{"id":71163,"date":"2026-06-17T21:02:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=71163"},"modified":"2026-06-17T21:02:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:02:42","slug":"why-did-polk-county-animal-control-kill-my-four-loving-cats-then-apologize-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/06\/17\/why-did-polk-county-animal-control-kill-my-four-loving-cats-then-apologize-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Why did Polk County Animal Control kill my four loving cats, then apologize for it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Tracy Jillard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 6\/6. I was taken to the hospital (where I stayed for a week). My babies are in the hands of animal control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My 4 cats are my absolute reason for living. The major shelters told me to just give them up, but they are my family and my support system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finally got an answer from Polk County Animal Control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite being told they would be held for at least 10 days and being called by the hospital, my babies have crossed the rainbow bridge at the hands of Polk County Animal Control. \"\ud83d\ude22\"\"\ud83d\udc94\"\"\ud83d\ude3f\"\"\ud83c\udf08\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were euthanized almost immediately after being brought into their facility. They apologized profusely for the mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They notified Heartland Cat Rescue (the original owner of the chip) but not me, and told them my cats were extremely wild and feral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My babies were the sweetest and gentlest babies; they loved cuddling and belly rubs. Petey and Little One loved to play fetch and hide and seek in my blanket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does that sound feral to you?\"\ud83d\ude22\"\"\ud83d\udc94\"\"\ud83d\ude3f\"\"\ud83c\udf08\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Tracy Jillard On 6\/6. I was taken to the hospital (where I stayed for a week). My babies are in the hands of animal control. My 4 cats are… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDZcLzcyNDU1MjQ2MF8xMDIzMzIzMjcxMzc3OTQzOV81MDg0MDY5NDA0ODA1Mjc5MDcwX24ud2VicD9maXQ9MTAwMyUyQzEwMjQmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJXaHkgZGlkIFBvbGsgQ291bnR5IEFuaW1hbCBDb250cm9sIGtpbGwgbXkgZm91ciBsb3ZpbmcgY2F0cywgdGhlbiBhcG9sb2dpemUgZm9yIGl0IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.JedgCKw23oOn6L-P_lsVKSPqgOpNSF5-BvuK1TCnyXMMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDZcLzcyNDU1MjQ2MF8xMDIzMzIzMjcxMzc3OTQzOV81MDg0MDY5NDA0ODA1Mjc5MDcwX24ud2VicD9maXQ9MTAwMyUyQzEwMjQmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJXaHkgZGlkIFBvbGsgQ291bnR5IEFuaW1hbCBDb250cm9sIGtpbGwgbXkgZm91ciBsb3ZpbmcgY2F0cywgdGhlbiBhcG9sb2dpemUgZm9yIGl0IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.JedgCKw23oOn6L-P_lsVKSPqgOpNSF5-BvuK1TCnyXMMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[14902,14901],"class_list":["post-71163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-then-apologize-for-it","tag-why-did-polk-county-animal-control-kill-four-loving-cats"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71175,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71163\/revisions\/71175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}