Big, sloppy tears ahead. Read the letter Rayden Sazama of Logan, Utah, dictated to his “PaPa” and sent in to The Herald Journal .
My kitty’s name is Toothless. When I got him I had just seen “How to Train a Dragon” at the movies. My kitty looked just like the dragon Toothless with big green eyes and the hair around his head. Toothless, my cat, has long fluffy hair and sleeps on my bed and loved to play with my brother and me. Toothless would let us carry him around all the time. He was our best friend.
Last week he didn’t come in at night. Sometimes he does that, but this time he didn’t come back. After two days my little brother Devin, who is 5, and I went to every house on our street and asked everyone if they had seen Toothless our cat. Everyone said no. We were worried and scared something was wrong.
On Wednesday after work my dad went to the animal shelter as it was closing. They didn’t want to let him in, but they did. He asked if there was a cat with long black fluffy hair there. They let my dad in to look at the cages, and there was Toothless! He was curled up laying in the back of the cage very scared. When my dad made his funny meow sound that he does to make him come home, Toothless jumped up and came to the screen and rubbed up against it and was so happy to see my dad, and he wasn’t scared anymore.
My dad wanted to take him home, but they said he had to go to another office building and pay a fee. The lady at the shelter said it would be OK and told him to come back the next day and we could get Toothless. When my dad came home and told my little brother and me he found Toothless we were so happy and we weren’t scarred or worried anymore.
My dad went back the next day to get our kitty and they told him they didn’t have any long-haired black cats. They only had a white fluffy cat. My dad waited a long time for the lady to come back and talk to him. The same lady that told my dad to come back the next day said she was sorry. She had forgotten to leave a note to tell the people my dad would be there for Toothless and they had just killed my cat that morning. She had just forgotten to write a note to save a member of my family. They killed him and I don’t know why.
My dad found out where he had been picked up and it was our neighbors down the street that don’t like cats and dogs. They had caught him in a trap and gave him to the police to take him away. When Devin and I knocked on their door and asked if they had seen Toothless they told us no, and that was a lie. My dad and mom tell me and Devin not to lie and that is right.
LINK: See the animal shelter's response in the editor's note here.