This young Austrian woman was stunned when her beloved pet cat came back home – and she realised it had been dyed green.

Worse, because the chemical used appears to be making the cat ill, she will now have to shave off all of his fur.

Vanessa Reitzner, 28, said she had no idea who had decided to dye her pet ‘Niela’ green and was horrified when the pet returned to the family home in the rural community of Wilhelmsburg which is in Lower Austria west of the capital Vienna.

Austrians are still on lockdown although restrictions are being slowly lifted, but Niela had been allowed out into the garden.

Vanessa said she was not concerned as the cat was very shy of other people, and she had no idea how the pet had been trapped by someone in order to dye it green.

She said: “My poor pussy is of course suffering with this colour, up until now she’s been sick three times.”

The young woman, sister of the next Mayor of Wilhelmsburg, said she had called the police who said there was not much they could do.

She was far from happy from the advice: “The police officers were of the opinion that colouring and animal a different colour was not a criminal offence. They said if it dies and the colour turns out to be poisonous, I should call again.”

She said she had no idea who would have carried out such a cruel prank, saying: “Everybody in the village knows me, my mother runs the local tobacconist my brother was the vice mayor.”

She said the cat of a friend had vanished a week ago and wondered if the two things might be connected.

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