I love animals, honestly.
Now i used to have a small dog, a bijon frise cross. Little scruffy white rat dog with an underbite, some kind of duty to bark at everything that moved or not... and epilepsy.
Now i thought it was kinda cruel when id bring my friends home from school, open the kitchen door to find the dog shivering, stiff as a plank, foaming and pissing all over the place only to have them poke it and laugh until they were in almost the same state.
Maybe not as cruel as sellotaping some buttered toast to my cats back. (Surprisingly this does not somehow make the cat defy the laws of physics and hover and spin 3 inches above the ground, however it would not come near me for a week or so after.)
Or possibly sending my parrot into shock many times by hoofing cushions at the cage when it wouldn't shut up.
Or you know that really cool trick people can do, where they pull the table cloth off really quick leaving all cutlery etc as if nothing had ever happened? Does'nt have the same effect when you try and do the same with a dog sitting on a rug on a tiled floor, not even after a few 'practice' runs... I think he deserved it after he burrowed into my new guinea pigs run and ripped it to pieces, only to bring it inside with its eye hanging out by a thread, looking very pleased with himself. Oh i did cry.
(jangaaaal shes lost control..., Sun 9 Dec 2007, 13:46, Reply)

He was minding his own business having a kip in a hollow log
And I was merrily chopping wood with my BRAND NEW chainsaw

I'm a massive animal lover so I was gutted.
But I guess not as much as mr possum :-(
(baldie, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 12:10, 9 replies)

Well, she smelled nice afterwards...
Not that long ago, I had run JuniorWitch #2's evening bath. I hadn't, however, completely turned off the cold tap. Its a bit stiff, you see (no sniggering at the back!).

So, the bath water's about six inches deep, with a nice layer of scented bubbles on top.

I leave the bathroom to collect mucky child and a nice clean towel. Not really noticing the moggy hovering outside the bathroom door.

Couple of minutes later, JuniorWitch #2 is ready, I go back to the bathroom and sort of lob the towel on the floor beside the bath. Without noticing that puss has jumped up, and is balancing on the side of the bath, sneaking a drink from the dripping tap. She much prefers dripping taps to the nice bowl of clean water we keep beside her food bowl. Its a cat thing I believe.

Cat gets a massive fright, discovers her paws have no grip on the shiny enamel of the bath, and falls right in. For about a millisecond, everything froze.

Then there's an explosion of black cat, warm water and bubbles all over the bathroom as she leaps vertically out of the water and runs round the walls trying to find the door! She left a trail of bubbles behind her as she shot through the house at warp speed before hiding under the bed. She refused to come out for ages, and shot me dirty looks for the rest of the night.

I couldn't even go looking for her until the hysterics had calmed down (and I also had to supervise bath-time) so it was a while before I attempted to coax her out. Cats HATE having their dignity offended, and they KNOW when they're being laughed at. I'm sure it was no accident that she puked on the bathroom rug during that night, which I handily found with my (bare) foot first thing the next morning.

She still loves to drink from dripping taps, but not the bath tap. Not even when the bath is empty. She hasn't forgotten!
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Sun 9 Dec 2007, 11:54, Reply)

not me but....
a guy in my science class was, well, a bit of a strange lad.
In one class we had to do some experiment with fruit flys (tiny little things) that involved knocking them out and looking at them.
Anyway, for some reason unknown to any one, this guy decided it would be a great idea to make a fat line of them and procede to snort the lot.

Fruitflys dont die when their inside your nose/throat. They just slowly come back to life.
(Emily Salvage, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 7:47, 1 reply)

I have teargassed a dog, only to find...
Whilst living in a former communist country -I will not name it to protect myself-, I was wandering back home to my flat in the suburbs of Warsaw (oh dear) on a very foggy night. Should you know Warsaw, you may remember the large private car parks patrolled by insatiable alsatians and fat thuggish security guards. And the unbelievable Russian Market where you may, some say, buy guns. I played safe and bought a couple of little cans of tear gas.
Anyhoo, I was merrily drunk and had, in my pocket, my CS gas just in case any trouble came my way. Which it did, with a bark and a mad scampering of claws on the tarmac of the car park right next to me. "Oh crikey, here comes a bloody mauling" I think, and whip out the teargas.

