Cat found with legs tied put down

DUBAI Close on the heels of last week’s XPRESS report about a cat found with a slit throat, another shocking instance of animal abuse has come to light.

This time it’s about an Arabian mau which was dumped near an Al Ain mosque with its legs tightly bound with nylon and jute ropes and cable wire.

A passerby who spotted the cat rushed it to a nearby veterinary clinic, but the animal had to be put down because of horrific rear leg injuries. Lesley Taylor, a volunteer with Animal welfare Al Ain who took the tough call said the cat had been abused so badly it faced amputation of both hind legs.

“If it were a case of losing one leg, we could have gone ahead with the surgery. But in this case we had no choice,” she told XPRESS.

Dr. Aslam Hussein of Al Rawdha Veterinary Clinic, who treated the cat initially, said the animal was severely dehydrated and its limbs were badly infected when it was brought to his clinic.

“It had no sensation in the rear limbs. The wounds did not look fresh and it appeared that the animal had been in that condition for several days. We cut the ropes and the wire and put it on an antibiotic drip. The cat remained in our clinic for three days before an animal welfare group took him to a vet hospital in Abu Dhabi. I doubt if it would have survived.”

He reckons the cat was around one year old.

Mohammed Nihad who found the cat said he still can’t believe that people are capable of such cruelty. “The poor creature was in a lot of pain as it was tied up with three different things - jute rope, cable wire and a plastic sheet. I ran home and brought a pair of scissors. My wife came along to help me as well. We tried hard but we could not cut the rope or unfasten the knot. A few passersbys tried to help but in vain. So I picked the animal and dashed to a veterinary clinic nearby.” I was hoping it would survive, but it didn’t.”

Animal abuse is punishable by law in the UAE and offenders could face fines up to Dh20,000.

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