The bad pet mom thread - I just accidentally tossed my sugar gliders into the backyard while shaking out a blanket

[katilac]

while three cats looked on with great interest. Sugar gliders are incredibly tiny and fast - they only weigh a few ounces and it can be nearly impossible to find them when they get away in the house, much less outside. Pic below for reference. 

I forgot to make sure they were in their pouch before taking their blanket outside - they're so tiny it's easy to miss them even in a very small, very lightweight blanket.  I gave the blanket a vigorous shake and the usual food debris went flying, along with two very surprised sugar gliders. Luckily, they had been asleep and were moving rather slowly (for a sugar glider). I squeaked please don't run, please don't run! and swooped down with the blanket with the supernatural speed of a terrified pet parent, and ran inside. They're so wriggly I wasn't even positive I had them both until I got them in the cage. 

They spent a few minutes looking around the cage suspiciously, but otherwise seem none the worse for wear. I felt so guilty they both got an entire white chocolate chip, so they have probably forgiven me. 

What horrible thing have you accidentally done to your pet? Bad pet dad stories are also welcome, I was just going for a short title 😃😺🐶

 

[Kassia]

Glad you got them back!  

[ktgrok]

I once threw away my kid's hermit crab. I thought it was dead, I'd found the body in the sand. so I threw away the shell. 

Later, at work, I read that what I'd found was likely the molted exoskeleton, NOT the hermit crab itself! Which meant the crab was in the shell that I had throw away! It was 8 plus hours later by the time I got home and fished the very alive hermit crab out of the kitchen trash can!

[katilac]

2 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I once threw away my kid's hermit crab. I thought it was dead, I'd found the body in the sand. so I threw away the shell. 

Later, at work, I read that what I'd found was likely the molted exoskeleton, NOT the hermit crab itself! Which meant the crab was in the shell that I had throw away! It was 8 plus hours later by the time I got home and fished the very alive hermit crab out of the kitchen trash can!

At least it was alive! 😂

[Ausmumof3]

So glad you got them back safe!

One day a couple of years ago I went out and forgot to lock the back door.  The dog opened the door and let himself inside along with 10 chooks and the bottle raised lamb.  Came home to quite a mess to clean up (and brought visitors as well).

another time our cockatiel managed to let herself out her cage on the patio. However she just flew to the fence post next to the house and sat there and waited till we came home.

Another time we found one of DDs chickens in the dogs water bucket.  Thankfully the dog had drink half the water and the chicken could just manage to keep its head above water by tipping its head back.  A night wrapped inside a towel by the fire and it was back to normal.

[katilac]

3 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

 The dog opened the door and let himself inside along with 10 chooks  

Smart doggie! And I love the word chooks. 

[gardenmom5]

I sat up in the recliner and pushed the foot rest down. The kitten was underneath.  He screeched loudly - but otherwise seemed unharmed.

[ktgrok]

3 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

I sat up in the recliner and pushed the foot rest down. The kitten was underneath.  He screeched loudly - but otherwise seemed unharmed.

That's actually a really common cat and small dog injury! We saw several animals with broken bones from that happening. 

[kristin0713]

Well I hit and almost ran over my dog last year.   🤦‍♀️   

Early in the day, I came back with groceries and backed into the driveway.  I noticed on the backup camera that she got up and walked into the garage as I pulled in.  I thought, that's great, she noticed the car and got out of the way.  

Later on, I got back in the car to run out on some errands.  Now the car was still parked facing forward.  I walked from my front door to the driver's side door in a diagonal, without seeing the other side of the car.  I got in and started pulling out of the driveway (slowly, THANK GOD) when I felt a bump and heard the most horrible, stomach-turning yelping sound.  I jumped out and my poor dog was hobbling and limping, the kids ran out of the house screaming and we all started crying.  She must have been sleeping in front of the passenger side tire and I had no idea. (She had a habit of sleeping on the warm driveway...she does not do this anymore.)  I took her to the vet and she was fine, nothing broken and after a little while she wasn't hobbling anymore.  

I was traumatized for the longest time, afraid I was going to hit an animal every time I got behind the wheel. 

[Elizabeth86]

I made muffins once ( for the people) when our dog was a tiny 5 lb puppy. The kids weren't used to being careful with snacks. She got into them and got very sick and lethargic. We were so worried she wouldn't be ok.  She was ok though. My family called the muffins Puppy Death Muffins.

[gardenmom5]

11 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

That's actually a really common cat and small dog injury! We saw several animals with broken bones from that happening. 