It went like this -
1. Lock onto the sound of the approaching fangs of death in the murk
2. See the wild-eyed hound about four metres away
3. Spray gas at the fucker
4. Feel great about the skidding, yelping and now fully humbled guard dog now running very quickly away from me
5. Notice for the first time the massive chainlink fence running the whole length of the car park
6. Feel pretty bad for unnecessarily gassing a dog
7. Home for a guilty chuckle (that is not a euphemism)

Cruel to an over-enthusiastic guard dog? Teaching the irritating barky thing a lesson? Cutting short a promising guarding career and sending it straight to the Retirement Homeski for Polski Dogs?
I no longer mind...

My length is metric. My ability is imperial.
(thinkthinkthink ... on ..., Sun 9 Dec 2007, 6:33, Reply)

Didn't do it on purpose, so does it count?
Whilst minding my own business, driving at a fraction under (over?) the speed limit the other day through the forest, a small flock of little tweeters shot out from a hedge in front of the car, didn't think nothing of it until i stopped and noticed this:



for those with crappy eyes, your mum warned you:



bit more than cruelty, but accidental nonetheless.
(Mensa Reject has gone out, I'll be back on, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 3:44, 1 reply)

Kitty Kebabs
I mentioned that I like cats? While I was growing up we had a fine selection of the creatures, none more so that Satan. Originally named Sultan, he proved to be such a devious little bastard that a name change was in order.

Satan would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down. He’d trough a bowl of kitty chow, before wandering over to whatever delectation you had on your plate and trying to subtly distract you before pouncing on it like he’d never been fed.

One night, while engrossed in Coronation Street and eating some particularly fine prawns, my mum was oblivious to the fact that the cat, like a stealthy, furry ninja had positioned himself at her feet and was ready to attack. Like a feline periscope, he shot his front paw upwards and began to slowly sweep across the edge of the tray, inching further and further in before finally coming into contact with the object of his desire, a prawn. I watched in horror as my mum, totally unaware brought the fork down to spear the exact same prawn. Fork and paw collided and I’m not sure who was more surprised as mum looked down to find that she’d shish kebabed the cat’s foot.

We gave the rest of the prawns to bribe him not to tell the vet. And we ate at the table after that….
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 3:32, Reply)

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a massive flying dog...
Bit of a pearoast, this, and I’m no sure whether it counts more as child than animal cruelty, but hey, it’s the QOTW, rules are there to be broken.

I’m a cat person. There’s something immensely satisfying about earning the trust and affection of a creature that to all intents and purposes is the spawn of Old Nick himself. But my mum, she likes dogs. After I left home, she decided to finally adopt a pooch and brought home a Samoyed, called Emma. Now Samoyeds are gorgeous dogs. White and fluffy, with a calm and docile temperament, well behaved, and they play nicely with others. Rather the opposite of me. They can also be a bit stupid, as is often the case with inbred pedigree dogs.

For my birthday one year, we went to Cornwall to stay in a rented cottage for the week, with the purpose of eating cream teas and pottering round quaint little villages. And we took Emma with us. Behind the cottage there was some land, leading down to the coastal path along the cliffs. All very Daphne Du Maurier and windswept. Me, mum and Emma took a walk along to the coastal path one blustery afternoon and spent a fun couple of hours chucking sticks and watching Emma have the time of her life. The wind and the rain got up and we decided to head back. Now Samoyeds have a lot of fur. And they’re quite big creatures; as the rain pelted down harder, Emma got slower and heavier and soggier, becoming more waterlogged with each passing minute.

