Owner offers £500 reward after bullet shatters cat’s leg in Perry

A cat required a three-hour operation to save its shattered back leg after being shot in Perry – and there’s a £500 reward for information leading to the conviction of whoever was responsible.

Jeanine Swanepoel, of Blythe Green, said her two-year-old tortoiseshell Puddle was screaming with pain when she returned home at about 8am on Friday (July 11).

“She had managed to drag herself back to the house,” she added. “I thought she had been hit by a car. I took her to the vet straight away. I then got a phone call to say they had X-rayed and there was a bullet and she had been shot.

“I was absolutely disgusted and horrified that someone could do that.”

A vet at Church House Veterinary Clinic in St Neots had to fit a titanium rod to Puddle’s femur to pin the pieces of bone back together in a three-and-a-half-hour procedure.

Ms Swanepoel, a care co-ordinator, has lived in Blythe Green with partner Martin Jones for three years and has seven cats. “My dad lives next door and he has three cats,” she continued. “We’ve never ever had a problem before. It’s devastating.”

She said police had been informed and she had put up a £500 reward for any information resulting in a successful conviction. “The fact someone is running around with a gun is not clever.

“If we can have them brought to justice it might prevent someone else going through what we’ve been through.”

Meanwhile, Puddle’s recuperation is likely to take up to 12 weeks, during which time she has to be kept indoors.

INFORMATION: To help, call police on 101 and quote reference 133.