dead pet stories...

jammyjammy remixing bongo rock... 813 Posts
edited July 2013 in Strut Central
ok, so last night it was pouring with rain and i was walking into my driveway around 11pm and i noticed something in the street about 20-30 metres away.
Everyone knows that instant feeling. Even if it's a piece of garbage or whatever you instantly think it's an animal.
So i ran over and lo and behold it was a cat that belonged to the family a few houses down. I checked to see if it was alive but no dice. Kitty was gone.
I didn't know what to do and since it was hammering down and it was late, i dragged the poor beast to the side of the road with a couple of plastic bags covering my hands and left it. I had a crazy dream about it the same night too.
What would YOU do?

  Comments


  • FrankFrank 2,379 Posts
    Since you recognized it as your neighbor's cat you could have just grabbed it, put it on their front lawn, rung their bell and explained what you've found before showing it to them. Dead pets are safe to touch, it's only dead feral cats you have to be careful with since they will be crawling with fleas all looking to find a new host.

    Dead pets on the side of the road always depress the shit out of me. It's terrible to know that there are people out there who don't even try to avoid to hit them but actively try to kill them. A former girlfriend once almost crashed our car because she saw a big bug crossing the road, hit the breaks and swerved around it.

  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    I had my first experience with a dead pet a few months ago...we had to put down our French Bulldog Simon. He got an inoperable heart tumor and started wasting away. The day we had to put him down was unbearable...the appointment was at 4PM. We were up by 5AM that day...4PM came unbearably fast. The thing that got me was being in the little room at the vet and even though Simon at this point was weak and did little more than just lay on his side, his head perked up and attempted his best "Im the alpha dog buddy" bark/growl when another dog was outside the door...that killed me, til the end, a dog...even being consumed by a tumor he still wanted to get at some other dog and be leader of the pack. I almost didn't want to be there for the instant he passed, but decided to stay til the end. I figured Simon would hang out with me til the end if I were sick. That realization reinforced my belief that Dogs are better than us. Whereas the thought of not being there actually existed and I contemplated it, those thoughts wouldn't have crossed the dog's mind. My wife and I hung out with him for a little bit after he passed on.. Another thing that was hard to deal with was our other dog's puzzled look when we came back without Simon. He just had this look on his face, "where is the other guy?" and he spent days just going around the house looking in all the rooms and outside, constantly... presumably looking for Simon. He is really missing his buddy. Sucks.

  • JectWonJectWon (@_@) 1,654 Posts
    The_Hook_Up said:
    I had my first experience with a dead pet a few months ago...we had to put down our French Bulldog Simon. He got an inoperable heart tumor and started wasting away. The day we had to put him down was unbearable...the appointment was at 4PM. We were up by 5AM that day...4PM came unbearably fast. The thing that got me was being in the little room at the vet and even though Simon at this point was weak and did little more than just lay on his side, his head perked up and attempted his best "Im the alpha dog buddy" bark/growl when another dog was outside the door...that killed me, til the end, a dog...even being consumed by a tumor he still wanted to get at some other dog and be leader of the pack. I almost didn't want to be there for the instant he passed, but decided to stay til the end. I figured Simon would hang out with me til the end if I were sick. That realization reinforced my belief that Dogs are better than us. Whereas the thought of not being there actually existed and I contemplated it, those thoughts wouldn't have crossed the dog's mind. My wife and I hung out with him for a little bit after he passed on.. Another thing that was hard to deal with was our other dog's puzzled look when we came back without Simon. He just had this look on his face, "where is the other guy?" and he spent days just going around the house looking in all the rooms and outside, constantly... presumably looking for Simon. He is really missing his buddy. Sucks.

    Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I am really dreading the same inevitability with my Dogs. I have two dogs that are 7 years old and pretty dang healthy right now. They are inseparable. They have never been apart...when one goes to the vet the other goes as well. If one dog goes jogging with my wife...the other one goes as well; despite the fact that the other dog is way slower and generally hates running...she is compelled to keep the pack whole. They ride so goddamn hard for each other...I really don't know what I'll do when 'the time' comes.

    I'm sorry to hear about your dog.

  • jammyjammy remixing bongo rock... 813 Posts
    Frank said:
    Since you recognized it as your neighbor's cat you could have just grabbed it, put it on their front lawn, rung their bell and explained what you've found before showing it to them. Dead pets are safe to touch, it's only dead feral cats you have to be careful with since they will be crawling with fleas all looking to find a new host.

