Dead pet’s head cut off

THE death of a pet can be devastating but for Shayna Watson, the loss of her cat has taken a sinister turn.

The Wodonga woman woke yesterday to find her beloved Cupcake had been hit by a car and then decapitated with a blunt instrument. The head was taken away.

She made the gruesome find on Felltimber Creek Road, near her home, in a quiet court, about 8.30am.

“I’m absolutely devastated,” Ms Watson said.

“It’s horrible to lose a pet — a family member — but to have her interfered with like that...”

Both Ms Watson and her partner got home late from work on Sunday night and went straight to bed.

Cupcake — Ms Watson took in the stray in March and had her registered and desexed — and her other cat, Blue, usually slept on the couple’s bed.

Ms Watson wasn’t concerned on Sunday night when Cupcake was not inside, assuming she had used a cat flap to go outside.

Early yesterday, she listened to a voicemail, left about 10.30 on Sunday night, from a woman saying she had found Cupcake on the road, her collar around her neck with the phone number on it, and had moved her to the nature strip.

But after a frantic search, she found Cupcake’s body pressed hard against a fence, the head and collar removed.

Ms Watson said it looked like a “clean, blunt cut” and there were no animal tracks or other marks.

“Nothing suggested anything other than human interference,” she said.

While she said she could deal with the death, she was “mortified” someone would tamper with the body.

And that the collar had her details on it was another worry.

Ms Watson has reported the incident but knows police might not be able to do much.

“I don’t want it to happen to someone else,” she said. “No one should have to go through it.”