected even if you have had the vaccine as well.

And in a rather timely way, a recent study which has yet to be peer-reviewed states that certain mouthwashes can kill the Covid-19 virus in the mouth.

One of these contains the ingredient cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC). There are several mouthwashes with this ingredient. I have bought Dentyl because I happen to believe that this study is probably solid and worth following and therefore, we should do all we can to prevent a covered infection.

This might not be the only ingredient which is effective against Covid. In another article that I recently read, it states that certain other mouthwashes can be effective. The study is described as experimental. The author is Dr. Craig Myers who is described as a distinguished Prof of microbiology, immunology, obstetrics and gynaecology at Penn State College of Medicine.

He reports that the following products are effective in killing the Covid virus as I understand it.

• Johnson & Johnson’s 1% (Johnson & Johnson Consumer) baby shampoo which was used as a sinus rinse for this study;
• Crest Pro‐Health (Proctor & Gamble) mouthwash;
• Peroxide Sore Mouth (CVS), Orajel Antiseptic Rinse (Church & Dwight Co.) and 1.5% H2O2 (Cumberland-Swan);
• Listerine Ultra (Johnson & Johnson Consumer), Equate (Wal-Mart Co.) and Antiseptic Mouthwash (CVS);
• Listerine Antiseptic (Johnson & Johnson Consumer) mouthwash.

I'm just throwing this information out there is it might stick somewhere. Please do your own research. Don't rely on me 😎😉. I think that it is worth knowing about these things because, as mentioned, we need to do all we can to protect ourselves from this nasty virus.

The Omicron virus is milder than the original Covid-19 which killed people, but it is still a nasty illness depending upon your immune system and how each individual reacts to it.

These products can be bought over the counter and therefore it is very easy to take these protective steps.

The recommendation with Dentyl is to rinse your mouth for 30 seconds with the product and then gargle with it which kills the virus in your throat.

Sources: Sky News and Healio Primary Care.

Magic tip: how to stop a persistent tickly cough

This is nothing to do with cats, but I feel that I have to try and get this great tip out there. It really is good, and I don't see anyone mentioning it on the internet. 

It is based on personal first-hand experience, and I feel confident that it will work a lot of the time. Tickly coughs are common after an upper respiratory viral disease: a cold or Covid Omicron for example.

I had a tickly cough for weeks and it was driving me mad. I also felt under the weather with a headache. I don't know if the source of the cough was the same as for the headache, but I think it was. It may have been Covid Omicron which is like a cold.

TCP can cure a persistent tickly cough. Image in the public domain.

I got rid of the cough by gargling with diluted TCP at about 1 part TCP with 3 parts of water, which is a liquid antiseptic based on halogenated phenols.  Make the concentration as strong as you can take, even 1:1 and you might drink a little of it at the end. But only a little bit. If you want to pass on this last bit of advice that's fine.

I gargled three times in the evening and in the morning the cough was 90% gone. It felt like I'd gone to heaven. I did the same thing again yesterday and this morning and the cough has gone.

I also used Corsodyl mouthwash after the gargling just to be sure both bacteria and viruses were being killed. Although, phenol disinfectant can kill a wide variety of microbes such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

My research indicates that low concentrations of phenol cause bacterial death by deactivation of essential enzyme systems.

Phenols have a broad range of disinfection capabilities. They are effective against bacteria, micro-bacteria and fungi. They are also effective against envelope (easy to cure) viruses such as influenza. Therefore, phenol is more effective against bacteria and on that bases I wonder if a tickly cough is mainly caused by bacteria on the throat.

Phenol-based disinfectants have a high potency in disinfection of hospitals. Phenol derivatives can deactivate viruses such as HIV and other hydrophilic viruses within minutes at a concentration range of 0.5-5%. 

They deactivate pathogens by inducing membrane damage which leads to the leakage of intracellular components and denaturing of proteins! 

That's very technical but I'm just trying to add a little bit of meat to the bone here to try and explain why TCP is effective at reducing or eliminating the tickly cough after an upper respiratory viral infection possibly followed by a secondary bacterial infection and I think it is effective against post a Covid Omicron infection.

