Couple recorded torturing, throwing kitten on Florida beach

[Sighlass]

Thank you for the video @Kamaji ...

I watched and it was light tosses in the water (not slinging it to where the cat could not land feet first)... The guy was petting the kitten at one point. I didn't see "passing out" nor was a 3 foot throw into soft water anything more than my cat jumping from my shoulders would endure (less actually). That said, the couple thinking they were above the law (no animals on the beach) was a problem.

Just yesterday I held our kitten after it's bath in a towel while it dried (wife or kids gave it the bath)... I placed it under my shirt and kept it warm while it dried... but we don't consider it cruelty to get a cat wet in the tub or in the swimming pool. We don't toss it but still I don't see it as worse than what my cat does when it jumps off my shoulders (it wants to go with me everywhere and I take it to the shed with me often where it rides until it tires of me). I keep a food bowl and water in the shed with me, then I let it roam in yard with my dog (gentle beagle) for a bit (it will be more an outside porch (heated but access to outside) cat. It was a stray my son picked up a few weeks ago, we don't let it stay outside until fully accustomed to our home surroundings (takes a week or two).

The "savior" in the video says the kitten was "barely alive" and "all shaking"... Has she ever gave an animal a bath before? They all shake during the drying process. That proves nothing... Swimming is a physical exercise, of course if you keep a pet in the water too long you can harm/kill it, but brief encounters with water is perfectly fine. Again, the black couple could of been cruel, but I didn't see it and too many facts are omitted to let one judge if it was actually mistreatment or just a Karen that didn't like seeing a cat get wet.

[aligncare]

Lucky for that pair of miscreants I wasn’t there.  I’d have scratched their eyes out.

Joking aside, it was clearly mistreatment and NO ONE gets away with abusing a cat (or dog) in my presence.

[sneakypete]

Perhaps I am just missing something.... I toss my kitten that likes to climb up on my back on the bed or chairs (with pillows). They are pretty stout creatures if tossing them on something soft even from a distance. They do land on their feet for a reason as they often climb trees and jump from over 6-8 feet in the air to the ground. Water though not their preferred media is soft and cats do swim quite proficiently. We bath our cats quite frequently ourselves... Sorry, but somehow I can see this as being written out of worse than it was. Tossing a cat from a boat to drown is one thing, but playing with your cat in the water with no intention of letting it drown is another. The line between torture is often misread by people that might perceive wetting a cat as cruel. There was a reason I often washed cats for the vet I worked for as a teenager, people wanted clean animals (and flea free before flea pills)... but were unwilling to do the work or didn't want to be seen a acting cruel to their own pets. A good wash in the ocean I imagine would cause fleas to jump off naturally helping the kitten in the long run.

Just a different perspective.

@Sighlass

You may well be right and I am wrong,but it sure didn't look to me like "playing" is what they were doing in the video.

AND.....,is is one thing to give a kitten/cat a bath in a tub in the house where the cat can see "dry land" nearby,but that huge mass of water had to have scared the hell out of that kitten,who was swimming to an owner to be saved,only to be tossed back into the water.

[sneakypete]

I read that, and it may be true or just written that way... was there video?
Lets count the adjectives used... that are subjective.
1. Disturbing/Sick (instead of sweet/playful)
2. Tiny (healthy kitten like mine)
3. Good Samaritan (Nosy Karen)
4. Save (it was fine)
5. Helpless (Perfectly fine)
6. Badly Battered (not a scratch on it)
7. Struggled (natural swim, all swimming can be called a struggle no matter the animal involved, but it does not mean something natural as swimming is life threatening struggle).

Again, they could of been cruel or not, judging by the picture all we have is the "offenders" were black. If there was a video I missed it, but I run so many adblock programs that it sometimes blocks things others see.

The reason I don't take articles like this more seriously is because the SPCA locally accused my wife's grandmother of cruelty when it wasn't. She had a dog that was plain stupid and bad to run in the busy road beside her house... so she chained it where it had a long lead and could go under the house in bad weather (had a warm area with clean linen). Plenty of food and water. But they drove by and it was standing in the rain and they accused her of animal cruelty. Ticked me off, perhaps they preferred to drive by and see it dead beside the road with flies crawling on it. It was just a dumb dog that she liked (she walked it daily)...

@Sighlass

Ok,consider this:

1:While it is true that cats are good swimmers,it is also true the ocean is NOT their natural habitat.

2:The kitten was swimming from one to the other hoping to be rescued,and instead was tossed back into the ocean.

