My sincere gratitude to the schoolboy who called the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) some time back in late August to rescue an orange stray cat with a bleeding tail at Block 207 in Ang Mo Kio, and to rescue officer Eugene Chia, who responded to the call, as well as everyone at SPCA who rendered help to the cat.

We, the community cat feeders, had been very worried when the cat went missing and are immensely relieved at its safe return.

At the same time, I am disappointed by an unpleasant incident which took place on Sept 14.

A middle-aged man stomped threateningly towards me, after frightening an old cat in the carpark, when he saw me feeding the stray cats. He kicked one of them and chased the others away.

I shouted and scolded him, but he challenged me to call the police, smirking that they would merely take down his identity card number but take no further action.

As I did not have my mobile phone with me then, I asked two passers-by to call the police. Unfortunately, the young men were nonchalant, probably thinking that kicking a cat was not a big issue.

Merely taking down an animal abuser's IC number has no deterrent effect. A stronger message ought to be sent to such people that kicking defenceless animals constitutes an offence.

Dorothy Goh Tai-Li (Ms)