So he was when we reached out and begged him to be the lead photographer on our “The Ultimate Dog-Lover” and “The Ultimate Cat-Lover” (Equine photographer Sarah K. Andrew, whose RockandRacehorses blog is on the left rail, is the lead photographer on our “The Ultimate Horse-Lover.”)

The photography was just about my favorite part of the books — full-color glories that celebrate what our Dr. Becker calls “The Bond,” that special connection we have with animals.

Troy is drawn to the less fortunate of our animals. He has spent countless hours on the streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, caring for and documenting the animals struggling alongside the people there.  The warm weather and boom of rodent populations in the months following the disaster triggered geometric growth in the feral cat population, some kittens born to cats already wild, some to pets left behind when the neighborhoods were washed away.

This morning’s mail brought a note from Troy. He is again using his camera to help animals, this time with modest project: “CATS: Feral Felines by Troy Snow,” a calendar for 2010 with proceeds to benefit the work of Alley Cat Allies.

He apologizes for it being a tad expensive ($17.49), which is also so very Troy. He lives on a shoestring, and is well aware of how many others do, too.

But he needn’t apologize: Having a year of Troy Snow images to enjoy and knowing that the calendar meant a donation for a really good group, well, that’s a bargain at prices far higher than this.

Buy. Buy. Buy.

There are certain attitudes, biases, assumptions and cliches that just won’t shift, no matter what real world, documented evidence or reasoned argument is put before them.

—Pets are a luxury, if you ever can’t afford something for your pet, you’re bad and unworthy and don’t deserve a pet.

—S/N is the MOST important measure of pet owner responsibility. Whether you could not afford the procedure or have a health screened titled dog you’ve chosen not to alter, you are bad and irresponsible

—Being intact is cruel. Sorry, being intact, with normal healthy organs is cruel? Nope. But intact pets do need a bit different management and those organs are inconvienent for many owners and after a certain age, the pet will be fine without them. so long as the decision is between a vet and owner I sure as hell have no issue with spay/neuter. Most of my pets are or will be altered, but a male dog in possession of his testicles does not equal suffering

—If you breed a litter you have automatically killed the same number of pets in the shelter. Does not matter that there are more than enough homes and if shelter were able to gain just a small amount more market share, 5-10% depending on regional circumstances, we could get all placeable pets into homes.

—there is no such thing as a responsible breeder, they’re all the same

—All the opposition to MSN is from the wicked breeders

—Breeders ALL make a lot of money (HaH! Ha hahahha We could have bought another HOUSE on what has gone into the dogs over 20 years. I am NOT exaggerating )

—Feral cats are all the fault of bad owners, they are all only one generation out of homes and if we make the bad owners spay and neuter them then the feral problem will magically disappear. And if you click your heels together and wish really hard…

—Those kittens flooding the shelters every spring all come from bad owners cats, because feral cats don’t have kittens where you can find them and remember, the moms weren’t really feral.

—TNR does not work. And even if it works, it’s cruel because the cats would be better of dead than be at risk outdoors. And even if being outside is not cruel, they kill wildlife.

Side note here: Yes, they do kill wildlife. Not to the extent that they are blamed probably. Feral colonies do not belong near endangered species breeding grounds etc.. But in most urban and suburban settings the real killer is development. I’m rural and help manage a colony and because the wildlife has natural habitat, it is thriving in spite of the cats. plus as ferals age, they tend to eshew the birds for the kibble, word.

And even if cats are responsible for every crime they are accused of A century of catch and kill has utterly failed to eliminate ferals. TNR has documented success in reducing numbers and numbers of kittens. Go with what works folks!

—If you ever go into a shelter and see the animals there, you would never breed, oppose MSN blah blah… Sorry, I’ve been in a lot of shelters. Like MANY dedicated breeders I pull dogs from shelters and rescue other breeds and mixes and species when they cross my path.

—Pets are all interchangeble. If the person who wants a small lap dog can’t find one they will be happy to come adopt an 85 lb lag mix or a cat instead.

—People who buy a pet are evil or ignorant. people who adopt acquire automatic virtue. Does not matter what kind of home they actually are.

There are more but you get the idea. And it does not matter what arguments are brought forth or how much hard evidence you present.

