POLICE are investigating after a two-year-old cat was shot.

Pepsi returned to his home in St Wilfrid’s Road, Burgess Hill, limping and when owner Alison Casey took him to the vets an emergency X-ray showed an airgun pellet lodged in his ribcage.

Pepsi is now recovering but vets said they were seeing an increase in the number of cats being shot.

Ms Casey said: “He came home limping and we thought that maybe he had been hit by a car.

“It was awful.

“We have been really worried. It happened during the middle of the day while we were out at work.

“This happened on a Thursday and the following Thursday we heard lots of sound from air guns being fired.

“Now we are worried all the time in case it happens again.”

Veterinary surgeon Rhian-Mai Jones, of the Heath Veterinary Clinic in Burgess Hill, said she was extremely concerned about Pepsi.

She said: “His body had gone into shock and the pellet had entered his body in his neck and tracked along the line of his jugular before lodging in his chest.”

Because of the position of the pellet it was not safe to perform surgery to remove it immediately as the risk of haemorrhage from the jugular was too high.

Pepsi needed to be stabilised and the entry wound allowed to heal before they could tackle the pellet.

He responded well to his treatment and returned the following week for an operation to remove the offending pellet.

Practice manager Sarah Solomon said: “This is a very distressing incident but unfortunately it is something that we see have seen multiple times.

“Pepsi is incredibly lucky. He is recovering extremely well and we are hopeful he will go on to live a normal life.

“Sadly the outcome for other cats who are hurt in this way has not always been so positive.”

A spokesman for Sussex Police said enquiries have been made to trace the offender.