HI,

A couple of years ago we came home on a sunday and found our cat Barney on the kitchen floor looking like he had passed away, however when we touched him he sort of growled (i know that sounds weird), we couldnt see anything wrong other than a small hole type wound on his side so didnt know what had happened to him. we rushed him to vets now (pdsa at attercliffe).

When we took him through to the nurse as soon as she examined him she said 'I think he has been shot, if you look closely you can see the nozzle mark where someone has pressed the gun on him as they have shot'

I was so upset as Barney is the most loving cat I have known and I can just imagine him going up to those people for a stroke..........the ********!

At the time of dropping him off they didnt seem very caring, although as I was hysterical when they mentioned the word 'shot' I probably scared them. (Probably never seen anyone so passionate about a cat before). They basically said prepare for the worst. I stroked his fur and kissed his head and said 'be safe, I will be with you, I love you'

Then I went home and kept thinking how unbothered they seemed. I even remember thinking the other owners in the waiting room seemed to care more.

However, all night they kept me updated and at 2am in the morning (i did ask for an update through the night) they phoned me and said the pellet had gone through his side and then shot through into his liver, kidney and stomach. They said they opened him up and had never seen anything as bad and didnt know whether to try and save him or not as it would be so costly and they didnt honestly think he could survive that, and they knew i didnt have pet insurance (oops). Then as she spoke to me she started laughing and said Barney is a miracle cat, you want to see him now, flirting! purring! and looking bright as a button, said he was going to be just fine.

2 years on he is really healthy, if not a little over weight!

The bill was over £700 however they let me pay abit every month and were never horrible about paying it back slowly.

Im so glad they gave his life a chance (and so is barney....) i have tears in my eyes now and butterflies just thinking about how upsetting it all was.............im off to give him a hug xx

Here he is, my hero...(with his baby sister)
http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u142/danianddan/DSC00207.jpg

Aww I'm so glad Barney was OK and is still happy & healthy! :)

I love a happy ending good old Barney and the PDSA :clap: :love:

glad to hear hes ok

Poppy is my miracle moggy. At six or seven months, she went out one night and didn't come home. First thing in the morning we searched everywhere for her and I feared the worst when I found her broken collar in the road. I expected to find her flat somewhere. We both searched again in the evening and in the morning but this time concentrating on areas where she could be lying hurt to no avail and I spent the day ringing round all the local vets, incase someone had found her. Imagine my surprise when I came home to find Poppy sitting at the top of the stairs.

She did not look quite right and as I approached her I saw that her face was misshapen, her jaw crooked, and her eye looked blind, to say nothing of the cuts to her head and paws. My poor little girl had managed to drag herself through the catflap with those awful injuries.

Needless to say, I rang the vet and told them I would be over in five minutes with my kitten, I shot out, got the catbasket -happily she climbed in on her own - then drove her to the vet, who then sent me on to their main surgery, with a hospital attached at Dronfield. All this time, my little girl said not a thing.

When she got to Dronfield, they took her from me and there she stayed for three weeks. She had fractured her orbit and probably dislocated the lens in her eye, her maxilla (cheek bone) had three breaks and she had one break on one side of her jaw and two on the other. She had no other injuries, believe it or not, other than a shattered eardrum on one side.

Now came the hardest bit. She had a tube fed up her nose to feed her and her jaw was strapped, to keep it in alignment, but within a day she had both off. So it was replaced and she was given a lampshade to wear and by the following morning, she had removed the tube and the strapping. Bear in mind that each time she had it replaced, she had another anaesthetic and she was also a young cat so her bones were beginning to heal. Each time she did this was one less chance of her jaw setting straight.

When I finally got to take her home, yes, her jaw was well crooked and worse, the bottom teeth stopped her from closing her jaw at all. The vet said that she had had to give in in the end because of Poppy continually removing the brace, however she put it onShe had a persistent ear infection from the shattered drum which was a bit difficult to treat but apart from that she had a remarkable recovery from a devastating accident.

Today, with her curly tail, mangled face and permanently dribbly chin, she is never going to be best looking cat, but she makes up for it in sheer character. She is the most loving cat I have ever had. Most recently she has had to have a cracked tooth removed which was probably also damaged in the accident. A picture will follow if I can ever get her to stay still long enough.

I forgot to say, it took me months to pay off that bill, something of the order of £900, I think but again the vet allowed me to pay it off slowly as they have with future disasters (some of which also involved Poppy!)

Barney sends kisses to poppy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If anyone knows the old quarry where Homebase is on CHesterfield road then you'll know just how high it is. My mothers dog a border collie was having her first run after her initial injections had been completed and managed in her excitement to run off the top of the quarry. She fell all the way down and although surviving the fall smashed one of her front legs badly. She had a little pot on for ages and up to the day she died as a very old lady she still had a slight weakness in it.