I don’t know why some people own pets.
The following contains detailed accounts and photographs of suspected animal abuse and extreme neglect. Reader discretion is advised.
My parents, specifically my mom, are the kind of people that should never be allowed to own a pet. I tend not to blame my dad for problems in our household, because he does work 48 hours a week and struggles to pay all the bills that my mom has accumulated through decades of self-determined unemployment. My mom is the laziest and most irresponsible person I have ever known. That’s saying a lot, because I generally dislike a lot of people and find fault in everything everyone does. I have been complaining for the past ten years that my mom’s care and treatment of our animals is not borderline cruelty but as criminal as it gets without actually killing the poor creatures with a dull knife.
For many years, we simply had outside dogs of the Pekinese breed, which are dogs that are bred as indoor dogs. Their short legs and flat faces are not suited for outdoors, but we had scores of these dogs throughout my childhood. The oldest of these dogs, Gizmo, lived to be 15 years old. His puppy, Bear, is the last of the lineage of Pekinese that we own. He’s almost 16 years old himself and has lived everyday of his life outside. He’s been on death watch for about two years now. In 2000, we got our first non-Pekinese dog in many years. Shadow was a black Labrador mix that was too hyperactive to regularly play with, and he lived outside. As I lamented two years ago, a mere tumor on his toe, which could’ve been removed for around $80, was ignored. The cancer spread, and he could no longer eat or even move. He suffered in anguish, yet cheerful spirit, for a few long months. He met an emaciated and very sad fate, as he froze and starved to death at the same time during the coldest days of the winter of 2008.
Before I moved out of my house in October 2007, the biggest reason I disliked my house was because of the animals that staggered about in neglect. There was a rabbit cage in the basement family room that was pathetically dirty. The rabbit within was too large for the cage, had toenails an inch long, was emaciated, and was so terrified of human contact. There was also a degu in the corner. His cage was so dirty that it was literally stuck to the floor. When the poor rodent died, I tried to dispose of the cage, and I had to cut it free from the carpet. There were scores of other neglected animals over the years, but the focus of this post is to lament on our cat, Rainbow. I don’t know cat breeds, and I don’t know too much about cats. But, he was the first of three cats that we owned at one time. We got him as a kitten around 2002 from someone that my sister knew. Of course, he was kept inside. Around 2004, we got another cat, Chandler, but he died about two years later from an unknown and sudden illness. A third cat, Baby, was brought in around 2005, and we currently still have Rainbow and Baby.
Owning two cats, one would think that the sanitation of the litter box would be a main priority. The litter box was (and still is) kept by the unused dining room door leading to the garage. Once you walk into our house, you are overwhelmed with the smell of cat urine. The litter box is so poorly maintained that the cats themselves won’t even use it. My mom’s common excuse for the unsanitary situations is that “the cats are not mine.” She continues to assert that, because the cats are not hers and are technically my sisters, she doesn’t have to lift a finger to care for the cats. At the same time, she daily asserts that “this is my house” when someone does something she doesn’t like. If the cats relieve themselves on the floor rather than use their overflowing litter box, my mom will step right over the pile of feces on the floor. She’ll say, “I’m not picking it up. Bianca can clean it when she gets home.” She’ll say that even if my sister won’t be home for days; the pile will remain in the open on the floor until it is crusty. The litter box almost never gets changed. When the surface of the litter is obscured with feces, another thin layer of cat litter is poured on top of it. Because of these problems with the cats, my mom has been saying for several years now, “I’m getting rid of the cats tomorrow.”
Rainbow and Baby, both males, never got along at first. They fought and hissed at each other all the time. The problem was that Rainbow was de-clawed, so any scuffle they got into led to a clawed beating at the hands of Baby. Because of that, Rainbow turned into a recluse. He would live under the couch, behind or on top of the refrigerator, or in the bathroom. He would only emerge very rarely. Even when he and Baby settled down and fought less, he remained reclusive. There was a time when he lived in the basement where my old room was. He would freely shit in the hallway leading to my bedroom door, and more than once did I step on one of these piles, whether I was wearing shoes or not. For the longest time, I kept my dirty clothes basket outside my door since my room was too small. I had to stop doing this when the cat began using it as his new litter box, wherein I had to throw away a bunch of clothes. When I moved out soon after this, Rachael and I got our own cat. It took no more than three minutes a day to either scoop or change the litter box. On the few occasions when I did come home, I would observe the incredibly poor condition of our pets. Shadow, as well as the rabbit, died during this time, and he was replaced with Mara, a yellow Labrador mix that was already housebroken. She was the first dog we ever owned that was an inside dog, and she is often the host of hundreds of fleas. During this time, Rainbow was living in my sister’s room upstairs. He was ravished with bugs, starved, and in such horrid shape. I contemplated just taking him, but the cat we already owned did not get along with other cats. I also didn’t want my cat to catch whatever Rainbow had. My mom also tried keeping another cat: a small kitten that she found. I told her I knew someone that could take it, but in reality, I dropped it off in a box at the Humane Society in the middle of the night.
