"We were out feeding the animals and there he was in the hay barn with an arrow straight through him," Terri Oyarzun recalled. KFC is 5-years-old and he was in bad shape just one day ago. That's when his owner found him with a 22-inch arrow all the way through his chest on her sprawling ranch property in Briones. "He didn't like that. He couldn't go very far. It was almost like he was trying to put on angel wings and have a costume, but it wasn't. It was clear through him," Oyarzun said.
Oyarzun rushed KFC to the Lafayette Animal Hospital where he went into emergency surgery. "He was actually in pretty good shape because there were no major blood vessels in the area, so it didn't hit anything that could've caused him to bleed terribly," Sandy Jones at the animal hospital explained.
X-rays show that somehow, the arrow went all the way through KFC's upper body without hitting any vital organs. It did break his shoulder bone but otherwise, he's expected to make a full recovery. "Due to where the arrow hit, it didn't hit any vital organs, and he was very, very lucky. It didn't hit his spine or his chest cavity," Jones said.
With KFC at the hospital, Oyarzun contacted Contra Costa Animal control which has started an investigation into what appears to be an intentional act. The first step will be to interview all the neighbors that live around Oyarzun's 300-acre ranch. They're also hoping someone recognizes the type of arrow removed from KFC.
"There is an archery range over the hill and it's very possible that people get excited about their new archery skills and have come out to practice. I know people hunt. I'm not opposed to that. We don't have people hunt here," Oyarzun said.
Contra Costa Animal Services is actively looking for the shooter. First, they need to locate that person. Then, they will have to determine whether that person fired the arrow at the cat intentionally. If that's the case, they could face animal cruelty charges.