Gargling with TCP is unpleasant, but the result is pleasant. Mouth washing with Corsodyl hurts if you do it after you have brushed your teeth so do both the TCP gargle and mouth wash before brushing your teeth.

Give it a try if you have a bad tickly cough that is upsetting you. You might get lucky. If it works for you, please leave a comment. There is no danger and downside to the best of my knowledge. This is an over-the-counter treatment not requiring a prescription which is why I feel that I can talk about it here.

Animal charities swamped due to UK's cost-of-living crisis

There is another report today in the news media about animal charities being swamped with abandoned cats and dogs because of a double whammy of major problems. Firstly, there was the surge in cat and dog ownership during the pandemic with those owners now giving up their pets because they've decided they can't afford to keep them which has been exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis. 

In isn't just the cost-of-living crisis which is causing this abandonment of pets. People adopting pets during Covid now see the reality of cat and dog caregiving and have decided that they were unprepared or uncommitted for a lifetime of cat or dog caregiving.

RSPCA shelter. Image: RSPCA

The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has reported a 25% increase in abandoned pets during 2022. They say that their employees are overwhelmed at their call centre from owners reporting that they are struggling to feed and care for their animals.

During the first seven months of this year, they recorded 22,908 cases of abandoned pets paired with 18,373 during the same period last year.

They have reported such events as a terrier dog being thrown from a truck travelling at 50 miles an hour and 20 puppies being abandoned in a box in a layby in Essex.

They put most of this problem down to the extraordinary number of 3.2 million cats and dogs that were bought or acquired during the lockdowns coupled with the increased pressure on the finances of many cat and dog owners in the UK who are facing extraordinary bills to heat and power their homes this winter. 

Some economists have predicted 22% inflation in the UK thanks to a projected £6,000 annual bill for a typical family home to provide gas and electricity to that home beginning in the early part of next year.

Cats Protection has seen a rise of 46% in the number of animals on the waiting list in July of this year compared to last year. Peter Shergold, the head of operations at Cats Protection said: 

"This is the worst situation in organisational memory in terms of the pressure on our services to take in cats. The rise is directly linked to the cost-of-living crisis."

I can also see, by the way, problems with the cost of running animal charities. There are reports of numerous small businesses going under because the cost of gas and electricity is just too high so their overheads become unbearable. I can see some small animal charities having to close at least potentially because of the extraordinary rise in the price of gas which has a knock-on effect on the cost of electricity in the UK.

Pet owners are struggling to afford basics such as food and litter for their cats. The extreme cost of gas is due to Putin's attempt to force Europe to loosen their sanctions against Putin. It's blackmail basically. He doesn't care about killing thousands upon thousands of innocent Ukrainian citizens and he doesn't care about the dramatically negative effect that the price of gas is having upon so many organisations and individuals in the UK. In fact, he wants the Brits and Europeans to suffer.

I can remember reading an article about a man who said that he has to use the dregs from his shampoo in order to make ends meet. He could then, and only then, maintain enough funds to look after his cat. But it occurred to me that most people add some water to the bottom of their shampoo bottle in order to get out the last bits because by doing this you can get two or three more washes. I don't think that it is a particularly clever thing to do or something which indicates that a person is on their uppers.

I can remember reading an article about a man who said that he has to use the dregs from his shampoo in order to make ends meet. He could then, and only then maintain enough funds to look after his cat. But it occurred to me that most people add some water to the bottom of their shampoo bottle in order to get out the last bits because by doing this you can get two or three more washes. I don't think that it is a particularly clever thing to do or something which indicates that a person is on their uppers.

I can remember reading an article about a man who said that he has to use the dregs from his shampoo in order to make ends meet. He could then, and only then maintain enough funds to look after his cat. But it occurred to me that most people add some water to the bottom of their shampoo bottle in order to get out the last bits because by doing this you can get two or three more washes. I don't think that it is a particularly clever thing to do or something which indicates that a person is on their uppers.

Also, I think that a lot of people have built into their lives overheads such as subscriptions to smart phone providers, Sky television all broadband Internet. Or they are buying a car on hire purchase as opposed to outright. So, they burden their lives with overheads and they are not prepared to release themselves from these overheads which leads them to a precarious financial situation under the current cost of living crisis. 

