If you have a pet or "are" an animal lover then please read.

[Jetman]

Unless you're getting fish, skip the pet store. The humane society needs your buisness.

Good advice. I agree with this. Why pay for a dog/cat when you can get one thats just as cute and needy ..especially needy... for free (or for a small fee)?

[Bacon McShig]

Hey man, im a big supporter of the Pit Bull breed and educate people about them almost daily.

So it's you to blame.

I swear to god there's a story about a pit bull attacking a kid in the paper every single day. Educate people about that shit.

[Nomi]

Good advice. I agree with this. Why pay for a dog/cat when you can get one thats just as cute and needy ..especially needy... for free (or for a small fee)?

And in many cases, they've all been vaccinated and neutered or spayed, and up to date on all things medical. Not only are they cheaper and in need of a home, they'll save you a visit to the vet. If they haven't had their shots, the ASPCA usually offers them for a fraction of vet prices, too, right on the spot.

[FirstBlood]

So it's you to blame.

I swear to god there's a story about a pit bull attacking a kid in the paper every single day. Educate people about that shit.

Way to be uninformed, asshole.

[Bacon McShig]

So the paper is making up the stories, then?

[Calliander]

Here, I'll add to this, since the folks in the TNL chat said I should make a thread about it.

Pet-Sitting Nightmare

Went on vacation to visit the family and friends in Connecticut over the Christmas break. Scheduled to leave on December 22nd, and come back to California on December 29th - Wednesday to Wednesday. My girl and I have four pets - a cat and three hamsters. The week before we left, one of my girl's friends was pet-sitting two cats for the apartment manager while she went on vacation. We went with her to visit and feed the cats and to make sure the litter was good. She did a good job, cleaned the bowls, called the manager to make sure which food to give to what cat, and so on. She also had a pet hamster that, through not fault of hers, was bitten by a spider and couldn't pull through. She gave the thing tons of attention and tried to save its life. She's my girl's best friend here. So, we asked her if she would be able to take care of our cat and hamsters. She was more than happy to do so and we thanked her profusely for helping us out. My boss had offered to have me leave our pets with him and would even let the cat stay inside (something he never does with any animal) but we figured it would be easier to spare the cat the trip to Santa Clarita, where the boss lives.

The friend came down to the apartment before we left and we showed her what to do with each animal - cat, two hamsters in one cage, one hamster in another cage - and my girl even gave her some typed instructions to be 100% clear. "Great, they'll be fine, I'll check on them every day, make sure the kitty doesn't get lonely," etc.

My girl spoke with the friend on the 23rd to see if she was having any problems, but the friend was fine and the pets were fine. No word on the 24th, but my girl text-messaged her with a "Merry Christmas." No word on the 26th, but my girl was sure that she would call or leave a message if she was having a problem.

We got back on the 29th. This is after the supposed ride to the airport for our 7:00 AM flight told us that my girl's mother never told him what day we were leaving so he had to work. We had to take a "shuttle" at 3:30AM to arrive at the airport at 5:30AM. My two names at the airport are ALWAYS "Random Bag Check" and "Please Come With Us For A Private Search." Then, after boarding, we were delayed 2 hours at the gate because the frigging plane was too heavy from all of the luggage. Bumpiest flight of my life, which I don't mind normally, with dozens of babies on board. Waited an hour for our luggage to finally come out.

We walked into the apartment to a familiar, but unexpected smell: hamster piss. It was overpowering. Now, we hadn't told the girl to clean the cages and we had done that the day before we left, so we figured that the cages were dirty. Then, the cat rushed us like a linebacker:



His food bowl and water bowl were empty and the water bowl was tipped over. He was SCREAMING at us, as though he hadn't had any interaction in days. He's an affectionate cat, but he's never as zealous as he was then. I then noticed the larger hamster cage with the two hamsters in it. I expected to see this:



Since they are rodents (nocturnal) and it was around 2:00 PM. However, I saw an empty cage. (The other hamster was still there, thankfully.) I then looked down at the floor to see if there were any signs of the escaped hamsters and saw this at the baseboard:



That picture is cleaned up - there were little white pieces all over the floor before. We were totally upset and worried because the hamsters probably got out and chewed their way into the wall and died. In their cage, the food bowl was scraped clean and the water tube was as dry as a bone. Oddly enough, the other hamster still had food. Her water bottle is considerably larger so she had not run out.

