Family’s cat was shot with a screw

A cat was shot with a screw in the latest sickening attack on animals in the Cavan area.

Michael Higgins, who lives in The Gallops in Cavan town, made the discovery when family pet, Oscar, staggered home after the attack on Wednesday.

The 5cm screw was embedded in his shoulder and emergency surgery had to be carried out by a local vet to have it removed.

It is thought the Philips screw was fired either from an air rifle or a nail gun.

Two of the family’s other cats were shot in the chest and paw with nails last year, while Michael discovered blood and a loose nail alongside a third cat while cleaning the animal’s bedding.

“It’s sick. I can’t believe it’s happened again,” Michael told his local newspaper, the Anglo Celt.

“After the last time [when the cat was shot in the chest] we brought him to the vet first thinking he had a broken rib, only for the vet to show us an X-ray with a nail stuck in him, I went and put up posters around the estate. It stopped for a while after that, but whoever’s doing it is obviously at it again.

“I reported it to the guards but there’s not much they can do unless they catch the person. The worst thing is that there are a lot of young families living nearby. This is crazy behaviour, and if one of them got hit... There’s no words for it — whoever is doing this has to stop. It’s unbelievable.”

In a separate incident in recent weeks, a local vet located 17 gunshot pellets in the head of a Llewellyn Setter found roaming around the Belturbet area.

When no one claimed the dog, he was rescued by Carole Mansfield of Lily’s Dog Rescue in Shercock.

She had agreed to foster the dog and nurse him back to full health before passing him on to a British-based animal rescue charity.

But, because of concerns about the setter’s behaviour and his repeated walking around in circles, the distressed animal was taken to the vet. He was initially diagnosed as having an acute ear infection, but when his condition did not improve, Carole Mansfield raised funds through a Facebook appeal and brought him to a specialist at UCD.

A CT scan revealed that the setter had been shot with pellets. The animal has since had to be put down.