not to get on my soapbox again but every “cute animal video compilation!!” i’ve seen lately is literally just. *wild animal in somebody’s house* *animal that is clearly in distress* *somebody harassing their pet for views* *another wild animal in somebody’s house* *”””rescue””” animal being treated as a pet* *somebody feeding or interacting with wildlife* *another animal that is clearly in distress* *two animals that should not be anywhere near each other being allowed to interact* *yet another animal that is clearly in distress* with maybe like one or two cute dog videos thrown in
pets sigh so dramatically for little creatures that have nothing to do all day
pets literally protect you from psychic attacks and demons etc. when a person gets badly psychically attacked, often pets who love their owners, die in order to protect them. they see demons and ghosts flying all around, they do their healing job, believe me. sighing is a good sign, it releases demons etc, but it wasnt easy til they were inside !
me when i see a cat: CAT! cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat
Fun fact: when I see cute animals, I forget English and automatically revert to my native Hungarian. I don’t know what bystanders make of me, reciting guttural gibberish to rabbits.
But the real question is, what are you SAYING to the rabbits? Is it ‘RABBIT! rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit bunny bunny bunny awww cute bunnyyyyy’?
Well, I usually say the Hungarian equivalent of ‘bun bun bun lil bun look at your tiny spoon-shaped ears awww bun brave little lawnmower bun’, but sometimes I say ‘hey rabbits, my sister’s gonna go to med school’ because I think everyone should know.
I live in Japan, and I always revert to English to talk to small animals, and I was cooing at this tiny little fluff machine of a puppy in baby english like “hello you’re so cute such a cute hello hello yess you’re good” and the 70 year old Japanese lady that was walking him started to *translate the baby talk english into Japanese* for her pup. She wanted to be sure he understood it too.
I was at a pet store with Eileen. A woman walked up to us and asked if she could pet her. Eileen’s collar has ‘Deaf Dog’ embroidered on it. The lady asked about it, I confirmed, yes, she’s deaf. The lady immediately switched to American Sign Language and asked her how was her day, was she being a good girl, she’s so pretty. Eileen was wagging her tail excitedly, knowing that someone is talking to her.
It’s definitely limited! Inverts are probably the one species I wouldn’t push for preventative care on (ok aquatics too) just because they’re so delicate. This is certainly an area that is still being discovered, but there is medicine that can be done. Inverts (at least many species we are aware of) can be anesthetized. We have some data on how certain drugs affect them. Super tiny suture meant for eyes can be used to repair defects. And of course husbandry! We can always talk to owners about husbandry. There is a Veterinary Invertebrate Society, which I joined, that has a ton of cool CE about real cases that people have done. A lot of them work with zoologic or research collections, so it’s not super common to have pets brought in but there are definitely options!
“you should research a breed/animal before you get the pet to make sure it’s needs and behavior match your lifestyle” and “we shouldn’t go for the jugular on people who rehome their pets after realizing they can’t handle the pet they got” are not mutually exclusive statements
i would 100% rather someone rehome their husky that they can’t handle upon realizing it than continue to poorly raise it because giving up pets bad
It’s not something they should get all the time, or in large amounts, but yeah, mice can eat pretty much anything that we can. I try to give my mice a little something from off my plate at least once a week for enrichment. If your mice are not used to being given novel foods frequently, though, start with very tiny amounts so they don’t get upset stomachs- especially with things that are especially fatty or sugary, like bacon or sweet fruits.
My remaining mice are very old so they pretty much get whatever they might like and I let them eat as much as they want of it because I probably don’t have much time left with them. But with young healthy mice, i recommend being more careful about how much they are allowed to eat that isn’t their nutritionally complete staple diet.
Ignorance regarding proper animal care can manifest either way unfortunately. While this blog has run into more of the latter, that’s mainly just happenstance. There are a number of people who applaud horrible husbandry like keeping a pet owl and cuddling it but condemn falconry because they see anklets and jesses as evil shackles chaining the bird down against its will while the pet owl doesn’t have that so obviously nothing could be amiss.
That sort of thought is very pervasive because people don’t understand falconry equipment as intuitively as they understand something like a dog wearing a harness. There’s visual parallels between shackles and jesses, so that’s the conclusion people jump to.
There was also that gif from an Adam Sandler movie that showed a (fake) cockatoo being covered in chocolate, the person who claimed it was animal abuse/parrot murder was the subject of copy/pastas and ridicule for years after the fact over that mistake. Consequently, legitimate critiques of actual animal care will tend to fall into that same niche in people’s minds as long as the animal doesnt appear wounded to a layman because they assume it’s just another person who doesn’t know what they’re talking about ranting over harmless content.
Having dealt with both types of people, I would actually say those looking for problems that aren’t there cause more problems in the long run since they can lobby against legislation that properly regulates responsible take of wildlife which can become a whole mess.
ifesbob 