why do we do it?

[kittymama]

i was looking through the commonts posted and nearly wet myself when i read miss dolittles RULES FOR PETS. it made me realise that there is a common vein of hilarity to owning pets but all the laughter is aimed at the owner. this got me thinking, why do we do it? so i'd like this thread to be a collection of horror stories that will make us laugh at other pet owners to feel better about ourselves. for example,
i once fostered a puppy called mini. she was about 6 months old and a manchester terrier cross. now normally i dont foster puppies as they are so destructive and are so popular that they dont have problems finding homes however i had no other fosters in the house so i reckoned i could deal.
i had 3 weeeks of perfect puppy obediance and was beginning to wonder why i didnt do this more often when it happened.
one afternoon i forget to shut the door to the cat litter cupboard probably and mini ate 4 cat litter trays worth of poo.
the first i knew about it was when she jumped on the chest that contained my dvds and vomited about 20 litres of partially digested poo and litter all over it. cut to me 4 hours later still scrubbing my floor and trying to rescue 300 pounds worth of dvds.
in the end everything had to go in the bin and the carpet was a write off.
hence the subject " why do we do it?"
we all know the best of keeping pets but lets have a giggle about the worst.
thank you

[MissDolittle]

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew LOL :rolling

Well lemme think..yes, the chocolate story!

We had gotten a huge package of chocolates, about 50 lbs. My husky Nicholai
(may he rest in peace, he passed away of lupus last April) and my 14 year
old chihuahua mix Sandy got into it over night.

As hopefully all of you know, chocolate is pure poison to dogs. The package
was still closed, so I didn't even think of them trying to get in there.

I woke up in the morning from this terrible smell. I got up and saw diarrhea
EVERYWHERE. Both must have walked while pooping..it was soooooooooo
disgusting lol.

I had no idea what went wrong until I found the chocolate wrappers. Turns
out that between the both of them they had eaten 38 oz of the strong bitter
chocolates.

Both dogs were lying in their crates heaving. They had a 105 fever and
of course it was a Sunday.

I immediately called the emergency vet and we rushed the dogs to the
office. They had to stay over night on an IV and got activated charcoal to
bind the poison in their system.

$450 and a day later I got them back save and sound.

From now on chocolates are being locked up in this house!

[kittymama]

ok heres a chocolate adjacent story.
3 years ago i decided to adopt another foster dog. a yellow lab i called darla. she had come to me extremely overweight because she was a relentless glutton like every other lab we've met. all was well until 7 months later when christmas came around. my partner had bought me all my favourite chocolates and had wrapped them individually and hid them amongst polystyrene packing material in a massive box. i'm sure you know where this is going but i'll tell you anyway.
darla waited til we were out and then ate her way though a washing machine box of polystyrene.
back to the vet, x rays and a massive enema later she was home. but she still pooed polystyrene for 4 days!

[MissDolittle]

Phew, so we both had much luck, or rather the dogs!

It's funny though, my lab did not go with through the chocolates with the
others, he was the only one who was ok loool.

[thundersquirrel]

ohhhh boy lemme think here......

one time we were releasing about seven red squirrels in the fall (they're small, zippy, and of course, reddish). they weren't all siblings, but they were all around the same age, and the group acculmulated over time as other rehabbers dumped babies on us, lol.

anyway, we had them in the pre-release cage for probably longer than we should have. we opened the little tube exit and waited for a while, all excited that our babies were gonna be free. the first one comes out, gets on the grass, looks around, and starts jumping about three feet into the air over and over again. it was like it was trying to catch a branch that wasn't there. more came out and did the same thing. we had a yard full of high-hopping young squirrels.

we realized that they thought mesh walls were all around them still, just waiting to be climbed. they ignored their sight and just went with what they'd been doing for a long time! eventually they found real trees to climb, but we felt ridiculous after that.


moral of the story, don't cage animals you plan to release for too long, especially red squirrels.

[kittymama]

ok. i promise you this is a true story.
when i moved from glasgow to longrigend i had 1 dog 10 cats 70 rats and 27 snakes. the last pets i moved were the snakes coz the vivs took up so much space in the vans. there was a full grown yellow rat snake that had been given to me by the sspca as it was so vicious they couldnt find another home. i called him the Rat B****rd coz he really was so agressive. it took me 2 hours to get him out his viv and into a littla geotank for the move. he was the only thing in my fiesta and we set off. got to the house, lifted the tank opened it in the viv and opened the door. i put the lid on the viv and a towel over it and left him to come out at his own pace. 2 days later i go to feed him and he's not in the viv. i warn everyone in the house to watch out for him and wait for him to reappear as they always do.
2 weeks later still no sign and i'm in my car driving back fom town. i pull up at a queue of traffic and the guy behind me starts leaning on his horn. i ignore him coz i cant move but hes really going for it so i turn in my seat to give him an unpleasant signal and there on my parcel shelf trying to climb the back windscreen is the snake. the family in the car behind me are freaking out. i had nothing to catch him with so had to take off my top and tie it into a bag and catch the vicious and i might add hungry snake in a traffic jam. the family got to see a snake and a set of breasts all in one day! normally you have to pay for that!
i then drove the remaining 20 miles topless frantically hoping the police didnt see me!
beat that!

[MissDolittle]

OMG!!!!!!!!!!! That's a good one! Just be glad you don't live in the States, they
would have arrested you for indicent expore. Seriously!