We’d taken a different route back to the cottage, and reached a fence across the field. Luckily there was a style that we could climb over so we didn’t have to retrace our steps. I vaulted over and waited for mum and Emma. Emma tried to climb over, but the tiredness and weight of her wet coat meant she just didn’t have the momentum. So my (tiny) mother suggests picking Emma up and handing her over the style to me. I climbed back onto the style, realising that my short arsed parent wouldn’t be able to reach unless I came a bit closer. Balanced precariously, I gave her encouragement as she manhandled the soggy pooch into her arms. And then my mother did what she has a tendency to do on occasions that require delicate handling or concentration. She started to laugh. I shouted at her to get a grip, but the sight of her daughter balanced on a plank, dripping with rain was too much and she ended up giggling uncontrollably. And losing her grasp on Emma. In a last ditch attempt to get the dog over the fence, she made a hysterical lunge forward and threw all however many pounds of damp dog straight at me. I caught her, immediately lost my footing and went flying backwards off the style landing straight into the arms of an awaiting cow pat, with Emma collapsed on top of me. Not many words were exchanged on the walk back to the cottage and I had to wash my jacket three time to finally rid it of the smell of cow shit.

We lost Emma to cancer at the age of ten and she was replaced by the exception to the docile Samoyed rule, by an uncontrollable ball of fuzz called Lara. Mum has vowed to only get cats in future. I like to think that’s Karma.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 3:16, Reply)

First of all, in my defense, it was payback. Or karma. Or whatever.
I have a mini-dachshund who is pregnant. One day I was outside, picked her up when she didn't expect it. She was startled and peed a little down my shirt.

Few days later I couldn't sleep so took a sleeping pill. Also took a diuretic (water pill). My dog chose that night to sleep between my legs with her rear end toward me. I had a very realistic dream that I was in the bathroom and I really had to go. Woke up in the middle of the flood and sat on the toilet laughing so hard that my roommate woke up and asked groggily "What's going on?"

"I peed on my dog" I managed to gasp to her between laughs.

The next morning she's making her breakfast, she turns to me puzzled and asks..."WHAT did you say last night??"
(Camarynne, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 3:02, Reply)

More stories...
For some reason my cat Sunny really enjoyed corn as a younger lad. After dinner one time, we put a corn cob on the floor for him to gnaw on. He then bit down so hard on the cob that it stuck to his top teeth. In a panic and with a mouth full of an enormous corn cob, he started shaking his head about to dislodge the cob. When that didn't work, he tried to work it out by biting at it with his free lower teeth.

Another time, my brother picked Sunny up and spun him around for a good minute. When he put him down, poor Sunny could barely walk and stumbled around like a drunkard.

And lastly - some stories of blatant animal cruelty.

A) Our other cat is named Honey...
B) We once kept a friendly stray cat and, in a preemptive move, named it Amanda. We later found out that it was a boy, but we kept the name. He disappeared a few years later; I'm assuming he was either struck by wanderlust again, or he could not stand his life as a transvestite cat any longer.
(juliajuliajulia, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 2:56, 1 reply)

Piss, Piss and ferrets!
Right ages ago, my family used to keep ferrets as pets,We had a boy ferret called gizmo, he was fascinated by the toilet.
one day i forgot to close the door whilst using it, so in he came. saw that the toilet seat was up and that he could jump in and have a look, but what he didnt notice was me, using it. So he climbed up the toilet and tried to jump in. Lucky before he hit the toilet now full with piss i caught him, but he went into the line of fire. so there i am holding this ferret over the toilet whilst still pissing ... on him.
ran down the stairs after i finished with a soaked ferret at arms length whilst shouting ' my i pissed on Gizmo! '
(mintie, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 2:46, Reply)

I almost killed my Cat!
My first real pet was a cat called Blackie ( i was about 7 and clearly creatively minded when i got him). My room is on the top floor of my regular two up two down house that backs onto a conservatory, Blackie used to spend a lot of time in my room that was above the new conservatory we just had fitted. so young me decides it would be so much more simple if instead of walking downstairs to let the cat out he could just jump out the window onto the new roof then onto the nearby wall.....

But how to convince Blackie that the window was better than the stairs....i lowered him down a couple of times and in all fairness he didn't seem to mind at all and it became almost a regular routine.