Being that rock solid sure of a conviction must be nice for them, but it’s not constructive. We need real-world solutions and strategies that actually work. If something has failed for decades, it’s failed, time to move on and evolve.

Amen, Jen!

The two-hour session featured three speakers: Sue Cosby, executive director of the Animal Welfare Association in New Jersey (and fellow Twitterer); Bonney Brown, executive director of Nevada Humane Society; and Mike Fry, executive director of Animal Ark in Minnesota. They shared their strategies for keeping animals moving through the shelter system, limiting disease, increasing adoptability through socialization and marketing, and keeping animals with their people.

Here’s Cosby:

The most important thing you need to think about with no-kill sheltering is a sense of urgency for the animals coming into your shelter. Decide on a shelter model. Who are you taking in? Come up with a business plan on who you can/must take in and who else can take them. Work with rescue groups to take animals off your books, so to speak.

That’s a radical change from so many shelters that aren’t willing to work with purebred or other rescue groups. I can hear them screaming now that shelters working with rescue groups aren’t playing fair and are manipulating their numbers by doing so. Fail. Anyway, back to Cosby.

Feral cats don’t have any option when they come into your shelter. If you’re not re-releasing them because you’re not allowed to by law, you need to proactively get into the community and prevent those cats from coming into your shelter to begin with.

When I spoke with Alley Cat Allies a couple of years ago, Becky Robinson estimated that 70 percent of the cats in shelters were feral. That’s what helps to drive up the numbers of animals euthanized–when communities don’t institute TNR programs and instead prefer to euthanize feral cats. As a side note, one of the books in our goodie bags included TNR Past Present and Future: A History of the Trap-Neuter-Return Movement by Ellen Perry Berkeley. I’ve just skimmed it, but it looks like an excellent read and, among other things, addresses the belief that feral cats are a danger to songbirds. Check it out. Next, Cosby addresses the issue of vaccination. We’re all aware of the concern over excessive vaccination, but for shelter animals she has a different point of view.

Vaccinate immediately upon entry. Animals are not dying in shelters from overvaccination. Vaccination keeps them healthy. Shelters are often shut down from vaccine-preventable diseases. Put effort into keeping the shelter clean and animals healthy.

Toward that end, she recommends using disposable litter boxes and disposable food and water dishes. French fry trays make good food dishes and styrofoam soup cups make good water containers. What about the environment? Cosby would rather save a cat’s life today and figure out later how to do it in a more environmentally friendly way. She notes that no one likes to scrub litter boxes, so using disposable ones is a better way to prevent the spread of disease. Another favorite disease-prevention tool: gloves, gloves and more gloves.

We’d rather buy gloves than antibiotics and euthanasia solution. Handle every animal as though it’s diseased when it comes into your shelter. Spend your efforts on keeping animals safe, healthy and happy. Provide opportunities for people to stay clean in your shelter.

In Cosby’s shelter, cleanliness is next to catliness. Her advice sounds obvious, but of course that’s where most of us run into problems with anything: thinking that what we know is obvious to everyone else as well. She advises using appropriate disinfectants–Lysol is harmful to cats, for instance–and keep hand sanitizer everywhere. At this point, she demonstrated just how long it was necessary to rub sanitizer on damp hands for it to be effective. It went on for at least a minute. Good to know in these flu-ridden times. She goes on to discuss privacy issues, and no, we’re not talking Roe v. Wade or the constitutionality of school strip searches.

Don’t house dogs and cats together; the dogs will scare the cats and they won’t act adoptable. Give cats a nice, quiet room and blankets, towels and hiding places like boxes. This is for animals just coming in; give them some chill time. Teach staff how to recognize stress and disease and when there might be a problem. Be creative in coming up with ways to give animals privacy.

Other factors to consider: The question is not is this animal adoptable but is this animal savable? Upper respiratory infections, fungal infections, injured/hit by car, mange, parvovirus, panleukopenia, FIV/FeLV–Cosby says in most cases these animals are savable. Her goal is to build an isolation area with lots of big windows so the public can see all the animals that are available and show them what their donations are doing.

Be able to say to the public: Look at the animals we’re saving right now. Make those animals available for rescue and adoption. The power is not what you do in the four walls of your shelter; it’s what the community does.