3:Animal cruelty at a MINIMUM.

The truth is,if that couple has any small children and I were a cop,I would be having some people at the local hospital take some VERY close looks at those children.

[sneakypete]

@Sighlass

Video was recorded, and it does not look like these two were being playful with a kitten they cared for.


https://youtu.be/51uSJO_S9RY

@Kamaji

That young woman in the green dress could be a friend of mine if she played her cards right.

[Sighlass]

@Sighlass

You may well be right and I am wrong,but it sure didn't look to me like "playing" is what they were doing in the video.

AND.....,is is one thing to give a kitten/cat a bath in a tub in the house where the cat can see "dry land" nearby,but that huge mass of water had to have scared the hell out of that kitten,who was swimming to an owner to be saved,only to be tossed back into the water.

Ok, here is what I saw, yall can call me out if you see things differently... People playing with their cat in the water while submerged about chest high (more/less with waves)... tossing cat from 2-3 feet away (guy tosses a foot more than lady did) again while chest high in water so it was not a big drop at all... The video is cut so we are not allowed to see the rests between tosses (it was not one right after the other as the video cut showed)... We see the man petting the cat before tossing it (do you pet things you are trying to hurt?). The woman claims the cat was passing out (again the video does not show that)... Pete brings up the point that it was salt water, but I have been to the ocean and the salt water did not hurt any more than chlorine water.

I just don't see what they did as cruelty... perhaps the tv show didn't show the worse, but one would think that for shock value they showed the worse they could which IMHO wasn't much at all...

Pete brings up the cat could see dry land in a tub... Having washed more cats than probable anyone else on this forum, I will try to explain how my washing went. First the tub was a typical bathtub except it was raised 4-5 feet in the air so you didn't have to bend over to wash them (all the cat could see was ceiling/you and the sides of the slick tub). You liked to fill the warm water first because splashing sounds tend to scare the cats and with luck you could set the cat down in the water before they got too scared. Some cats took it well (usually ones that had been subjected to water before) and others would try to climb your arm to get out of the water. So yes, those cats that had been conditioned to water usually did better than ones that never got baths. You liked to do enough water to leave only the head of the cat out of the water so the fleas ran to the head and you could pick the blood suckers off, often the fleas would just jump and drown. So yes, the cats often swam when you didn't have them held (most time you held them) instead of standing on the bottom of the tub. Cats took a milder prytherin (<--spelled wrong) concentration dip than dogs because dog concentrations could kill the feline. Often we dried the cats with a towel after a bath/dip and put a small heater on their stainless steel cages for an hour or so. After drying the cats would feel much better and often would act like a new revived creatures.

Now days with "flea drops" and "flea pills" I imagine some people have cats that have never seen water. That wasn't always so.

[Sighlass]

Lucky for that pair of miscreants I wasn’t there.  I’d have scratched their eyes out.

Joking aside, it was clearly mistreatment and NO ONE gets away with abusing a cat (or dog) in my presence.

Guess you never lived on a farm, when the wild cat population got out of control, you took your 22 rifle and thinned the crowd, being careful not the kill the matriarch grandmother cat that taught the younger kittens how to kill and eat the rats instead of just playing with them. 

Now days without the "teacher" cat, most cats just kill birds without care because they rather play kill than actually kill to eat... thus the decline in birds across America (not to mention wind mills).

[aligncare]

Thing is @Sighlass  I strongly believe that humans have a moral obligation to protect cats and dogs (actually all animals under their care).  Myself, I live in a big city and I rescue cats out of that sense of obligation and out of a love for them. I can’t help myself. It’s something I must do.

When I was young I was horrified by the old tales of farmers drowning a litter of kittens (done for some reason obscure to me now).  But, I hated the thought of that practice.  Probably part of the reason I rescue cats today.

[sneakypete]

Thing is @Sighlass  I strongly believe that humans have a moral obligation to protect cats and dogs (actually all animals under their care).  Myself, I live in a big city and I rescue cats out of that sense of obligation and out of a love for them. I can’t help myself. It’s something I must do.

When I was young I was horrified by the old tales of farmers drowning a litter of kittens (done for some reason obscure to me now).  But, I hated the thought of that practice.  Probably part of the reason I rescue cats today.

@aligncare

You can't be a farmer and be an animal lover. Sure,farmers love their pet dogs and maybe even some of the cats they let live in their barns to keep the mice population down,but in the end,they are "farm tools",not pets. When they have outlived their usefullness,they are put down and the money that was being spent to feed and provide vet care for them is spent on a new,young animal.

