We are all well aware of how the police department relies on canine assistance. Police dogs are an effective part of the police force as they can use their noses to discover illegal items, use their speed to catch criminals, and are a great partner to patrol with. Yet one police force has taken a different approach and has now employed a police cat! The strange addition has proved a huge hit with both the police force and the local community.
Troy, Michigan is a small city with a population of around 80,000. The police force there are very active in the community and do their best to engage and support local causes. When an animal shelter started a drive to promote pet adoption the police force offered to help. At first, the police force put up an offer on its Twitter site. If they successfully reached 10,000 twitter followers they would adopt a kitten. They reached the goal in under a weak.
Next came the tough choice of picking a kitten. Working with the Michigan animal shelter the police force created a shortlist of kittens and held some auditions. The kittens were judged on cuteness first, however everyone quickly realized that every kitten was simply adorable, it was a tie. After this, they were judged on energy and sociability. One kitten stood out in this respect and was chosen to be the first police kitten of Troy city.
The kitten is currently without a name but the Troy police department says that this will be decided by twitter as well. They will run a poll in the coming days to determine what to name the cat (although they won’t leave the options open to viewers to come up with as there are too many examples of that working out terribly in the past).
It is not all fun and games though. The police kitten has been given some serious duties at the force. While she won’t be used as a sniffer kitten or tasked with taking down fleeing criminals, she will still have a lot of work to do. The kitten has been given a partner and they will take occasional patrols together. The kitten’s key task is to offer therapy to all the officers as it has been proven that the presence of pets lower stress and increases happiness in the workplace, an important factor for the police force, in particular, considering the stress of the job.
The other main task for this kitten though is to promote pet adoption from animal shelters. The growing number of cats and dogs on streets or in animal shelters is a huge issue in most cities and while it is difficult to solve completely, it is easy to help. Most people who want pets still don’t use an animal shelter. They prefer to go through selective breeders to ensure they get the pet of their choice. However, if you are willing to go to an animal shelter and perhaps wait for a little while you will likely still get the pet you desire.
Some animal shelters are forced to put down animals who have been there for too long to make space for other animals who have a better chance of being adopted. If you do visit an animal shelter take pity on those animals who have been there the longest as for some reason others are not adopting them. Even if you can’t adopt a pet right now the best thing you can do is spread the word. If you make more people aware of the animal shelter issue then we will be able to save the lives of more pets.
