short-term pet ownerships (venting)

[emmamay]

i probably sound really nieve and stupid but maybe you could put up a sign in your shop, and give out a fact sheet to every person that buys the animals, and maybe even talk to the workers at your shop. and yeah it makes me mad as well GRRR people can be soooooo stupid!

[Kristen]

i probably sound really nieve and stupid but maybe you could put up a sign in your shop, and give out a fact sheet to every person that buys the animals, and maybe even talk to the workers at your shop. and yeah it makes me mad as well GRRR people can be soooooo stupid!

That's actually a great idea! Every petshop should do that to educate the impulse buyers, and workers should be knowledgable to answer people's questions. I absolutely agree with you on the whole "people can be stupid" topic...UGH they're so ignorant most of the time! I hate ignorant people...they refuse to be educated..

[kim]

this is precisely the reason why i discourage breeding, or pretty much any impulsive thing regarding animals for about 99% of the public.

people have no sense of responsibility towards animals. they are items, property.

its broken? throw it away and get a new one.
it got too big? exchange it.
its sick? put it out of its misery, as treatment will cost more than the animal did.

people are allowed to act this way. every single day i see animals come into my shelter and rats come into my rescue that people didnt care enough about to act responsibly. which is why you need to think before you act -- search out for a RESPONSIBLE breeder (which is one that will take back their animal if you cant keep it), or rescue one. i actually DISCOURAGE people from adopting animals, and if they still want them, then its theirs.

i have the most beautiful dog in the world. he suffers from hernias (either due to genetic reasons leading to weak muscles = poor breeding, or trauma = abuse). when his medical conditions got to be too much (i assume this, unless he got up the courage to just leave the sh*thead that owned him), you know what they did? let him loose. didnt even TRY to find a shelter. or a rescue (come on, hes purebred). or contact his breeder. they didnt even put up for sale ads, or try to locate a vet to do the surgeries cheaply.

no one was responsible for him. not his breeder - who made poor decisions when breeding,  as he is not conformationally correct, nor is he temperamentally sound, and they didnt follow up on him or crop his ears. not his owners - who didnt try to help him, who abused him, and who kicked him out when he needed them.

so instead my dog came into the shelter on the end of a rabies pole, weighing 50 lbs less than he does now. his teeth are worn down flat because he must have eaten rocks for weeks. he has scars on his body, small but i can see them on his face and hips. he is fear aggressive. if i didnt take him, he was going to be euthanized, based on his breed alone.
so i will be responsible for him, i will spend another 2000 on his next surgery (after 2000 for the first two). i brought him back up to his healthy 110 lbs. i make his coat gleam and his eyes look a little less worried. but i will never forgive people like his owners, for caring so little about an animal that they didnt have the decency to consider how their actions would affect my dog.


i cant remember where i heard this or who said it, but its been said:
you forever become responsible for the things you tame.
i take that to heart. and feel sorry for the people out there that dont have enough love in them to share it with an animal. and thank you to those people who got rid of bowie. because i always wanted a 110 lb doberman to keep me warm at night. he gave me his heart, and i wont break it like they did.

[Kristen]

That's a horrid story...it's incomprehensible how a person could be so inconsiderate not to even find a shelter! At least there's a happy ending..he's with you and getting proper care. When I saw him he looked absolutely beautiful, so great job on getting him rehabilitated!

I wish there didn't even have to be shelters though...how hard can it be to love an animal that will love YOU unconditionally?  

[Jodi]

Aw, dang, Kim! I'm cryin' my eyes out! What an amazing tribute to an amazing, wonderful dog! Please give him hugs and kisses from "Aunt Jodi," okay?

YOU, dear lady, are my hero. I hope your family and friends are at least half as proud of you as I am....

[elegy]

<sniffle>

kim, what a beautiful dog. it is horrible that he went  through all of that, but how lucky to have ended up in your care.

[ruthiechan]

Kim, I agree with you totally.
I wish had the funds to be able to do what you are doing.

[EmilyC]

  I also am employed at a pet store so i feel your pain.  i have seen some of the worst things come through our door.  we had woman bring in 2 hamsters that were constantly fighting but she must've been too cheap to separate them because one had  a hole about one inch (thats big on a hammy!) in circumference gnawed through the muscle and to the organs and bones on its back.  the other was missing an eye.  we dont take "disposable pets" either, but i took these and my coworker put them out of their misery while i was not there thank god.  i had a man bring in 18 rats that were being used for feeder breeders.  they were malnourished, dirty, cramped, unused to human touch and ill.  i took 11 home and distributed them to good homes. thats how i got int o the rescue business, not a good one to be in at a pet store, i want to take everything home!   i definatly feel you!  boy...venting does feel good!  

emily carson
Mid Michigan Rescue

[ruthiechan]

HOLY CRAP!!!
The poor hamsters!

[Bonnie]

ARRGG another story---

I had a woman call me last week (I've been without internet for a week, so I couldn't come here and tell ya...)

