Cat shot twice with air rifle in Leeds had pellet lodged by spine

Owner sickened by cruelty of cat shooting.

Phil McDonald’s cat, Georgie, had a pellet lodged next to his spine and suffered internal injuries after getting stuck between the shed and a garden wall in Wortley.

Treatment at Yorkshire Vets in Thornbury eased the 18-month-old cat’s pain, but he had to be put down several days later as it became clear he would not survive.

Phil, 28, said: “Me and the family are distraught with the horrendous things Georgie has had to endure over the last two weeks.

“He was shot once in the shin, so he would have been limping along the wall, and then he was shot in the back.

“It wasn’t an accidental shooting. It was a thought out one.”

Georgie had gone missing from the family home in Kellet Lane on May 17.

Phil’s fiancée, Kirsty Leckenby, and three-year-old son, Oliver, joined him in searching nearby streets and putting up posters.

It was only six days later when a man living five doors away saw a poster and checked his garden that Georgie was found.

Phil believes Georgie was shot while walking along the wall in a ginnel off Dixon Lane and had lain injured for almost a week.

Vets found two pellet shot wounds, a pellet wedged next to Georgie’s spine and serious damage to his bladder.

Phil reported the shooting to the RSPCA as advised by police, but is yet to hear anything more.

“We face a vet bill of £1,112 and the loss of our cat due to the callous actions of some sick and twisted individual, who will end up getting away with this,” he said.

“It sickens me to think that there’s people out there who will do this to a poor, defenceless animal.”