You old hippies from the sixties and seventies remember the Furry Freak Brothers, right? And the crazy things they used to do with their cat, Freddy. Well, one of the brothers is alive and well in the body of a 20-year old dude, Acea Schomaker of Lincoln, Nebraska. Schomaker – in order to calm down an abused cat that he and his girlfriend took in – placed the 6-month old feline into a large, make-shift bong.
Schomaker said that when he smoked marijuana through it, it calmed the cat down. He did it on a number of occasions. Schomaker also told a reporter that he never intended to hurt cat, named Shadow.
He and his girlfriend, Marissa Vieux, took in the cat two months ago because it had been abused by friends. The Associated Press reported:
Schomaker said the cat would bite and scratch them but he didn’t want to discipline it by swatting or squirting water at it. He said they didn’t bring it to an animal shelter because they feared it would be put down.
Lancaster County sheriff’s deputies responding to a domestic disturbance at the residence ticketed the 20-year-old Schomaker on suspicion of misdemeanor animal cruelty Sunday after catching him smoking marijuana from a boxlike contraption that had the cat stuffed inside its 12-inch by 6-inch base.
Schomaker’s girlfriend, Marissa Vieux, also was ticketed for animal cruelty because she didn’t try to stop Schomaker, Sgt. Andy Stebbing said.
Schomaker said he decided to try the bong method because he had heard about people calming their pets by blowing marijuana smoke in their faces. “I know for sure this isn’t the first time someone has done this,” he said. “I’m just the first one to get caught.”
The AP continued:
He said he put the cat in the bong a total of three times and it seemed to calm the cat. “Every time we took her out she would pretty much just lay down and proceed to clean herself and act like a stoned person,” Schomaker said.
The bong had a foot-long piece of garden hose coming out of a Plexiglas box, with the top secured with duct tape. Schomaker said it was constructed in such a way that the cat did not get immersed in smoke to the extent some might believe.
Schomaker said law enforcement and animal specialists lectured him about why what he did was cruel, and that he learned from his mistake.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
WHAT?!??!?!?!!
I saw the AP version of this story in the Redding Record-Searchlight and all I could think was,
“Wow!!! they did NOT bust him for pot . . . hooray!!”
. . . but I’m glad he got a lesson about how to treat animals because, though i wish it weren’t so, I have never blown smoke into the face of an animal who liked it . . .
dickie … good catch of the news. but your other comment – it begs the question: how do you know?
Often cops will ignore lesser charges if they can get you on something bigger. For example, if a cop stops you for speeding, but you end up with a DUI, often a citation for speeding will never be written.
Joe, only because they didn’t say so . . . and I think they would’ve . . . maybe just wishful (hopeful) thinking? . . .
I’m pretty sure I saw that same “waterpipe” for sale at one of the smoke shops on Newport, it’s called the Catatonic.
Seriously though, not cool for the cat.
listen to this… a couple of years ago, a good friend of mine – who will remain nameless – took in a sick, emaciated cat; for some reason it wouldn’t eat and it was dying. So, my friend would blow herb smoke on the cat and try to feed it tunafish. After a couple of days, it worked – the cat started eating – and lived.
put that in yur pipe and smoke it, Dave.