Beautiful Hope came in to our care after being shot and left to die. Here is her story...

Hope was viciously shot three times with an air gun while heavily pregnant. The young, stray, black and white pregnant cat was found sheltering in a garden in Marchwood in Hampshire, unable to walk because of her injuries and covered in blood.

Luckily a member of the public found her and took her straight to Seadown Veterinary Surgery in Hythe.

Hope had been shot three times with an air gun which had left all three pellets still in her body. Two were potentially fatal owing to their proximity to her spine and brain. Of the two pellets that stopped in her neck, one had entered on her under side and then travelled all the way through her body, and neither could be removed without risking Hope’s life. The third was lodged in the roof of her mouth and was removed.

Just days after receiving surgery to remove one of the air gun pellets, Hope gave birth to four healthy kittens, three black-and-white and one grey-and-white, but the outcome could have been very different. Now Hope, believed to be around three years old, is on the road to recovery.

When Hope was taken as an emergency case into the surgery, the team couldn’t examine or x-ray her without pain relief. As well as needing surgery for her wounds and to remove the pellet, she needed to stay as an in-patient for a few days until she was able to come home with me to foster. Hope needed further assistance when it was time for her kittens to be born, so she has spent a lot of time needing veterinary help. To get through such an ordeal and then give birth to four healthy kittens is really quite amazing. We are extremely grateful to the wonderful team at Seadown Veterinary Surgery in Hythe who took such excellent care of Hope after she had suffered through such a cruel and violent attack.

As a volunteer-run branch we fundraise to cover all expenses ourselves and the charity as a whole receives no government funding, so we are asking anyone who has anything spare to please help us out. We are so glad we could save Hope and her kittens from what would have been a horrible and painful death if she had not been found.  If we are lucky enough to raise more than the total needed to cover Hope and the kittens’ vet care, it will be used to help other local cats through our branch.