PALMER, Alaska – The custody battle over Carl the Cat is going to trial.

People on both sides of a lawsuit filed last year say all efforts to resolve ownership of the big orange tabby have failed and a trial date has been set for Sept. 10 in Palmer Superior Court.

What’s so great about Carl, a 6-year-old stray found as a kitten in 2000? According to admirers, Carl is really friendly, used to like drowning stuffed toys in the toilet and gets along great with other animals

One of the combatants tussling over him is Catherine Fosselman, who says she got legal title to Carl last year when she bought out her partner in a Mat-Su accounting firm. Carl lived at the office and thus is part of the property she bought, she said in court filings.

Her lawsuit asked for $100,000 in damages for having been deprived of Carl’s company, but Fosselman said she doesn’t care about the money.

“Before we even filed charges, all we wanted was him back,” she said. “We have since offered to drop the lawsuit and everything just so long as they gave the cat back. This has nothing to do with money.”

On the other side is Staci Fieser. She used to work at the accounting office. She took Carl home after a fire in February 2006 and has cared for him ever since. Her husband, Jason, is an Alaska state trooper who has since been transferred to Dillingham, where Carl now lives with the Fiesers. They say they have no intention of giving him up.

“I don’t feel like we need to give in to somebody that’s just trying to push us around,” Jason Fieser said. “I don’t think anybody should.”

The Fiesers claim Fosselman didn’t really care about Carl, especially after she took him home one weekend and he peed on her bed. Staci Fieser and another employee fed and cleaned up after Carl at the office, stopped in to see him on weekends, and paid for food and vet services, she said in court filings.

Fosselman says she can trump that. She not only paid for cat food but paid employees for the time they spent taking care of Carl at the office, to the tune of $7,000. She’s not dropping the lawsuit.

“If someone was baby-sitting your child and they wouldn’t return your child, what would you do?” she asked.

According to the Fiesers, news of the cat custody lawsuit arrived in Dillingham before Carl did.

“People wanted to come over and see Carl,” Jason Fieser said. They wanted to know how Carl was doing and they wanted to know the story, stuff like that. Basically because they just can’t believe this is happening.”