Omg Laura H, that's awful! I can't even imagine that.
I was basically raised with animal activists so my experience was quite the opposite.
I was basically raised with animal activists so my experience was quite the opposite.
The blocked boy was an inside cat who kept blocking and was pts at 7, the girl was pts at 12 because my mom did not want to give shots for diabetes, she was an in and out cat. We also had a third cat that was in and out and disappeared after moving at 2. All were fixed. They also had a poodle that got hit by a car at 1 year old. My youngest animal to die was an 11 year old dog with cancer was pts. My oldest was 21 year old cat. Unless they have a disease like cancer my animals tend to live a long time!They were fed dry food and both died prematurely, one from a blockage and one from diabetes. No one knew the importance of proper nutrition back then
When my niece got pregnant about 17 years ago, she gave her Mom guardianship of her kitten because she said scooping poop could kill her and the unborn baby. Then, after the baby was born she couldn't take it back because it 'might' hurt the baby! Ultimately, she never got the cat back!
As a child we had a few cats all outside of course. We had one named Kit Kat who had kittens we named Salt and Pepper. My brother got a puppy at that time who's mom died and Kit let him suck with the kittens. We never took them to a vet. Even though it was the late 80's we lived in the head of a holler in the hills of East Kentucky. This is going to cause most to cringe. The cats ate scraps any food that was left over they got. There was also plenty of mice and stuff.
Then around 88 or 89 my brother got a pet pig that followed him like a dog. I grew up around family and they all had animals and barn animals. That summer was bad. One animal after another died of parvo. It was devastating to see. I was only around 11. I got my next pet in my early 20s I called him prince. Not long after I found out i was pregnant. Being from where I was from I found a new home for him, the old wives tale about not having a cat around a baby.
When my niece got pregnant about 17 years ago, she gave her Mom guardianship of her kitten because she said scooping poop could kill her and the unborn baby. Then, after the baby was born she couldn't take it back because it 'might' hurt the baby! Ultimately, she never got the cat back!
The kick in the pants is that her husband had a 1 year old pit-bull/rottweiler mix and neither of them felt there was any danger in having him around the baby! :doh3:
Rabbits are great!! In Fl I could not have a cat or dog in the apartments but a bird, fish or bunny in a cage housebroken was allowed. We got a very small white brown-eyed bunny probably too young to leave its mommy however it loved us , we loved him, and he always used a news paper in the corner of the kitchen or on a paper in the corner of the the bathroom. It was a male and he reached about 12-13 pounds. never had him fixed, this was in the 70's did NOT even know they did such a thing but eventually his urine was so smelly I ended up giving him a little girl who had a huge Florida screened in room. She had lukemia and her parakeet that stayed out there had recently had passed away. I drove to meet them in Orlando and that was one happy little girl I gave his cage, toys and all his things to her , even carried a ratty old towel along cause she did just what I would have done, "Daddy, can I hold him in my lap til we get home?" Those big brown eyes shining up at him and her little patch of hair she had left on top, she was little doll baby, Daddy was Brazilian, Mother Cuban, dark skin, etc. Of course he said yes, " but make sure he stays in the blanket(towel) in case he gets excited and wets on you"
When I was born, my mom had a Siberian Husky and a Siamese. They both ran away when I came home (or at least that's the story they tell me).
When I was very small, we got a cat. I thought she was white, and wanted to name her Snowflake. My mom said, No, and we named her Max. It turns out that she was a diluted something Siamese. She might have been some kind of white-out Siamese, as she still looks like a white cat (in photos) to me. Max was an indoor/outdoor cat who ate Tender Vittles. I was like the little girl in the cartoons who "loved" the cat, and wanted to pick her up and hold her and squish her and carry her around. I remember her swiping me on the face and running away as fast as possible. I'm sure the cat was spayed (there were a lot of neighborhood cats, and she never had kittens or was pregnant), and definitely had her claws.
We ended up rehoming her to a friend of my mom's because we moved. Supposedly, it was because there "would be fleas" where we were moving to, but it was probably because my dad doesn't like animals (or people, for that matter). The flea thing didn't pan out, as I ended up with rabbits.
So sad UghThis is another story about my mother who is not a cat person, and it is a bit disturbing so some of you really may not want to read this so just CONTENT WARNING, but it's also sort of funny in a terrible way.
CONTENT WARNING
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OK
So after my beloved Samantha died at 17 (when I had been gone away to University for a few years already), my mother actually let my much younger sister get another kitten because we kids are all cat lovers. She even let her have a cat door and an indoor litter box year-round. But she was still indoor-outdoor, and she didn't however get her spayed on schedule, and Amber got pregnant and had kittens. I was home for some sort of school break, and I opened a closet door and saw Amber eating her recently-birthed kittens. :jaw: I didn't know if they were stillborn or not, but well nature is like that especially for first-time mothers or non-ideal nutrition or a number of other reasons, so I just left her to it. So my mother the non-cat-loving genius (and I guess cheap-ass) still didn't get her spayed, and told me that was the second time then tells me over the course of a few years that this happened TWO MORE TIMES, and she figured "Well, if she's going to eat them I guess there's no point in getting her fixed." :frusty: BUT, the FIFTH litter, she took great care of them and was an ideal mother. My sister (then maybe 10 or so) was overjoyed to have kittens. They kept 1 as a second cat, got the rest nice homes, and Amber (and the second kitten) finally got fixed.
I was talking to my sister a few months ago and asked her if she remembered this, and she apparently had been blissfully unaware of these goings on the entire time.