After discussing her shelter’s Free to Great Home program, which adopts animals older than 8 years or that have expensive medical problems at no charge, she ended with advice on how to know when to euthanize. Hint: it’s not when animals look bad or sound bad. It’s only when they’re diagnosed bad: they are irremediably suffering, or their condition is unmanageable or has a poor or grave prognosis.

I had hoped to finish this tonight, but it’s almost midnight, I’m tired, and I want to do justice to Bonney Brown and Mike Fry, so more tomorrow.

But more details later about that, as I said.  Instead, I was thinking about what our ever-professional contact at Aspen, Kelly Nelson, wrote recently in sending over the information on the prizes. “TGIF!!!,” she wrote. “What a whip of week!”

That phrase has really stuck with me, and this has been one whip of a week.

If I weren’t so darn busy, I would stay in bed and pull the covers over my head.

It started Sunday when my brother hit some road debris on the Interstate. His car’s front tires shredded under him, but he was able to pull to the shoulder without further damage or — most importantly — without any injury to himself. But the arrangement of the tow truck, the moving of people and vehicles here and there, the decisions (two tires, or all four?) just seemed to be a yawning vortex of time-suck that the whole family was dragged into. And the expense — not covered by insurance — was considerable, $1,100 to put four new shoes on the T-bird, plus alignments of various sorts. My brother’s a teacher, and that kind of dough is never easy to turn over. But what can you do?

The news wasn’t better on Monday, even if I wasn’t personally involved. And all animal-related, in one way or another:

• The ongoing deaths of babies in China proves for sure that certain elements in the Chinese manufacturing community and the government didn’t care about the death of thousands of pets from adulterated ingredients in 2007. They don’t care about their own children, so you know they didn’t care about our pets … or American children, for that matter. The Wild West of Chinese capitalism continues to run amok, and the powers that be there don’t care about anything  except money. (Here’s the latest.)
• The leveling of entire communities along the Texas/Louisiana coast, by the one-two punch of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. These people are suffering, and so are many animals, domestic and wild, and this will continue for a long, long time, no matter how much help they get.
• The financial meltdown on Wall Street, which means the housing market isn’t getting any better any time soon.  When people leave their homes, their pets suffer, too. This week I’ve already gotten an significant uptick of e-mail (some meant for me, some meant for the rescue group of the same name in the Kansas City area) from people who are looking for options that will let them keep their pets when they lose their homes — or looking for places to take their pets when they can’t find pet-friendly housing. Not to mention: With so many people living on the razor’s edge of solvency, it’s easy to predict that even for those who can keep their pets, there may be sacrifices in terms of the care those animals get.

There’s more behind my malaise, but that the most of it.  Whip of a week? You betcha.

But then …

Our editor at Universal Press, Greg Melvin, rescued a feral kitten over the weekend. He was helping to handle a death in the family, on a farm a few states away. One of the barn cats had a litter with her, and she and her babies were all too wild to be pets, except one little kitten who walked right up to Greg and started purring. That little guy earned himself a plane ride back to Missouri and a great new home. Greg and his veterinarian are working to get the newly named Harry through the next couple of days. The kitten is loaded with every imaginable parasite and extremely malnourished. Dr. Becker and I both talked to Greg yesterday, to answer questions and offer encouragement.

Greg promises kitten pictures later just sent me a pic!

The Saving of Harry has been the only bright spot on what has been and likely will continue to be a Whip of Week. Never will I be so glad to see Friday come along.

I don’t support PETA, and I think only sheer laziness explains why the media keeps calling them for comment on any animal issue.

Why is anyone still listening to PETA?

But my view on the Humane Society of the Unites States is a lot more complex. I’ve known and respected many of their staffers for more than a quarter-century, and I’ve on balance agreed with the organization more then I’ve disagreed with them on a wide spectrum of issues. Not to mention: I see in them the ability to recognize a better way, which is very difficult sometimes for a large organization to do.

That’s why I was delighted to read this, on HSUS top dog Wayne Pacelle’s blog:

[Trap, Neuter, Release] is an idea whose time has come, and The HSUS strongly supports this active, humane management strategy.

Our March 2006 policy statement on TNR makes this support plain, but we’ve also made our commitment real by publishing works like Margaret R. Slater’s “Community Approaches to Feral Cats” and Bryan Kortis’ “Implementing a Community Trap-Neuter-Return Program,” designed to help cat advocates succeed with TNR programs in their own communities.

