Posted February 18th, 2009 at 11:25 pm in Pet Stories

I have read some interesting stories about how people treat animals but this one is a first. It seems that a pet groomer in Pennsylvania decided to market what was referred to as "gothic kittens" with ear, neck and tail piercings (you supply the trench coat) and then offering them for sale on the Internet. The SPCA in Wilkes-Barr received an anonymous tip by an animal lover that animals were being abused and the groomers home was raided. Authorities have now charged her with animal cruelty and ordered her to stand trial.

I could never do this to any animal, much less a defenseless kitten but my question to readers is this: should she be prosecuted for animal cruelty? I would like to hear her testimony as to how the piercings were performed, did she in fact, inflict pain on the cats by doing the piercings without anesthetic? Could putting a ring in a cats ear be any more cruel or painful than removing their front claws? Just the thought of having my nails ripped out gives me the shivers and I would take an ear piercing over that any day!

There are no laws in Pennsylvania about piercing cats but there are laws about inflicting pain. I think that this woman may have gone over the top with the gothic thing but gee whiz, you should see my grand kids! They are pierced from one end to the other, their "holes" become infected and it has to be painful. I can't understand why they do it but unlike our animals – they can choose to be mutilated.