    Dead pets on the side of the road always depress the shit out of me. It's terrible to know that there are people out there who don't even try to avoid to hit them but actively try to kill them. A former girlfriend once almost crashed our car because she saw a big bug crossing the road, hit the breaks and swerved around it.

    Frank, i completely hear what your saying. There is more to my street that stopped me from doing what you suggested (jail dudes, speed freaks etc) but at the same time the first thing i thought about was the kids that are always hanging out with the cat. Hence the 'what the fuck' thing.

  • FrankFrank 2,379 Posts
    The_Hook_Up said:
    I had my first experience with a dead pet a few months ago...we had to put down our French Bulldog Simon. He got an inoperable heart tumor and started wasting away. The day we had to put him down was unbearable...the appointment was at 4PM. We were up by 5AM that day...4PM came unbearably fast. The thing that got me was being in the little room at the vet and even though Simon at this point was weak and did little more than just lay on his side, his head perked up and attempted his best "Im the alpha dog buddy" bark/growl when another dog was outside the door...that killed me, til the end, a dog...even being consumed by a tumor he still wanted to get at some other dog and be leader of the pack. I almost didn't want to be there for the instant he passed, but decided to stay til the end. I figured Simon would hang out with me til the end if I were sick. That realization reinforced my belief that Dogs are better than us. Whereas the thought of not being there actually existed and I contemplated it, those thoughts wouldn't have crossed the dog's mind. My wife and I hung out with him for a little bit after he passed on.. Another thing that was hard to deal with was our other dog's puzzled look when we came back without Simon. He just had this look on his face, "where is the other guy?" and he spent days just going around the house looking in all the rooms and outside, constantly... presumably looking for Simon. He is really missing his buddy. Sucks.

    Oh man... that's heartbreaking. My condolences, Eric.

    The prospect of having to live through them passing away is the only thing that really sucks about having dogs and this also was my reason to never consider having a dog. Until these three half starved puppies ended up in front of our house back in Guinea and we really didn't have any choice but to take them in. We've since become such a close pack, especially since all three of them are siblings that have never been separated only for a single day and while living with them in Guinea, NYC and now in Costa Rica having them around has really been the main factor in how we lived our lives. You can't go on a plane to go on a vacation when you have 3 dogs so all we did for the past 8 years was taking road trips as a pack. When we lived through this major uprising back in Guinea when we weren't able to leave the house for weeks, the government had declared martial law and all the European embassies evacuated their staff by plane, we decided to flee by land over to Sierra Leone before leaving behind our dogs. Whenever I go away for a few weeks I miss them so much that especially after trips longer than a few weeks I always feel like I should never leave again. I must sound like a crazy person but I guess it's only if you ever had a dog yourself that you will understand how deep this bond can get. It's like some primal shit that you can't really fight.

  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    Many years ago I was hitch hiking (back when such a thing was still possible) on a quiet road in upstate NY. I was sitting on a stone wall waiting for a ride when I noticed a flyer on a nearby telephone pole. I went over to read it and it was a missing pet notice describing a small three-legged grey dog that had been gone for weeks and, despite missing a leg, had apparently been spotted in a number of towns many miles apart. The dog was from Connecticut and I was maybe 40 miles away in NY.

    I thought it was an interesting story and went back to my perch on the stone wall, thinking that the owners were pretty ambitious thinking the dog could be in this area. A few minutes later, looking around out of boredom, I noticed a dead dog on the other side of the wall in a bush. Yep, it was a small, grey three-legged dog that looked like it had been dead for a couple of weeks.

    I took the # from the flyer and called when I got home. I guess they were rich folks because I was talking to their lawyer. I told him of my discovery and gave him the exact location. He asked for my address to send a reward, but I hedged, feeling bad that I didn't have better news. He got pretty firm and said that sending me a reward would give them some closure etc etc, so I finally gave in. I was broke as hell anyway, having just spent the winter in a house with no heat because we couldn't afford the oil.

  • jammyjammy remixing bongo rock... 813 Posts
    Awesome story Horseleech. Thanks for sharing!