As part of our collaboration with Neighborhood Cats, Bryan Kortis and The HSUS’s Nancy Peterson provide daylong training sessions for TNR advocates through Humane Society University. We’ve also provided financial support to Neighborhood Cats and other groups to advance their work on TNR.

I’m pleased to report, too, that at our Animal Care Expo in May, we’ll debut a new CD/DVD on how to run a good community-wide TNR program.

We are also working hard on SafeCats, a program designed to keep household cats safe and indoors … and on our general spay and neuter work focusing on feline overpopulation. The HSUS has also done its best to bridge the gap with individuals and organizations in the birding and wildlife rehabilitation community, who view cats as an exotic species predating upon birds and other native wildlife. We’ve argued that a two-pronged program that focuses on 1) people keeping their household cats indoors and 2) cat allies and humane organizations managing outdoor colonies through TNR offers the best opportunity for maximizing public participation and helping cats and wildlife.

We’re not alone, of course, and I’m personally grateful to see Alley Cat Allies, Alley Cat Rescue, Neighborhood Cats, Best Friends, the ASPCA, and other groups working so hard on this front. A major challenge like this requires that kind of organizational unity, along with the contributions of literally thousands of volunteer cat advocates on the front lines in communities across the nation.

Here’s the rest. Good for you, Mr. Pacelle. Good for you. Now … care to talk about why laws that mandate the forced sterilization of the pets of responsible, loving pet-owners and reputable, ethical breeders isn’t the answer to getting shelter pets into new homes? Call anytime. You have the number.

Image: Let every cat be as loved as my beautiful little Clara, who is (as you can tell) part of the slight majority of cats who react strongly and happily to catnip!

***

Insomnia update: Oh, this is one great story of how much people care about animals! We all need a happy ending now and then.

Update from Christie: Another great story of how much people care. A friend of mine in Florida put out the call for help for Safe Harbor Animal Shelter and Hospital in Jupiter, Florida, which was destroyed in a fire earlier this week. I was out of town and missed his personal fundraising drive, but he raised $1500 in one day. That’s certainly inspiring, but then he told me that as of yesterday, the shelter had raised over $50,000 in donations, and all the homeless dogs (being kept in crates in the parking lot) had been adopted or fostered! They still have cats in need of shelter, so if you can help out and are anywhere near there, please consider giving them a hand.

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.

Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around.

Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city.

The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of them.

And yes, this is the same government that clubbed dogs to death, all to present a pretty face for the Olympics:

But the crackdown on cats is seen by animal campaigners as just one of a number of extreme measures being taken by communist leaders to ensure that its capital appears clean, green and welcoming during the Olympics.

Polluting factories in and around the city are being ordered to shut down or relocate during the Games to ease Beijing’s choking smog and drivers are allowed out on to the roads only three times a week.

Fares on the city’s underground network have been cut to just two yuan (14p) for any journey – a six-fold reduction on some routes – to keep people off buses, and beggars and street sleepers are being moved to out-of-town camps or given train fares back to their home provinces.

[...]

The cull of Beijing’s estimated 500,000 cat population is certain to provoke international outrage as it comes just over a year after the Chinese were criticised for rounding up and killing stray dogs across the country.

Is it any surprise that the deadly faking of pet-food ingredients has been going on for years? Until the Chinese companies got a little too ambitious/greedy and went so far as to kill thousands of pets in the United States and Canada last year, everything was hunky-dory in China’s Wild West economy.

***

Just when I have weaned myself nearly entirely from bottled water (the bottles are causing a huge waste problem, plus using fuel to fill and transport), the AP reports:

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

And animal health as well:

Veterinary drugs also play a role. Pets are now treated for a wide range of ailments — sometimes with the same drugs as humans. The inflation-adjusted value of veterinary drugs rose by 8 percent, to $5.2 billion, over the past five years, according to an analysis of data from the Animal Health Institute.

Um, AP? It’s not just pets. Think livestock. This news is yet another reason to reform the practice of factory farming, because drugs are used to keep animals “healthy” in jam-packed conditions. And thanks to regular reader Pat for pointing out the patronizing official response in this story:

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public “doesn’t know how to interpret the information” and might be unduly alarmed.

Yeah, because we’re sooooo stupid. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Give that official a ticket to the Olympics. Buh-bye.

