My cat may have been shot with an air rifle!

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And I actually feel sick!!
We noticed a deep puncture wound in her tummy this morning, and took her straight up to the vets.
Vet thinks she could have been shot with an air pistol 😭 they're not 100% sure but it looks like an inflicted injury they said, if it happened from a bite she would have either been ill and had an abscess first, or had more than one puncture as it’s in a very funny place. We’ve got anti inflammatory and antibiotics for now, they might need to put her to sleep and open it up to check if there’s any fragments inside - I’ve to keep an eye on it and take her back in 2 days. The vet said it was very deep but her muscle feels like it's intact and we're lucky we caught it now.
Has anyone had anything similar? I’m actually in shock that somebody could do this, I’m hoping it could have been accidental, but I doubt we’ll ever know!

I’m so sorry for your cat, I hope they heal very soon. My exes cat was shot with an air rifle. They came in the House injured and dragging their leg which required surgery. THey never caught who did it but there was a spate of it happening. Absolute cowards who do things like this.

I’m sorry. Humans are just appalling creatures sometimes. My old school friend had the same happen to her cat but unfortunately it was killed. The chances of it being accidental are slim to none. There’s lots of cat haters out there.

My cat was shot with an air rifle when I was a kid
Pellet was left in as vet couldn’t remove it.
Cat lived to be 23 years old.

Bloody hell! There are some horrible people. I have heard of cats living perfectly fine with the pellets in them (doesn't excuse it though).
Hope your cat is ok.

We had a spate of this in our village too a while ago. It’s not happened lately though. Perhaps the person moved away

Poor little thing. Hope she's OK, and you

Can they xray to see if thete is a pellet or fragments inside? If they can confirm it is a shot you should make the police aware.
I hope your kitty recovers quickly.

Thanks everyone, and sorry to hear of the same thing happening to other cats!
I’ve phoned the vet back today as dcat seems really sore, but the vets happy for me to still wait until tomorrow to take her back in, the wound looks a lot more swollen today too.
The vet mentioned xraying it while she was under, but obviously the anaesthetic has risks of its own, I’ll be interested to see what they say tomorrow.
My dh & dc all went out around our street looking for any pellets or remnants of anything that could have caused her wound but they didn’t find anything, I’m hoping it was just an accident but sadly the other scenario seems more likely