Cat shot 10 times with .22
Ethel, WA (US)Incident Date: Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008
County: Lewis
Disposition: Open
Suspect(s) Unknown - We need your help!
Cindy Kimerling's big black 5-year-old cat vanished from his Ethel-area home one morning last month, and as the days went by, the former accountant was sure her cat had been killed by coyotes or, possibly, neighborhood dogs.
Kimerling was ecstatic five days later when Titan appeared before her in the driveway, meowed and limped into the garage to eat.
Her initial joy turned to anguish the next day, a Monday, when her veterinarian discovered her cat had been shot 10 times with large metal pellets.
One broke his hind leg, one struck his jaw and most were clustered in his chest area.
The .22-caliber pellets are the largest that can be bought at one local outdoors store. Jackson Highway Veterinary Clinic Dr. Dale Marker says he's never seen an animal shot so many times.
"He's a survivor," Marker said of Titan last week.
"He's a cat with more than 10 lives," Kimerling said. "He got shot 10 times."
While pets being shot, whether with real bullets, BBs, pellets or even shotguns, is not uncommon in Lewis County, such incidents are rarely reported to the Lewis County Sheriff's Office. And while a deputy took a report of what appears to amount to extreme animal cruelty, the sheriff's office isn't pursuing the case further.
Kimerling, who moved to Lewis County in March of last year from the Everett area near Seattle, was left with the impression it's legal here to shoot an animal if it comes onto your property, even though such activity is not legal.
Fifty-eight-year-old Kimerling said she and her father migrated south to have a house built on affordable property they found southeast of Mary's Corner. She doesn't work anymore, she said, because she takes care of her nearly 90-year-old dad.
Their cleared 5-acre parcel off the gravel Klein Road is nestled in the woods with few neighbors. They moved into it in February.
Before they were even settled, three of her cats ran off, Kimerling said.
Area residents say coyotes, large owls and other wild animals live nearby. Some have seen cougars, bears and even a bobcat.
Domestic cats often don't fare well.
Colleen and Wayne Mummert moved to Klein Road in the early 1990s. Their only pet, a pit bull, has a fenced enclosure in their backyard.
"We don't do kittens anymore, 'cause they disappear," Colleen said.
Another neighbor, Steve Trent, has two miniature dachshunds and a cat, but he's lost pets, he said.
Two of his family's cats have disappeared, perhaps to the coyotes, according to Trent.
"We had one dog, Goldie, one day we came home and she was just gone," he said.
He wants to think somebody liked her and took her home.
Kimerling herself had a kitten that went missing during last month's huge thunder and lightening storm. A week later, she took a trip to the Lewis County Animal Shelter and adopted Titan.
He's neutered, and he was 15 pounds.
Kimerling knows there are wild animals and dogs who could pick a fight with her roaming feline, but she never expected what happened.
Titan lost one pound during his five days in the woods.
Donna Marker, the veterinarian's wife, who manages the office and works as a technician, said last week it's surprising Kimerling's cat survived and didn't die from shock.
"The pain alone, it's just amazing he wouldn't have given up by then," she said.
The examination turned up multiple puncture wounds and the fractured leg. They were astounded when the radiographs -- X-rays -- revealed several pellets, luckily none of which struck a vital organ, she said.
Dr. Marker, who opened his office on Jackson Highway four years ago after working in Longview and Snohomish, said he's never come across so many "bullets" in a cat.
Probably about once a month, he sees a pet that's been shot, Dr. Marker said. Sometimes he finds pellets, sometime real bullets, and even more often, he finds buckshot from shotguns.
Most of the animals survive, if the owner can afford the vet bill and doesn't opt for euthanasia, according to Donna Marker.
That's a hard decision for pet owners, she said.
"So whoever's doing this, they don't realize what they're taking away," she said.
Titan underwent surgery on his second day at the clinic.
The doctor installed a pin for the broken bone and removed five of the pellets.
One was buried in the muscle, but many were just beneath the skin, he said. He didn't take them all, in part because they're not usually made of lead anymore, so there's not a danger of poisoning, and in part because it can cause more damage to get them out.
Kimerling's bill, so far, is $850. She didn't consider putting her cat to sleep.
"I had two options, a leg pin or amputation," she said. "After all he'd been through, being a stray and going to the shelter, then laying in the woods, he didn't deserve to lose his leg."
The veterinarian concluded Titan was shot by a .22-caliber air rifle.
At Sunbird Shopping Center in Chehalis, customers can purchase real firearms, traditional BB guns and pellet guns, which are also known as air rifles or air pistols.
Sunbird sales clerk Corbin Joner, who grew up in the Doty area, said the choices include pump action, break action, or even air guns powered by carbon dioxide cartridges.
The most popular selling is the pump action air rifle, according to Joner.
"It's funny, a lot of people come in and ask what to use to shoot the neighbor's cat, it's not uncommon," he said, quickly adding he meant it was ironic, not humorous.
Usually, a single shot will prompt an animal to leave, whether it's a deer in the garden or a dog in the yard, he said.
"It's not gonna kill 'em," he said. "It's gonna scare 'em, sting 'em, get 'em outta there."
The pellets have a lead warning on them and are shaped like a small cylinder with a cone on top, although some are flat-topped and they even sell one called a hollow point.
"Supposedly they inflict more damage," another sales clerk said.
The .22-caliber pellets are the largest of the three sizes sold at the store.
When the X-rays showed 10 projectiles inside Kimerling's cat, her veterinarian urged her to make a report to the sheriff's office.
She spoke with a deputy that day, Aug. 4. He asked her to relate the circumstances that led to her pet being injured, and completed a report, "for information only."
The deputy, according to his report, told Kimerling it wasn't feasible for the Lewis County Sheriff's Office to get ballistic testing done for the pellets, something she hoped would provide suspect information.
His report stated she had no suspect information and she had no physical evidence. It noted injuries involving eight to 10 .22-caliber air rifle projectiles, but didn't mention that one pellet broke the cat's leg.
The deputy said he and the sheriff's office "take animal cruelty very seriously," but county ordinance specifically states domestic pets and livestock must remain under the control of the owner and, under the same ordinance, "animals believed to be predating or deleterious to private property could be subject to lethal action."
Today, Titan is surviving the nearly fatal consequences of his desire to explore the neighborhood.
Recovering indoors, the only obvious sign of his ordeal is the leg which was shaved for surgery, and lampshade-like collar to prevent him from licking or biting his sutures.
He hasn't even lost his appetite, Kimerling said.
It's unfortunate there's nothing the sheriff's office can do, she said. But the public should know what can happen if their pet wanders, she added.
Lewis County Deputy Sgt. Dusty Breen, before he was promoted in 2006, spent almost three years with the county's legal advisors, updating county codes relating to animals. The finished product means ordinances on animal cruelty and dangerous dogs more closely mirror state law.
Breen said Kimerling got the wrong impression about the law.
It is a violation of county ordinance to allow an animal to trespass onto somebody's property, or let it run at large on public property. But that doesn't mean it's lawful to shoot it, even with a pellet or BB gun, according to Breen.
Shooting an animal, if it's not justifiable, is animal cruelty whether it's with a real gun, a pellet gun or even a paint ball gun, he said.
"A violation occurs once you've done something to cause pain to the animal," he said.
One exception is deadly force is acceptable if a dog is chasing livestock, and that's because the stress of being pursued can actually sometimes cause death to livestock, according to Breen.
The other time it's okay to shoot a pet or other animal is if there is an immediate threat to a person or their family.
"If you're just upset a dog is digging in your beauty bark, it's not okay to shoot it," he said.
Reports to the sheriff's office of pets being shot are not uncommon, but not frequent, he said.
Looking through last year's records, Breen could only find one similar case, and that was when a dog roamed off its property and then was found to have been shot.
Most of the animal cruelty reports made to the sheriff's office are cases of neglect, he said.
In his eight years as a deputy, he's seen cases of animals being shot, but apparently many pet owners decide not to make reports, he said. Maybe they feel somewhat responsible, because they know letting their pet run free is a violation, he said. But that doesn't negate what somebody else does, he said.
"Some of these new air rifles shoot with almost as much force as a gun," he said. References« WA State Animal Cruelty Map
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