REAL farming is a business,not a hobby.

[verga]

Ok, here is what I saw, yall can call me out if you see things differently...

@Sighlass The man was arrested and charged with ANIMAL CRUELTY, and they did not retrieve the cat from the shelter. This is the part where you say "Ooops i was completely wrong."

[sneakypete]

@Sighlass The man was arrested and charged with ANIMAL CRUELTY, and they did not retrieve the cat from the shelter. This is the part where you say "Ooops i was completely wrong."

@verga

Which does not mean he didn't try to get the  kitten back. With him facing animal cruelty charges,there was no way in hell they were going to give the kitten back to him.

[berdie]

@Sighlass I see where you are coming from. But frankly, if the people involved wanted to play catch...they should have just bought a beachball. jmho The things you are talking about in your life with your cat do not equate with this.

[Sighlass]

@Sighlass The man was arrested and charged with ANIMAL CRUELTY, and they did not retrieve the cat from the shelter. This is the part where you say "Ooops i was completely wrong."

@Sighlass The man was arrested and charged with ANIMAL CRUELTY, and they did not retrieve the cat from the shelter. This is the part where you say "Ooops i was completely wrong."

Yes he was arrested... and NO I will not appolige in the least bit... They should of been arrested for not complying with the no animal law on the beach and resisting. But I saw no animal cruelty and explained exactly why a couple of times on this thread.

People now days are over-sensitized to "animal abuse" and perhaps a little over fond of assigning rights to animals while at the same time reducing the value of human life. @verga  Our animals shelters are overstocked with animals that because of the "sensitivity" of folks we have millions of cats dumped on other bleeding hearts to take care of. We have a society that full of animal lovers (above caring for their fellow man) but also "animal lovers as long as they are cute young things". When tired of the "pets" they carry them 2 miles down the road and drop them off for others to care for, or for others to trap and send to shelters that put down most of them.

I wanted a dog, ours had died, went to the shelter and they wanted to come inspect my home and do surprise visits... to hell with that (and because of it some dog that could of had a good home was put to death). We spay and neuter all our animals because I no longer live on a real farm (I do have couple of acres we garden), my cat is sitting beside me as I type this (armchair of my recliner). I love animals and have raised everything from Peacocks to albino deer, from flying squirrels to turtles, from guineas to wood ducks... but when a pet becomes subject to random strangers passing by and judging that some animals should be treated like a small princess, I push back at the notion. How dare I have an outside dog (well I have it on an electric fence and it stays in it's yard)... I let my cat out at night and it roams (but I make it clear to the neighbors if they have a problem with it roaming too far feel free to punt it out of their yard)... How dare I ... but if you have a dog coming in my yard, I don't think it is wrong to do something about it (shoo it the first time, smack it the second time, and kill it if necessary if threatening)... If I come in your yard and your dog is aggressive, it is doing it's job, if it comes in the street and bites my wife while she walks by, then I will take care of it (warning the owner once). Don't put an animal above human life, and don't butt in other's treatment of their animals. If you want to raise dogs to eat (or cats), then more power to you. If that ticks you off, well so be it, that is how I feel. They are soulless animals that society seems to have put on a pedestal, that I happen to personally adore but within reason.

Why are cats/dogs more valued than rats? Because we have assigned to them a selective value due to "cuteness". A man made 1st world attribution, but the Bible put us over dominion over animals for a reason (not them over us). My cousin runs a farm, he shoots deer year round that dig up his strawberry fields, he shoots lots of critters because they affect his livelihood and it ticks some folks off. I kill lots of critters that destroy my property (raccoons, possums, armadillos, skunks, rats, foxes, pigs, and stray cats that are starving). I used to capture mother cats with her brew of new born kittens and give them away the best I could (wife mostly did it)... soon we ran out of friend that could take more. My wife is more soft-hearted than I am, but even she got tired of it. The last vestige was farm folks that did as we use to do (have them control the rat populations), but even they so grew cold to us taking advantage of them. The local shelters don't have the manpower to run what they have, much less time to trap. Here in the country (city limits) the animals can overrun you since people no long hunt like the old days. We have one cat lady neighbor that must have a good 15 cats or more that she lets run amuck without spaying. The only restraint is she can't afford to keep them fed and when food becomes scarce they just go rogue and end up living anywhere they can find and since I own a lot of acres in town I end up hosting them most the time around my storage house. If everyone was as soft-hearted as this forum, the dogs/cats would be the ruin of folks like us.