Otto the cat is down to six lives after being being shot again in Bilsthorpe

Di Slaney, the founder and trustee of Manor Farm charitable trust, which cares for animals was dismayed and “disgusted” to discover the 11-year-old farm cat had been shot – again.

This time Otto only sustained relatively minor injuries to his back right leg but several years ago, he was shot twice in the head, and made it onto the BBC news, amid reports of a spate of cat shootings in the area.

Di, who lives in the Church Hill area, said “Otto spends most of his time on our farm land and in the graveyard, he’s quite shy of people.

"I couldn’t believe it when he came back with his back leg covered in blood. He’d been shot again.”

"We are warning cat owners in the area to please be careful with their pets, if there are any more shootings, then let’s log and report them all.

“Words fail me about the mentality of someone who would do something like this, it has happened quite a few times in this area, and it’s horrible to think someone is doing this to innocent animals.”

Di is urging people to keep note, and report any further incidents - no matter how small.

“It’s has been an ongoing problem, it’s clearly a pattern in the village, someone must know something. Poor Otto got away with it relatively lightly this time, he has still got six of his nine lives left.

“But his wound looked terrible and because he is feral it is not so easy to handle him to be able clean his wound, as he cleaned himself up you could see a perfectly, round hole.

“I’m asking our community to be vigilant, to log incidents, so we can piece together the evidence and find out who is doing this and where it is happening.

"Since posting about Otto on Facebook, we have had dozens of comments, people offering thei best wishes for his recovery, one person said their cat had even had to have a leg amputated after being shot.

“There have been a few reports of cats going missing too, it’s frightening,” she added.

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