Veterinary nurse decapitated two dead cats and took the heads home

NEWS AND COMMENT: This is a macabre story about a locum veterinary nurse with 2 years experience who remains anonymous to protect her identity because of a feared backlash, who reportedly used a scalpel to cut off the heads of two dead cats so that she could take them home and display the skulls. The heads were kept in a freezer for three weeks.

Veterinary nurse decapitated 2 dead cats and took the heads home. Image: MikeB

She said that she meant no disrespect to the animals and that she appreciated their bodies. I will presume that the cats were euthanised by a veterinarian or a vet nurse at the clinic or hospital where she works.

The veterinary nurse was before a misconduct panel at a Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons committee.

She's been referred to as 'B'. She's been charged with removing heads from dead bodies of cats other than for veterinary purposes.

One of her jobs was to sort out animal bodies stored in a walk-in freezer before collection by crematorium services.

It's reported that she asked if she could remove the heads from stray dead cats and she claimed that she was given permission by a member of the staff. She then took two bodies into the prep room and removed their heads with a scalpel before taking the heads home in a cadaver bag which she placed into her freezer.

She said that she had an interest in the heads and that she has some mealworms "which ate away at the cat's flesh, leaving the skull".

It was suggested to her that stray cats should be afforded the same dignity as pets and in response, it is alleged that she said "strays were not anyone's property."

She thought that she hadn't done anything disrespectful. In fact, it's reported that she thought it was a way of "appreciating the body". She accepted, however, that others might have a different viewpoint.

She disagreed that there were animal welfare issues. She said: "I would like to make it clear that I have the utmost respect for animals and actually consider cats to be my favourite domestic animal and I own three cats myself. I consider my own cats to be family members and am incredibly attached to them. I do my best every day to make sure they are happy and healthy.”

She added: “For me the keeping of ashes and bones is meant to be an appreciation of the animal or person, it was in no way meant to be disrespectful.

“Professionally, I am hugely interested in anatomy and learn best visually, so have always been interested in and keen to be involved with veterinary post-mortems. Bones and skulls are especially interesting to me.

“I have heard many stories of other professionals unknown to me who do similar things in various ways, which include taking whole skeletons from strays, bringing in road kill and dealing with them in a veterinary environment, taking strays and/or wildlife to be used for taxidermy, also of cat cadavers used in approved educational ways to be dissected.

“Alongside this, I have seen adverts for live human and animal dissection that is used for entertainment on TV, and am aware of celebrated artworks involving body parts of animals and cadavers.”

She admits now that she feels guilt and shame and embarrassment. And she is deeply apologetic for her misjudgement. The committee found her guilty of serious professional misconduct but accepted that an official reprimand was adequate punishment. They told her that her behaviour had been inappropriate but not scandalous and that she was unlikely to repeat it.

The committee chairman said that she had an obligation to treat the cadavers with respect but had not done so and had abused her professional position.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Vet tech lost her cool when she provided advice on Reddit and it was justified

Male cat with serious urinary tract disease. Pic: Reddit.com

I like this response from a vet tech on the Reddit.com website to the question: "My cat has kidney problem, he is urinating blood, does anyone know how I can help him?" - serious urinary tract disease and they are fiddling around on social media!

Can you believe it? A cat owner looking for advice on a social media site/forum on a serious illness suffered by their male cat. It is madness. The only thing to do is to call the vet and by the looks of it they have already delayed doing this. But this either didn't occur to them or they shunned the thought because they wanted to save money at the expense of seriously jeopardising their cat's life.

There is a terrible resistance to taking cats to vets. It is not quite the same for dogs. Some cat owners will do all they can to avoid going to the vet. This must lead to unnecessary deaths from time to time. 

The post is indicative of a section of cat owners who don't have the financial resources to discharge their responsibilities as a cat caregiver to a necessary standard. Or to put it another way: they can't afford to keep a cat. Perhaps there should be a mandated threshold by law. Only people with X amount of money can have cats. That's dreamland as it will never happen but it would save the lives of cats.

Note: This is an embedded Reddit post. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

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Good and bad ear-tipping

Over the years of writing about cats, bad ear-tipping returns like a bad penny. It seems to pop up from time to time. It can only be due to negligence or a careless approach. And I will suggest that this carelessness comes about because ear-tipping is normally carried out on feral cats. Feral cats have a lower value in the eyes of humankind than domestic cats. This lower value engenders negligence.

There are two images on this page. One shows what I would regard as a good job on ear-tipping and some errors. The other shows an horrific job on ear-tipping. Ironically, the very poor surgery was carried out on a domestic cat by a vet tech under the supervision of a veterinarian at an animal rescue centre in Cabot, USA.

Good and bad ear tipping. Pics in public domain.

Horrific ear-tipping. Pic: Danyelle Freeman.

The veterinarian excused the error by saying that the vet tech thought the cat was feral. And he also said that they were very busy in providing a discount service. But there is no difference to the surgical process whether you are carrying it out on a feral or domestic cat. Indeed, there is no need to do the surgery on a domestic cat. The case concerned a domestic cat.

If a vet tech does this to a domestic cat you must call into question their attitude more than their ability. The surgery is absolutely minimal. Anybody can do it. It does not require skill. It requires the right attitude. And it seems to me that this vet tech has a poor attitude towards the welfare of animals. I would question whether they should be a vet tech.

Although, to be fair, they were carrying out a discount service and therefore must be praised for that aspect of their work. The veterinarian concerned apologised as did the mayor of the town. The veterinarian described it as an accident. I would describe it as negligence.

When ear-tipping goes wrong this is what happens: too much is taken off the ear. And sometimes the right ear is tipped rather than the left. It should be the left. There are alternatives to the surgery: tattooing the inside of the ear flap is one way.

There are advantages to ear-tipping. People know that the cat has been sterilised. This helps to protect them in urban environments where a lot of people don't like feral cats. Also a lot of people don't like domestic cats wandering around. Sometimes vigilante-types like to trap someone's pet and take them to the pound or an animal shelter. This is a crime but if the cat is ear-tipped they at least know that he or she is neutered.

This may help to protect them and it gives the impression that the cat's presence is authorised by the local authority. This is because sometimes local authorities become involved in TNR programs which includes ear-tipping.

The bottom line reason for poor ear-tipping is a poor attitude towards the value of cats particularly feral cats. It indicates a lack of respect for feral cats which is not a good look for a veterinary clinic. Veterinarians should respect all animals as it underpins all the work that they do.