A distraught Margate mum has to find up to £4,000 for surgery by vets after a callous thug shot her young son’s two-year-old cat.
Jodie Gower says she is dreading telling nine-year-old Elliott that pet Oreo will have to be put to sleep and so has launched a fundraiser to try and gather the costs for the cat to undergo surgery at Briar House vets.
Jodie says she let Oreo out from her Brockley Road home on Sunday while she was cooking dinner but by Tuesday he still had not returned.
The 33-year-old said: “On Tuesday morning I said to my partner about him not being home yet but sometimes he does goes off for a couple of days on his jollies.
“But on Tuesday at about 5.30pm I was at my brother’s having dinner and my mum called to say there was a post on New Thanet Chat about a cat found in an alleyway by Grotto Road who looked like he had been run over and couldn’t move his legs.
“He had been taken to Thanet Vets and it was Oreo. The vets said they thought he had been run over and had given him pain relief.
“Today we took him to our vets (Briar House) and they did an X ray. They showed us the X ray and Oreo has a bullet in his spine. He has been shot.”
The Briar House vet has told Jodie that an operation to remove the bullet can be carried out although Oreo would still be classed as disabled. Currently his bladder is hugely swollen as he is unable to urinate so the vet has inserted a catheter. An operation is not guaranteed to work but the only other option is to have Oreo put to sleep.
Jodie said: “We need to get together between £3-4,000 for the surgery which is a lot of money or we have to have him put to sleep.
“This must have happened on Sunday and he was in that alley by himself for two days. He is my son’s cat and Elliott absolutely adores him. Oreo sleeps on his pillow every night. I can’t imagine how I will tell him if Oreo has to be put down. That’s why we are trying so hard to raise the money. Elliott know he is poorly and said this morning that he felt sick.
“I do not know how someone could be so evil to shoot a cat. He is the loveliest cat. If I manage to get him home he isn’t going out again and I’ll even move house because I don’t want to live somewhere where people think it is ok to shoot a cat.”
Oreo is currently at Briar House vets. The shooting has been reported to Kent Police.
A police spokesperson said: “Kent Police was contacted at 12.15pm on Wednesday 22 February 2023 following a report a cat had been found with injuries in the Brockley Road area of Margate.
“Initial enquiries are under way to determine how the cat came by the injuries and whether any criminal offences have been committed.”
