Fur flies over invasion of the dead cats 
Jack Grimston 

YOU can't yet buy a "puss in Boots", but thousands of fake cats made with
real fur are being sold in other high street shops - to the horror of
animal lovers. Booming sales of the "dead" cats have prompted a string of
complaints, which have now forced one chain to stop selling them. 

The cats, made in China from rabbit pelts with occasional dashes of goat,
are the surprise hit of the summer, attracting buyers looking for a
replacement for Billy Bass, the singing fish which proved so popular last
year that the Queen is said to have got one at Balmoral. 

More than 30,000 fake felines have been sold in a few months. The makers
hope to find homes for another 100,000 before Christmas. 

The highly realistic dummy cats can have therapeutic qualities. Workers at
the Samaritans have used them to comfort distressed clients, while elderly
and sick people have been keen buyers. "They are a great comfort to our
residents as they can't have real cats," said Annie Finlay, of The Cosby
convalescent home in Ballycastle, Co Antrim, who has bought 12 of the
"pets". 

Some buyers, however, seem more intent on imitating the cartoon book 101
Uses for a Dead Cat. "I used to have a real cat and this one gives me the
same feeling," said Stephan Lambert, a London employment consultant
working with the United Nations. "You feel you have to walk carefully
around it so as not to disturb it." 

That, however, has not stopped Lambert and other owners from taking
advantage of the mock moggies' shock value. "I left it by the telephone
recently when a BT engineer came to test the line," said Lambert. "He
asked me to move the cat. I said 'no problem' and gave it a kick. He was
horrified until he realised it wasn't real." 

Parents have described their children using the cats as Frisbees or
deliberately sitting on them in front of their grandparents. One internet
retailer claims they can be used to reserve seats on busy trains or at
crowded parties. Nobody, the company suggests, will want to disturb what
they think is a sleeping pet. 

The idea of producing a cardboard cat covered with old rabbit pelts was
the brainchild of Lynn Lewis, a former presenter of the BBC's Nationwide
programme. "What always gives away a stuffed toy is the eyes, which never
look real," said Lewis, who now runs a company called Nauticalia. "But if
you just close them and have it curled up, it looks as though it is a
sleeping cat." 

That, however, does not assuage the ire of cat lovers. "There's something
sick about people wanting to buy a stuffed cat made with real fur," said
Sue Parslow, editor of Your Cat magazine. "It's even worse in Germany
where they use real cats' fur for some toys." 

Lord Hattersley, the old Labour dog-lover who recently described the word
feline as meaning "sleekly treacherous, smooth yet untrustworthy", was
nevertheless disgusted by the treatment meted out to the dummy cats. "You
don't have to like animals to look after them properly," he said. "I don't
think it promotes proper respect for animals." 

Lewis defended the use of rabbit in his cats. "They are made by peasants
in a mountainous area of Shandong province in northern China where they
breed rabbits in their millions to eat as the climate is too cold for
chickens," he said. 

"The pelts are a waste product of what they eat." 

Artificial fur would be a poor substitute, he said: "It would be too
expensive, would not look natural and would be depriving the ingenious
people who make them of the proceeds." 

Nauticalia has received several protest letters from animal rights groups,
including the RSPCA. Retailers have now been targeted. One of the cats'
busiest stockists has been the Gadget Shop, which has been selling 800 a
month from its outlets around Britain. On Thursday protesters targeted its
Brighton branch and had to be escorted away after shouting at staff. The
firm said it was withdrawing the cats. 

"We don't usually get any complaints about our products but the cats
really took off recently," said Jonathan Elvidge, the chain's chief
executive. He denied caving in to protesters, but said: "There is
obviously concern among a pretty broad base of people and we are
responding to this." 

Campaigners were delighted. "I know at least 30 people who have complained
and this is a triumph for people power," said an activist with Brighton
Animal Rights Coalition. "First we got them banned from Pussy Galore [a
local novelty store] and now the Gadget Shop." 

The replica cats, which come in three models, purportedly depict famous
animals from maritime history. Freddy, a marmalade cat, was shipwrecked
with a cargo of pianos bound for Australia in the 19th century. Simon, a
black and white cat, won a medal after he was wounded in the Yangtse
incident in 1949 when his ship, HMS Amethyst, was fighting Chinese
communists. 

Mrs Chippy, a tabby, was the ship's cat on Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated
expedition to Antarctica in 1914-16. After Endeavour became trapped in the
ice floes, Shackleton ordered anything unnecessary to be dumped.
Historians differ as to whether Mrs Chippy was then given a saucer of
poisoned milk or shot. 


Additional reporting: Emily Milich 

Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.