Found a cat paw in the raised bed

[ExpectingToFly]

So we moved into our house 17 months ago. We had the back garden completely returfed and two raised beds put in for vegetables etc. They are about 6ft x 3ft.
At the weekend I was digging in one of the beds and I thought I saw a cats paw sticking out. I only let myself look for a brief second as I felt so freaked out so I quickly put mud back on top. I then went to sort the kids out and sort of forgot about it.
I mentioned to my husband in the evening that I thought something weird was in the vegetable patch and could he check but he just laughed it off and even I thought it was probably just a branch or something...

Yesterday I wanted to plant some seeds in and remembered about the weird thing so asked my husband to check. Which he did.. he went really quiet and said it really was a cats paw. I felt so awful. How did it get there? Is it definitely a cat? Is it all of a cat? Who did it? It feels so sinister 😥
He did a bit more digging and said he found another paw but the kids were around so he stopped.
He rang the RSPCA but they couldn't do anything and said to contact local environmental health
Thry said to put it in a bag and they will collect it

I am too scared to dig it up and I think my husband is too. We just put a patio slab ontop for now
WTF is going on?! Do you think someone climbed over our fence and buried a cat? We live in a seaside town....I joked maybe s seagull had done it

Where did the soil come from to fill the raised beds?
You need to dig to see if it’s full cat or just pieces?
If you get in touch with your local Cats Protection they will give good advice, if it’s a full act it can be scanned for a chip as it may be a missing pet.
I scan found pets, often deceased, it’s not pleasant but it can give an owner peace of mind.
Time to take the brave pills.

It will be a deceased pet, ours is buried outside.

Last option after Sarah's, is, unfortunately, to consider home security.

When i leave this house the new owners[tenants] will have a shock,i have about 7 cats buried in my garden, mostly in one corner,
I hope that the poor cat wasn't in the new soil maybe climbed in the tipper
If it still has fur on it, and sounds like it if you recognised it as a cats paw,please try to get it scanned,might be someones pet
There are usually mobile scanners around

It’s probably a deceased pet

But they closed the cat killer investigation didn’t they, saying there was no cat killer?

No Snarl haven't closed it, still looking,

I thought chips went into neck flesh, not paws, so scanning won't be any use.

If you think someone has killed/dismembered a cat then you have to report that to the police. Sounds very strange. Rip cat.

Ring the previous owners and ask if its theirs?

@princessTiasmum, I hope you tell the new owners/occupiers!

I really wish it were a legal requirement to declare where pets are buried when a property changes hands. I can't imagine many pet owners love the idea of a beloved pet being dug up and put in the bin, and no one wants to dig that up!

A skeleton of a cat’s paw or a still furry looking cat’s paw?

Oh my, this does sound strange. Possibly the cat was ‘delivered’ with the soil for the raised beds?

There’s so many questions here.
Who made the beds and can you contact them to find out where the soil came from ?
Furry or non-furry ?

Someone’s going to have to dig up puss and see if it’s whole, what condition, is there a collar and if there’s a chip there somewhere.

The council waste services department in my area have a scanner to scan dead pets they find on the roads, so they can contact the owners. So they might do it for you.

Fresh or decomposed? If fresh, surely you'd just have dug the whole thing up, quickly and easily. So presumably decomposed - yet still 'paw' not 'skeletal foot'. More info needed OP!

If you’re in Brighton or thereabouts it could be the Brighton cat killer. Really hope not.

Fuck that, I would freak! You have my sympathy OP!

I'd also go with the idea of previous owners burying their pet cat there

It's a buried cat no doubt from previous owners...

Bloody hell, such an anguished first post but not back yet...

How did the previous owners' dead cat get into OP's newly laid and filled raised beds? Unless you dug up the earth beneath and distributed it into the new beds - but surely impossible not to have noticed a whole dead cat in the process! So no, not the previous owners' cat.

OP, all this twiddling around discovering one paw at a time suggests either a dismembered and distributed cat, or a rather archaeological approach to gardening. Stop pussyfooting around (arf) and just dig up the cat!

Foxes bury their kills for later. A fox...a hungry one has killed it and put it there for another day.

I will say fox too. I’ve caught them on our cctv burying gloves in our vegetable patch. They dig deep enough and bury well.
Possibly, either killed a cat or found an already dead cat and buried it to find another day.

Without going into upsetting details, I’m not sure the cat killer is the type to bury or cover up the body of their victims.

But I agree, someone’s poor pet may have been killed and hidden. More details are needed