They should divest themselves of some of these expensive overheads and ensure that their expenditure is less than their income and then they can put some money aside for those unexpected veterinary bills in a self-insurance policy. 

UK: number of neutered cats fell from 91 to 86% in 2020 due to Covid

NEWS AND COMMENT - UK: The legacy of Covid is with us in the world of cats because it is reported that the pandemic has caused the number of neutered cats in the UK to fall from 91 to 86% in 2020. The reason: cat owners were frightened to go to a veterinary clinic because of the fear of getting Covid.

Cat at a veterinary clinic in the UK. Photograph: Getty images

The problem is compounded by the fact that more people than usual adopted cats and dogs during the Covid pandemic as company at home during lockdowns. The two changes in human behaviour combined resulted in more than the usual number of unsterilised domestic cats. This in turn produced more unwanted litters which further in turn has put rescue charities under increased pressure as the number of unwanted cats has increased at their rescue centres.

One veterinary clinic is offering low-cost neutering and spaying for eligible cat owners on low incomes in the Bristol area: Bristol Animal Rescue Centre. The cost of neutering a male cat at this centre is £30. Spaying of female cats costs £45 to eligible pet owners across Bristol. I am sure that there are many more clinics offering the same service to try and rectify what is a problem caused by Covid.

The RSPCA report that over 1 million cats remain unneutered in the UK resulting in an unprecedented increase in cat breeding.

The Independent newspaper reported that the RSPCA had warned that these conditions might lead to hordes of cats roaming the streets. I think that was an exaggeration. A bit of good news according to Cats Protection is that the number of cats neutered under four months of age rose from 22% in 2020 to 24% in 2021. This was a welcome increase in the uptake of pre-pubertal neutering by the veterinary profession.

Shanghai: men in hazmat suits roam the streets beating pets to death

See the CNN video by clicking on this link (opens new tab). China's zero-tolerance policy on Covid-19 is having disastrous consequences with citizens becoming utterly desperate. The CNN report shows a man in a white hazmat suit beating a corgi to death on the street. It is unbelievable but it is not the first time pandemic officials in China have done this. A disregard for decency and common sense is very evident. They have a 100% lockdown for the Omicron variant which has symptoms no worse than a cold!

RELATED: Chinese health workers “disinfect” an apartment by killing the owner’s dog with a crowbar!

Shanghai: men in hazmat suits roam the streets beating pets to death

In Britain we regard it as a cold and ignore it. And yet in China they are killing pets over it. No discussion with anyone. No attempt it seems to find the owner and give them a chance to go home with the pet. They just go up to the dog or cat and kill them it appears, judging by this video. The video is a compilation of videos and some of these videos have gone viral. I am unsurprised as the incidents are shocking.

Screenshot from video of man in hazmat suit who killed a corgi with a shovel. Why not take the dog into quarantine and run Covid tests? How could he do it?

I have expanded on this story. It really is a story is state-sanctioned animal cruelty:

Shanghai residents fight back against state-sanctioned Covid-related animal cruelty

Update

What happened to this corgi is potentially happening to a lot of other pets in Shanghai. In this instance, as I understand it, the owner tested positive for the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and under the rules of Shanghai and perhaps wider China, they had to go into quarantine. She was carted off to quarantine and the dog was taken out into the street and killed with a shovel. Shanghai residents are now taking steps to avoid this kind of incident. We don't know how many pets have been killed in this way. But in Britain, as mentioned, we don't see Omicron Covid-19 as a threat to the health of the nation. We treat it as a cold.

Japan: restaurant owner rescued stray cats and they rescued his business

NEWS AND COMMENT-JAPAN: This is a nice story of symbiosis, to use a rarely used word, certainly in this context. It means a relationship in which both parties benefit the other. And in this instance both Naoki Teraoka, the owner of a model railway themed restaurant (Tetsudokan) benefited greatly after he rescued stray cats near his business.

He was going through a very difficult time because of Covid. A pretty typical scenario for huge swathes of businesses in entertainment and hospitality. He has a model railway in his restaurant to create a theme and added interest. And he loves model railways.

Photo: believed to be by @Caferest_bar_Fe.