I moved to the States from Germany (I am German) 15 years ago. I had no
idea about these stupid laws. We lived in an apartment complex with a pool,
so I go out and as I always did in Germany, took my top off and jumped in.
5 Minutes later I was in handcuffs! This country is extremely prude..they
even block out sex toys on TV, besides breasts and behinds. This is so
ridiculous..no wonder that the teenage pregnancy rate is so high here when
even the adults blush and talk about sex behind the back of their hands lol.

We have ratsnakes around here..I found 2 babies in my yard this spring.
My cats were playing with them, so I took them out to a river and released
them. We also have rattlesnakes and copperheads here in Texas. I can do
without those.

[kittymama]

you know its wierd coz we in scotland just assume that tha states is so wild and free but i guess its a matter of perspective. to be honest if the police had stopped me they would just have given me a spare t shirt and sent me on my way. it would just be the sheer embaressment factor that i was dreading. poisonous snakes dont bother me its the spiders i cant deal with. theyre so small and hide in your shoes and stuff. i'm taking my son to australia zoo next year and thats my one fear even though the only nondangerous animal there is sheep!
if you dont mind telling me, whereabouts are you in texas? and how did you get into animal rescue?
apparently theres more big cats in texas than in the rest of the states combined!
ha weird! animal cops houston just came on!
see you later
e

[MissDolittle]

Yes, I'd anticipate the same reaction in Germany. In TX you'd probably get
life plus 150 years loool.

I live 80 miles west of Dallas. Small college town with a population of 16 000.

I used to have a 10 acre property in south Texas which was destroyed in a
flash flood. It was an unofficial animal shelter where I just kept the stray
dogs and cats as well as horses and other small animals.

When I moved to this town 5 years ago, my 2 huskies busted the screen door
and took off. The female was killed by a car directly in front of the animal
shelter. They caught the male where I found him and took him home, heart
broken that the other one was killed.

I went back to the shelter to say thanks and asked if they need volunteers.
Since I worked with animals all my life (used to work in a wild animal
orphanage for large wild animals when I came to the States), they asked
me if I could foster the baby kittens that are too young to be adopted out.
I also became vice president and took over their website, but that I learned
that politics is not my things, I need to work with animals hand hands on.

5 years and hundreds of kittens later I also became a wildlife rehabilitator
for the small urban wildlife such as squirrels, birds, opossums etc. I have
an extra room in the house with cages and a couple of outside enclosures.
Nobody does it here. I'm 44 by the way.

I had it with spiders too until this huge gardenspider had a web in front of
my window all summer long. I watched her and even fed her chicken and
lost my fear. Now we have wolfspiders living around the house and I love
them! They tackle those insects, unbelievable! I thought they are majorly
poisonous, but they aren't. The bite is not worse than a bee sting.

I haven't been to a zoo in ages..just can't stand caged wild animals. We
have a nice wildlife park here that's more a safari than anything..that's
as far as I go :). What's the australian zoo like?

[kittymama]

well australia zoo is run by steve irwin and is one of the best in the world. very into conservation and ehabilitation. in a perfect world i wouldnt approve of zoos either but when some a*****e takes in a tiger and messes it uo at least they have somewhere to go fo care.
its weird you mention squirrels coz its just been announced in scotland that you can now kill and eat the red squirrel. theyre destroying the forest here and forcing out the native grey squirrel and are apparently quite tasty so the government has decided to get the public to do theyre job and set us on sauteeing them!
dont think its the way to go coz it just means idiots are going to be shooting them badly.
glad theres someone in texas looking out for all the beasties. i'm looking after a friends rescued greyhounds just now whie hes on holiday and they are driving me mad!
he lets the away with to much claiming theyve been abused and shouldnt have to do anything they dont want to however since being here theyve learned basic manners
going to talk to him tomorrow when hes back and let him know hes not doing them any favours by letting them run rings around him.
they settled with my dogs but are still a bit sneaky with the cats. sebastion lost a mouthful of fur a couple of days ago from a nip but giving the dog her due she could have attackd him more violently but didnt.
shes just trying to intimidate them and show whos boss
unfortunately its not her! but theyre learning
ok off to bed now.
remember to give us more horror stories. i'm sure you've got plenty with all the work you do!

[MissDolittle]

Oh..THAT kind of australian zoo, get it. I'm not a big fan of this wanna be
macho dude, but hey, if he actually helps animals instead of messing with
them for show, fine by me lol.

Yep, that's the kind of orphanage I worked at..where tigers, lions, cougars,
monkeys, wolves..you name it, where held as pets or even to guard drugs
in small apartments and then became too much. I don't know what people
are thinking!

Oh, dogs...you got to watch the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan. I know they
are starting to show it overseas now in english speaking countries. Keep an
eye out for him!!

Read some articles here:
http://www.dogchannel.com/experts/cesar/default.aspx

and watch some clips here:
http://cgi.nationalgeographic.com/channel/video/cgi-bin/NGPortal.pl?bitrate=400k

NO dog is ever going to be the boss of me, but I had to learn first what
exactly the signs of that are..now I know and have happy balanced dogs :).

Cesar Milan, the dog whisperer, is my hero! Nobody has ever figured out
dogs like this...amazing! The dogs of this world need him badly!

He says he trains people and rehabilitates dogs..which is very correct lol.

[Saviah Wildlife]

Off Topic slightly but you keep bringing him up. Cesar Millian (sp?).

At first I was a skeptic of him. I mean I have a good sense about people, especially fake people. There is a guy on a show called Pet Keeping, Mark Marone or something. Him I can't watch, I have a BAD feeling about how he REALLY is with animals.

Cesar, I think he's genuine! I doubt he has as much success as we SEE but what he does he does WELL. I'm now a fan!!