Maine Coon shot with airgun almost died

NEWS AND OPINION: Kanji is a typically large Maine Coon Living in Suffolk, England, UK. He was allowed outside and was shot when wandering around the neighbourhood. The interesting and troubling aspect of this story is that his owner, Mrs Boucher, couldn't see anything wrong with him. He was just unwell so she took him to the vet. They discovered that an airgun pellet had been shot into his stomach area. It had torn through Kanji's stomach wall and bowel. He needed life-saving emergency surgery and plenty of antibiotics to kill off a subsequent bacterial infection.

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Kanji a large Maine Coon was shot with an airgun while wandering around outside the home in the UK. Photo: Mrs Boucher.

It took a couple of visits to the veterinarian to find out the problem. On the first visit the vet couldn't find the cause of Kanji's poor health. He has fully or almost fully recovered it seems but he spent several days at the surgery because of the infection. He had part of his intestines removed.

After being shot he managed to make it home. This confirms that he was allowed outside. It is unusual, in my opinion, to allow a Maine Coon cat to go outside freely like this without supervision. In modern Britain, with increased casual crime and with the police disinterested in minor crime, which this would be categorised as, it is unwise to let a large, impressive, purebred cat such as the Maine Coon go outside to wander around the neighbourhood.

Clearly, some idiot, almost certainly a young man, decided to take a pot shot at the cat because he has an airgun which he wanted to use. What better target than a domestic cat? Perhaps I am stereotyping this person but perhaps I am not. This sort of casual crime is born out of idleness and lack of direction combined with bad parenting and poor education.

Mrs Boucher will never find out who did it and nor will the police. They are pretty hopeless anyway in the UK nowadays. I hope that she now keeps Kanji inside at all times but I doubt it. Therefore the problem may happen again and he might not be as lucky the next time.

It is a reminder that there is a growing movement by cat owners to keep them inside at all times which carries extra responsibilities which are often not discharged I am afraid to say.

Source: BBC. 5th Nov 2020.