Complaint Review: Terrific Cats Cattery - Beaumont Texas

Sun Apr 15, 2012 6:17 am (PDT)
I think just like everyone else I have been giving this issue lots of thought the last few days. I've asked myself this question: If I were in a situation like Karen's what would I want? Would I want my breeder friends to be the "nosey" ones or would I want Animal Control and like organizations to raid my home? I would much prefer that it be a breeder friend or a group of breeder friends than any authorities.

I think that we (as breeders and friends) cannot take "no" for an answer when we suspect that one of our own is in trouble. If they refuse our help then I feel we need to personally show up on their doorstep. There are signs that someone is in trouble. As Donna said there were those that suspected Karen was too. It cannot be dismissed. Especially in Karen's case when there was knowledge of the death of her mom and a dear friend. These are the triggers that cause the mental state to go awry. Someone should have been "nosey" and kept very close tabs on Karen.

Maybe we need to get a group of very trusted breeder friends together and exchange house keys... knowing that our friends have keys to our homes might keep us a bit more honest and possibly ask for help before our mental state won't allow us to anymore.

Maybe CFA could find a way to broaden the BAP program? It could consist of "sworn to secrecy" folks that could make home visits when trouble is suspected. I really feel like that this is our hobby and we really need to take a much stronger stand and police our own! PETA and like organizations will have no trouble at all doing the policing for us and then where will our hobby be?

April 15, 2012 2:24:43 AM
I think ----  raises a good point. What do you do when you *suspect* there may be a problem and offers to help are ignore or refused. When do you act and when do you not? Are there generally accepted indicator that problems might be brewing, or is each case different because the people are different?

I've heard that there were people who were concerned about Karen's well being but that that she insisted everything was fine and she didn't need any assistance. Clearly, that wasn't the case. Is there anything these people could have done differently that would have averted her tragedy? Surely, the various associations have developed some protocols and/or stradtegies for dealing with potential problems like the recent one with Karen.

Sun Apr 15, 2012 6:30 am (PDT)
I am thankful I have very nosey friends who will show up and make sure I am ok and the cats are fine. I know I can not block them out of my life and nor can they block me out. We do reach out and when one doesn't the other knows to. We have a great support group between us and it has grown over the years. I know they will step in and do what is needed ask or not. We all have friends in the fancy but how many really true friends that no matter what they are standing beside you to take the heat or shoulder some of burden you are carrying or give you a shoulder to cry on. Myself I didn't let many in and still don't but the few I have will be there for me and I for them. I have many friends but few true friends that will do this. To me a true friend will tell the truth and step in even if you don't want to hear it and do not want anyone to interfer. Finding this type of friend isn't easy but when you do you know they are there for the long haul not short term or because you have a wonderful cat and....... I pray that Karen does have at least one that she can call a true friend right now because she need them.

Sun Apr 15, 2012 6:45 am (PDT) A few years ago I took part in a staged intervention with a breeder friend from another breed (not MC's) - no names of course, let's just refer to The Party targeted at TP. Three concerned friends, including a respected CFA judge, invited TP to one friend's home for a quiet dinner, so yes it was a surprize attack and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I did a lot of research on how to stage an intervention, there's tons of info on the web - look it up and read it! There are many differing levels of denial; luckily TP wasn't so firmly entrenched that the message got thrown out without consideration. We had gotten contact information for cleaning companies, storage options, cat friendly contractors (for floors that were destroyed by cat urine) and I personally volunteered pre-arranged times to go over and help with the clearing out of stuff and scrubbing and painting. We had also prepared a number of options for advertising placement of adults and kittens. We set up terms of an agreement - TP would not plan any litters until xx number of cats in the house had been placed; A set number of permanent residents had to be established and before a kitten could be kept someone else in the home had to leave; We required that action be taken on placements and clean-up within a set calendar time and we in turn would (and did) show up at the house periodically to verify that these actions were being taken. There had to be a stick, and that was notification of BAP if we didn't see steady improvement and efforts to place some of the adults by our deadlines, and if BAP couldn't accomplish what was needed we were prepared to contact Animal Control, though that was a distant possibility only if TP proved to be totally denying and resistant.

TP was a very loving cat-owner and just got into a bad space after a male escaped and numerous litters popped up unplanned at the same time there was a nasty illness that affected some of the cats and none could be placed. Very TOUGH LOVE was called for. We were prepared for a lot of anger and the very real possibility that friendships might be severed - you never know going into such a confrontation what the reaction will be. It's important to reassure the person that you are doing this because you love and support and value them.

