Owner reported after Södertälje cat stabbing

A Swedish woman,viciously attacked by her pet cat in Södertälje, south of Stockholm, in September, has been reported by an anonymous animal sympathizer, claiming that stabbing the cat to death was unnecessary.

• Cat attacks owner, gets stabbed (29 Sep 11)

“I am sad and angry. It is cowardly to report me anonymously, as I was in the papers with name and picture published, I haven’t hid anything from any one,” owner Ann-Britt Granström said to local paper Länstidningen.

The Local reported in September how Granström had been curled up in bed next to her cat, a beloved bedfellow for 13 years, when the cuddly companion suddenly started attacking her.

Granström was badly scratched by the cat, and trying to defend herself against the furious feline, Granström got one of her neighbours to help her, while she phoned emergency services.

At the alarm centre, however, they didn’t think she needed emergency help and told her to go to the nearest clinic.

Meanwhile, the neighbour, wearing rubber gloves, failed at luring the aggressive animal out from under the bed to where it had retreated.

While Granström hid in the bedroom, three other neighbours managed to overpower the animal and kill it by stabbing it to death with a knife.

After local media had reported on the incident, the county council received a complaint about how Granström had handled the affair.

The complaint stated that Granström should have caught the cat and found out what was wrong with it.

If indeed it had to be put down, the complainant wrote, this should have been done at the animal clinic as the cat probably had been acting aggressively due to illness, reported Länstidningen.

However, at the council they don’t think it is up to them to take the matter further.

“The cat is already dead, and it would be hard to prove that anything untoward had happened this long after,” a council official told the paper.

The council referred the matter to the police, who in their turn decided to drop the case.

“Our intention was to speak to the owner about who actually killed the cat. But I can’t see how we could prove a crime had been committed so the case will be dropped,” said Kicki Samuelsson of the police told the paper.

However, although the 38 scratches Granström’s former feline friend gave her have healed, she is still smarting from the fact that someone reported her to authorities, despite the fact it wasn’t her wielding the weapon.

“Whomever filed the report anonymously wasn’t there either, this person can’t know that we had no other option than to have the cat killed there and then. It wasn’t something I wished for,” she told Länstidnngen.