Sheli - that's a horrific thing to have happened. I'm afraid, pregnancy hormones or not, my redhead's temper would have got the better of me. And not the hot headed type of redhead temper - the seething for days type of temper.
Unfortunately I'd have probably told her she could buy the damn thing herself. (It may be good I don't really have any family.)
I really, really don't understand people who get a pet, get tired of it, get a new one, get tired of it, and repeat to infinity. They shouldn't be allowed to - they really shouldn't (not that I have a clue how you'd stop them).
Pretty much as soon as they arrive, pets are part of the family to me - and since I was a kid, all my / our pets (from dogs and cats to goldfish) have been with me/us to the end, except one I had to give up through no choice of my own (Tigger the cat - I had nowhere to live, so obviously couldn't keep him with me, although it broke my heart to let him go).
And as for anybody who does what Mr T went through to any living breathing animal - or worse - they don't deserve the oxygen they breathe, or the light they absorb.
When Ed's nervous weeing thing first surfaced, one acquaintance said that we should rub his nose in it, that'd teach him. I went
a touch ballistic.... ok, I went pretty much thermonuclear, and don't think I've talked to said acquaintance since. Or, come to think of it, acknowledged his existence.
We were meant to visit hub's parents over new year. Obviously, that had to be cancelled when Edward became ill, and needed daily metacam, and general looking after.
Hub expected (despite being 40+
) to be told off when he rang his mum to explain. He forgot that his parents have had (well looked after) cats for years & years.
She was incredibly understanding, and said that that's the responsibility you take on when you have a pet. To be there for them if they need it. And she was dead right. When you take on a pet - any pet - it's responsibility for another living thing - I know you lot all know that.
Conversely, when hub's best friend and his wife, who had one cat, had just had their first baby, his (bst f's) mother came to visit. Not only did she announce that the place was a death trap - she also said they had better get rid of [her words] the cat, because cats kill babies.
???????
That said, I was once scratched in the face by a cat when I was about 3 or 4 - cat belonged to a friend of my Nana's. My Nana's reaction was along the lines of 'well you know not to do that next time you meet a cat'.
She was right, as it happens....
But it's so infuriating that so many people seem to treat them as possessions to be discarded when they're tired of them - like a coat or handbag. Or worse.
HUMPH
