Cooper Morgenstern and Mikaela Colquhoun searched tirelessly for Sir Puddin Stacks.

Morning and night, the couple and members of the local community in Woodford, north of Brisbane, went out looking for their three-year-old tabby.

Then, 12 days after his disappearance on May 7, Morgenstern woke up and “he was in bed with me”.

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“He was very emaciated. He apparently hadn’t eaten for the 12 days,” Colquhoun told 7NEWS.com.au.

Aside from that, the couple noticed he was limping and sporting a “big dirty scab right in the middle of his chest”.

They took him to Southern Cross Veterinarians Woodford and were shocked when vet Roelof van der Merwe told them: “We think your cat might have been shot”.

An X-ray confirmed a bullet had “skirted past the breast plate” and “somehow managed to lodge itself between muscle and skin”, and was implanted in the cat’s chest, Morgenstern said.

And what the couple believed looked like a “cigarette burn” was actually an entry wound.

It made sense that something bad had happened to Sir Puddin Stacks, according to the couple.

Morgenstern said it was “not like him to go disappearing” in the first place, and he had never previously been gone “for that amount of time”.

He believes the cat was likely to have been shot soon after leaving the home and would have spent the 12 days “slowly” trying to get home while in severe pain.

“His will to live must be insane,” Morgenstern said.

“The vet said the infection was a couple of days away from killing him.”

Van der Merwe was able to safety remove the bullet and Sir Puddin Stacks has made a full recovery.

The couple has reported the shooting to the RSPCA, which has the power to prosecute animal cruelty allegations in Queensland.

They are “hopeful” of finding the shooter, saying it was “completely unjustified to go shooting dogs and cats”.

“Call council instead of taking the matter into your own hands,” Colquhoun said.

“They can set up humane trap.

“There are other ways to deal with what you see as a pest (than shooting it).”