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,244 Posts
    my old roommate had an iguana named Ernesta that he would let roam freely around his room (she would poo in the same corner every time, in case you're wondering). Early on he thinks she had fallen and hurt her spinal cord, so she never grew to be very big and she had kind of a bump on her back. She was a pretty happy iguana, even though his room came to reek of iguana poop, a scent his girlfriend would describe as "musky." Some years later he called to tell me that he thought Ernie had maybe fallen off a shelf again because her breathing was heavy and she was kind of lethargic. He planned on taking her to the vet the next day, and he let her sleep on his chest that night. In the middle of the night he woke up as she let out her final breath.

    That day he went to a park near his house in Ridgewood and buried her under a tree. A few weeks later he walked by and some racoons had dug up her grave.

    RIP Ernie

  • The_Hook_Up said:
    I had my first experience with a dead pet a few months ago...we had to put down our French Bulldog Simon. He got an inoperable heart tumor and started wasting away. The day we had to put him down was unbearable...the appointment was at 4PM. We were up by 5AM that day...4PM came unbearably fast. The thing that got me was being in the little room at the vet and even though Simon at this point was weak and did little more than just lay on his side, his head perked up and attempted his best "Im the alpha dog buddy" bark/growl when another dog was outside the door...that killed me, til the end, a dog...even being consumed by a tumor he still wanted to get at some other dog and be leader of the pack. I almost didn't want to be there for the instant he passed, but decided to stay til the end. I figured Simon would hang out with me til the end if I were sick. That realization reinforced my belief that Dogs are better than us. Whereas the thought of not being there actually existed and I contemplated it, those thoughts wouldn't have crossed the dog's mind. My wife and I hung out with him for a little bit after he passed on.. Another thing that was hard to deal with was our other dog's puzzled look when we came back without Simon. He just had this look on his face, "where is the other guy?" and he spent days just going around the house looking in all the rooms and outside, constantly... presumably looking for Simon. He is really missing his buddy. Sucks.

    i am absolutely shredded up inside after reading this. ive got a frenchie too, who is quite literally my best friend. i remember seeing pics of your guy in the dog thread and immediately thinking how awesome he was. i am so, so sorry for the loss of your little guy and I'm sure he's bossing around other chump ass dogs somewhere as we speak.

  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    A few family pets have been put down over the years. It is absolutely heartbreaking, most recently my sister had to put her (older) dog down with whom my 1 yo daughter had recently fallen in love. They left in the morning and my little girl couldn't understand why the dog never came back. Luckily, next time we visited there was a new dog. She was young enough to not get the difference.

    More recently, I was sitting in my car when a colorful SUV sped backwards up the block, and then back down the block at again, maybe 35 (which feels fast on a residential city block). When I pulled out of my parking space, I saw the neighborhood tabby pancaked in the middle of the street with one arm sticking in the air. I pulled over, not sure what I should do, and when I looked up I saw a ten year old kid just standing there staring with his mouth agape. One of the elders went out to scoop up the cat.... the SUV belongs to a wealthy family that just moved into one of the brownstones. I've been waiting to ask the old man to confirm my suspicion because I know he saw it. But I kind of don't want to know, I think I would just hate them forever.

  • jammyjammy remixing bongo rock... 813 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    my old roommate had an iguana named Ernesta that he would let roam freely around his room (she would poo in the same corner every time, in case you're wondering). Early on he thinks she had fallen and hurt her spinal cord, so she never grew to be very big and she had kind of a bump on her back. She was a pretty happy iguana, even though his room came to reek of iguana poop, a scent his girlfriend would describe as "musky." Some years later he called to tell me that he thought Ernie had maybe fallen off a shelf again because her breathing was heavy and she was kind of lethargic. He planned on taking her to the vet the next day, and he let her sleep on his chest that night. In the middle of the night he woke up as she let out her final breath.

    That day he went to a park near his house in Ridgewood and buried her under a tree. A few weeks later he walked by and some racoons had dug up her grave.

    RIP Ernie

    I love animals. It's crazy how even a story about an iguana can make me teary.

  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    my sister and I buried our childhood cat in the backyard; dogs or racoons dug him up.

    we were young enough at the time that this somehow did not bother us too terribly!

  • sabadabadasabadabada 5,966 Posts
    I think I would have put it in a bag in the garage or something and then told the owner, so if they had kids the kids wouldnt come across it the next day. Then I would have made a hat out of it.

