Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Hospital Cat

Sometimes, I wonder how an event is written in my file by staff. What seems a perfectly reasonable course of action to us may strike them as quite odd. Landing at a new prison, someone mentioned that there was a cat in the Hospital. I always make it my practice to introduce myself to cats, so off I went. Hammering on the Hospital gate brought the Boss out, with a grumpy "What??" I was very polite; "You have a cat here?" He did. "Let me in, I want to say hello". Without a word, he unlocked the gate and pointed to his office. A large tabby sat on his desk, settled in his in-tray. I stroked her head and she purred, knitting with her claws before laying flat on the paperwork. Then I walked straight out, passed the screw holding the gate open. "Thanks, Guv".

2 comments:

  1. I'm glad you at least have access to a cat. Denying you cats would be truly cruel and inhumane in my book.

    Have you ever known prisons in this country to let prisoners train assistance dogs like they do in the US? They are using this more and more in the US as they found re-offending rates dropped significantly when these programs are implemented. Many Youth detention centres have a re-offending rate of 0-3% when they run these dog training programs.

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  2. Someone who likes cats can't be all bad!

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