We have seen a great turnaround in TP's circumstances. The conditions of the home have improved tremendously, carpets ripped out, flooring and stairs replaced, walls scrubbed and painted, furniture and many many bags of general accumulated "stuff" has gone curbside! The adult population has gone down by about half and breeding has been very carefully controlled and kittens placed. TP has established a maintenance plan for keeping things clean and 95% of the time sticks to it religiously. It was really a wakeup call. This was one of the most positive outcomes possible to a loving intervention.

A friend of mine had concerns about a fellow breeder years ago (again, not MC's) and just showed up on the doorstep one day with rags, buckets, disinfectants and various cleaning supplies, tools and anything else she could think of. She drove 2.5 hours to do this because she just sensed there were problems from phone calls and remote communications. That person was in a bad spot and my friend just quietly walked in and did what was needed without any one else ever knowing about it! She only told me after the person had left breeding for a number of years, and he still touches base with her every now and then and never fails to thank her for being a great big buttinsky when he needed it.

There are ways and none of them are easy. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves and do the work side-by-side, be prepared to offer carrot and stick and be prepared to battle denial and resistance but stand strong. The health of the cats and the human are all at stake, and the potential for the health of our hobby may also be in your hands.

April 15, 2012 9:30:33 AM

While this - "Maybe we need to get a group of very trusted breeder friends together and

exchange house keys... knowing that our friends have keys to our homes might keep us a bit more honest and possibly ask for help before our mental state won't allow us to anymore". - seems like a good idea you are forgetting the the sick brain causes extreme changes and this is not a guarantee that you will ever gain access. Like I had said nefoe the capacity for a sick brain to revert to a survival mode similar to a criminal brain that can not reason in the real world, a sick person will maybe admit they are sick but they are going with the flow in order to not make waves. When actual reasonable control comes up the sick person is able to manipulate and deceive. They just become masters at it and without knowing they are doing it.

Many things become embedded in our brains throughout our lives and ability to pull up some fantasy scenario from bits of memory in order to "keep others at bay", make things look normal and for normal things to still occur is very much alive but they are usually not aware of what they actually just did.

All you can do is give it a try but make sure you have a procedure written out and access legally granted on a piece of paper.

Sun Apr 15, 2012 4:59 pm (PDT)
I'm a (relatively) new breeder, and like so many others, I was floored by this. I post the following with a fair amount of trepidation- - it brings up an incredibly painful time in my breeding career...and besides that, what will people think? But I will post all the same, because, sadly, I don't think my experience is unique.

A couple of years ago, I had a lovely litter of six that was virtually decimated by FIP. I've never had more than 7 adults (only 5 at that time). The cattery (my home) was clean. The parents were healthy. This shouldn't have happened! In my innocence, I was open about it, telling people, asking opinions, and sharing my confusion and sorrow.

I had some wonderful support-- but...there were also repercussions: whispered warnings-- not to my face (of course not!)...but to pet buyers and other breeders. Eventually, it got back to me, as these things will. Too late for me to explain that healthy or not, the parents were neutered and rehomed, that a fortune was spent in stool PCRs and corona titers to Cornell, that contracts for kittens that hadn't left were canceled, that everyone's money was refunded. Too late, because I had been judged guilty. To this day, I don't know what else I could have done... other than somehow manage to NOT have a litter with FIP (which, trust me, I would have gladly done if I could have).

I spent a year being ashamed, before time lent some perspective.

From that experience, I learned a harsh lesson of the cat fancy: if you have a problem, better to keep it quiet, because anyone not a complete friend is likely to be critical, judgmental and occasionally downright vicious...even if it's nothing you did wrong. How much worse would it be for something that was actually under the breeder's control?

If the fancy is your life, as it is for so many-- as I believe it was for Karen-- I can imagine that being honest would be unthinkable, knowing there would be consequences that were unbearable. As problems escalated, even more impossible. And finally, a rewriting of reality. "Everything is fine."

In a perfect world, our friends would save us from what happened to Karen-- an intervention, a painful invasion, a shocking confrontation. .. but in our culture, this seldom happens. Interfering in someone's life, implying that they're lying about their ability to cope... Well, that's considered insulting and not the action of a friend.

Many people looked up to Karen, thought of her as a role model. When I put myself in her place, I can see that to survive, the mind would HAVE to rewrite reality.

Of all the solutions being bandied about... maybe the most important is to make it safer to talk about problems. Stop whispering to others. Stop listening when they whisper to you. Say it out loud.

We REALLY need to make it okay to talk about problems.

Sun Apr 15, 2012 5:35 pm (PDT)

What an amazing email!!! You are 100% correct in everything you said! If people weren't so petty, jealous and two faced imagine what we could all accomplish! We would all be able to openly share health information, etc and actually learn from it!