An Inverness mother is urging people to support a campaign to make motorists accountable if they kill a cat after her family pet was run over and left on the road.
Lara Cumming only found out that Momo had been knocked down after its body was picked up by council workers and handed to Inverness Cat Rescue.
Momo was a therapy cat and helped support Mrs Cumming’s daughter Alyssa-Jayne, 13, who has special needs. But it was also great with her other two children, Aiden, 11, and Layla, nine.
Momo was knocked down on a distributor road off Sir Walter Scott Drive, Inverness, on Sunday.
Mrs Cumming, of Castle Heather, said: “The council had picked him up. It is absolutely devastating for us. He was a special cat and had grown with us from a baby. He was a therapy cat and would get in the bath or the paddling pool. He was very patient with the kids.”
Mrs Cumming added: “My oldest daughter has special needs and he was a therapy cat for her. But he would go round all the kids. Whenever they were sad or unwell he would pick up on that and would be straight over to whoever needed him.”
At present under Scottish law drivers are not obliged to report the incident to the authorities if they hit a cat. Mrs Cumming wants to see that changed and has been sharing a petition on social media.
The online petition “Make Cats’ Deaths by Traffic Accountable for” on you.38degrees.org.uk has been signed by almost 500 people. It is calling on the Scottish Government to introduce a law to protect cats against hit and run incidents.
It advises that most vets would euthanise a suffering animal and that such a law would stop them being left to die in pain. It would also help owners find out what happened to their pets.
Mrs Cumming said: “I will never understand how people could have driven past him. If people were required to report it or at least knew how to, it would help.
“If I didn’t know what had happened to Momo it would have torn me and the children apart. He was part of the family.”