My daughter and I drove into town today. She had a dance rehearsal. As we drove past a neighbor's house, I noticed the county animal control truck parked by the side of the road. By the time we drove past the truck I saw the county employee wrestling with an animal, and it was fighting hard (both the worker and the animal...).
"Oh, look--they've caught a cat," I said before I thought about what I was saying. I didn't want to upset my daughter, but she's a teenager and understands that sometimes animals need to be captured and taken away from the general population in order to protect people. Still, I thought it might be a disturbing image for her. It was kind of a disturbing image for me. I thought of that poor cat spending time in a cage at the animal control building. I also pictured a family wondered where their pet had gone. We live at the base of a mountain. Family pets have a way of disappearing from time to time.
When I got home I sent a text message to my neighbor. It was his yard where the cat was corralled. If our cat was taken, I'd want to know so we could go get her. It would be upsetting for the kids (and the adults...) if we didn't know what happened to one of our pets.
My neighbor didn't respond right away, but when he did, his simple response cleared everything up. No, it wasn't his cat, and it wasn't any neighbor's cat. But animal control did capture and take away an animal that posed a threat to our little community.
Turns out it wasn't a cat at all.
...But a raccoon that had been either hit by a car, or was rabid. Either way, probably the best thing was to have it removed. Funny, that furry little thing fighting that worker sure looked like a cat to me.
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