And finally: Hartz is again recalling some of its cat vitamins. Salmonella.  Details here.

The Los Angeles City Council voted 10 to 1 Friday to approve mandatory sterilization of most dogs and cats at the age of 4 months or older, and city officials pledged low-key enforcement driven by complaints. The ordinance must get a second reading in a week, but it is expected to pass.

The measure, initiated by Councilman Richard Alarcon, offers exemptions for animals of licensed breeders, show animals and service animals.

Veterinarians who believe that sterilizing certain dogs and cats is too risky, or that four months is too young an age, can provide a letter to get the animals exempted.

The council decision Friday was greeted by cheers and a standing ovation from about 100 supporters, most wearing bright yellow stick-on badges proclaiming their position.

Proponents as well as dozens of critics filled the Van Nuys City Hall room where the council met Friday. Those in favor of mandatory sterilization and those against the measure spoke passionately and staked their positions on their concerns for healthy dogs and cats.

“The bottom line . . . is that all of you are here to save animals’ lives,” said Councilwoman Wendy Greuel.

Yes, because those of us who support no-kill solutions  (Maddie’s Fund and NoKillAdvocacyCenter) and the responsible, ethical breeding of healthy, well-socialized dogs and cats by breeders who remain responsible for those animals for life are all about killing animals.

Pretty interesting that L.A. goes this direction, considering that the L.A. Times is the news organization that has done the most to expose the selling of sick, underaged puppies from Mexican puppy-mills.

The winners in this bill? Meth-heads who abuse their pit bulls litter after litter and sell the puppies for cash aren’t going to be affected. Puppy mills who sell through the Internet or retail puppy boutiques — hello, Paris! — aren’t going to be affected. Feral cats … will keep producing more feral cats.

We’ve written about this legislation before. Click to read it all.

People who don’t pay attention to the laws now won’t in the future. And instead of a community-wide no-kill effort to truly reach the people who are causing the problems, we get feel-good crap legislation that punishes people who aren’t the problem.

Simple solutions rarely are either simple or solutions, and California is where the laws of unintended consequences are always the strongest.

***

This week I’ve got the third of three different but nonetheless extraordinary DogCars — the Honda Element SC, the new Volvo XC70 wagon and the new Mazda Tribute. I’m writing up my reviews of them all for the DogCars.com Web site today. The Tribute would be a wonderful DogCar by any measure, but the model I’ve been driving is even more spectacular — it’s a hybrid! (Alas, the hybrid model is in very limited production for 2008.)

Probably at least in part because of Misty, I’ve admired the work done by Alley Cat Allies for a long time. If you’re not familiar with them, they are a national group seeking non-lethal means of reducing feral cat population numbers. You can read more about them and the good work they do here.

In the last year the group has raised their profile quite a bit, and have been coming out with some very hard-hitting informational pieces.

One of the projects they’ve recently come up with is a video that says it so much better than I ever could:

I’ve never met Dr. K, but I adore her compassion and honesty, both of which come through with every word she writes. Her post on how veterinarians dread the flood of sick pet-store puppies around the holidays is something else. Love how the parents blame the veterinarian for “ruining my kid’s Christmas” when the parents were the morons who didn’t do any research before they pulled out a credit card at the mall (or clicked on an Internet “puppy-mill direct” Web site).

Anyway, here’s the post. The comments took off in a different direction when a pet-rescue volunteer piously informed all that her group won’t allow adoptions around Christmas. That sort of idiocy makes me crazy, so I happily jumped into the fray. See, every potential adopter isn’t incompetent, and for many — especially older singles — the holidays are a slow time that’s absolutely perfect for getting a new pet off to a good start. Heck, I know some businesses that even close the week between Christmas and New Year’s, whether the employees want it off or not.

Adoption guidelines are one thing; unbreakable rules are another.

As I’ve written before, some of my best adoptions when I was running a breed rescue were people who didn’t “pencil out” — a single woman who lived in an apartment, an older couple who wanted a very young dog and a middle-aged man living with his teenaged son in a very dicey neighborhood. All three homes had the dogs for life, and stayed in touch with me for years. They turned out to be a lot better home than the “perfect” family with the perfect fence, stay-at-home mom and expensive home in a nice neighborhood who dumped the dog I placed with them years later because the kids wanted a puppy instead.

