Where Animals Come to Die

Like I said in my last post, my family is crap with pets. The official death toll is at 10, but I'm sure there were a few other unlucky souls who I forgot.

• Psalty the parakeet (1988) - Dad forgot to feed him while we went to Dallas on vacation. He just fell off his little perch and died.


• Hermit crab (1988) - I never named it because I never liked it. It was a gift. It just died in it's shell of natural causes I'm sure due to an emotionally-distant caretaker.


• 2 baby chicks (1989) - I don't know what happened for sure, they just disappeared. Probably ran away together after my sister threw one of them up in the air after it pooped in her hand.


• cat (the name slips my mind) (1992) - It was a cold January night when we gave it a bath and put it in the garage. Well, wet cat + freezing temperatures = dead cat, fried-to-death trying to stay warm under the refrigerator in the garage.


• Spanky the lab/pit bull mix (1993) - taken to the dad's feedyard to be a "cow dog"...the feedyard is where our pets go to die


• Snuffy the rabbit (1993) - Accidently left him in the front yard and the next door neighbor's dog bit his head off. The psychological effects of finding that headless rabbit still affects my sister to this day.


• Andre and Peter the rabbits (1994) - Our second-go at rabbits. We left them in our side backyard in their cage and forgot about them. Peter ended up being pregnant. Finding them a week later was a bit traumatizing for me.


• No Name the cat (1995) - Yep. That was his name. After Milli's second litter, we were fresh-out of names so that's what he got stuck with. He was squashed as mom was backing the suburban out of the garage. She felt pretty bad about it.