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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I'm very nice to animals, but some of my friends...One of my best friends:
1. Accidentally boiled her terrapins - another friend told her if she left them in the sun they'd grow into giant terrapins like in some Japanese B-Movie and she thought that sounded like fun, so left them sitting in the sun lounge whilst she spent the day at Pleasurewood Hills. She came back to find the water bubbling and several floating baby terrapins at the top of the tank...
2. Same friend. Really shouldn't be given animals. We went off to Petsmart (horrid place) and bought a lovely cute fluffy hamster - so fluffy, in fact, that both of us failed to notice that it only had three legs, it was only when it kept trying to climb the tiny ladder to get to its bed and repeatedly fell off she took a closer look. She didn't want a defective hamster and even though I cried for a good few hours, she took it back to Petsmart to get a (non-disabled) guinnea pig. The staff at Petsmart assured her that it would be taken home by one of them and looked after, but I'm pretty sure they just took it out into the store room and stamped on it - poor fluffy.
3. My aunt agreed to look after my nan's pet budgie when she was away on an old lady holiday. Aunt thought it looked like it needed some exercise and let it out for a fly around. It was very excited about being free, and flew very fast into the bay window, breaking a leg. Aunt thought quickly about what one should do when faced with little mini avian broken limbs and tied a matchstick around it as a tiny splint. Good idea, you would think, but the next day the leg had fallen off and the budgie was propped wonkily up against the side of its cage, discarded limb in its food bowl. It later died, although the official story is (if nan asks) 'it flew away'.
4. Another friend had parents that although did not live on a farm, owned a few farmyard-like animals. They went away on hols and their beloved goat died, some say from old age, others say from the vast amount of beer we made it drink at a party the night before. Son decided it wasn't worth calling a vet so dug a large hole for the deceased goat. Unfortunately, said hole was not big enough and the goat, when tipped in, had its legs sticking out the top. It had rigor mortis by this point and the legs could not be bent (I believe he even tried a hammer) so his poor parents came home to find four hooves sticking up out of their front garden. He was in the pub so not around to explain, but I hear that it made a novel perch for some local pigeons until his parents paid for the council to come and take it away.
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hanabanana, Fri 7 Dec 2007, 17:31,
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