Owner Cassandra Ritchie spoke of her devastation at finding Hoody and Dip with appalling injuries after being shot while they were playing in the countryside.

“They like going outside to play, especially when it’s a nice day,” said Cassandra.

“I couldn’t get them to come back in and thought they’d gone out roaming for the night.

“When Hoody came back his eye was hanging out of his head. It was quite horrific. He was in considerable pain and his eye had to be removed by the vet.”

The X-ray showed he’d been shot through the eye by a pellet. The pellet is still lodged in Hoody’s skull because it would be too dangerous to remove it.

“Dip came back really unwell with an open wound on the side of her body.”

An X-ray taken at Parkside Veterinary Group in Dundee showed Dip had a pellet lodged in her lower abdomen.

Fortunately, as well as missing the spinal cord, it didn’t penetrate her vital organs.

“They won’t take out the pellet, because that would probably cause more damage,” said Cassandra.

“I was devasted and upset by what happened. They have been left very frightened.

“It’s quite hard to believe someone could do this. I don’t let them out at all now. I just can’t take the chance of it happening again.”

The Scottish SPCA has long campaigned to highlight the welfare problems to animals posed by airgun misuse and called for tighter restrictions on their use.

This has been prompted by an increasing number of violent and premeditated attacks on animals dealt with by the Scottish SPCA in recent years.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish SPCA said she was “horrified” to hear of the attack in Longforgan.

“This was a deliberate act of cruelty that shouldn’t have happened,” she said.

“This is animal cruelty of the worst kind. The wounds they have sustained will be with them for the rest of their lives.

“But it’s not just the kittens that suffer, the owner will forever be worrying.

“Now she’s not going to let them outside to play in the countryside because it might happen again, which will change their entire quality of life because someone felt the need to be so cruel.

“It’s incredibly lucky they haven’t been killed. You can’t begin to measure the pain they would have gone through.

“The kittens will be physically and emotionally scarred. It’s incredibly cruel and incredibly unnecessary.

“There is no excuse for shooting a cat with an air weapon.

“It is a severe problem, and we are very concerned about the extent of attacks on animals. It’s a horrible way for an animal to suffer.”

“Most won’t let you know that they are injured and suffer in silence, trying to nurse their wounds.”

The spokeswoman said it’s often the case that pellet gun injuries only come to light when a domestic pet goes in for an X-ray related to another matter and it’s found out.

“That means there’s a lot more injured pets out there that we don’t know about,” she added.

“I feel incredibly sorry for the kittens and this pet owner.

“It’s a suffering no pet or pet owner should have to go through.”

The Scottish SPCA’s “Airgun Agony” report found 75% of its inspectors and vets that responded have dealt with an airgun attack at some point during their career.