Anyways she calls and says that she bought a guinea pig from us and that it was still "within the 14 days" and that she has decided that she just can't take the time to care for it afterall and she wants to return it.

Well I tell her that if it is withing the 14 days she cen bring it back, providing she as a reciept proving it was in 14 days. Well of course she is careless and didn't save it. (even though we always tell them too). I asked her if she had the purchasing contract that they sign (which by the way states that they promise to care for it and take it to the vet when needed) and she dosen't have that either! But then she says "you have a copy of it! you find it!"

So I take her name and number and tell her I will call her back when I find it. I start looking in the files, expecting to find it near the top, and it's not. So I grab a month and a 1/2s worth of pruchasing contracts and go find a chair.

Not more than 5 minutes later she calls and is annoyed that I have not found it yet. At last I find it while she is on the phone with me, and it ends up she bought it almost a month ago! (within the 14 days, huh?)

I again explain to her that we have a 14 day policy if she had the reciept. Now I did have my half of the contract, but since it was over the 14 days AND she didnt have her copy all I could offer her was store credit (the amount on a gift card).

This is the kicker--- she tells me "what am I going to spend the money on? I have no other pets! I'm just going to let the dumb thing loose in the wild!"

Ok, does this make sinse to you? Obviously she didn't care about the thing and cared more about the money and was trying to use that comment as a way to make me give her all her cash back. Uhm, no. I don't play that game.

I told her that we would give her store credit or that we would take it back for free and adopt it out for free rather than her let it loose in the wild. She didn't like that. She told me either she got cash or she let it loose.

In the end I put MY manager on the phone and she "yes sir-ed" him and agreed that if she could not find it a home she would bring it back for store credit. Havn't head back since, but it really angered me that people could be so heartless.



AND on another note- Jeremy has been wanting a ferret forever. I saw a post on our adoptions board for a free ferret so I called about it. I asked why it was for free (you know, biter, allergies, etc)

She tells me "well the newness of having a ferret has worn off and we don't have time to play with it as much as it should have" (grr)

So I arrange to meet her (tonight, actually, in an hour) and let her know that I just moved into a new home and don't have the AC running yet, so that I might not be able to take him home for a couple days. She tells me "well it's living outside under our barn, so it should be fine."  

You better belive I'm taking the critter home tonight! I will sacrifice one of my ocelating fans that have been in my bedroom at night for the poor thing!

*sigh* people....

[RatStalker]

OH MY GOD!    The stupidity of people is astounding!  Truly astounding.

And---best of luck with the ferret.  That poor little guy!  Yep, I'm sure ferrets are, indeed, a handful, but PLEASE!  The newness has worn off!  OMG!  And to have it OUTSIDE?  ANYTHING could happen to it, especially if it figures out how to escape.  

Best of luck with your new family member, and please do post a pic (or 10) when you can!

[DragonTamer]

yes..  most of my pets are unwanted pets from people I know either personally, or a friend of a friend of a friend.  

the 11 mice I had?  originally there were 13, but two died since I took them in (by the way.. 5 males still left.. someone take one or two! please!!).  this woman who works with me at the bakery, told me her daughter bought two mice to keep in her school, and one had babies suddenly.  I asked her if they were male/female, she said her daughter didn't know.. gah..  how can you NOT know? aren't male's prominant enough?  anyway, her daughter handled the babies and was excited about them.. until I hear a few weeks later, that the mouse had ANOTHER litter, and I asked her why she didn't tell her daughter to seperate them, and she said because they didnt' have the room or cages.....   anyway, I finally told her I'd take them all in and find good homes for them.  later that week, she dumped 13 (didn't know there were that many at the time, wow) on me, and I still have 5 left.  I was going to keep the only agouti male there, all 12 others were albino.  after the second litter was weaned, I seperated them from the females.  then the agouti male died..  he was one of the original two mice that she bought, and it's unsure how old he was, but he was from a feeder tank and full grown.  then one of the youngest babies died as well...  
my b/f took 6 females, and two males possibly have homes.  I may wind up keeping the others, though.. as they've never been handled before I got them (apparently one of them finally bit the girl and she refused to touch them from then on).  the older males are pretty calm compared to the younger ones.  two males get along together ok, and three younger males seem fine together, as they were litter mates.  

I am too soft, and will take in almost anything if someone pesters me enough... :;sighs::..  like I said, many of my pets are from others, or rescues.  although other pets I have weren't, such as my veiled chameleon and STO.  but most were...

[DragonTamer]

you know what? most of the time people ask me about my rats, and they always say "we had hamsters, but they killed each other".   dont' people know better than to keep more than one hamster in a tank?!

as much as I hate petco, the one here is required to hand out a care sheet to each person who buys an animal there.  they also have brief summaries on each cage, for general information (although some is inaccurate with some pets..).  it felt weird when I bought a female replacement for my african black millipedes and they handed me a caresheet..  gah.  most info on it was wrong.   although I do like the entire "we recommend using carefresh bedding" on each small animal cage.  that's sort of neat... but they don't mention why.  

