Family’s Cat Taken Into Custody After Being Cornered by a Coyote

These haven’t been the best of times for Frisky.

Cornered by a coyote in September and inspected periodically for signs of rabies by animal control officers in the intervening weeks, the adopted calico is now in county lock-down--as it were--facing a possible death sentence.

The cat’s owner, Jeff Henson, says he’s seen better days as well.

Henson has been left with the choice of paying $20 to have the family pet destroyed or putting up nearly $1,000 to have Frisky quarantined at the county animal shelter for the next three months. On top of that, Henson faces a $500 fine and possible jail time.

All because he voluntarily called the county animal control department to ask for advice after the cat’s close encounter with the coyote.

“I’m extremely frustrated,” said Henson, 42, a Fullerton resident and hospital administrator. “I called because I thought it was the right thing to do. I did what they said. And now this.”

“This,” he added, “is bureaucracy at its finest.”

Not at all, counters a spokeswoman for Orange County Animal Care Services. What it is, she says, is a simple misunderstanding--Henson’s. “It’s unfortunate because we’d like to see the cat at home with its family,” spokeswoman Kathy Francis said.

Dispute Arises Over Length of Quarantine

Things began Sept. 22 when Frisky--adopted as a kitten four years ago from a local animal shelter by Henson’s stepdaughter--was cornered by a coyote on a neighbor’s porch.

The coyote fled without biting or injuring the cat, Henson recalls. But “not knowing anything about coyotes, I called animal control and asked them what was the right thing to do.”

They had a ready answer--quarantine the cat to make sure that it hadn’t contracted rabies. This could be done, they said, simply by keeping the animal inside and isolated for a period of time to observe any symptoms and prevent it from spreading disease.

The department even sent an officer over to examine Frisky and supervise the conditions of her quarantine, but herein lay the roots of discord. Henson says he was led to believe that the period of quarantine would be 10 days; Francis insists that the department always intended for it to last six months.

“Under the best of circumstances,” she said, “when a domestic animal gets involved with wildlife and is current on its rabies shots, we do a 30-day home quarantine.”

In this case, she said, the quarantine was extended to six months because Frisky hadn’t had a rabies vaccination in years.

“According to our officers,” Francis said, Henson “was told that several times.”

Henson says he kept the cat inside for 10 days as directed, then allowed it to resume its usual outside wanderings. At least three times over the next several months, he says, animal control officers visited the house, saw the cat playing on the porch and never said a thing.

“They’d just look at her and say she looked fine,” he recalled. “They said they would be coming back periodically to check if she had died--I thought they took her off quarantine.”

Francis says she can’t confirm that the officers saw the cat outside or explain why they wouldn’t have reported it. On Dec. 23, however, an officer noticed the animal on the porch and warned the family about the rules. And when the cat was again seen outside the next day, Francis said, “it was at that point, because of their inability to comply with the public safety regulations, that the cat’s privilege of a home quarantine was revoked.”

So it was that on Christmas Eve, Frisky was unceremoniously picked up and taken to the pound.

“They wrecked our family’s Christmas,” Henson said. “My kids were crying on the street.”

Now he faces the choice of paying the county $13 a day for boarding the cat until its quarantine ends March 22 or saving the expense by requesting that Frisky be destroyed. On top of which, Henson faces a possible fine of $500--or even jail time--for violating the county’s animal quarantine laws, a misdemeanor.

Francis says that no decision has been made on whether to pursue the misdemeanor charge. As for Frisky, she said, “We’d like to see her go home.”

Usually No Problems With Home Detention

Henson says he is puzzled by the whole affair. Rabies typically shows up within 10 days and there is no recorded case in Orange County of a cat contracting rabies.

“And if there was such a huge health threat,” Henson said, “why would they allow me to expose my family for four months before grabbing our cat?”

Francis says the home-detention policy works because pets are typically friendly to their owners. “Generally we don’t have any problems at all.”

Amber Lindbroth, Henson’s 16-year-old stepdaughter, said the ordeal has left her “irritated and frustrated and sad. It’s my animal and I love her--I just want to get my cat back.”

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Staff writer Mai Tran contributed to this report.