I imagine so - I watched him very closely afterwards, and he was acting normal.  running, jumping, attacking . . . 

[mmasc]

We let our dog lap up ocean water the ONE time he went to the ocean. I didn’t have a clue that the amount he was drinking was NOT going to be ok. His tummy was feeling rough that night, but fortunately lots of fresh water and potty trips outside did the trick without any lasting damage. But man, I’ve never in my life seen diarrhea of that nature—it was actually shooting out horizontally like a water hose. 😳I felt horrible, absolutely horrible. But I learned a valuable lesson. 

[Shoeless]

I was blowing bubbles for my dog to chase. He thought it was the best thing ever and was "eating" the bubbles when he caught them. The fun lasted 30 minutes, which was just enough bubble consumption to make the poor dog vomit and have diarrhea all night long. 

[athena1277]

I can beat all of you.  In jr high I had a pet hamster.  It’s plastic cage had a metal mess at the bottom and a plastic tray under that, so you didn’t have to take it out to clean out all the poop and old bedding.  I would set the cage in the grass so the grass would poke up through the mesh while I cleaned the bottom.  One day I went inside for a few minutes while the bottom was drying.  And then I forgot to go back to bring him in.  In the summer.  It was like those awful hot car deaths, but with a hamster.  😢

[kesmom]

I came in the garage one evening and didn't know that the cat had jumped up on top of the open garage door. When I closed it I thought the screeching I heard was the door having issues and it was the cat. I got it open quickly while screaming for my husband. I thought the cat would be seriously injured but thankfully he was fine. I am far from a screamer normally and Dh thought someone was attacking me.

[katilac]

1 hour ago, gardenmom5 said:

I sat up in the recliner and pushed the foot rest down. The kitten was underneath.  He screeched loudly - but otherwise seemed unharmed.

We have 8 cats and five seats that recline, so we live in fear of this. Someone is always screaming, don't go down! at high decibel levels. 

1 hour ago, kristin0713 said:

Well I hit and almost ran over my dog last year.   🤦‍♀️   

Early in the day, I came back with groceries and backed into the driveway.  I noticed on the backup camera that she got up and walked into the garage as I pulled in.  I thought, that's great, she noticed the car and got out of the way.  

Half of our cats seem strangely attracted to moving cars! Certainly unfazed by them - they will casually lick themselves as you try to inch forward 🙄

58 minutes ago, Elizabeth86 said:

My family called the muffins Puppy Death Muffins.

Sounds delicious 😄

53 minutes ago, mmasc said:

But man, I’ve never in my life seen diarrhea of that nature—it was actually shooting out horizontally like a water hose. 😳I felt horrible, absolutely horrible. But I learned a valuable lesson. 

A memorable and disgusting one, lol 

 

[katilac]

21 minutes ago, athena1277 said:

It was like those awful hot car deaths, but with a hamster.  😢

I had to quote this one separately because it's so sad 😢

Hamsters are so small that I think he would have passed out quickly, just as he was starting to feel overly hot but still enjoying the grass between his toes.

My story could easily have had just as sad of an ending, I was just very lucky. 

[katilac]

1 hour ago, Patty Joanna said:

I never even KNEW about sugar gliders!  They are so cute.  I am glad you got them back.  

This photo is actually one of mine: 

 

[KungFuPanda]

I once failed to aerate my daughter's sea monkeys while she was at camp and they died.  I still hear about it and she's 23. 😑

[katilac]

Just now, KungFuPanda said:

I once failed to aerate my daughter's sea monkeys while she was at camp and they died.  I still hear about it and she's 23. 😑

The joys of parenting!

[ktgrok]

2 hours ago, mmasc said:

We let our dog lap up ocean water the ONE time he went to the ocean. I didn’t have a clue that the amount he was drinking was NOT going to be ok. His tummy was feeling rough that night, but fortunately lots of fresh water and potty trips outside did the trick without any lasting damage. But man, I’ve never in my life seen diarrhea of that nature—it was actually shooting out horizontally like a water hose. 😳I felt horrible, absolutely horrible. But I learned a valuable lesson. 

Could have been worse - some dogs eat the sand - and sand impaction is BAD. Expensive surgery bad!

[TravelingChris]

3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

 

 

3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

So glad you got them back safe!

One day a couple of years ago I went out and forgot to lock the back door.  The dog opened the door and let himself inside along with 10 chooks and the bottle raised lamb.  Came home to quite a mess to clean up (and brought visitors as well).

another time our cockatiel managed to let herself out her cage on the patio. However she just flew to the fence post next to the house and sat there and waited till we came home.

