Pet cat loses leg after getting caught in trap

Gizmo is thought to have got himself caught in a farmers' rabbit trap in a field in Tilley, near Wem.

Hilda and John Bromley, 82 and 84, have been left devastated after finding their pet with a paw missing. And they won't get another cat as it has left them so sick with worry.

Mrs Bromley wants to warn other cat owners of the incident. She said: "I put some washing on the line on Monday morning and when I came back in he was lying on the conservatory floor, his bone was right out.

"We got him straight to the vets and it was either put him down or have his leg amputated.

"I just couldn't believe it, I thought at first it was a car but he's good at crossing the road. He goes off at night all the time."

Mrs Bromley inherited the cat from a neighbour who moved away and did not want to take him. She thinks he is about eight-years-old and has had him for about six or seven years.

And she said she is frightened of what will happen when Gizmo recovers and starts going out again.

"He can't go out now, you've got to watch him," she added. "I have got another cat but he's not one that wonders off. I'm not having any more, it has made me feel really ill."

Olivia Halligan, a veterinary surgeon at Barclay-Moore Partnership in Wem, performed the operation to remove Gizmo's back leg.

She said it was one of the worst injuries she has seen in 12 years as a vet.

She said: "He'd got a horrific injury to his leg, I'd suspect it was some kind of crush injury, it could have been from some kind of trap.

"It looked like something had clawed at his leg. I have been a vet for 12 years and I have never seen anything like that, it didn't present itself as a road traffic injury."

She said Gizmo was in a lot of pain and there was no option of reconstructive surgery.

"It is definitely something worth being aware of but it is not something that is happening very often," she added. "Other than keeping them indoors you're not going to be able to stop this sort of thing happening."

Mrs Bromley's daughter-in-law Patricia, who lives in Shrewsbury, said the couple have been left horrified. She said: "It was bad enough but that could have been a child if they were playing in the field, it is awful. It was quite a shock."