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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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.
(, Sun 9 Dec 2007, 3:16, Reply)
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