My girlfriend, of course, was crying and wondering what happened while we were gone. We fed the cat, but he was so starved for attention that he barely ate and followed her into the bedroom. As soon as he was gone I noticed movement on the floor and saw the two escaped hamsters, on their hind legs, leaning over the edge of his water bowl and carelessly drinking from it. They were both down to skin and bones. Referencing the picture above, the grey one was REALLY fat when we left. I could see both of their little hamster ribs sticking out. I grabbed the peach colored one, but the grey one darted underneath the fridge - and the fridge turned out to be where the smell was coming from. Thankfully, they'd be surviving somehow under the fridge. The peach hamster was pale as a ghost, which is never a good sign. Her nose was white, her tail was white and her paws were white. This means that unless she gets some food and water, she will die.

I coaxed the grey hamster out from under the fridge finally and the sight caused even more tears from the girlfriend because its ass was brown and wet. Anyone who has had hamsters knows this is the worst sign - the hamster messed itself and was too lazy or sick to clean itself off, and the resulting illness will kill the hamster. They eventually stop moving from the pain and their insane metabolisms run their insides dead.

We cleaned the poor thing off as best we could and put her in a box with some food and water. To our surprise, she ate and drank and started to clean herself. Unfortunately, though, if she didn't continue to clean herself over the next three hours, she'd still die.

With the animals fed and relatively safe, I went downstairs to the office. The friend is the assistant apartment manager so I was going to ask her what the hell she'd been doing (or, most likely, not been doing) to our animals. She wasn't there, however. The actual apartment manager was there. She asked how our vacation was and how are pets were. After explaining that we'd asked the friend to pet sit, and what happened, she told me about how her cats hadn't been feed and their litter hadn't been cleaned and how they crapped all over the apartment while she was gone. Then, she told me the worst news:

The friend had left on the 24th to visit her family in Mexico and would not be back until the 4th of January. She had said nothing of watching our pets to anyone.

Then, yesterday evening, my girl's phone beeped and the friend had sent a text message: "What's up? When do you get back from vacation?"

We have not spoken to this girl yet. I was so upset that I took the remaining work days off to clean and be with my deprived animals. I don't have the slightest idea what I will say to her. I can't even imagine what to say, what to ask. How could you just leave when you promised you'd watch someone's animals? I don't understand.

Good news, though, is that the peach hamster has her color back and the grey one made it through the night, cleaned herself and whatnot. So they'll be okay, hopefully. I'll post an update when we finally confront the "friend."

Unless you're getting fish, skip the pet store. The humane society needs your buisness.

If you get a dog or a cat at a pet store, you are going to hell.

Yeah, ESPECIALLY don't get birds at places like Petco. I don't normally support PETA, but they have some pretty detailed and true evidence of TERRIBLE treatment of birds at Petco.

Places like Petco, though, will usually have cat/dog adoptions on weekends. With these sort of things, they usually don't charge you any money to adopt the cat. They will, however, thoroughly interview you and sometimes request to visit your house/apartment before letting you have the animal. They are very good people and most of the time the cat/dog will already have their required shots.

Our cat came from a Petco adoption drive. The cat I adopted when I lived in CT, which is now my mother's cat, was rescued from a dumpster by a woman who worked at a veterinary clinic. There's no point in going to pet stores who have those animals in cages. They do NOT treat those poor animals well.

[Hubbitron]

There are several breeders who show their dogs and sell the puppies of their "winners" for outrageous prices. When those "winners" are too old to be bred, they are stuck in a small cage in a dark room to live out the rest of their days in their own filth. Of course they might get to go outside once a day for obvious reasons. These breeders are usually more than willing to give up one of their oldies. That's how I got my dog. Even though I got her at the age of 14, she grows more active and happy with each passing day. She's blind as a bat, but it only makes her more charming. She was already fixed and required maybe a couple vet visits since I got her. Consider it an option if you're in the market for adopting a pet.

After all, it is better to be euthanized than live in a small cage in a pitch black room till the day you die.

[JMET]

So the paper is making up the stories, then?

In most cases it has been proven that the attacking animal was in fact NOT A Pit Bull at all, as many breeds look like pit bulls its more dramatic and will get more looks for the paper or news cast if it is labeled a Pit Bull but do we ever get a rebuttle.. of course not, it did however happen here near Tampa which was nice.

For example, can you tell me which of the dogs pictured below are Pit Bulls?

If you can then you have a better trained eye then some "experts" and therefore should have known better then to make the ignorant comment you did.

[Calliander]

Yeah, people have incredibly stupid and misinformed opinions about pit bulls. I think only the second one in the first attachment is a pit bull, but my vision isn't that great right now. Maybe the third, too?

EDIT: Also, a lot of times, people look at a boxer and go, "Oh, look at the pit bull!" It's crazy. Note that boxers are great dogs, too.

[Hubbitron]

In most cases it has been proven that the attacking animal was in fact NOT A Pit Bull at all, as many breeds look like pit bulls its more dramatic and will get more looks for the paper or news cast if it is labeled a Pit Bull.

http://www.pethelp.net/pits.html