Gloucester cat survives being shot in head

GLOUCESTER, Va. (WAVY) — The owner of a Gloucester County cat said it is a miracle that it survived after being shot in the head, and now she’s wondering who would do such a thing.

The Hampton Animal Response Team is investigating after Joanna Yeoman’s eight-year-old cat, Betelgeuse, was shot. The shooting came after the cat had gone missing toward the end of May.

After he had been missing a few days, Yeoman began to worry. A few days turned into two weeks before she heard his meowing late one evening in a neighbor’s backyard.

“He was back there, and it took me awhile to get to him,” she said. “I didn’t recognize his face; he had lost a lot of weight. He had dried blood over his chest and on his face.”

Yeomans rushed him to a vet in Richmond, arriving at 11 p.m. They got him stabilized, and the bloodwork looked good. They thought he’d been hit by a car, but then the vet noticed something — shrapnel showing up in a head x-ray.

“He said, well, he’s been shot in the head,” Yeoman said. “I was horrified and so upset, just so upset. I was living a nightmare.”

Amazingly, the small caliber bullet missed any vital organ.

“He was shot in the face. It went in the side of his nose. It shattered the hard palate and then came out through the neck.”

Grateful that he’s even alive, she’s now feeding him through a tube in his neck. A metal plate holds together the hole in his mouth until it heals. Yeomans started a GoFundMe in hopes of raising the $6,000 now needed for his care.

“Even when I went to pick him up that night that I found him, he was purring,” she said. “There’s not a mean bone in his body. So, again, it’s just hard to believe someone would hate a cat that much.”

Shooting a cat is a felony in the state of Virginia. Yeomans said Animal Control is investigating. Yeomans is appreciative of everyone who has reached out, including her neighbors and pet sitter who have helped feed Betelgeuse while she’s at work.