LETTERS: An ailing kitten on my mind

IN THE midst of describing the agonies she has allowed her cat to undergo, Justine Picardie asks, in reply to friends' suggestions that it be put down, "why kill a kitten who, for no fault of her own, has a broken leg?" ("The kitten that threatened my sanity", Real Life, 1 October). Why not? Animals do not concern themselves with notions about the sanctity of life; and she had already played God by deciding that the animal would not be permitted to procreate, inflicting upon it the operation which precipitated the whole ugly situation.

Each horror the kitten underwent was coupled with a whinge about what Picardie suffered; she sweated with frustration and anxiety; she needed a handful of Prozac; she burst into tears.

She concluded that both she and the cat could do with some therapy. Too right. The cat needs the immediate therapy of a lethal injection and Picardie should divert the fees she seems hellbent on giving to vets towards the purchase of the services of a psychiatrist.

B McCormack

Wilmslow, Cheshire