Dear Neighbors, I apologize for the length, but if you own an outdoor cat, you need to read this. Upon further inspection of Spice's condition after I found her yesterday morning, I discovered damage to her ear and missing fur on her belly. It was too late in the day to reach my usual vet, so I called PVSEC and they recommended that she be brought to the emergency room. So I traveled out to Camp Horne Road and it took the technician there about two seconds to identify what had happened to Spice. They told me she had been spayed. Dumbfounded, I told them of course she was spayed, she was spayed when she was a kitten five years ago. Well, they said, she was spayed again yesterday. And her ear was clipped so she could be identified as a spayed cat. I was horrified and nearly passed out! I was told some shelters will do the ear-clip thing, but they couldn't give me any further advice or information. The technician there was great and, thankfully, PVSEC did not charge me their usual emergency visit fee of $125. I spent the rest of the afternoon visiting and talking to Animal Friends, Humane Society and Animal Rescue League. I am pretty convinced that none of them would have attempted to spay a cat without first scanning for an id chip, which my cat has. All of them do some kind of catch, spay/neuter and release program for feral cats, but I think the lost pet policies still apply, like scan for a chip. So, at this point, I suspect that a neighbor caught my cat and had some other veterinarian or unlicensed person perform this atrocious act. Obviously I don't know what happened to my cat. But I do know that what did happen was both unconscionable and barbaric. My family was distraught because Spice was missing, which turns out to have been needless. I spent hours looking for her during the day and night on Friday and again Saturday morning. And I can't imagine what Spice endured, mentally and physically. She might still end up with an infection. One thing I know for sure is that her ear will never grow back. I am unaware of any attempt to determine if Spice was someone's pet. I checked with the Animal Rescue League, Craig's List and telephonepole.com, in additon to circulating a notice through the Highland Park Listserv, all in an attempt to find her. I found nothing posted akin to a Cat Found notice. And apparently no one scanned her chip prior to operating on her. If you have an outdoor cat, particulary one who frequently loses her collar, you should be worried! I will be filing a police report today and hopefully whoever did this will be caught: both the cat-catcher and the "vet" who did the butchering. If you have any information about who does this sort of thing, or if you saw anything related to the capture or release of my poor little Spicey, please let me know. If you plan to respond to me because you favor the catch, spay/neuter and release program for feral cats, please don't bother. I'm with you; I support it too. But I believe there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. I don't want to engage in a debate with you; I just want to warn others about the potential danger to their pet cats and prevent this from happening again. Thank you for listening. Joanne Foerster McGowan Joanne (Sent from my iPad)