When the time came when I had to move back home, I basically stole my sister’s room from her, because she was so lazy that she’d rather forfeit the room than clean it. As I trudged into the room to clean it in preparation for moving back home, I wrote 10 days before I moved back home:
Unfortunately, the room is so incredibly nasty that it’s hard to describe. There is a malnourished cat that has been living in there for many years now, and the litter box was completely covered in all angles by piles of feces. With no useable litter box, the cat began using everything else in the room to relieve itself. Whenever the cat did get fed, it would be so hungry that it would eat too much and vomit- anywhere it found necessary. The cat has been ravished with fleas for many years now, and the back-half of its body has no hair since it gnawed it off to get rid of fleas. He has flea bites all over his body and is reduced to a bag of bones. The sad thing is that the cat is so starved for human contact that he purrs and meows nonstop when I’m in his presence. My sister claims it’s her cat, but she probably hasn’t provided it with basic living necessities in months. The room smells so incredibly bad that it’s enough to knock you down upon entry. You can smell the room through the door and down the hall. I spent about three hours scrapping feces from the carpet and ridding the room of everything that had to do with the cat, although the cat is still in there. I gave the cat a new litter box, and he didn’t even know what to do. I also gave him food and water for the first time in probably many weeks.
When I moved back home in November 2008, I forced the cat out of this now clean room, and it began living underneath the living room couch or behind the refrigerator. I wish I had taken pictures to document how horrid the room was where Rainbow was living. When he and Baby started fighting every now and then, Rainbow was moved into a portable dog cage that sat in the dining room by the back door. He sat in there for days at a time, where he used the corner of the cage, which was barely big enough for him to turn around, as a makeshift litter box. It smelled so bad that I picked up the cage and threw it outside, freeing Rainbow from the cage beforehand. My mom was so pissed that I let Rainbow out of the cage that she snatched him back up, as he was trying to drink water from the dog’s dish, and threw him back into the cage.
Rainbow was always plagued with skin disorders, but this was only emphasized by his neglect. I don’t know what he’s inflicted with, but it’s similar to pictures of dogs with mange that I looked up on the internet. Rainbow often has patches where he has no hair, and his exposed skin is covered in what appear to be bug bites and dry wounds. He has never been to the vet and probably never received even the simplest form of medication. He has had a couple baths over the years, but that does nothing to solve the problem. I sometimes go weeks without seeing Rainbow, while Baby freely lives on the kitchen counter and picks at any left out food (including a bowl of butter that will find its way back into the refrigerator). I hate Baby, but I have sympathy for Rainbow. A few days ago, I noticed he was now living behind the toilet in our upstairs bathroom, and I would shoe him out whenever I went in there. He would skittishly run to the next available hiding place until someone let him back in the bathroom. Not only is he living behind the toilet, but his food dish (typically empty) has been placed up there. So, someone must approve of our cat living behind the toilet, where he regularly shits on the bathroom floor too. He is clearly emaciated too. His shoulder blades are distinctly visible, and when you pick him up, there’s almost nothing to him.
There was a time when Rainbow was such a beautiful cat. He was the first cat that our family ever owned, and he was once a prized and loved companion. In the nine years or so that we’ve had Rainbow, I’m surprised that he’s still alive, although the condition that he’s in is heartbreaking to everyone except those that are supposed to care for him. Some would (and have) asked why I don’t take initiative and either take Rainbow to the vet or call the ASPCA. There are many more problems in this house aside from Rainbow, and my solution is to try to leave again and hopefully never have to come back, which may be as soon as a few weeks. I think Rainbow’s state of existence is a testament to my mom’s poor character and despicable level of household management that has slipped beyond abysmal. There was a time when a pile of feces on the kitchen floor would’ve called for immediate action. Now, we have a hairless and bloodied cat starving, shitting, and living behind a toilet that itself is the epitome of filth. There are a lot of things in life that I hate, and my misanthropic attitude is quite clear as a trait brought upon from my upbringing. I have owned animals, and I still do. I love animals, and it’s hard to believe some people don’t, even after they take one in as a pet.