Except Blackie was a bit of a greedy bugger and one evening i'd left some food on my desk i walk in to see him tucking into said snacks!. so clearly iritated i open the window and remove the cat with a little more vigor than before only to realise once he's left my hands that its been raining and the roofs slippery as a bar of prison block soap.

Time seems to slow down Blackie does his best Bambi impresion and his legs slip apart on the wet roof, for a moment he looks up into my eye's and slipped away into the dark only to land on the Patio table about 10ft below.

I've never been so scared in my life i was convinced i'd killed my Cat. i ran out into the rain only to have him limp back into the house. He ignored me for the rest of the week.

Woo first Qotw!
(kade, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 2:28, Reply)

bubbles
sitting on the back balcony the day after a friend's wedding, playing with the little bottle of bubbles that seemed to be the table gift of all weddings at the time. neighbour's kitty comes over to say hello so i blow a few bubbles in her direction (well, right in her face...) omfg, crazy apeshit kitty shot off down the stairs, shrieking like a banshee - i guess she didn't like the bubbles as much as i did :)
(chameleon61, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 1:30, Reply)

Before I went to Uni
I had a room at home. As you do.

Anyway, I'd previously eaten a yoghurt and thrown the remenants in a bin like Michael Jordon. Or tried to, a splash of Ski went on the wooden floor.

Some hours later my mum noticed and ordered me to wipe it up. I really couldn't be bothered to get a kitchen roll so I looked for alternative solutions.

T-shirt? Didn't want it to stain.
Duvet? Had to sleep on that.

For the next few hours Moggy had a strawberry-flavoured stain on his back where I'd picked him up and used him to wipe up yoghurt.

Sorry Mog.
(MJPerry was crude but clickable at, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 1:12, 1 reply)

Accidental cruelty to animal me
As you may remember, we had a snake, Syrup. I was the primary warmer of frozen baby mice to feed her and stupidly I did bare-handed.

One day the kids were cleaning her cage when she reared up to taste the air. I stuck a finger out and cooed "oh, you're such a good girl , aren't you?" The scent I left on her meals every month was now right in front of her. She struck so fast I felt it before I registered it with my eyes.

I screamed like a weenie and did the Watusi trying to shake her off. She was having none of it and chomped down harder to avoid splatting against the wall. My finger was a bloody mess by the time I had sense enough to hold still and allow her to gratefully drop off.

I could never pick up Syrup again. She went for me every time.



Length? You should see the scar.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 1:00, Reply)

We have a minature Schnauzer
And I enjoy fighting him. He's easy to knock over and I sometimes take his front legs out from under him so he faceplants into the floor.

He loves it.
(MJPerry was crude but clickable at, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 0:52, Reply)

Survival Of The Fittest
Back in the days of GSCE Science, I was set a assignment at school. We paired up in class, were given a number of maggots (around 20), and had to conduct a scientific experiment based on the maggots.

At the end of the lesson, we made our presentations to the class. Ours had been a fairly tame experiment - we'd set up lamps shining different colours outside a circle of maggots to see if they were attracted to a particular colour. Boring, but it had passed half an hour with plenty of time to discuss what colour underwear we thought the girls were wearing.

One student duo, however, had been slightly more brutal. They enigmatically produced one maggot at the end of class, declaring it to be "the greatest maggot". And then they explained.

They'd set up a run using rulers to essentially drag-race maggots over a 20cm distance. The winner - victorious. The loser - stamped on by an adolescent science student. This went through a complicated set of stages, akin to the World Cup Tournament, until one maggot had defeated all in his group, and subsequent knock-out stages.

Cue half off the class absolutely aghast, the other half sickened but slightly impressed by the Darwin-esque approach to a science assignment.

I'd like to think they went on to become pioneers of the medical world, but I seriously suspect they're out there somewhere murdering hitchhikers.

Length? Probably seemed like a 100m sprint to the maggots.

