A cat proprietor has launched a petition to alter the legislation after her beloved pet was savaged to dying by an XL bully canine.
Becky Quane, from Birmingham, tragically misplaced her three-year-old cat Freya final month however had no authorized recourse to prosecute the homeowners of the canine that killed Freya.
This is as a result of solely canine on canine assaults might be pursued by police, and as well as, motorists who hit a canine with their automobile should report this, however the identical doesn’t apply for cats.
Re-living the day her cat was killed, Becky informed GB News:“By the looks of it, she died instantly.
Freya was tragically mauled to death by an XL Bully
Change.org/Becky Quane
“He’d got the back of her leg and she hadn’t stood a chance because this dog was an XL Bully who had jumped the fence and killed her in my sister’s garden.
“I’ve gone into, like, a state of shock, I couldn’t be in the house because they had her body in a box and then I’ve called the police and been like ‘this is what’s happened, it’s an XL bully’.
“Even though it had happened on my sister’s garden, I couldn’t do anything.”
Britain is a nation of animal lovers with 31% of us proudly owning a canine and 26% of Brits proudly owning a cat, in response to information from UK Pet Food – this equates to 11 million pet cats and 12 million pet dogs within the UK in 2023.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
XL Bullies have joined the record of banned canine breeds because the begin of the 12 months (inventory pic)
Wiki Commons pictures/ Dlexus
Becky believes that cats ought to have the identical rights in legislation that dogs do and after Freya’s tragic dying, Becky began a petition to strengthen authorized protections for cats and to permit for prosecution of canine homeowners whose dogs attack, injure or kill cats.
“I don’t want other people as much as possible to go through what happened to me or my sister or all these people that have signed my petition now, as it’s over 100,000 now, which I wasn’t expecting,” Becky informed GB News.
“I love them [her cats] I view them as my children, I don’t have kids, but they are my kids, and for her [Freya] to be taken away like that and I can’t do anything legally, like we had to pay for her to be cremated at the vet, I didn’t even get an apology from the [dog] owners, nothing, it’s wrong.
“I just want to make the world a better place because animals can’t speak, they don’t have a voice of their own, so it’s down to people like us to speak for them.”
The calls to alter the legislation are supported by The Sheffield Cats Shelter who’ve been working to assist and rehome cats since 1897.
The charity’s aims are to alleviate and forestall the struggling and misery amongst cats in want of care and a spotlight and to advertise the welfare of cats, in addition to discovering new properties for cats and kittens in want.
Nick Holland is the Communications and Fundraising Coordinator at The Sheffield Cats Shelter.
He informed GB News: “Cats should have the same rights, they’re family pets, and people who lose a cat to a dog attack or a road traffic accident feel the same trauma and the same loss that a dog owner does, so cats are just as valuable as dogs, but at the moment the law doesn’t see that.
“Some people who aren’t cat owners seem to think that dogs are more important than cats, or that cats aren’t as valuable or as friendly a pet as a dog would be, and that’s completely unfair really.
“It’s only fair that they have the same rights and the same protection, so if this petition goes to a government level and they decide to back the changes, we would love that, and it would give cats so much more protection.”
Becky believes that cats ought to have the identical rights in legislation that dogs do (inventory pic)
WikiCommons
Calls to strengthen the legislation to guard cats are additionally supported by the nationwide charity, Cats Protection, and has additionally been campaigning for a selected offence inside present laws on harmful dogs to permit for prosecution of canine homeowners whose dogs attack, injure or kill cats.
The charity says this would scale back the variety of cats killed and injured by dogs in addition to permit cat homeowners closure for his or her injured or killed pets and that it might additionally guarantee a constituent response from police and native authorities throughout England when coping with canine assaults on cats, which is presently not the case.
In addition, Madison Rogers, Cats Protection’s Head of Advocacy and Government Relations, mentioned: “Dog attacks on cats are a terrifying experience for the cat, their owner, and the wider community.
“The vast majority of dog owners are responsible and keep their dogs under control, however, when a dog does attack a cat, it is usually because the owner fails to control their dog.
“Such attacks often result in the death of a cat and witnesses can be left with long-lasting trauma. When vicious attacks take place in public, it can be deeply worrying and upsetting for the whole community.”
With greater than 100,000 individuals signing Becky’s petition, there may be actually a power of feeling from the general public that extra ought to be performed to legally defend cats.
To signal the petition, click on right here – https://www.change.org/p/strengthen-legal-protections-for-cats-in-uk-law
