By Emily Norman
A Masterton cat had to drag itself home with two broken legs after it was shot.
Missy, a 3-year-old Maine Coon from Upper Plain Rd, was shot twice this week — shattering her front leg into 22 pieces and breaking the tibia and fibula in her back leg.
The vet, who has since operated on it, says the cat may still lose a leg.
Owners Susie and Dave Hilliard had been away when the shooting occurred and house-sitters had not seen Missy for about a day.
“Missy had dragged herself inside through the cat flap and was lying in the hallway [yesterday morning],” Mrs Hilliard said.
“I could tell from the odd angle of her paw that something was wrong.”
Missy was brought in yesterday morning to Vetcare in Masterton where she was given surgery and stabilised.
Mrs Hilliard said she was “furious and disappointed” that someone would shoot another person’s pet.
“The agony they caused Missy was what upset me the most.
“She could have been in agony for three or four days trying to get home.”
Infections have already set in and Vetcare veterinary director Heidi Ward-McGrath said: “We’ll be lucky if we can save her front leg”.
“She’s in a bad way – there’s no two ways about it.”
“It’s got several things that make it surgically difficult — it’s infected, and it’s in lots of pieces.”
She said Missy had “obviously tried to walk home on those two broken legs”, both of which were on the same side.
“If you can imagine, every time she fell, she would have been grinding those bones around.”
“There’s a lot of soft tissue damage internally.
“I’ve gone and taken out lots of pieces of shrapnel – about 11 pieces in the front leg.”
“It’s pretty tragic,” she said.
Pictures of Missy’s injuries and surgery, which were shared to the Vetcare Limited Facebook page, received outraged comments from other pet owners.
“What I noticed on Facebook was that this is not the first cat that’s been shot on Upper Plain and the rumour is that there is somebody there shooting cats,” Dr Ward-McGrath said.
“My concern is that it is school holidays and it looks like a slug gun.”
Mrs Hilliard said she would like for the person responsible to come forward.
Shocking. She certainly looks more like a pet than a feral cat and animals need to be treated with respect.
I am sorry about your cat my Kamal wants one and she thinks they are so cuddly I am sorry I am sad now I hear that it was into 22 piece’s I am sorry