A tiny kitten weighing less than two pounds was dyed purple, and brought to a rescue with multiple puncture wounds and lacerations. The Nine Lives Foundation took the tiny, malnourished and injured purple kitten in, and said it looked like the poor thing had been used as a chew toy in dogfight training. Unfortunately, it’s very common for people who run dogfighting rings to use kittens as bait. It’s also sick.
This poor, purple kitten was found alone in a box
CNN reports that someone found the purple kitten in a cardboard box, with lemon slices and rags, on a street in San Jose. They brought the little, abused kitten to the San Jose Animal Shelter, which took him over to Nine Lives. Veterinarian Monica Rudiger said that his injuries were consistent with being used as a dog’s chew toy.
Rudiger told The Dodo:
“I don’t know what happened to him, but my best guess is that he was used as a chew toy. We have a cat with multiple puncture wounds and abrasions. He can’t tell us what happened to him, but I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen kittens be used as bait and chew toys for other animals. It makes sense to me.”
She shaved the purple kitten’s fur off, but his skin is also dyed purple. Rudiger believes that whoever did this used an undiluted garment dye, and thinks he may be purple for a very long time, if not the rest of his life.
Dogfighting may be illegal, but it still happens and isn’t punished harshly enough
Dogfighting is illegal, but secretive, and it’s hard to find and break up a dogfighting ring. Infamous football player Michael Vick was caught running such a ring, but only because law enforcement stumbled upon it while investigating something else. The federal government charged Vick, but that’s highly unusual in cases like this.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund is working to make animal fighting easier to prosecute and punishable with stronger penalties than those that currently exist. Fighting is one of the worst forms of animal abuse, and this purple kitten is evidence of that.
The purple kitten, named Smurf due to his color, has received dozens of offers for adoption, and while he’s on the mend, it will be quite awhile before he’s fit to be adopted out. He’ll always bear the scars of what’s happened to him, and nobody can say for sure just how well he’ll recover. Watch a video of the kitten below, via Nine Lives’ Facebook page:
SMURF update! Today SMURF was playing with his 2 new friends, feeling so much better! Thank you to everyone who has…
Posted by Nine Lives Foundation on Wednesday, December 30, 2015
