So I was browsing the 'Animal Chatter' forums on Chicken Smoothie and stumbled across one thread where people were ranting about annoying things people do to their (real life) pets. And I thought, 'Maybe Sylestia users want to rant too!' So, feel free to post about things your family and/or friends do with your pets that drive you nuts. I'll start:

I really, absolutely hate it when people see my chickens and immediately say things like 'They look delicious!' or 'Is that one named 'Dinner'?'. I hate it so much. My chickens are my pets, and I really care about them! You wouldn't make jokes like that about someone's fish or horse, so I don't understand why chickens are any different.

I have bunnies and I use to have people say stuff like "I bet they'd be good with some mustard sauce, fried, etc"

I also have snakes and people think they're going to escape ad eat me in the night.....snakes just don't do that. "well i had a friend of a friend of a friends cousin who had a snake and she woke up and it was in her bed stretching out to size her up to eat her!"
snakes do NOT size up their prey. They would starve in the wild if they had to do that because prey won't just sit still so the snake can "size them up."
In any case, my snakes are pretty small and will stay small. They couldn't even eat my smallest bunny (and that's if she wouldn't kick the crap out of them) and they're very docile. All they do is sleep.
But its annoying when people say stuff like that because they never bother to look it up to see if its actually true.

I think those are my two biggie complaints haha

So, this one time, we had a goat at the stables. He was bought to be a companion for our little colt, when his mother had to be taken out for exercise.

One day, some little kid went into the stall with the goat, and kicked it. The goat literally screamed. Afterwards, the kid claimed that it was self-defense and the goat was trying to kill her.


ANOTHER TIME,
the head of the stables got a puppy. This same kid picked it up by its front legs and was just carrying it around, la-di-dah. It took forever to convince them to put the poor dog on the ground.

So yeah. We all despise this little @#$*.

Yeesh! I know the feeling. Besides chickens, we also have an indoor cat and a few stray/wanderer cats that like to stop by sometimes. It annoys me so much when my parents have somebody over and they take no responsibility for how their little kids act. One of my mother's friend's children found my indoor cat, screamed 'kitty!' and went to yank her tail so hard that my cat screeched. I told the kid off (I know, I'm horrible) and then the parent was like 'oh, he's fine, he just likes to say hello.' Wha-- whomst-- NO??? Your kid could have seriously hurt my cat. You have to take responsibility for that!

I know, right! Little kids need to learn how to properly hold little animals from the second they are able to pick them up. I've seen little kids just toting cats & dogs around by grabbing them underneath their forelegs and just letting their butts drag on the ground. I can practically feel their discomfort- it's awful.

Okay so I have two little kittens. One of them was a C-section so she's very small and particularly sensitive. She attached to me quickly because even when she was 12 weeks old she still needed a mother and I became that. So she tends to stick to me right? I noticed early on that she has this habit of sniffing everything in front of her before stepping there. She isn't blind it's just something she does. Some of my 5yr old brother's friends were visiting and she hates the noise. So I quickly bundled her away in my room where she would be comfortable. The kids all run in asking where the cats are and I tell them they can pet Apollo (the boy who is super chill and pretty much okay with everything) But NOT Artemis. Even my parent's stress this point. I leave to go print some pages for my essay and when I come back one of the kids has picked up Artemis and is holding her by her chest (You know like when just their face and front paws stick up above the kids arms and everything else is hanging down?) She was mewling to the point where it was just a squeak. I immediately yelled at the kid to let her go(I feel bad for it but she was so fragile that I had to check her temperature every day to make sure she wasn't freezing and if she was put her next to the fireplace/heater until she was warm again) He dropped her and started crying. I quickly bundled her up she was shaking in fear. The parents came up and the kid was saying how I'd yelled at him and how Artemis had scratched him. The parents took the kids side when we had specifically told them not to touch Artemis and they didn't listen when I told them Artemis didn't even scratch the kid!

GAH!!!

Okay, so I was just recently reminded of this because my window is open. My neighbors across the street have a longhaired dachshund. He's a cute lil' thing, and they've had him for probably about two years now. They leave him outside most of the time, and he's kinda skittish I guess, because he barks at just about everything (I don't think he's being territorial or anything, because whenever I come over there he's really sweet and just wants some affection). But the mom of the family absolutely hates when the dog barks, and when he does for too long she'll go out and scream at him! First off, that isn't productive at all. The dog really doesn't understand why you're screaming at him, because he doesn't speak English (or any human language, for that matter) and he's just gonna keep barking. Second, if you didn't expect the dog to bark, or want to commit enough to actually train it not to, then why did you get him in the first place? Please, think about if you really want to commit before getting a pet. Even if it's a small one, your day isn't going to be the same after getting it. Be sure that you're ready for that change and are willing to commit to it, honestly.

Another complaint- My grandparents have this really adorable cat, Daffodil. She's sweet, she's playful, she's affectionate, she's... also one of the fattest cats I've ever met. My grandma refills her bowl whenever it's even close to being empty. That's super unhealthy!

my older sister gave her 3 months old kitten to my mom, dad and me and when we got her she was vicious u can't get close to her if u do get close she will bite and scratch u. my mom asks my older sis what she and her 3-year child did to the cat and she said nothing she lit her child play with the kitten anyway she wants. so we had no choice but to put the poor kitten to sleep.

You had no choice but to put the kitten to sleep because it would scratch and bite? They have people that can train/work with cats and kittens.....