Yes, I took my adoption placements seriously, but I also looked at the bigger picture and took chances on people who my gut told me would try their best. And they did!

For me, that’s the essential story of Nathan Winograd’s “Redemption”: We rescuers too often see people as guilty until proven innocent and often look for reasons not to place a pet. We gotta drop our egos and turn that around, so people and pets have a chance to be together. Who can blame people for getting puppy mill dogs, the way some shelters and rescue groups treat them?

Dr. K’s posts on small pets for kids and the feral cat-bird debate (along with the comments) are also good, thoughtful reads.

And speaking of good, thoughtful reading, Miss Christie should bring her elegant self back in here today, since she should have met her deadline crunch by now. I’m looking forward to her posts again.

Update: The animal-rights group PETA is out with a new ad for Christmas. If they understand what really going on in shelters it’s not evident. And geez, they somehow fail to note that they themselves are for the end to all domestic animals (no more exploitation of pets!), and have a 90 percent kill rate for all the pets they take in, in addition to advocating for the extermination of all pit bulls.

But I guess that’s your fault, not PETA’s. You made them do it, you evil people.

***

On the adoption front, personal: About a month has passed since Pip joined my family from German Shepherd rescue, and what a difference!  He’s still a gangly adolescent goofus, but he’s filling out beautifully and his coat has taken on a lustrous sheen. His manners have improved and his mild separation anxiety has diminished remarkably. I adore this silly boy, and he’s going to be a great dog with more training and maturity.

The command he hears most often? “Eaaaassyyyyyyy!” That’s because he plays rough, too rough for both my 11-year-old retriever (Heather) and the 9-week-old retriever (Otter). “Leave it!” is popular, too, with regard to the cat (Miss Clara) and the rabbit (Velocity).  Pip learns quickly and wants to please, so we’re doing pretty well overall.

I’m surprised, though, that for all his sheer adolescent enthusiasm he is of all the dogs in my home the absolute best with Otter the puppy. They play gentle “bitey face” games and he plays tug-of-war — and lets her win!

The prize for “most adaptable” would have to go to Clara. My lovely young cat is thoroughly unphased by the addition of a large dog and a little puppy, and seems to have come to like them both.

The trial of a prominent birdwatcher accused of animal cruelty for shooting a cat ended in a mistrial Friday after jurors couldn’t reach a verdict.

Jim Stevenson, the founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society, has admitted he shot the cat last fall because he saw it hunting a threatened species of bird near the San Luis Bridge Pass. If convicted, he would have faced up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The trial sparked an Internet debate between cat lovers who decry Stevenson’s actions and birders upset by the toll feral cats take on bird species. It’s also raised questions about what makes an animal a pet, especially if it lives outside.

Jurors deliberated for more than eight hours before the judge declared the mistrial.

“The jury was hopelessly deadlocked, so the government has to decide if they are going to waste more of taxpayers’ money trying this again,” said Stevenson’s attorney, Tad Nelson. “But they can try this a thousand times and they will never get a guilty because he didn’t commit a felony.”

Nelson said his client thought the cat was a stray. A state law bars the killing of domesticated animals without the owner’s permission.

But prosecutors argued that a toll bridge worker took care of the cat and named it “Mama Cat,” effectively becoming the pet’s owner. And they say Stevenson could have easily realized that if he’d looked around the bridge before firing.

The New York Times had a good piece on this case yesterday:

Mr. Stevenson, 54, does not deny using a .22-caliber rifle fitted with a scope to kill the cat, which lived under the San Luis Pass toll bridge, linking Galveston to the mainland. He also admits killing many other cats on his own property, where he operates a bed and breakfast for some of the estimated 500,000 birders who come to the island every year.

In her opening statement, Paige L. Santell, a Galveston County assistant district attorney, told the jury of eight women and four men that Mr. Stevenson “shot that animal in cold blood” and that the cat died a slow and painful death “gurgling on its own blood.”

She said that the cat had a name, Mama Cat, and that though the cat lived under a toll bridge, she was fed and cared for by a toll collector, John Newland. He is expected to testify.

Whether the cat was feral is the crucial point in this case. Mr. Stevenson was indicted under a state law that prohibited killing a cat “belonging to another.” Prompted by this case, the law was changed on Sept. 1 to include all cats, regardless of ownership.