Click on the images below to view the larger image:
My parents, specifically my mom, are the kind of people that should never be allowed to own a pet. I tend not to blame my dad for problems in our household, because he does work 48 hours a week and struggles to pay all the bills that my mom has accumulated through decades of self-determined unemployment. My mom is the laziest and most irresponsible person I have ever known. That’s saying a lot, because I generally dislike a lot of people and find fault in everything everyone does. I have been complaining for the past ten years that my mom’s care and treatment of our animals is not borderline cruelty but as criminal as it gets without actually killing the poor creatures with a dull knife.
For many years, we simply had outside dogs of the Pekinese breed, which are dogs that are bred as indoor dogs. Their short legs and flat faces are not suited for outdoors, but we had scores of these dogs throughout my childhood. The oldest of these dogs, Gizmo, lived to be 15 years old. His puppy, Bear, is the last of the lineage of Pekinese that we own. He’s almost 16 years old himself and has lived everyday of his life outside. He’s been on death watch for about two years now. In 2000, we got our first non-Pekinese dog in many years. Shadow was a black Labrador mix that was too hyperactive to regularly play with, and he lived outside. As I lamented two years ago, a mere tumor on his toe, which could’ve been removed for around $80, was ignored. The cancer spread, and he could no longer eat or even move. He suffered in anguish, yet cheerful spirit, for a few long months. He met an emaciated and very sad fate, as he froze and starved to death at the same time during the coldest days of the winter of 2008.
Before I moved out of my house in October 2007, the biggest reason I disliked my house was because of the animals that staggered about in neglect. There was a rabbit cage in the basement family room that was pathetically dirty. The rabbit within was too large for the cage, had toenails an inch long, was emaciated, and was so terrified of human contact. There was also a degu in the corner. His cage was so dirty that it was literally stuck to the floor. When the poor rodent died, I tried to dispose of the cage, and I had to cut it free from the carpet. There were scores of other neglected animals over the years, but the focus of this post is to lament on our cat, Rainbow. I don’t know cat breeds, and I don’t know too much about cats. But, he was the first of three cats that we owned at one time. We got him as a kitten around 2002 from someone that my sister knew. Of course, he was kept inside. Around 2004, we got another cat, Chandler, but he died about two years later from an unknown and sudden illness. A third cat, Baby, was brought in around 2005, and we currently still have Rainbow and Baby.
Owning two cats, one would think that the sanitation of the litter box would be a main priority. The litter box was (and still is) kept by the unused dining room door leading to the garage. Once you walk into our house, you are overwhelmed with the smell of cat urine. The litter box is so poorly maintained that the cats themselves won’t even use it. My mom’s common excuse for the unsanitary situations is that “the cats are not mine.” She continues to assert that, because the cats are not hers and are technically my sisters, she doesn’t have to lift a finger to care for the cats. At the same time, she daily asserts that “this is my house” when someone does something she doesn’t like. If the cats relieve themselves on the floor rather than use their overflowing litter box, my mom will step right over the pile of feces on the floor. She’ll say, “I’m not picking it up. Bianca can clean it when she gets home.” She’ll say that even if my sister won’t be home for days; the pile will remain in the open on the floor until it is crusty. The litter box almost never gets changed. When the surface of the litter is obscured with feces, another thin layer of cat litter is poured on top of it. Because of these problems with the cats, my mom has been saying for several years now, “I’m getting rid of the cats tomorrow.”
Rainbow and Baby, both males, never got along at first. They fought and hissed at each other all the time. The problem was that Rainbow was de-clawed, so any scuffle they got into led to a clawed beating at the hands of Baby. Because of that, Rainbow turned into a recluse. He would live under the couch, behind or on top of the refrigerator, or in the bathroom. He would only emerge very rarely. Even when he and Baby settled down and fought less, he remained reclusive. There was a time when he lived in the basement where my old room was. He would freely shit in the hallway leading to my bedroom door, and more than once did I step on one of these piles, whether I was wearing shoes or not. For the longest time, I kept my dirty clothes basket outside my door since my room was too small. I had to stop doing this when the cat began using it as his new litter box, wherein I had to throw away a bunch of clothes. When I moved out soon after this, Rachael and I got our own cat. It took no more than three minutes a day to either scoop or change the litter box. On the few occasions when I did come home, I would observe the incredibly poor condition of our pets. Shadow, as well as the rabbit, died during this time, and he was replaced with Mara, a yellow Labrador mix that was already housebroken. She was the first dog we ever owned that was an inside dog, and she is often the host of hundreds of fleas. During this time, Rainbow was living in my sister’s room upstairs. He was ravished with bugs, starved, and in such horrid shape. I contemplated just taking him, but the cat we already owned did not get along with other cats. I also didn’t want my cat to catch whatever Rainbow had. My mom also tried keeping another cat: a small kitten that she found. I told her I knew someone that could take it, but in reality, I dropped it off in a box at the Humane Society in the middle of the night.
