Merchingen. “When I stroked him, there was blood,” Svenja Sanktjohanser remembers the day her cat “Gouda” was injured by an unknown person. That was on Tuesday, August 13, between 6 and 8:30 p.m. in Merchingen.
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“I saw him go out just before 6 p.m. We then went for a walk with the dogs,” says Sanktjohanser. “We were back home at around 8:30 p.m.” Then the owner noticed her cat “Gouda” sitting with his head against the wall. At first she didn’t think anything of it, because the cat has a very close relationship with her daughter: “But she’s not here at the moment,” says Sanktjohanser. Accordingly, she initially assumed that the animal was simply missing her daughter very much.
Circular wound visible
“I stroked him and then there was blood on my hand,” she recalls. After the fur was shaved off at that spot, Sanktjohanser realized where the blood was coming from: “It was a circular hole. We quickly realized that it couldn’t be a bite wound.”
Examination at the veterinary clinic
The owner disinfected the wound and treated the cat before taking him straight to the veterinary clinic on Wednesday morning. “There he was x-rayed and it was quickly apparent that he had been shot with an air rifle,” says Sanktjohanser. The big problem: the bullet was still in “Gouda’s” lungs and the vet only gave him a 50:50 chance of surviving the operation. “She then suggested that we give him antibiotics and hope that he recovers and the bullet encapsulates so that he can continue to live with it,” says Sanktjohanser. And that’s what the owner did.
This is how cat “Gouda” is doing now
Now, about a week after the incident, cat “Gouda” is doing very well considering the circumstances: “He jumps around, annoys the other animals and wants to go outside again. I really didn’t expect that,” says Sanktjohanser, describing the animal. However, “Gouda” will have to wait a little longer before he can go outside for the first time until the wound has healed properly.
However, Sanktjohanser is still deeply shocked by the incident: “I don’t understand why someone would do that and shoot a cat with a gun,” she says. And this was not the first incident of this kind: her cat “Smartie” was shot last year.
She therefore filed a report immediately after “Gouda” was shot. Sanktjohanser is convinced that the perpetrator must live near the house because the cat does not stray far from the house. The Adelsheim police station is investigating. “So far, no witnesses have come forward,” said Manuel Unser from the Heilbronn police headquarters’ press office when asked by the FN. Other cases of this kind are not known, Unser added.
Facebook post written
After the crime, Sanktjohanser also wrote a Facebook post in which she described the crime and offered a reward for information that led to the identification of the perpetrator. 1,600 euros have now been raised from friends, acquaintances and strangers. The Rosenberg animal sanctuary also donated 300 euros.
On Facebook, users speculated under Sanktjohanser’s post whether the crime in Merchingen was connected to the one in Eberstadt. A horse was shot there on August 10 (the FN reported). However, Manuel Unser from the press office of the Heilbronn police headquarters denied this: “At the moment there is no indication of a possible connection.”
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