A Brooks Road cat is back home following a legally required two-week quarantine, imposed by New Canaan Police after the animal apparently bit a neighbor on the leg, officials said.
The rabies vaccination for the orange domestic short hair cat, named ‘Finnegan,’ had expired in November—about three months prior to the attack, according to an incident report obtained by NewCanaanite.com following a Freedom of Information request.
Police learned of the incident at about 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 7 (a Tuesday), according to the report, from NCPD’s Animal Control section.
It started when the victim, a 69-year-old Mortimer Street woman, told police she had been “attacked by a neighbor’s cat,” the report said.
The woman had “observed a neighborhood cat go after her cat as it was coming into the house by the back stairs and when she stepped out to break it up the neighborhood cat flew at her scratching her on her right leg,” the report said.
Arriving at the house, an Animal Control officer learned that the offending cat had traveled outside the victim’s back stairs.
“I observed an orange domestic short hair feline wearing a collar and tag, at which time I photographed the cat,” the report said.
The officer then returned inside and “observed several marks and bruising on [the Mortimer Street woman’s] right leg and thigh and photographed each area. One wound appeared several inches long and deep.”
The victim told police that “she believed the cat lived directly behind her” at a Brooks Road residence.
There, the officer was unable to contact anyone but did note that there was a dog in the home and later cross-referenced the address with the registered dog to find the identity of the cat’s owner.
Returning to the victim’s residence, the officer spotted the cat and “attempted to secure the animal,” however “it retreated through a hole in the stockade fence.”
The officer at 1:30 p.m. that same day reached the cat’s owner and issued the off-property quarantine, as required by state law.
The owner, a 44-year-old Brooks Road woman, during a conversation with Animal Control “related that Finnegan is a de-clawed cat and was concerned as to how he could have scratched [the woman] so severely,” the report said.
“I then contacted the veterinarian hospital to confirm the cat’s rabies vaccine, which was determined to have expired November 2016. At approximately 1:45 p.m. I left a voicemail message for [the victim] regarding further details about the situation.”
The two-week quarantine at Norwalk Veterinary Hospital ended Feb. 21—last Tuesday—and Animal Control confirmed with the staff there that Finnegan “was alive and well, at which time I authorized the release from quarantine and confirmed that the cat could be vaccinated for rabies prior to release.”