Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 26/01) - A Yellowknife woman is mourning the loss of a family cat, resigned to the fact that Gracie may never come back. She is also angry.

Sarah Silke and one of her other cats after Gracie's disappearance. - Dawn Ostrem/NNSL photo

Cats and small dogs are prey for wild animals that have been documented coming into the city and snatching pets.

But Sarah Silke is positive that never happened to her petite, grey, long-haired female cat on Sept. 15 when the family was asleep in their home in the Range Lake area.

She said her neighbours saw teenagers try to run over the friendly feline with their bikes, throw rocks at it and then ride away with her.

"It is just being malicious for the sake of being malicious," Silke said. "I think they probably did something to her."

Gracie was wearing a blue collar with Silke's address and phone number tagged onto it.

"I feel it is a community issue," Silke added. "We probably are not the first people this happened to and I feel violated -- they were on my property."

Claire Fyfe is another resident who lost her cat in the downtown area around the same time. The possibility of a wild animal attacking her Siamese Steve would not be out of the question, she said, except that he weighs 24 pounds.

"He's too big," she said. "He is bigger than a lot of dogs."

Fyfe said Steve was also friendly. The white and beige cat with bright blue eyes and freckles would have approached just about anyone.

How frequently kids treat animals with cruelty in the city is unknown but psychologist Tony Simmonds said that does not matter.

"We have to get a message out to kids that violence is inappropriate behaviour," said Simmonds, who works at the Family Counselling Centre in Yellowknife.

"A guy who is going to be mean to an animal is going to be mean to other people ... violence is never OK."

According to Simmonds, animal cruelty is often a learned behaviour. Violence in a household is more likely to be passed onto their kids.

College pranks gone bad

Even outside that scenario, kids are prone to get caught up in group activities and peer pressure that may lead to violence, no matter the age.

"I know of college students that would throw cats out the window with a few drinks in them," Simmonds said. "Displaced anger may be one reason to abuse animals ... but if you have one kid in a group doing it, it's fair to say you'll have another kid doing it."

Simmonds provided information that suggests many extreme cases of animal violence result in devastating violence to people.

An incident reported by the Denver Post in 1993 included a boy who strangled a cat with a garden hose, passing it off as a prank. A year later he murdered a four-year-old child.

Simmonds said it is important to realize we live in an impetuous society in which different forms of violence are discriminated or treated differently.

A hockey fight may be acceptable to people who have negative views about spousal abuse, he said. Similarly, some feel it may be OK to torture an animal but not a person.

"It is inexcusable," Simmonds said. "People who are violent toward cats have to be told 'no' in the same way people who are violent towards other people have to be told 'no.'

"We have to teach kids the good mental skills of being assertive," he added. "Being passive, you go along with the flow. But being aggressive, you do things like kill cats."