A stray cat who underwent two operations after it was shot in the head is recovering at a veterinary practice in Siberia, giving credence to the myth that some cats have nine lives.
The lucky feline was discovered earlier this month by passersby in the city of Chelyabinsk and was taken to a nearby vet, the Panatseya veterinary hospital said Tuesday in a post on social networking site Vkontakte.
Doctors initially assumed the animal had fallen from a great height, but upon studying an X-ray of the cat's head discovered that it had a bullet lodged in its skull.
"The entire staff was horrified" one doctor was quoted as saying in the Vkontakte post. "Looking at the X-ray and at the cat, I started to well up — and it wasn't just me, but the whole team."
According to vets, the cat — nicknamed Kiryusha — also suffered a broken upper and lower jaw as a result of its escapades, but is now on its way to recovery, the local Orient Express television reported.
But doctors have been left puzzled as to who could have shot the kitten.
One explanation is that the cat was attacked by so-called "stray-hunters," who are seeking to clean up the city's streets from unwanted animals.
In August, Chelyabinsk hit the headlines after stray dogs were fed with contaminated sausages in what amounted to a mass poisoning, news site Novy Region reported.