Two cat owners have been left horrified after their pets were shaved by a mystery stranger.
A pair of cats belonging to separate families in the Shelton Lock area of Derby have reportedly been targeted in the past few months, Derbyshire Live reports. They both returned home with parts of their coats shaved off.
The assailant remains unknown. Amy Liddle was left shocked when her beloved cat Eris came home around a month ago with her tail shaved down to the skin.
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The 46-year-old said she could not understand why someone would do that. She said: "She came down one morning, had breakfast and went out as usual.
"When she came back in the afternoon, the middle section of her tail was just gone. It'd been shaved right down to the skin.
"It was completely bald. White, literally. There were no cuts or anything. It had been shaved, there's no other explanation for it. It was so bizarre."
Amy, a former nursery nurse, said that she could tell something was wrong when Eris was oddly reluctant to approach her owner later on that day as if she had experienced some kind of trauma. Her owner described how she felt when she first saw the cat when she returned.
She said: "Honestly, I was disgusted. Whoever it is, shame on them. Who in their right mind would do something like that to something that can't defend itself? Why? What is the purpose? Our animals are part of the family. It's like a child coming home with a razor having been run over their head. I was angry. I hope whoever it is feels some sort of guilt or remorse for it."
Eris' hair has started to grow back now, but it's patchy, wiry and grey in some places, claims Amy. None of Amy's six other cats have been targeted.
But Eris wasn't the only cat affected. Another Shelton Lock resident, Bethany Biddle, reported that her cat Tigg had suffered a similar fate in recent weeks.
She said: "I went outside as I would on any usual day and Tigg was crying. He never normally used to cry. I wondered what the matter was. I picked him up and saw that all of the fur had been shaved. It wasn't like that the day before."
Tigg had been shaved on his belly and around his back leg. Bethany has reported to the incident to the RSPCA and the police.
She said of when she found him: "I was disgusted. I wondered if they'd drugged him. You never know these days. I didn't know what to do. People are horrible. I don't know why they'd do it, other than if they're cruel."
Bethany is now waiting for an appointment at the vet to verify whether any more harm was done. The mystery culprit remains at large.
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