It's a popular restaurant and he was going bust because of Covid. He noticed a stray kitten next to his restaurant and decided to help because the cat needed help in terms of food and medical treatment. He named him Simba. And a few days later he noticed Simba's mother. He took both of them in. After all, he had plenty of unused food as there were no customers 👍. This implies, by the way, that he fed them human food which is not a good idea but I am pretty sure he also fed them cat food.

And then Simba's mother brought him three more kittens. He became a cat rescuer and the entire concept of his restaurant changed as a result. You can see the photographs on this page. They kind of occupied the place as they do; no doubt because they were delighted to be looked after.

Rescue cats occupy model railway themed restaurant and boost business. Image in public domain (believed).

He is very tolerant of them climbing all over his model railway which looks as if it was meticulously built. I'm sure they did some damage but I guess he accepted it because the presence of the cats attracted customers and media attention. The photographs of his rescued cats on his model railway went viral. It was a happy accident which he had not foreseen.

Japan: restaurant owner rescued stray cats and they rescued his business. Photo in public domain (believed).

He said: "It was a financially difficult time for us, but we decided to help the cat family. Yes, we thought we were helping them, but they were the ones who helped us."

His restaurant business appears to be back on its feet. He has now become a cat rescuer as well. There are 14 stray cats in all. It appears to have become a cat café/model railway themed restaurant 😊. He has opened a cat shelter and cat boarding cattery on the second floor. This allows his clients to go upstairs to adopt a cat should they wish. Thus far he has adopted out 100 cats I'm told by MSN News.

There is a moral behind the story: you reap what you sow. It's an old adage which is clearly applicable.

Hong Kongers are struggling to get their cats and dogs out of Hong Kong in a mass exodus because of Beijing's crackdown

NEWS AND COMMENT-HONG KONG: The world has heard about Beijing's crackdown on Hong Kongers for being too democratic. China is in breach of the treaty with the UK to allow democracy to exist in Hong Kong until 2047. They unilaterally decided that the agreement was over and jumped the gun and imposed their version of democracy in Hong Kong much too soon which has forced many thousands of Hong Kongers to leave. They have to get out. Their freedoms including freedom of expression have been lost.

Hong Kongers are struggling to get their cats and dogs out of Hong Kong in a mass exodus because of Beijing's crackdown. Photo in public domain.

In fact, since January 2022, 2,500 Hong Kongers have arrived in the UK (or are applying to emigrate to the UK) every week. I think we can expect perhaps several hundred thousand Hong Kongers to be in the UK in due course. There appears to be a bit of a crisis in certain work sections of Hong Kong such as school teachers where they describe a brain drain. Hong Kong has changed massively thanks to Beijing's crackdown on freedom of expression.

That's the background and is causing real problems with companion animals. The problem, as I understand it, is that people are desperate to get out of Hong Kong but they are still in a Covid pandemic. This has placed, as we all know, severe restrictions on flights both incoming and outgoing into all countries including Hong Kong.

In addition, the Chinese authorities, apply a zero-Covid policy both in China and Hong Kong. They have a very strict set of rules in order to squash the transmission of the virus. This in addition, creates barriers to free movement including flight out of the country.

As a consequence, it is reported that some Hong Kongers have joined together, perhaps via social media, to fund private jets to fly them and their pets out of the former British colony. It was a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997.

Hong Kong's population declined by 1.2% in the first six months of 2021 according to a recent census. I believe this is been put down to this mass exodus. 

Businesses who arrange charter flights are busy. Chris Phillips, who works as a pet and medical charter manager for a private jet broker said that: "People want to get their pets back to their home countries and their dogs and their rabbits, and they just can't get them back via commercial routes". 

He is referring to expats in Hong Kong. It isn't just the native Hong Kongers who want to get out but foreigners working in the country too.

A company called Pet Holidays say that they arranged 18 private jets last year and expect to arrange 20 this year. The zero-policy against Covid had resulted in the culling of 2,000 hamsters in Hong Kong. Animal advocates were very much against this because the transmission from animals to people appears to be highly unlikely. It is said that it is not a genuine hazard and therefore there was no need to cull 2000 hamsters. Vets are calling for them to be quarantined. There have been reports that some hamsters where infected in The Netherlands before export to China. And a cluster of Covid infections in hamsters. Some owners have abandoned them.