I could tell you the story of each pet I've had in the past, and have now...  many have quite a background.   I'm not sure if I told you guys about Vincent's background yet... probably have...  he was dumped at a pet store in the back door during winter.  the original owner was a teenager who ran away from home, and the mom wanted nothing to do with the rats.  there was a male and female, and she dumped them off on this pet store in a dirty cage, middle of the night.. wintertime.  they couldnt' sell them because they were both adults, so they were just breeding in the back.  they knew me because I would get formula for my rat I was hand raising at the time, and I asked to see the rats.  they let me take the male home, and I was going to take the female later... but they sold her as feeder before I got there... ::sighs::..  all their babies were berkshire blacks, too.  the female was albino, the male was an irish... unknown color.. mink, or blue agouti.. or who knows..

[Elaken]

Okay I am just sitting here crying.  I knew there were evil people out there, but I didn't know this much and this bad!!  I never understood why people are like this.  Although I guess I should have realized, my sister is almost as bad.  She had two cats(one she found abandoned on the road, the other her friend was going to dump, so she took it) and we kept them for a little while.  But when she took them back they hated it.  At our house, they had room and a backyard, in her apartment they weren't allowed outside and there was so much cigarette and pot smoke.  So one of them ran away three times and managed to get to our house, across a very busy intersection!!  She always took him back though, until one day he never made it to our house, we are positive he died but had no body.  Her whole attempt to find him was to put like three signs around her apartment complex.

Her second cat got asthma because of her smoking, and for the longest time, when she lived in another state he had to eat cereal because they were always broke.  Also he had an injured leg because one of her acquaintances got pissed at the cats whining and threw him out a window.  I would have killed someone for doing that.  She will also force her animals to get high.  It makes me so frustrated.  I can't change my sister and she was raised in a family where there were always animals, who were basically members of the family.  We have never treated animals badly and do the most that we can for them.  It makes me think how can I help stop other people, who are strangers and might be raised with a throw away attitude.  Everything is always so hopeless here!!!

[Shimmer]

These stories are so sad...I just can't see how anyone can do such things to animals.
My aunt (who is basically like my older sister) is pretty bad though. It's so upsetting.
When she and her husband first got married and got their apartment, they got this cute little black terrier mix named Missy. She was their baby. They loved her to death. Then they moved to a house and my aunt got pregnant. Around this time they got a second dog...a black and white cocker spaniel named Katie. Now, with the baby on the way, there was less time for Katie and Missy. Poor Missy didn't understand this at all. When the baby came, the dogs were forced to stay in the kitchen, away from the family. I knew the poor things didn't get a lot of attention because when I'd come over, I'd go see them and Missy would pee all over me because she was so happy to get attention.
Then one of my aunt's friends went out of town and left the most adorable keeshond with my aunt. Her name was Skylar. When my aunt's friend returned, she refused to take Skylar back. Skylar was an absolute angel. I loved that dog so much...I remember begging my parents to let me take her home.
Now my aunt was pregnant again (yup, the two are a little over a year apart). They "didn't have time" to house train Skylar, so she had to be kept outside...and since she was kept outside, Missy and Katie were thrown out there too. Now the dogs got absolutely no attention at all (except when I came over...I would rather see the dogs than the baby  )
One day, my aunt came home and found Katie dead. She had tried to jump on the table outside to see into the house, landed on an aquarium top, fell off, and broke her neck...poor baby. I cried for the longest time when I found out  
Soon my aunt was pregnant with a third child (ughh) and the oldest was playing outside...That meant the dogs had to be kept in a tiny pen when the baby was out playing.
Missy was starting to lose weight because my aunt claimed Skylar took all the food...I'll never forget the last time I saw Missy. She was normally very hyper, but that day she just laid in my lap and looked at me. Not long after that day I found out they had taken her to the pound because she was" too hyper around the kids." It still upsets me to think about it...Poor little Missy...She went from being the favorite to being dumped off at a pound.
They kept Skylar for several years. I swear, if they had kept her just a little bit longer, I would have taken her when I move out. She stayed in a little pen in the backyard all the time...the poor dog would get so hot since she has so much fur. At least she was given to a family with children that will love her.
A few months ago, my aunt brought home a german shepard/husky mix puppy for the kids. I was furious. Sadie stayed with them for maybe a month and suddenly she was "too rough" with her three children...Duh? We told my aunt this would happen before she got the puppy! ArGH! Sadie was given to a very nice rescue though (I recently found their website and saw her picture on it)...She'll be kept there until she's adopted. Shew.
My aunt's problem is the fact that she loves puppies. Sadly, as soon as that "puppy cuteness" wears off, she no longer wants it.
I just can't believe some people can be so irresponsible...
And shew, that was a lot of typing! lol