Probably in no way accidental, unless you have very skewed views on natural selection. But I've typed it now, so meh.
(Sloppy Giuseppe, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 0:33, Reply)

Our fluffy rabbit, Pumpkin
Started life as a tiny girl rabbit called Poppy but was quickly revealed to be a Pumpkin when he took a liking to humping our feet. Off to the vets he went.

He spent his life chasing your toes, rubbing noses with you, hopping up for cuddles, hiding in piles of cuddly toys and leaping off chairs onto the christmas tree, knocking it all over with much mess, as he was a complete chocoholic.

There was one time he became suddenly ill with such blocked lungs that he stood on the spot just to get enough energy to breathe. The vet gave him an injection and said he probably wouldn't live, but my sister sat beside him all the time, perched on a chair, and he pulled through.

He showed even more love to her after that and sought her out for cuddles, which I saw as him showing his appreciation.

He always had eye problems too. What we didn't know was over time his back teeth were slowly growing into his head, causing him eating problems and alot of pain. The vet said he was slowly starving but was so fluffy we didn't notice.

He was always so happy, and willing to play. We never thought for a moment that he was in pain and even though he had had teeth problems before we assumed it was fine.

So last year on the 22nd of this month I think it was, we had him put to sleep. We all still miss him and my eyes are getting wet as I type.

We never knew he was in pain, just assumed he was fine because he was so happy. I hope that means we made him happy and that he felt loved. Because he certainly was.
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 0:17, 2 replies)

i also...
...had 2 gerbils when i was about 10.Both white, one called James and one called Robert. To tell them apart,i used one of those crayola stamp pens to mark one of the gerbils to tell one from the other.

My mum saw them one day,one with blue exlamation marks on and toldme to wash it off.

My plan was ruined.I could never tell which was James and which was Robert for the rest of their lives.
(Foulkesy123 The one and only..., Sun 9 Dec 2007, 0:16, Reply)

dogsitting
I was looking after my mate's dog for a week over the summer whilst he was on holiday. Woke up one morning and he was having a fit.

ffs i thought. I sort of left the dog to it and whne it came to it was shaking and stuff. I hadnt passed my drving testor anything so i couldnt take it to the vets so i gave it a choco drop and left it be. So far it hasnt had another fit....
(Foulkesy123 The one and only..., Sun 9 Dec 2007, 0:13, 1 reply)

Fucked if I care
... but steak is bloody nice.
(MJPerry was crude but clickable at, Sat 8 Dec 2007, 23:02, 1 reply)

Letting children name pets is cruel
When I was four, my parents adopted a pair of lovely, fluffeh black kittens from an animal shelter for me.

Their mistake was allowing me to name them. The larger of the two was christened, inaccurately but harmlessly, Titch.

I was adamant that I wished to name the other one 'Ju.'

My mother, however, could quickly see how shouting 'Jew! Jew! Here Jew, Here Jew Jew Jew!' at the back door of our North London home might become a problem and steered me towards other, less racially insensitive names.

We compromised on Juju.

In hindsight, it is amusing to note that I had the sense of humour of a b3tan even at the tender age of four.
(clumsyeloquence is a girl, Sat 8 Dec 2007, 22:28, Reply)

I had completely forgotten about this
When, after several years in our house, my Dad finally got around to doing up the downstairs bathroom, he thought it would be a good idea to have a proper look at the floorboards, pipes etc before laying a new carpet.

Having done all the necessary repairs to the floor, he put down underlay and, finally, carpet tiles.

About 20 minutes after he'd finished the job, an insistent meowing alerted us to the fact that he had sealed one of the cats under the floor.

He took the carpet back up, he took the underlay back up, he lifted a floorboard. The cat, distressed at the noise of the bathroom floor being disassembled, retreated. He took up another floorboard. The cat retreated further still.

He ended up having to remove most of the floorboards in the bathroom, including those under the bath, to get her out. And then he got to dispose of the plethora of mice and insects she'd killed during her short period of incarceration.

