Heartbroken owner pours heart out on social media
A tribute so touching – and furious – to the little cat shot twice by a Lisbon surgeon in a touristic resort in Tróia, has opened a real can of worms.
It shows how misleading accounts can be in the national press. How what really happened can be so very different.
And it opens the debate on why it was even thought printable that the reason for shooting the cat in the first place was that CUF orthopedic surgeon Manuel Passarinho thought it was “a stray”.
The story, repeated by the Resident yesterday, suggested the little cat shot on August 24 in the Soltroia resort near Grandola had only hurt one of her paws.
The real story is that she struggled for five days against the odds of having two airgun pellets lodged in her body (one close to her intestines) and fractures sustained in the ‘fall from a great height’ (precipitated by her assailant), before succumbing to her injuries, and dying.
Yesterday’s story described how police have ‘identified’ Manuel Passarinho.
It sounds from the post over Facebook by the cat’s inconsolable owner that she means to prosecute the surgeon – irrespective of the fact that he has offered to pay the veterinarian fees – to ensure “no more cats are cruelly and unreasonably mistreated in this sad country…”
The case is “already in court. None of this will bring my beloved little cat back”, she accepts. But this is a mission in the dead animal’s memory and honour.
As for the post, it makes very hard reading: the cat was ‘on holiday’ in the resort, with her owner. She had taken days to become accustomed to the luxury of a garden, and was still fearful. The ‘awful day’ came because of an open door: the owner says she never imagined for a minute the cat would leave the house voluntarily, but she did – and then became confused (as all the houses like alike in that area), ending up on a high wall on the third floor of a house below.
“I looked up to see you lying on the wall with no way out and I heard and saw a projectile streaking past you, scared to death. I immediately shouted for them to stop that barbarity, saying that you were my kitten! You had mistakenly entered the house with the same layout as ours because we were in a condominium of townhouses that were all the same.
“But someone with a shotgun was trying to hit you?! How was that possible? I asked to go in and get you, but I was prevented from doing so by being thrown down the stairs of that house of such evil, prehistoric people!
“Already on the street and increasingly terrified, I looked up again and called out to you. You were so high! I was petrified! I immediately feared the worst… I’m sorry, my sweet kitten! I was crying and screaming for you, you were looking down fearfully and with two bullets in your body you were crying… it was horrible!
“Suddenly I saw one of the culprits of this exaggeration and this criminal action, trying to get to you through the wall with his hand on your neck; he was immediately scratched by you, you were panicking, of course you were – (someone) who had hit you with a shotgun was now trying to get to you?! You reacted! Of course you did! With his other hand he grabbed you by the tail and you bit back – and his reaction was to let you go mid-air, shaking you away.
“You landed on the ground and I ran over to you and picked you up in my arms, I saw straight away that you had a broken paw and probably several internal and external haemorrhages … I rushed you to hospital all the time with the hazard lights on, sobbing! I told you I love you … I had your blood on my hands!
“You resisted all medical procedures until yesterday, but they weren’t enough to save you. Even on Monday, when I visited you, you made that purr of hope… that all the love I had for you would overcome that fall, but it wasn’t possible”.
From this powerful account, it certainly doesn’t look like the cat was shot ‘by mistake’; nor that any great heed was taken by the implorings of her owner.
By coincidence, the original story has already generated ‘outrage’ on social media pages, including ‘Portugal Propaganda – the truth about living here’ used by foreigners who have moved to this country, and found themselves disappointed by certain attitudes and aspects.
