Reward offered to find animal abuser

Cat dies after being left glued to Minnesota highway
By PAUL WALSH, Star Tribune

Last update: January 11, 2010 - 10:58 AM

A reward is being offered in the hopes of finding whoever glued a seven-month-old cat to the side of a southern Minnesota highway.

The cat was discovered Dec. 18 by a woman traveling to Sioux Falls, said Rosey Quinn of the city's Second Chance Rescue Center, where the orange and white male tabby was brought by the traveler and died five days later.

A man from Yankton, S.D., has offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the person or people responsible, Quinn said.

Timothy, as the cat would be named while at the center, was spotted by Joyce Borgen as she drove on Hwy. 60, about 30 minutes west of Mankato. Borgen, 62, was on her way back to Sioux Falls after visiting relatives.

Borgen, with her two dogs and a bird already in tow, said that as she drove by, "the cat lifted up its head and looked at me" from the white line along the highway's edge.

After a quarter-mile to think about the cat's fate on that cold and blustery afternoon, Borgen said she decided, "I have to go back and get it. I couldn't let it stay there."

Borgen pulled over, picked up the cat and placed him on the floor on the front-passenger side, covering him with a blanket and turning "the heater on full blast," she said. "He was just like a little ice cube."

After a night in a plastic basket and wrapped in blankets in Sioux Falls, the cat "looked up, meowed and ate dog food. He seemed to be recovering." Borgen then turned over the cat to Second Chance.

Quinn, who opened the animal rescue center nearly four years ago, said that the remote location of where the cat -- without tags or identification chip -- was found has her convinced that he was purposely glued to the road. "I think some kids did this," she said.

She said Timothy's nose was glued to the surface and he lost "layers of skin" from elsewhere on his body when removed.

The "extremely stressed-out" cat was treated by a veterinarian, only to die the next week, Quinn said.

--Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

Reward offered in case of cat glued to road
Updated: 1/11/2010 10:50:21 AM

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- An animal rescue center in Sioux Falls, S.D., says an anonymous Yankton man is offering a $1,000 reward in the case of a cat found glued to Interstate 90 just across the border in Minnesota.

Second Chance Rescue Center Director Rosey Quinn says travelers found the cat on Dec. 18 and brought it to the center. She says the orange tabby had injuries to its feet and nose and was thin, and it died five days later despite the efforts of veterinarians to save it.

Quinn says in her 13 years she's never seen such a horrific case of animal abuse.

The reward is for information leading to a conviction in the case.

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