Caring for wildlife.
My stepfather once found a wounded baby bird in our back garden. Being an animal-loving family we decided to nurse it back to health.
For the first few days we fought over who would get to feed it the worms we caught by leaving a piece of wood on the lawn. Then we took to taking it out into the back garden, letting it perch on our fingers and then moving our fingers away quickly to let it try to fly.
As the days went on our little friend grew almost all its flight feathers and seemed to grow before our eyes. Flight lessons were graduating to it circling the garden as it glided and even flapped to gain a little height.
One morning we were in the utility room carefully feeding our little friend a worm when one of the cats pushed through the door, jumped across the room, clawed us out of the way and grabbed the bird in its mouth. As we recovered our senses and tried to catch the cat we heard a crunch and blood spurted a good two feet from the tiny bird as the cat began to purr.
At least we didn't have to bury the bird. I still feel guilty though as it was my job to close the kitchen door to stop the cat getting in.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Sat 24 Dec 2011, 16:33, 1 reply)

Oh dear.
My mother once spent several weeks nursing and hand feeding a baby hedgehog with great success, only to decide upon a strange whim to show it to the curious terrier at her feet. He killed it in a single bite. There were tears.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Sat 24 Dec 2011, 18:24, closed)