A Canadian woman suffering from dementia claims cold-hearted staffers at her assisted living facility swapped her flesh and blood therapy cat — with a stuffed animal.
“I want my cat back,” Dawn Douglas told CTV News this week, referring to her lovable Siamese-cross cat named “Snoop.”
“They had no right taking my pet,” added Douglas, 66, who says that staffers at the Sunridge Place facility in Duncan, British Columbia, took Snoop from her suite while she was in another room.
The heartbroken senior — who has taken care of Snoop since he was a kitten — recalled to the news outlet that a staffer told her: “‘We’re going to give [the cat] a bath,’ and I’d get her back…I never did.”
When Douglas moved into the private facility in 2016 administration told her sons that her cat would be allowed to stay under the conditions that the cat’s shots were up to date, and that Douglas would regularly clean the litter for the cat, according to CTV News.
Lynda Foley, the vice-president of quality assurance for Park Place Seniors Living, which owns the assisted living facility, told the news site that the cat was removed because an employee was hospitalized due to an allergic reaction caused by the feline.
“The interim solution, they made arrangements to have the cat be re-homed with a staff member that’s very loving and has promised to look after the cat while we work with the family,” Foley said.
The facility claims that it never gave Douglas permission to move her cat in, as it has a no pet policy.
This week, Douglas’ sons were reunited with Snoop and they plan on fighting to have the cat returned to their mom.