  • jammyjammy remixing bongo rock... 813 Posts
    sabadabada said:
    I think I would have put it in a bag in the garage or something and then told the owner, so if they had kids the kids wouldnt come across it the next day. Then I would have made a hat out of it.

    I have only ever had this happen once before, and i did box the poor animal (a cat about 7 years ago), but i don't think that worked in my favor either. It's a very particular thing.

  • FrankFrank 2,379 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    my old roommate had an iguana named Ernesta that he would let roam freely around his room (she would poo in the same corner every time, in case you're wondering). Early on he thinks she had fallen and hurt her spinal cord, so she never grew to be very big and she had kind of a bump on her back. She was a pretty happy iguana, even though his room came to reek of iguana poop, a scent his girlfriend would describe as "musky." Some years later he called to tell me that he thought Ernie had maybe fallen off a shelf again because her breathing was heavy and she was kind of lethargic. He planned on taking her to the vet the next day, and he let her sleep on his chest that night. In the middle of the night he woke up as she let out her final breath.

    That day he went to a park near his house in Ridgewood and buried her under a tree. A few weeks later he walked by and some racoons had dug up her grave.

    RIP Ernie

    This is inappropriate and off topic since it wasn't a pet iguana but a few weeks back I was at this super off the grid secluded beach where you get to by a 1 hour boat ride down a river from the nearest village. Anyway, there's this crazy cove overlooked only by the hut of a fisherman's family. At the end of the beach there's a small creek coming out of the rain forest and that's usually where we set up our hammocks between the palm trees. So one day I notice a flock of vultures at the bank of the creek taking apart the carcass of a ca. 4-5 foot iguana. A couple of hours later the fisherman's family pig comes running down the beach, chases off the vultures and devours the remaining remains of the iguana with obvious indulgence. Cycle of nature.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,244 Posts
    jammy said:
    I love animals. It's crazy how even a story about an iguana can make me teary.

    it was sad, even if the story is a bit weird.

    In high school I had a vizsla named Bismark (not Biz-r) that we had taken in from a family friend who was moving around for work and thought it'd be better if he had a stable home. I was pretty miserable when he died, he got a tumor in his lungs that spread pretty quickly so the only option was to put him to sleep. I wasn't living with my mother anymore so I didn't get to do a final visit, just sat around at home with several beers on the day it happened.

    when I lived with the guy who had Ernie we were in a shit hole building that at one point had a big roach infestation. Exterminators came by only once or twice and didn't make much of a difference, other than spraying the entire kitchen indiscriminately, which meant we had to wash every dish in the house. Since the roaches weren't going away, we took the desperate measure of buying an anole (a cousin of the gecko) at a pet store and setting it loose, leaving the food chain to take care of our problem. Within a month the little guy, who my roommate decided to call Domino, had the roaches under control. We would go days without seeing him, but he would show up by the sink to drink water every once in a while. One day he turned up kind of mangled, with a big drop of blood coming out his eye, we thought maybe he'd gotten into a fight with a mouse. He was in pretty bad shape, so my roommate kept him in a little box and hand-fed him meal worms and water. We vowed that once Domino recovered we would buy him a proper tank and feed him healthy bugs. A week or two later he was looking more lively and his eye had healed, so my roommate would let him out of the box for a bit after feeding him. One afternoon when he had fed Domino and was getting ready to go to work he sat down to put his shoes on, and as he tied them he saw a little green tail poking out from under his sneaker. He had inadvertently crushed Domino.

  • jammyjammy remixing bongo rock... 813 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    jammy said:
    I love animals. It's crazy how even a story about an iguana can make me teary.

    it was sad, even if the story is a bit weird.

