CAT OWNERS:I want to apologise first if the following upsets anyone, but I feel that this needs to be said and people need to be more aware.
Wednesday of last week, I opened the door to my cat, Archie, of 11 years, who was much more a little brother than a pet cat, to find that he hobbled over the door step, howling in pain.
After screaming and crying on the phone to my parents and running round to next door in a dressing gown and no shoes, Archie was taken to the vet, wrapped in his favourite blanket.
It wasn’t until the vet examined him that the horror of Archie’s accident was apparent.
His tail was completely hanging off from the very top with the bone sticking out of the skin underneath. In addition the skin around his bottom and back legs was ripped off.
The vet told us that Archie would definately loose his tail and that in normal circumstances, he would recover. However, the vet was unsure if the unrinary tract was still intact and told us that this could either scar over, stopping Archie from going to the toilet completely or it could never heal, leaving him incontinent in most cases.
Archie was then put to sleep.
In the car home, my Dad told us that, that morning when he left for work, the car hadn’t started and that he’d had to turn the engine over twice, and that the battery light was on - very unusual for a car we’d never had problems with.
On arriving home we checked under the bonnet to find a snapped fan belt and Archie’s fur…
It appears that Archie was under the car when my Dad turned the engine on and the gust created by the fan belt picked his tail up…
The car is an 03 reg Volkswagen Polo and research has proved that the car was never fitted with an under tray. In addition, when we rung the garage to fix the fan belt (as this stops the battery charging) the sales assistant knew of 2 other cases of cats being killed in this horrific way - both Polos. However, it is known to have happened with other car makes and models too.
We are currently in the process of contacting the BBC and Volkswagen to raise awarness for both the fault and lack of warning with these cars.
Please reblog this, if we save just one cat from the same ordeal, it means my little brother Archie, didn’t die in vain.
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oh no, ) : poor cat! this is horrible
I’m in floods of tears, I love my little Wyatt! If anything happened to him it’d break my heart!