A one-year-old family cat was put to sleep over the weekend after being subjected to shocking and unimaginable cruelty at the hands of a sick individual.
Lorraine Forde, from Richhill, said she “thought long and hard about posting this story” chronicling the distressing demise of her pet cat, Garfield.
She said that after two long weeks and a broken heart she felt she had to speak up in a bid to catch the culprit – or culprits responsible for the horror they inflicted.
Lorraine said Garfield was dipped in either diesel or home heating oil on Friday, January 27 and after multiple washes and visits to the vet, the cat was seemingly on the mend.
However, a second incident seven weeks later, on March 13, it returned to its Brentwood Park home looking like a large black rat.
Said Lorraine: “After hours of washing it with coconut oil and baby bath we got it back to its own colour. He couldn’t open his eyes with the fuel and had large chemical burns on its wee body.
“After a week and a few visits to the vet, constantly applying cream, he was looking and doing well – on the outside.
“Unfortunately, on Wednesday night he went down on the back legs, so we took it to the out of hours vets at 10pm. It got a good check over injections and sent home.”
Sadly, the respite was only overnight and Garfield was back at the vets the following morning where an X-ray found it had suffered nerve damage to the spine, “either by swinging it by the tail or using the tail to dip it” in fuel.
The cat had also suffered trauma to its testicles which had started a really bad infection.
Lorraine added: “Since Wednesday it hadn’t been able to empty its bladder itself and was trailing its back legs, which meant it had to go back to the vets every morning to have his wee bladder emptied.”
On Saturday morning, the family made the heartbreaking decision to put wee Garfield to sleep and out of its pain.
“So to the evil person, or people, who did this to the wee cat; I can’t even say, God forgive you. To think there are people, or one person in Richhill, our village, that could do this to an innocent wee kitten just over one-year-old; I can’t find the words to describe you.
“It has cost us almost £800 just to give it comfort and a wee chance to survive this ordeal! I would pay it again if I thought I’d have him back. He was so friendly and such a beautiful wee cat!
“If anyone knows anything that can help find out who did this, can you please PM me as it will help the Police with cruelty to Animal investigation.”
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