Tonight my daughter found this wound on our indoor/outdoor cat. It is on his upper rear hip. There is also a faint scratch running past the wound on one side. Almost a perfect rectangle of flesh is missing, slightly larger than a dime. Tried my best to photo it.

The neighborhood has recently had a dog and a cat die from what we've been told are being shot by a BB gun. My wife is convinced our cat got shot but there is no puncture...it would have had to have grazed him and would have been a huge BB.

We are taking him to the vet tomorrow. Any thoughts as to possible causes? We are in western Travis County (Lake Travis area) if that helps, and we border a several hundred acre ranch, so not typical suburbia. Thanks.

Bot fly or kutrebra

Hard to say from the picture, but looks like it may be a ruptured abscess. Pretty frequent in outdoor cats from encounters with other cats.

In before fox...


(Sorry about kitty)

Respectfully disagree with first two posters. No exudate at all around wound margins as would be present with a ruptured abscess, even with the known fastidious grooming of a cat. Bot flies to my knowledge do not use the cat as an aberrant host (certainly could be wrong I'm a surgeon and my parasit is long gone), and cuterebra are extremely rare.

My guess from these images is either a puncture from trauma (puncture from a fall into a nail, thorn, or other sharp object) and the rectangular component you describe could be a tearing away/pulling away of the skin to create a flap as the cat moved by the sharp object while in motion. It could be a bite wound but I don't believe this to be the case given the single wound and the size of the wound. A visit to your DVM is a wise decision. Good luck!

No chance in hell that was caused by BB or pellet gun.

And I'm highly skeptical a BB gun would kill a dog or a cat. Even a tiny dog.

I'm with dr_boogs on this one!

How is your cat?

dr_boogs said:

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Respectfully disagree with first two posters. No exudate at all around wound margins as would be present with a ruptured abscess, even with the known fastidious grooming of a cat. Bot flies to my knowledge do not use the cat as an aberrant host (certainly could be wrong I'm a surgeon and my parasit is long gone), and cuterebra are extremely rare.

My guess from these images is either a puncture from trauma (puncture from a fall into a nail, thorn, or other sharp object) and the rectangular component you describe could be a tearing away/pulling away of the skin to create a flap as the cat moved by the sharp object while in motion. It could be a bite wound but I don't believe this to be the case given the single wound and the size of the wound. A visit to your DVM is a wise decision. Good luck!

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We had a cat that got a larvae of some type under her skin on her cheek. The wound looked nothing like what's in the picture, though. It was a perfectly round hole that oozed, and every once in a while, the larvae would poke out of the hole a little bit. It was the most disgusting thing I've seen on any pet, and the vet thought I was nuts until he made a small incision and plucked the thing out.

I had one in a cat about 6 months ago, the owner had a panic attack when I showed her. The wound is suspicious of some sort of trauma (not a pellet), although there was a confirmed by veterinarian mountain lion bite in Steiner a few years ago

My dad had a cat that had a bot fly hatch out of his shoulder. As was said above, the wound was perfectly round. That wound in the OP looks to me like a former abscess that has opened several days ago and has been cleaned repeatedly by the cat. I have seen wounds look like that on one of our cats a few days after the abscess opens and drains.

spud1910 said:

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How is your cat?

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I really appreciate all of the replies. Cat is fine and going to live, although we still don't know what happened.

Vet thought this looked pretty straight forward when he first saw the cat. The wound was indeed a puncture, and when he inserted an instrument into the opening it extended down the hind quarters for 1.5-2", but there was no exit wound. The skin immediately surrounding the entry wound had died, so he thought this could have happened a few days prior to us discovering this. This particular cat only likes being pet on the head, so if you start petting him anywhere else he contorts his body to get his head under your hand. Plus the wound is very close to the base of his tail and with the longish hair, we could have easily missed it.

Vet made an incision at the bottom of the puncture and installed a drain which gets removed this afternoon. The rest of the stitches come out in 2 weeks. He couldn't be certain about the cause. If it was a BB or pellet, the shooter had to have been above the cat shooting downwards given the trajectory. He did not feel anything foreign inside the wound and we didn't do an x-ray. Given the location, the cat could have been running from a predator who managed to strike him, but I think it's weird there is only one wound. We thought maybe an owl tried to grab him and the wound is from a talon but again, why only one puncture? Just no way to be sure what happened.

Also learned more about the two other incidents. The dog was hit with a pellet gun and it punctured his lung. The other neighbor said his cat was shot in the stomach and they did retrieve the BB (or at least detected it via an x-ray). So apparently in both of those cases they do have confirmation.

So $400 later, he is patched up. Highly recommend Lakeway Veterinary Clinic and Dr. Lozada. Even with their 24 hr. number, he gave me his cell phone number in case I had any questions over the weekend. Here is another pic...sorry if you are squeamish. Cat is laying on its side, and his tail is seen at the bottom of the picture to try and give some orientation. Again, thanks for the replies.

They really didn't do an xray?