COURTESY OF DR. INAYAT H. KATHIO Recess the cat was treated by Dr. Inayat Kathio after he was found with a bullet in his mouth.

HANOVER TWP. - Barely a week had passed since someone shot her autistic child's therapy cat in the mouth, but still Jennie Lloyd's family had something to be thankful about on Thanksgiving.

On Wednesday, after a local animal rescue operation and a veterinarian took up their cause, they heard a knock on the door and opened it to be reunited with Recess, their 3-year-old domestic short-haired cat.

"They were jumping and yelling for him," Lloyd said of her four children. "He's part of the family."

Recess was severely injured last Friday, when he returned to his home in the Marion Terrace Apartments with a fractured jaw and missing teeth, said Dawn Mendygral, owner of Happy Hearts & Tails Safe Haven Animal Rescue. The family didn't have enough money to get Recess treated but didn't want to put him down. Mendygral decided to help after seeing a post about the situation Sunday on Facebook.

"I couldn’t let this cat suffer," she said. "He’s just so sweet. I just don’t understand how you could do this to any animal, let alone a cute, sweet little angel like this."

She called Dr. Inayat H. Kathio, owner of the Pittston Animal Hospital and Wilkes-Barre Animal Hospital, who told her to bring the cat right over Monday. Recess had a fractured jaw, an apparent abscess and an infection because he hadn’t been treated for three days by that time, Kathio said.

"You should have seen this cat, how much pain he was in," Kathio said. "He was screaming."

When he went operate on the abscess, however, he realized it was something more — a .22-caliber bullet was lodged in Recess’ jaw, he said.

"There was no entrance wound outside," Kathio said. "People shot him right in the mouth."

Kathio was so moved by the case he personally offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the responsible person or people. He also reported the crime to police in Hanover Township and Pittston, saying he was concerned the offender could escalate to more serious crimes.

"That has to be stopped," Kathio said. "Somebody has to teach him a lesson."

After a few days of treatment, Recess was purring and able to eat two cans of food Wednesday, Mendygral said. Kathio called and said he could go home, so she picked him up and brought him to Lloyd’s family as a surprise.

"We’re just very, very grateful that Dr. Kathio was able to help, and Dawn as well," Lloyd said. "If not for those two, he would be dead."

Mendygral said Kathio treated Recess with no expectation of payment, but that she is still raising money to help cover the roughly $5,000 bill. As of Thursday afternoon, the cause had raised more than $1,700 on the website youcaring.com/recess-medical-care-bills-474866.


570-821-2058, @cvjimhalpin