Update: Feb 4th, 2022: 9 dogs and 10 cats had tested positive for the virus in Hong Kong.  Will this lead to some horrendous treatment by Bejing? They are not the best when it comes to animal welfare.

One company involved in arranging flights out of Hong Kong said that they have seen a 700% surge in business recently. Another private aviation company based in Hong Kong, Live Travel, told CNN that 90% of arrange flights are about relocation. People are on the move with their pets. The trouble is that Covid and Beijing are making it very difficult.

Mouse bite: supporting evidence that the Covid pandemic started in the Wuhan biolab

The world is still trying to figure out how the Covid pandemic started. Although China is trying to deflect blame by saying that it started in a country other than their own, it's clear that it started in China but did it start in the Wuhan biolab or in a wet market?

Mouse in biolab. Photo: Pixabay.

More scientists now believe that the Wuhan biolab may have been the originating place of this devastating pandemic. It's looking more plausible for various reasons and recently, in particular, because a Taiwanese woman was twice bitten by a mouse that had been deliberately infected with the Delta variant of the Covid virus. 

She contracted the disease. It's clear that she got the disease from the mouse because the woman was double vaccinated and had not travelled abroad and there had been no domestic transmissions in Taiwan for more than a month. The only possible plausible route of infection were the mouse bites.

This establishes the possibility that mice that were used in the Wuhan biolab might have bitten a lab worker in the same way and the lab worker might have passed the disease to others when they left work to go home.

The Wuhan biolab I'm referring to is the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A Chinese public health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Yangzhong Huang, said: "If the lab worker is confirmed to have been infected at her workplace, then this will add credibility to the lab leak theory."

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is situated on the outskirts of the central Chinese city, just a few miles from the wildlife market associated with several early cases of Covid-19. And we know that China's "bat woman", the expert on coronaviruses, Shi Zhengli, used mice to test the impact of modified bat viruses in "gain-of-function" experiments. She has vehemently and angrily denied the possibility.

The genetic adaptation of animal pathogens is frowned upon by some scientists because it's dangerous. People fear the escape of artificially created viruses, which might have happened as discussed.

American and British government investigations have concluded that the Wuhan lab leak theory is at least plausible. Of course, Beijing has reacted angrily to the suggestions.. They have blocked international investigations (which implies guilt I've got to say) and have pushed conspiracy theories that the virus started in Italy and certainly not in China.

It is known that viral infections transmitted to the public can originate in laboratory workers who acquired the infection during their work. It's happened before in laboratories in Taiwan, Singapore and China in 2003 and 2004 during research into the SARS coronavirus.

Testing cats for Covid-19 in Texas. Photo: Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Postscript: I would briefly like to touch on the issue as to whether domestic cats can get Covid. Some people ask Google search whether domestic cats can get Covid. That to me seems like a silly question because we know that Covid is a zoonotic disease. This means that it can transmit from animals to people and vice versa. We know that animals are getting Covid from people as it has happened in zoos with a variety of animals including the big cats. 

And we know that some domestic cats, albeit very few, have caught Covid from their human caregivers. But it's a given that family pets can get the disease. The question should not be asked. The whole point of this disease is that it jumps from people to animals and as the human is a human-animal we are as capable of transmitting the disease to other animals, and other humans, as animals are.

China taking a more respectful and humane approach to domestic cats who might be infected with Covid

This is an op-ed about the news. I need to comment. On 13th November I wrote about Chinese health workers killing pets when their owners contracted Covid. It is described as a zero-tolerance policy. In truth it is a desperately cruel and inhumane policy, deeply tainted with immorality and ignorance.

RELATED: Chinese health workers “disinfect” an apartment by killing the owner’s dog with a crowbar!

Past stories of legalised animal cruelty. Corgi dog brutally killed by crazed health officials in China to disinfect the dog owner's apartment. Image credit: see image.

Well, there's a bit of good news in the online news media today. It comes from China Daily.com. They report on a story in which a woman contracted Covid. The family have a much loved and long-standing cat companion. The cat was not mercilessly killed as appears to be in happening in the past, but protected and treated with respect. I hope it lasts. Don't hold your breath 😇.