We also gained one cat when we found him and his siblings, just hours old, in a tied up polythene bag in a skip. Despite our best efforts to save them, he was the only one to survive and was susequently named 'You were the lucky one,' later shortened by popular demand to Lucky. He was an absolute maniac of a cat, kitten-like to his dying days, who would jump from the floor to your shoulder when you were standing up and perch there like a parrot, before nestling into your hair and doing a very good scarf impression. Rarely have I been sadder than when his previously limitless energy eventually ran out and he simply stretched out contentedly and died.

He was one hell of a cat.
(clumsyeloquence is a girl, Sat 8 Dec 2007, 21:40, 2 replies)

felinicide and hamstercide
A fews years back I lived in a high riser , I had a hamster and cat (kitten to be prescise).
One night after I got home frome work I could smell cat wee from the kitty litter, so I waltzsed over to the window in the living room and opend it. As I turned around I knocked the hamster cage of the book shelf and Helmet the hamster escaped straight under the settee. As I'm hurridly trying to catch the hamster the kitten got in the act and before I knew it she was about to pounce on Helmet. Grabbing kitty I flung her out the way as I slammed a bowl down to capture said hamster. I placed the hamster back in the cage then suddenly realised kitty wasn't in the room.
Just as I was about to think omg the door bell rang and a very discruntled neighbour from the bottom floor handed me my kitty unharmed, as kitty used her as a landing pad! I lived 5 floors up and I think kitty lost a few of her nine lives on the way down. The neighbour said that she heard a wailing noise and then felt a sharp pain on her back and neck whilst she was putting her rubbish out.

Helmet the hamster sadly died a few weeks later after he made another escape attempt and meeting its maker via an encounter with a my mother and a spade.
(mr sheep is down stairs with empty maple syrup jar, Sat 8 Dec 2007, 21:13, Reply)

Along with painting my dogs head blue
We invented a game where we put pegs on our dogs ears (retriever) and then made her move her head to one side, Que the pegs hitting her on the side of face making her flick her head back to that side to see what hit her. Que pegs from other side hitting her in the face also. repeat ad infinatum. It was only when she started going mental that we realised she probably wasnt enjoying this. whoops.
but shes cute though.
awww look at her
( Nostrebor can't be everything all the time., Sat 8 Dec 2007, 20:03, Reply)

Cruelty via Immense Stupidity
I just read a story about a man who didn't have enough room in the car for his family, luggage AND dog so he put the dog in a crate and put it on the roof rack......for the 12 hour journey.

Not surprisingly, the dog crapped itself, so he stopped, hosed off the crap, and set off again.

Oh, and by the way, this same man is also a candidate to be the next president of the United States. Read about it here:

tinyurl.com/ynveqm

I suppose this proves there are people out there even dumber than the current president, and they seem to be in the running to take over when Bush is finished.
(frogman99, Sat 8 Dec 2007, 19:57, Reply)

Bond the hamster
Reading Tony_'s story about drowning his hamster in the bath reminded me of my first (and only) hamster. Bond was a big fat teddy hamster with a penchant for escape and chewing plastic. He had several different hamster cages, and managed to chew through all of them at some point. On one occasion he escaped during the night and was found wedged inside one of my model cars. Had to do a fire service style roof chop to get him out, leaving me with the world's only roofless Mclaren F1.

Anyway. Standard procedure for when he had ruined yet another cage latch was to put him in the empty bath, and then shut the door to prevent any of our marauding cats from getting him while dad drove me to Pet City to spend another £6.99 on a cage door. This worked very well, and he was usually so knackered by running round in the large bath that he was easy to pick up and put back in his repaired cage. Easy that is, until I returned to find that the bathroom door was open. It seems that someone (I of course blame my little brother, thats what little brothers are for!) had gone for a slash whilst i was out, and forgotten to shut the door. All that was left in the bath was some blood, a kidney, and a tiny brown and white leg. Never found out which cat it was, they all kept low profiles for the next few days. hmm.

I have stuck to pet motorbikes ever since.