Another time we found one of DDs chickens in the dogs water bucket.  Thankfully the dog had drink half the water and the chicken could just manage to keep its head above water by tipping its head back.  A night wrapped inside a towel by the fire and it was back to normal.

I looked the word up in google and it said it means live birds- so are you referring to chickens?

[Elizabeth86]

1 hour ago, ktgrok said:

Could have been worse - some dogs eat the sand - and sand impaction is BAD. Expensive surgery bad!

Our dear, don't tell me this. My dog and daughter eat sand out of the sand box. 

[Elizabeth86]

4 hours ago, ktgrok said:

I once threw away my kid's hermit crab. I thought it was dead, I'd found the body in the sand. so I threw away the shell. 

Later, at work, I read that what I'd found was likely the molted exoskeleton, NOT the hermit crab itself! Which meant the crab was in the shell that I had throw away! It was 8 plus hours later by the time I got home and fished the very alive hermit crab out of the kitchen trash can!

Oh this reminds me of another one. We got the kids some fish. I don't know exactly how it was, but dh cut them out of the plastic bag to dump them into something else to dump them in the tank or something. Anyway it was a tiny little fish and it slipped out and down the drain. My kids were going nuts. My dh had to take the underneath sink parts off. The fish lived, but not for long. Horrible.

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, TravelingChris said:

 

I looked the word up in google and it said it means live birds- so are you referring to chickens?

Yep

In Aus chooks are adults and chickens is only used of the babies 

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

I once failed to aerate my daughter's sea monkeys while she was at camp and they died.  I still hear about it and she's 23. 😑

I meticulously fed and aerated my sons, fought bottled water etc and they died promptly if they ever hatched at all.  My daughter bought some when she was a little older and fed them maybe once a week and aerated them not at all and they are now huge and thriving!

[gardenmom5]

1 hour ago, Elizabeth86 said:

Our dear, don't tell me this. My dog and daughter eat sand out of the sand box. 

2dd used to eat sand.  She'd dive face first into the sand . . . I'd grab her and drag her to the bathroom to wash out her mouth - and she'd just do it again.  Thunk.  (I want a fainting emoji!)

 

She claims that's why she doesn't have allergies. . . . 🙄😒

[Garga]

Very skinny cat, weighted blanket.  DH wanted to fluff his blanket, so he gave it a mighty heave, not knowing that Skinny Cat was on it.

Skinny cat went flying straight up into the air.  He was fine, albeit very confused.

 

One time, we offered our kitten, Richard, a pickle. You know how kittens are interested in food all the time. We held it out to him, thinking surely he’d get a little whiff of the pickle and scrunch up his nose and run off.  But, being a kitten, he didn’t take the time to sniff, and instead took a big bite and then leapt into the air and shook his head around, making gagging noises.

After that, he learned to sniff before tasting.

 

And we kick Waldo (another cat) all the time. We don’t mean to! He blends in to the shadows and we walk through the house and he won’t move so we don’t know he’s there, and then we accidentally kick him.  It’s awful. He runs away and looks so sad and we try to approach him and tell him we didn’t mean it, but he runs away looking betrayed. 

[bookbard]

All three of our quails just got eaten by a giant diamond python. First one . . . I put up more netting, and we moved the snake about a mile away. Then the next . . . more metal wire (supposedly snake-proof). And then, finally, I was listening to the last one squawk. Then silence. I went to check - and there was the snake, sitting fat and contented inside the cage. It was pure muscle, and had pushed aside all the metal wire to get at the last quail. We're not going to get any more. 

[Laura Corin]

When we had a caged bird, in China, I used to move it to another cage so that I could clean the decorative one.  One time, I put her back into her cleaned cage, but only then realised that I hadn't reconstructed it - it was just the dome, sitting on the table, with no base.  I had to very carefully slide the dome off the edge of the table and onto the base, but as the base was circular, there were lots of times when the bird could have escaped through the gaps between the dome and the base.  I think my heart was beating as fast as the bird's through the whole operation.

And various dog escapes, including my husband finding her in the middle of a main road.  This was mostly when we had my mum living with us - she would leave doors open.  We now live somewhere with an extra gate between our normal entrance door and the road, and a garden with high stone walls.  Much more comfortable.

