July 14, 2008
After 1 year, 9 months and 27 days lost in space my lovely cat Dora was found and taken into the local vets’ surgery. There they scanned her, found her microchip and so were able to contact me. After having received two previous contacts from people who responded to newspaper “Lost” adverts where I built my hopes up only to find that it was not her, I could have been guarded about being happy…but microchips can’t be wrong can they? So I allowed myself to be deliriously happy…and I was not wrong to do so!
A few hours later when we got to the Seadown Veterinary Hospital in Hythe the staff still cautioned me that it may not be her but after a long wait we were called in to the consulting room and she was brought in. Of course it was her; technology is wonderful – although geo-positioning built into microchips would be a great advantage for tracing lost pets. Although I wasn’t (too) worried that it may not be her, I was concerned that she may have forgotten me because cats are reckoned to have a very short memory, but when she was on the table being examined she came towards me and pushed her head into me. That was it, I knew then that she hadn’t forgotten me.
Her coat was a little rough but she looked well enough for living wild all that time however the vet told us that she had an air gun pellet embedded in her back. She showed me and said that it hadn’t moved, was close to the surface and would be relatively easy to remove, which will be done in a few weeks time when she has got her injections up to date. We are very lucky that the pellet didn’t hit her spine – or the microchip! It’s obvious that she was running away when shot and as the skin is healed over with fur completely covering it I think that it’s likely that being shot at is the reason she lost her bearings and couldn’t find her way home.
Why do these stupid people use air guns on defenceless animals? I really do not understand why these weapons, because that is what they are for they can kill or seriously maim victims, are not licensed. In the 1970’s when I was in charge of a branch library such a gun was used to shoot pellets through the library windows from a nearby building. At the time the library was full of people, including children and it was pure luck that no-one was harmed by this attack. The police did work fast to catch the person responsible – they did such things then – and they were charged. I don’t recall the outcome, but I suspect it was only a fine for damage to the building and a warning. I knew that sometime soon there would be a bad accident with air guns:
Toddler shot in head with airgun
An 18-month-old boy is critically ill in hospital after being shot in the head with an airgun in what appears to be a “tragic accident”, police said.
He was playing with other young children in the garden of his home in Washwood Heath, Birmingham, on Sunday.It is thought some children aged under five managed to access the air weapon and accidentally caused it to go off, West Midlands Police said.
Now Dora is safe back home and I am tempted to ground her for life but that would not be fair on her. For now she has established the spare room as her safe space, with occasional forays downstairs for food and to test the waters with the other two grumpy cats. We have a long way to go before we have an harmonious cat household.
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