Pellini's tail had clear cut marks. "He said 'Mum, I don't think the cat has a tail anymore'," she said. "Sure enough we followed her up to where she was and you could see really clearly, she only had 5 cm of tail and all this fur. "I didn't know what to think, I was just stunned, I didn't quite believe it." Ms Stanford took 14-year-old tabby Pellini to her local vet, who told her the severed tail was likely a deliberate act.

"She said unfortunately she was pretty certain it had to be human intervention," she said. "If it had been caught in something and she had to pull herself away, there would have been tearing and jagged edges, but it was very neat, there were very clearly some cuts. "She thought it couldn't be anything but a deliberate human act." The vet told Ms Stanford the incident had only happened about an hour earlier, which worried the concerned pet owner. "The scarier thing is that it happened in broad daylight," she said.

"We don't quite know where it happened, I really hope it wasn't on our property. "I think we would be able to tell if it happened in our yard, there wasn't any blood, we couldn't find either her tail or blood or anything." Ms Stanford notified police and RSPCA after the vet told her a similar horrific situation had occurred about a month ago. "The vet said about five weeks ago, someone did bring in a magpie into the vet surgery that had had its feet cut off," she said. "That is the only other thing we know of, the vet was wondering if there was a connection, but it is hard to say."

Pellini was brought into the Stanford family more than a decade ago after she was dumped at a rescue centre, pregnant. The old cat, who enjoys lazing on the deck and "pottering" around in the garden, is healing slowly. "Physically she is going quite well but when a human comes in she sometimes runs and hides," Ms Stanford said. "We would never have thought anything like that would happen in the area, it is full of nice people. "We are putting leaflets in the letterboxes of the neighbours, we are only talking to people we know, it is a little worrying that we might have someone capable of doing this in the neighbourhoods."

RSPCA Queensland spokesman Michael Beatty has asked anyone with information about the incident to notify RSPCA and police. Stay informed. Like Brisbane Times on Facebook