I remember reading a news story from fifteen to twenty years ago. A couple decides to go on vacation to Mexico and leaves their two young daughters, eight and five years old, behind in the house. They left food like cereal and milk, and told them not to go outside, so the neighbors wouldn’t know what was going on I suppose. There was a minor electrical short and a small fire, and the older girl goes to the neighbors for help. exposing what her parents have done.
Never read a follow up. I hope those girls got a better home. there’s good people who really want to be parents who would chew their arms off to have two nice little girls. They could have been treated like princesses but instead got assholes for parents.
Can we now talk about all the horrible people who let their pets live in agony because they are too weak to go to the veterinarian to have them euthanized?
Oh that’ makes sense. So you’d starve to death, thus abandoning your poor pet to the street, or to authorities who’d then likely put it to sleep.
That mindset isn’t noble, it’s selfish and fucked up. In such situations, your pet is better off with someone who can properly take care of it and its health.
My dog Nathan came from the shelter. He was about seven months old when I got him. He was healthy and loving, but had no training. He was kept “outside” when the owners weren’t there, and had “problem behavior” listed as “he chews”
Well of course he does. he was still a puppy. The one thing I’ll say for whoever had him, they didn’t simply toss him out, they formally signed him over to the shelter.
And now for a story that makes me sad even now.
I once adopted a kitten. There was an older cat at the time in my houselhold. For nearly three years things went fine, then The Road Warrior started peeing on the carpet in the hallway. He also started scratching the carpet there. I took him to the vet for medical exams and nothing was wrong that could be detected. I tried fresh litter every day, I cleaned the carpet with powerful odor maskers, and still TRW kept peeing. It ruined the carpet, stunk up the house, and his scratching elsewhere got bad, and the cat got even more nervous and edgy seeming. He’d been friendly with the other cat, but started bothering him.
I did all I could to work with him, but nothing got better, and finally spole to the vet about euthanasia. He knew how hard I’d worked with that cat, and when I asked him if he thought euthanasia, in this case, was a moral option, he said yes. After all nobody else would have wanted to adopt him. So I had the cat put down. It truly hurt, I felt like maybe there was something else I could have done, but sure didn’t know what it might be. He’s buried in my backyard.
I don’t really fault people for rehoming dogs if they have to move or can’t care for them. Dogs seem to typically adapt very easily to their new homes. I’m sure they notice a change, but I wouldn’t call it traumatic. I’ve had a couple of dogs over the years that I’ve taken because the owners had to move, and the dogs seemed to be totally fine with the whole transition. At first they are a little unsure, but soon they seem right at home. As long as the new home is a loving home, it doesn’t seem to affect the dog too much.
A good friend passed away and his wife was thinking of having the dog put down “because I travel a lot and can’t afford to board her 2 weeks a month”. The dog was 12 1/2 at the time. She’s very happy at our house and was 14 in May.
I’m not sure of that, and I don’t know how you can be. It does sound to me like he wants the dog to live a happy life in a good environment, so I can’t work up too much outrage.
I also adopted an eleven year old cat from a friend. He was in seious legal trouble, on trial. If he’d been convicted his wife and kids would have had to move, not being able to keep the house. Friend wanted to be sure his beloved pet would have a home. So I took him, telling my friend that if he got probation, instead of prison, the cat would not be returned. He was okay with that, and did indeed avoid prison. The adoption was open, he and the kids would still see the cat(the guy worked on my computer) and when the cat was sixteen I notified my friend that it was time for that final visit to the vet. We went together, and friend helped my bury the cat.
Eh, there are tons of decent reasons. Like the couple I know whose newborn baby proved to have a cat allergy. Cat had to go. As you say cats<people.
It was adopted into a loving family and lived out the remainder of its fairly long life well-cared for and happy. No shame for anyone involved.
ETA: No reason to derail a perfectly decent rant about fuckwit pet-owners by tarring everybody with the same broad brush. Re-homing a pet need not be traumatic, nor unnecessary. Doesn’t change the fact that the OP’s idiot with the Fat Cat is still an idiot.
I remembered another one - a woman came in with a Great Pyrenees newborn puppy. Her dog had her litter of puppies, and then hours later, the woman noticed something outside in the snow, moving. A last puppy. The mom rejected it. The vet examined it, and the little guy was healthy, but would need to be bottle-fed. The woman didn’t want to deal and asked the vet to euthanize. The vet asked the woman to reconsider, and she left in a huff. I volunteered to raise the puppy, but when we contacted the woman, they had found another vet that euthanized the puppy.
The couple in the earlier post was convinced to give their dog up to the vet, BTW. It wasn’t a show of mercy/change of heart. They didn’t want the hassle of trying to find another vet that may be willing to euthanize a healthy animal.
I had to re-home a cat when I went away to college, because the only rental property I could afford that allowed cats had bare concrete floors, rust in the sinks and toilet, and bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. She went to a neighbor’s friend who had just lost their own cat.
One of the cats I have now went to the shelter twice - the first time when she was weaned, and the second time due to “family problems”. I’m guessing that she was much safer at the shelter than she would have been with her former humans, and it did take some time before she was convinced that I was going to be her furever hoomin. <3
My other cat is a neutered, declawed male who was dumped in our neighborhood. :mad: He was seriously underweight and parasite-ridden by the time I took him in, and what kind of sicko dumps a declawed cat, anyway?
My least-favorite when I worked for the shelter was the dude who brought his dog in to be euthanized, but wouldn’t give a reason. The next day when his estranged wife came looking for the family dog, we figured out what had happened.
The laws at the time, IIRC, didn’t lead to a clear criminal case against him.
The worst reason I ever read about, and I don’t remember where I read it, was a woman who brought her cat to the shelter because she had her home redecorated, and the cat no longer matched her color scheme.
I’ve known dogs to be surrendered to a local rescue for “being too furry”. Not causing allergy problems – just depositing too much fur on the owner’s belongings.
My mother once was at Pet Smart and was just looking at the animals there for adoption. One of the older cats that was up for adoption was there because he wasn’t getting along with the new kitten. WTF???
My sister’s two cats used to belong to her realtor, who was moving away to be with her daughter and knew she wouldn’t be home nearly enough to take care of them. She was happy they’d have a good home and since she knows my parents from church, she’d be able to check up on them from time to time.
And right before my dog died, we were having to consider putting her down, because she was getting really strange and nasty, to the point that she bit one of the cats, which was totally unlike her. Maybe that was a forewarning or something of her stroke or whatever?