Bond was about 5" long. I am somewhat longer.
( Ralph farts in your general direction, Sat 8 Dec 2007, 19:34, Reply)

Human slaves, in an insect nation... aaaaaAAAaah!
In my first year of uni, when I lived with the five twunts from hell, we had quite a hot summer. No one told me that the student houses I lived in then (and now live in again, oddly enough) were prone to millions of ants in the summer.

One day, I am drinking some of that instant iced tea stuff you get from Whittards and noticed that my dresser is absolutely swarming with them. Not only this, but the crocodile of ants is headed into my top drawer, which is my underwear drawer.

Few things can be more embarrassing than waving your bras and pants out of the window of your room in order to shake all the ants off them, and I'm sure a fair few of them died.
( Maladicta, Sat 8 Dec 2007, 19:15, Reply)

Nearly killed with kindness....
A few years back, JuniorWitch #1 had a wee hamster. Cute ball of fur to look at, but vicious! Bit every finger in the house at least once and cleaning the cage required trapping it in the plastic tubes to avoid another trail of blood to the kitchen sink.

Anyhoo, summer holiday time rolls around again and our kind neighbour offers to feed and water the wee rat-ling while we're off boosting Spain's economy.

Two happy weeks in the sun and the Witch family return, landing back home at stupid o'clock in the morning and falling into bed for a few hours. Several hours later, we roll out of bed and start on the unpacking, finding the duty-free etc.

JuniorWitch #1 notices that the hamster is moving around and goes over to have a look.

"Mum, the hamster's not well!"

Sure enough, it was barely managing to drag itself around the bottom of the cage, looking very thin, woebegone and about twice its age.

Closer examination of the cage showed that the water bottle had been filled to the very brim. Now anyone who's ever had a pet knows that upside-down water bottles need some air space at the top or the water doesn't come out. No idea why, but I'm sure lots of you clever people know! I just know not to fill the bottle right up.

Hammy was revived by the placing of a small bowl of water right under its nose (the only time in its life it didn't try to bite me!!) and the pouring out of some of the water from the bottle. I honestly don't think it would have survived if we'd been home even twelve hours later.

Did I ever tell my kind neighbour she'd nearly topped the hamster? Did I buggery! Although when we went away the next summer, I removed the bottle and put a water bowl in the cage just to be on the safe side. Told her the fitting for the bottle kept coming loose and we didn't want the wee fur-ball escaping on her watch!

Hamster eventually expired at the grand old (for a hamster) age of nearly 4. We didn't get another one. Now we can't get another one as our cat (black of course, as a familiar should be!) would regard it as lunch on the hoof.
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Sat 8 Dec 2007, 18:27, Reply)

Ginger Satan
When I first met Mrs Spankengine she had a truly vile ginger cat who hated me and pretty much anyone, and still does. He hisses and growls at me and if I get too close he'll try and take a lump out of my face.
He's known to our friends as 'Ginger Satan'.

One occupant of the house who never took kindly to Ginger Satan's tormenting of me was one of our dogs, Scally (imagine - cats and dogs not getting along) and whenever Ginger Satan would kick off, the dog would get between master and demon and threaten him with a good mauling. Being part pit bull he was very capable of taking care of himself, too.

Of course, me and canine wingman would take this to the next level whenever Mrs Spankengine was away on business, and invented our own game called Basement Ginger Satan Hunting. It was a bit like foxhunting but without the red breeches, horses or, um, fox. But it was fun and Scally caught on fast....

One postscript to the story of Ginger Satan - who, it has to be said is adored by the Mrs. One night I hear a bloodcurdling scream of animal in pain, and Mrs Spankengine appears, white as a sheet and shaking. It turns out she'd been saying goodnight to fluffy wuffy Ginger Satan, and turned to close the door....without realising that satanic tail was protruding through the door frame by the hinges. At that's how two inches of ginger tail came to be lying there attached to a small piece of sinew and next to a drop of blood.
Under the circumstances I can live with getting rid of the fecker inch by inch, but I do wish she'd started at the other end.
(Thomas_The_Spankengine, Sat 8 Dec 2007, 18:24, Reply)