Consultant: Human or Consumable resource?

Introduction
I'm starting this blog because I feel really misused by my latest client.  I have to let something of this frustration out somehow and I'm afraid to do this IRL due to the huge and international nature of that latest client and their behaviour.
To clarify..  I've been a software consultant for four years and I currently work for a small consultancy firm in Belgium.  Many of my previous clients were big companies or governmental agencies and all of them have always treated me with the respect one expects when working with people.  However my latest client has not.

Situation
I started working for this client, which is a big company that provides information services to a large customer base, some few months ago.  I was hired to help reach the excessively tight deadlines several months ago.  Until  a personal household problem got in the way, or that's how it seemed.  Of course the cliché of "nothing is what it seems" is rather applicable here.

Cause
Last month one of my cats died due to some kind of auto immunity disease, and this is relevant to the situation.  I heard it when I had arrived at the work-floor early in the morning.  I liked the little furry animal, and as all real humans do, I mourned its loss.  My colleagues noticed this and asked me what had happened, and so I explained.  I said I could use a day off from work to get myself together and cope with the loss but there wasn't anyone from the management present.  My colleagues told me to just go home and they would take care of it.  I told them that I should wait for management but they insisted, twice.  So, still early in the morning, I went back home.  I made an appointment with the vet to go and pick up the remains of my cat and bury it in the yard.  It was a hard thing to do, as I said I really liked the little critter.  It was a British shorthair cat and a very friendly one at that.  I can provide pictures to prove it ;-)

Effect
The next day I returned to the work-floor unsuspecting of what had happened when I was out.  The first thing I always do when I arrive at work is check my emails.  I noticed a red one from my employer in my mailbox.  I opened it and immediately realized the absurd truth.  I was thrown out by my client because of the "cat incident".  That's pretty much all information I had so I decided to wait for a manager.  The first manager who arrived did so around 9h30 and was visibly annoyed when he saw me.  When I asked for a motivation or elaboration on the matter he told me not much more than what was in the email from my employer.  And he added that if I didn't leave the building within five minutes time he'd call security.  So there I was, still rather dazed and confused of what had just happened I went home to later on try and explain to my employer.  They were shocked, to say the least.  It doesn't happen very often that a single employee can bring down his employer due to a cat.  This is because I was placed at my previous client by a partner of my employer who has placed me on their blacklist.  This is an important partner of my employer so not knowing the repercussions in the long run they had every reason and right to be very concerned.
I really have to applaud my employer on their handling of the situation.  They kept their confidence in me, but couldn't stress hard enough how grave this situation is, I fully understand them.  Like me they had no control of the situation, even less than I had and could potentially lose much more than I.  
Oh, and I also can't stress enough that I haven't had a single piece of feedback during my time at my client.  Not from the client and not from the partner company who had it handled by their account manager.

Monkeys and sleeves
In the Dutch language there's a saying.  Anyone who is a native Dutch speaker will not need an explanation of what's next in this paragraph, but it has to do with the truth coming out.
I know colleagues at my client and in this current information age it would be a miracle if this didn't reach me somehow.  But from what I heard some of my colleagues who are also consultants did not receive a renewal of their contract and they didn't get replaced either.  The client motivated it to a budget freeze imposed on them by the management abroad.  This was decided and known to my management at my client a few weeks before my cat died and puts the whole thing in a new light.  

Nice work...  really.