My Best Friend Strawberry Was Poisoned.

[Gina Marie]

I never knew who did this to this day, however, I had my suspicions. Strawberry was a funny kitten we adopted from the SPCA back in 1977. He had quickly become a member of the family, and the reason we called him strawberry was because he was a red/orange and white tabby...lol! Anyhow, my mother had an auto accident in 1979. She was in the hospital for 10 days in critical condition. After about a month in the hospital she came home. She was just getting back on her feet and getting around again, when she saw Strawberry out back by the house my dad had built as a shelter for the cats when they went out back. She told me that he had taken a couple of steps toward the back door when she called him then collapsed...not moving. My dad came home from work to take him to the vet but it was too late. He had died. My dad and I and my mother too were really upset about this, and my dad thought that he was poisoned, as at that time there were kids we know today as "thugs" or "punks" who went around the neighborhood torturing or hitting anyone's pet they could find.

My folks took his body to the vet that night who did an autopsy, and found that indeed he had been poisoned. I cannot remember what type of poison it was, but the vet said it was fairly quick acting and that he had not suffered too much. We filed a report with our local police who then patrolled the neighborhoods to see if they found these nasty kids...they did. They were sent to juvenile hall for about a year and a half...as there was one other case of abuse of animals. The parents were fined $1,000.00 which back then was a lot of money. I hope when these brats got out of Juvenile that their parents beat them senseless for the treatment they did to the animals in our neighborhood who were loved pets...these kids no doubt today are probably on the wrong side of the law...but no worry, they will answer to a higher authority when they have their time up on earth...!