Edited December 14, 2020 by Laura Corin

[kristin0713]

4 hours ago, bookbard said:

All three of our quails just got eaten by a giant diamond python. First one . . . I put up more netting, and we moved the snake about a mile away. Then the next . . . more metal wire (supposedly snake-proof). And then, finally, I was listening to the last one squawk. Then silence. I went to check - and there was the snake, sitting fat and contented inside the cage. It was pure muscle, and had pushed aside all the metal wire to get at the last quail. We're not going to get any more. 

Umm, where do you live that there are pythons? 

[Elizabeth86]

8 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

2dd used to eat sand.  She'd dive face first into the sand . . . I'd grab her and drag her to the bathroom to wash out her mouth - and she'd just do it again.  Thunk.  (I want a fainting emoji!)

 

She claims that's why she doesn't have allergies. . . . 🙄😒

Hahaha it began with her making  what should have been pretend food and then she'd eat it for real. Now she'll just go out and grab a handful. Yuck. She'll have it stuck all over her lips. This one makes me feel like I'm a first time mom and she's my 3rd child. The things she does, her 2 older brothers never would have dreamed of. They are both so straight laced and rule followers. If I told them to not eat sand because it's gross they would have believed me. She is a handful, but such a joy. Never a dull moment with my girl. 

[Granny_Weatherwax]

I'm glad the sugar gliders were safe and all is well.

 

These anecdotes are great!

[Bambam]

3 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

Umm, where do you live that there are pythons? 

I'm wondering if the python was a pet too? 

[kristin0713]

1 hour ago, Bambam said:

I'm wondering if the python was a pet too? 

She said they moved the snake a mile away 🤷‍♀️

[Drama Llama]

12 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I meticulously fed and aerated my sons, fought bottled water etc and they died promptly if they ever hatched at all.  My daughter bought some when she was a little older and fed them maybe once a week and aerated them not at all and they are now huge and thriving!

I'm not usually a stickler for punctuation, but an apostrophe would make this way less horrifying.  

No offense to the sea monkey lovers. 

[wathe]

7 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

Umm, where do you live that there are pythons? 

 

4 hours ago, Bambam said:

I'm wondering if the python was a pet too? 

I'm quite sure Bookbard is in Australia.  I think wild diamond pythons are common where she is.

[Ausmumof3]

4 hours ago, BaseballandHockey said:

I'm not usually a stickler for punctuation, but an apostrophe would make this way less horrifying.  

No offense to the sea monkey lovers. 

Mental note to self: Do not check WTM when you have insomnia at 4 am.  You may risk laughing out loud and waking the whole family!

I am very lazy about punctuation and grammar when typing on my phone - that that was a clanger!

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, wathe said:

 

I'm quite sure Bookbard is in Australia.  I think wild diamond pythons are common where she is.

Yep.  Friends in QLD lost their guinea pics do them. 

[amiesmom]

I was cleaning out our fish tank once while trying to talk to my MIL on the phone at the same time. I managed to scoop the fish out and get them into the temporary bowl while I cleaned the other tank. Apparently I forgot to put in the dechlorination drops before I scooped the fish into the temporary bowl and by the time their tank was all clean, they were dead!

[bookbard]

9 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

Umm, where do you live that there are pythons? 

Australia, land of snakes. But I thought you had giant snakes in the USA too? Florida or something?

[katilac]

1 hour ago, bookbard said:

Australia, land of snakes. But I thought you had giant snakes in the USA too? Florida or something?

I think only the eastern indigo could qualify as giant - they can get up to 9 feet long, but are nonvenomous and quite harmless to people. And of course that size is nothing compared to giant pythons. Florida does have a problem with pythons, but it's from ones imported in the 1990s and then released into the wild (along with the occasional escape, lol). They survive well in the Everglades and are very hard to detect. The problem is that they devastate the small mammal population; there haven't been any human deaths. Boa constrictors can survive in the wilds of Florida, too, but aren't as big of an issue and haven't been banned. 

So, no, we cannot compete with the snakes and other scary wildlife in Australia, lol. 

[bookbard]

Diamond pythons aren't scary at all either, not like boa constrictors or anything. You can pick them up easily. People like having them around as they eat rats etc. I doubt they've ever hurt a person, although they can bite; but it's not a poisonous bite, just a 'get off me!' type thing. When we moved that snake, we just picked it up and physically took it to another piece of bushland. It knew its way back though!

 

[katilac]

9 minutes ago, bookbard said:

 When we moved that snake, we just picked it up and physically took it to another piece of bushland. 

 

I'm not super scared of snakes, but I don't think I could do this! I guess it's easier if you see them around all the time.