Accidental animal crueltyI once invented a brilliant game - I'd sit at the top of the stairs and throw cat biscuits to the bottom. My cat would eat them, then I'd shake the box, and he would run up the stairs for more biscuits. Then - of course - I'd throw a biscuit back down to the bottom. I kept this going for about half an hour, amused at my little game, and all was fine until the cat vomited. I felt absolutely dreadful.
Have you accidentally been cruel to an animal?
This question has been revived from way, way, way back on the b3ta messageboard when it was all fields round here.
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rob, Thu 6 Dec 2007, 11:13)
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The cat who didn't like smokingThis is going back many years, to the early-90s and a delightful small town that is Burford in the Cotswolds.
The group of friends that I was part of would congregate in the flat of another friend at the end of hard nights scrumpy drinking for pie-eating (fresh from the bakery at 1am) and general smoking of the most-recent diesel dipped squigy black. The other occupant of said flat was a small black cat (who is the star of the story, to remain on topic obviously), named for want of anything better, Meow-thang.
Now, Meow-thang had the look of a cat that lived of scraps from the butchers that was situated below the flat, namely that it had a worried look in his eyes. I’m not sure if it was worried or whether it had some congenital anomaly but I digress… So picture if you will the scene, up to eight people sat around listening to Ozric Tentacles, Penguin Café Orchestra or somesuch tripped out music, busily smoking the only dope that could be got hold of in the arse-end of nowhere.
Meow-thang didn’t like blowbacks, buckets or even walking into a room filled with acrid dope smoke. What Meow-thang did enjoy was quietly sitting with his owner at the beginning of the end of the night as more people turned up. As more joints were passed around any motion of trying to get the cat stoned would be met with a flailing ball of claws and a look of general pissed off-edness, but the cat would quite happily inspect the smoke that would be trailing out of whoever’s shoulder he was currently leaning against. Nothing wrong with this one would think, until Meow-thang decided to go for a walk… he sat up, stretched and set of to walk down the outstretched legs of whoever he had been sat on. He gets down to the ankles and proceeds to set one paw on the floor, only to be met with complete surprise that the floor doesn’t have the same amount of ‘give’ as a person’s leg. Meow-thang promptly jumped vertically into the air and scarpered out of the door into ‘fresh air’.
The first time this occurred was met with great amusement but the cat proceeded to do it every time there was a session, but still didn’t like getting blowbacks etc. Damn cat was getting passively stoned on purpose, and some people don’t think that cats are intelligent. This one wasn’t.
Length? So what. But what a name for a cat!
(, Thu 6 Dec 2007, 12:04, 1 reply)
Scrumpy...You just reminded me...I have a lone bottle of scrumpy in my room that was...transported.. down here by someone who had to go back to NZ for a couple days... its gonna be a good night.
(, Thu 6 Dec 2007, 21:34, closed)
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