    In high school I had a vizsla named Bismark (not Biz-r) that we had taken in from a family friend who was moving around for work and thought it'd be better if he had a stable home. I was pretty miserable when he died, he got a tumor in his lungs that spread pretty quickly so the only option was to put him to sleep. I wasn't living with my mother anymore so I didn't get to do a final visit, just sat around at home with several beers on the day it happened.

    when I lived with the guy who had Ernie we were in a shit hole building that at one point had a big roach infestation. Exterminators came by only once or twice and didn't make much of a difference, other than spraying the entire kitchen indiscriminately, which meant we had to wash every dish in the house. Since the roaches weren't going away, we took the desperate measure of buying an anole (a cousin of the gecko) at a pet store and setting it loose, leaving the food chain to take care of our problem. Within a month the little guy, who my roommate decided to call Domino, had the roaches under control. We would go days without seeing him, but he would show up by the sink to drink water every once in a while. One day he turned up kind of mangled, with a big drop blood coming out his eye, we thought maybe he'd gotten into a fight with a mouse. He was in pretty bad shape, so my roommate kept him in a little box and hand-fed him meal worms and water. We vowed that once Domino recovered we would buy him a proper tank and feed him healthy bugs. A week or two later he was looking more lively and his eye had healed, so my roommate would let him out of the box for a bit after feeding him. One afternoon when he had fed Domino and was getting ready to go to work he sat down to put his shoes on, and as he tied them he saw a little green tail poking out from under his sneaker. He had inadvertently crushed Domino.

    Wow! I didn't expect the story to end like that. Terrible! RIP Domino!

  • Controller_7Controller_7 4,052 Posts
    Hook Up, that almost made cry. Sorry for your loss.

  • dj_cityboydj_cityboy 1,483 Posts
    I have asthma and I am allergic too most pets (and because of this I have learned not to like most pets cat/dogs/rabbits/gerbils....my GF has lived most of her life with a dog, so after being together for almost 17 yrs we figure we would get a dog and found out that greyhounds are better for people with allergies and such, I accepted to take allergy meds (which I am cool with) in order for us to have a dog.

    since last March 2012 we have had her and over that time I have fell in love with this dog, she is the best thing ever and I cant imagine not having her, she is 4 yrs old. reading these stories has fuct with my head, because it made me realize that some day she wont be around either, which is pretty shitty to think of (forget the thought of it happening)

    the way try to look at it, is that we saved her from a life of shitty racing and probably saved her life as well, most retired dogs get put down (which is pathetic imho) and for someone who has never owned or had to be responsible for a dog.. dogs are pretty fucking cool, not to mention watching my dog run at full speed in a field is sumthin no one can fuck with...

    sorry for anyone who lost pets...

  • The-gafflerThe-gaffler 2,190 Posts
    in the 80's when we lived in the foothills outside LA I had a pet rabbit that I kept in an outdoor cage in our backyard. i remember one morning going out there and seeing all this hamburger meat all over the place and told my mom I thought he caught some "meat."

    i figured it out very quickly when he wasn't around and i saw his two front teeth attached to a top jaw piece of animal that was sitting there. i'll never forget that image but I walk away thankful that I was desensitized to that shit at an early age.

    "What makes the grass grow????"

  • GropeGrope 2,970 Posts
    A friend once told me that their neighbors bought a new flatscreen tv on a saturday. their dog died on the same day and they were not able to reach any vet to take care of the dead body. so they put it in the cardboard box from the new tv, closed it and put it outside their house. a thief took the box that night. i guess since the box was closed and heavy in believe that he just found himself a new tv.

  • LokoOneLokoOne 1,823 Posts
    Ive had a few dead pet experiences.

    - when i was 13 i had to go with my oldies ti get our dog Tigre put down. He had diabetes (which we didnt know about till too late) and we were too poor at the time to pay for the operation. Learnt a few lessons that day. And i had tigre in my lap till the end and he knew what was up somehow.

    - when i was nine while living in Argentina one of the local stray dogs that the whole street claims got hit by a bus. Us kids dug a shallow grave for it, stole flowers for the grave and shit then spent the rest of the week throwing rocks at buses yelling Asesino! Hehehe eventually one of the dads had to dig up the dead dog and bury him properly cus the stench was overwhelming.

    - and old work colleague called me out of the blue to tell me the sad news his loyal dog had to be put down. Dude is like 65yrs old so sort of like a grand dad figure to me but he broke down like a little kid and then sung me a song he wrote for his dog which he played for her as they put her down. Man that shit killed me.

    - was visiting a mate who had an old sick dog and he had tried everything but the dog wasnt eating etc vets had no answers etc so he was going to put the dog down the next day so he was pretty emotional as you imagine. We both were patting and showing his dog lots of love that day real sad shit cus the dog just hadno life left in its eyes. I got home my dog sniffed me and kinda freaked out and wouldnt come near me for ages. I think he could smell the other dogs iminent death.
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