A PET owner is asking people in Tavistock to keep an eye on their animals after her 12-year-old cat was found to have been shot with an air rifle.

Nicole Murray, who lives in Edgcumbe Drive, found a lump on her cat Tosca last week and took him to the vet thinking it was a cist. Unable to do a biopsy, Tosca had to undergo surgery, where the vet found a pellet from an air rifle lodged inside him.

Nicole said: ’We found a lump on him last week, so I imagine it must’ve happened quite recently. The vet thought it was a cist and did an investigation. They tried to do a biopsy but couldn’t so they had to cut him open and found an air rifle pellet inside.’

Nicole said it cost around £300 for Tosca to undergo surgery, but he is back to his normal self now.

’He went for a check up and now he’s fine, it’s just been hard to keep him inside. We let him out for the first time the other evening and I just spent the whole time worrying about him.

’We just couldn’t believe that this had happened — that someone could do this to a person’s pet. Tosca doesn’t tend to stray very far so it must’ve happened somewhere close by.

’There are a lot of cat owners around here so we just want people to check their pets for lumps or injuries. If we hadn’t have caught it, he could have got led poisoning from the pellet.’