COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho. — A third cat in three years was shot in Coeur d’Alene and it is not clear who is responsible.
Nick Shriner said the vet was forced to amputate his cat's leg after someone shot her with a BB gun. The incident happened in the same part of town where other cats had previously been shot with blow darts.
“It's just kind of disbelief, I suppose. It's just tough to imagine someone randomly shooting a cat," Shriner said.
It was last week when Shriner noticed that his cat, Phoebe, was limping.
"She came running in, dragging her leg. And went straight into the bed," he said.
They went straight to the vet and learned of the tragic news.
The x-rays came back to show that Phoebe had a BB in her leg and letting it heal on its own would have been too risky. The vet opted to have the leg amputated instead.
Shriner lives in a neighborhood not far from North 15th Street in Coeur d’Alene. It is the same general part of the city where similar incidents have happened before.
In 2016, someone shot at a cat with a blow dart and that cat survived and a similar shooting happened not far from there last year.
Police have previously said that they take these acts seriously, but trying to find the person responsible isn't easy.
"They said that without anybody that we knew that did it, there's not much they can do," Shriner said.