Toronto woman shocked after lost cat euthanized by city services

Toronto resident Mehry Hadi is grieving the loss of her 17-year-old cat Neo who she was shocked to learn was euthanized last week by Toronto Animal Services.

Hadi told CTV News Toronto she let Neo outside a little over a week ago. She noticed when the cat did not return, but because Neo is an outside cat, she didn’t think too much of it.

“Two days is normal, one day is definitely normal,” she said.

But after a few days, Hadi started to worry, placing posters around her neighbourhood. By the weekend, a friend told her to try animal services.

Hadi called, and Neo had been brought in, but it was too late.

“They said he was brought in as a stray, sick cat and decided after three days [to] put him to sleep,” she said.

However, Toronto Animal Services (TAS) said they waited a total of five days — two days longer than law required.

“Under the law, we hold stray cats for three days,” Tracy Pasquariello, a supervisor at TAS, told CTV News Toronto.

“The cat came in on April 3, and we had to make the unfortunate decision on April 8.”

According to TAS, Neo was brought in by someone in the community who had been feeding him outdoors for years. They said the cat appeared very unwell and they attempted to find an owner. While the cat did have an identification chip, TAS said it was not properly registered and therefore, they were unable to find the owner.

“Our goal is always to reunite the pet with the owner, so we definitely gave the owner an opportunity to come forward,’ Pasquariello said.

Hadi said she was not aware of the animal services process and that more time should be given for someone to navigate the system.

“It's an outdoor cat — three days, it's so not fair," she said. “Two more days, I would have found him.”

While TAS is calling this an unfortunate situation, they’re asking people to both register their pets’ chips and submit reports as soon as possible after losing a pet.