When the time came when I had to move back home, I basically stole my sister’s room from her, because she was so lazy that she’d rather forfeit the room than clean it. As I trudged into the room to clean it in preparation for moving back home, I wrote 10 days before I moved back home:
Unfortunately, the room is so incredibly nasty that it’s hard to describe. There is a malnourished cat that has been living in there for many years now, and the litter box was completely covered in all angles by piles of feces. With no useable litter box, the cat began using everything else in the room to relieve itself. Whenever the cat did get fed, it would be so hungry that it would eat too much and vomit- anywhere it found necessary. The cat has been ravished with fleas for many years now, and the back-half of its body has no hair since it gnawed it off to get rid of fleas. He has flea bites all over his body and is reduced to a bag of bones. The sad thing is that the cat is so starved for human contact that he purrs and meows nonstop when I’m in his presence. My sister claims it’s her cat, but she probably hasn’t provided it with basic living necessities in months. The room smells so incredibly bad that it’s enough to knock you down upon entry. You can smell the room through the door and down the hall. I spent about three hours scrapping feces from the carpet and ridding the room of everything that had to do with the cat, although the cat is still in there. I gave the cat a new litter box, and he didn’t even know what to do. I also gave him food and water for the first time in probably many weeks.
When I moved back home in November 2008, I forced the cat out of this now clean room, and it began living underneath the living room couch or behind the refrigerator. I wish I had taken pictures to document how horrid the room was where Rainbow was living. When he and Baby started fighting every now and then, Rainbow was moved into a portable dog cage that sat in the dining room by the back door. He sat in there for days at a time, where he used the corner of the cage, which was barely big enough for him to turn around, as a makeshift litter box. It smelled so bad that I picked up the cage and threw it outside, freeing Rainbow from the cage beforehand. My mom was so pissed that I let Rainbow out of the cage that she snatched him back up, as he was trying to drink water from the dog’s dish, and threw him back into the cage.
Rainbow was always plagued with skin disorders, but this was only emphasized by his neglect. I don’t know what he’s inflicted with, but it’s similar to pictures of dogs with mange that I looked up on the internet. Rainbow often has patches where he has no hair, and his exposed skin is covered in what appear to be bug bites and dry wounds. He has never been to the vet and probably never received even the simplest form of medication. He has had a couple baths over the years, but that does nothing to solve the problem. I sometimes go weeks without seeing Rainbow, while Baby freely lives on the kitchen counter and picks at any left out food (including a bowl of butter that will find its way back into the refrigerator). I hate Baby, but I have sympathy for Rainbow. A few days ago, I noticed he was now living behind the toilet in our upstairs bathroom, and I would shoe him out whenever I went in there. He would skittishly run to the next available hiding place until someone let him back in the bathroom. Not only is he living behind the toilet, but his food dish (typically empty) has been placed up there. So, someone must approve of our cat living behind the toilet, where he regularly shits on the bathroom floor too. He is clearly emaciated too. His shoulder blades are distinctly visible, and when you pick him up, there’s almost nothing to him.
There was a time when Rainbow was such a beautiful cat. He was the first cat that our family ever owned, and he was once a prized and loved companion. In the nine years or so that we’ve had Rainbow, I’m surprised that he’s still alive, although the condition that he’s in is heartbreaking to everyone except those that are supposed to care for him. Some would (and have) asked why I don’t take initiative and either take Rainbow to the vet or call the ASPCA. There are many more problems in this house aside from Rainbow, and my solution is to try to leave again and hopefully never have to come back, which may be as soon as a few weeks. I think Rainbow’s state of existence is a testament to my mom’s poor character and despicable level of household management that has slipped beyond abysmal. There was a time when a pile of feces on the kitchen floor would’ve called for immediate action. Now, we have a hairless and bloodied cat starving, shitting, and living behind a toilet that itself is the epitome of filth. There are a lot of things in life that I hate, and my misanthropic attitude is quite clear as a trait brought upon from my upbringing. I have owned animals, and I still do. I love animals, and it’s hard to believe some people don’t, even after they take one in as a pet.
Click on the images below to view the larger image: