“Our cat vanished without a trace a couple of days ago. Then as mysteriously as he had disappeared he reappeared nearly forty-eight hours later at the kitchen door with a plaintive meow. He was dehydrated, malnourished and abused. His face was scratched, his belly shaved as if for surgery, and his left ear mutilated. He acted as if he were drugged or coming off anesthetic.”

Thus begins Mark Derr’s most recent post, published Friday, on Psychology Today’s Dog’s Best Friend blog. Malnourished? Hungry is probably a more accurate description. And mutilated? Well, ear-tipped.

Having ruled out both Santeria and Voodoo, Derr concluded that his cat, McDude, “had fallen prey to cat fanatics who reportedly were trapping and neutering cats in our Miami Beach neighborhood, then returning them to their little piece of paradise.” Read more