UNIONTOWN (KDKA) — State police are investigating after a cat was shot in the spine in Fayette County.

Sergeant usually doesn’t wander far from his front porch in the Oliver section of Uniontown, but that changed on Sunday.

“I was making dinner and I was alerted to the cat trying to get up these steps here – couldn’t get up,” Eric Lilley, the cat owner, said.

Sergeant’s back legs were useless. Initially, Eric thought his cat had been hit by a car until he spotted the small wound on his spine.

“So, I took him in this morning, they did x-rays and they found a BB in his spine,” he said.

The veterinarian couldn’t safely remove the pellet.

“If they remove the BB, it would cause more damage,” Eric explained.

They decided to try to reduce the swelling that’s causing the paralysis.

“They just gave him some anti-inflammatory steroid medicine to hope that the swelling goes down because the BB didn’t penetrate the spinal cord,” he said.

They’ll know in a couple of days.

“If the swelling doesn’t go down and he doesn’t start using his back legs, then they’ll have to put him to sleep,” Eric said.

He filed a report with State Police. The veterinarian told him they’ve had other animals brought in with similar wounds.

Anyone with information is asked to call State police barracks in Uniontown.

RELATED LINKS
More Local News
More Fayette County News