China is taking a very tough stance on Covid. In this instance the woman was taken into quarantine away from her home while her home was disinfected. And while that happened the family cat was put into a carrier and, I guess, removed from the home. They employed a person with knowledge of domestic cats to care for the cat during this process. The cat had been placed in the restroom for a few days apparently (isolation?) which is not great but far more satisfactory than killing him or her.

The story comes from the Gaoxin district of Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan province. They say that the cat was provided with a clean litter box, water and food after being tested for Covid. News got out that the cat was being treated well which pleased cat aficionados in China. But I guess it reminded them of the brutality of the alternative method.

There is a discussion in China, apparently, about how to deal with companion animals when their owners get Covid. The owner of the cat asked the health workers who were controlling her quarantine to check on her cat. It appears that an army of officials and health workers descended upon her home including the police, disinfecting experts and workers from the district CDC and subdistrict office! 

That's how serious the Chinese are dealing with Covid. I guess it has come about because of a fear of a fourth wave and increased infections which would stall economic growth something which the Chinese are incredibly passionate about to the detriment of the rest of the world!

A health worker said: "Prior to the visit, we contacted the patient's community first. In addition, because of our lack of knowledge in cats, we went specifically to a pet store and inquired for advice from the shopkeeper, and purchased cat food and cans."

That sounds very nice. That sounds great. It indicates a concern about animal welfare. We love to see that. That's the way it should be every time. Cats are family members. They are not objects to be slaughtered at the whim of some maniac health worker.

On a strictly legal basis, a lawyer in China has been helpful by saying that the law does not mandate that pets should be killed if there is a fear that they might carry Covid and infect others. The law on killing animals under these circumstances only applies to livestock and poultry. There are no regulations on how to deal with pets that are infected with epidemic diseases, he said.

The earlier story, therefore, about health workers killing cats and dogs indicates that these were rogue individuals breaking the law. Of course nothing will happen. They will not be punished for their cruelty but it is clear that there is no law which says that they can treat animals in that way.

It is also reported that Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have taken a more scientific and reasonable approach in dealing with pets during quarantine since the beginning of this year. That, too, is great to hear.

Study shows that Covid can cause heart damage in cats and dogs

A study now shows that Covid can cause heart disease in cats and dogs. We already knew that Covid can cause acute myocardial injury and chronic damage to the cardiovascular system in people. Although, in a study on 460 athletes who had Covid, they found that only five had inflammatory heart disease namely myocarditis (three) or pericarditis (two). 

This study on cats and dogs produced a different result although the study size is small. They tested 11 animals none of whom had typical symptoms of Covid but all had common indicators of cardiac disease. They had developed symptoms of myocarditis or heart information.

The pet's owners said that their companion animals has shown signs of respiratory illness before they became sick or tested for Covid.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Luca Ferasin, described the animals as "depressed [and] lethargic". He said that they had difficulty breathing because of an accumulation of fluid in the lungs due to heart disease. They were even fainting because an underlying abnormal heart rhythm.

They researchers state that the animals were infected with the alpha variant of Covid-19. The study is said to report the first cases of cats and dogs affected by the alpha variant of Covid-19. They state that there is a risk to pets but it appears that the main risk is a transmission of the disease from companion animal owners to their companion animals rather than vice versa.

Most companion animals recover quickly from the disease. And my reading of the situation is that most companion animals have mild symptoms and they have immune systems which can cope well with the disease. Therefore, this study is indicative of something more serious as it mirrors heart disease in people caused by Covid-19.

The research was carried out in the UK and the researchers noticed an uptick in patients with symptoms of myocarditis. Incidentally, there was talk of myocarditis been caused by Covid vaccines. They were very rare cases.

The Ralph Veterinary Referral Centre in Buckinghamshire England said that during last December 2020 about 1.5% of companion animals referred to the centre were diagnosed with myocarditis. 

But in the period between December and March of this year (2021), the number jumped dramatically to 12.5% with confirmed myocarditis. They found that many of the companion animal owners had tested positive for Covid or had symptoms of the disease within 3 to 6 weeks of their pets becoming ill. It appears that they have transmitted the disease to their pets.

This correlated with the surge in the spread of the alpha variant of the virus in the UK which prompted the research study referred to.

Sources: International Business Times and NBC News.