An x-ray of the injury



Vet nurse Anjuli McKenzie with Moomoo and

the crossbow bolt that was removed from his

head

A Massey University veterinary surgeon has removed a crossbow bolt that pierced the skull of a pet cat.Four-year-old "Moo Moo" from Wainuiomata has been described as “extraordinarily lucky” to survive, after the bolt went in above its left eye and out behind the ear but did not touch the brain.Moomoo was referred to Massey’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital yesterday and is now recovering from the operation.Owner Donna Ferrari says she was shocked when she saw Moo Moo at about 4.30pm on Monday afternoon with what looked like an arrow through his head. He hid in bushes and would not come out. She called police and reported the incident. Police told her they would ask the SPCA to investigate. The next morning, after searching the bushes with her neighbour, she returned to the spot where she last saw Moo Moo and attacked it with hedgeclippers, cutting away the vegetation until she spotted the yellow fins on the red bolt.She took Moo Moo to the Wainuiomata Veterinary Clinic. "They said they've never seen anything like it and called you guys [the Massey University Veterinary Teaching Hospital].”She drove Moo Moo to Massey's Manawatu campus that afternoon but had to leave him before surgery took place to get home to her three-year-old daughter. "They rang when we were driving back to say they had removed the bolt." She said she and friends were trying to publicise the incident by posting photos of Moo Moo with the bolt through his head on social media. "I'm sick to my stomach. Hopefully the person responsible is caught or feels so much hatred from the community that they never do anything like it again."Vet surgeon Dr Jonathan Bray says Moo Moo is extraordinarily lucky. “The bolt went in just above the eye but was a glancing blow across the cranium so didn’t actually impact on brain tissue at all,” he says. “It was really just a matter of opening up the track so we could clean up the contamination so it would heal up okay.“There was a little bit of injury to his nose and eye socket, but he’s an extraordinarily lucky cat. The velocity of the bolt hitting him would have been quite frightening, so he’s very brave. He’s very well this morning – bright and happy, the wound is doing fine and he’s got nothing that is going to cause him any long-term harm.”