Gerbil Tragedy

[columella]

Gerbal #3 is now in the pet graveyard.  A real bummer because she was a pretty cool gerbil.  Came home from TMT and it seems that the boy left his bedroom door open.  :(  Gerbil was nowhere to be seen and the cage was still closed!  (Although later made the realization that the boy had not been putting the clips back on the top part which means there was nothing actually locking it down.)  He was very upset and after some consolation we went back to unloading from the weekend - I was in the garage getting the laundry started when the cry of "MOM" went out - the boy had found the remains of the beloved gerbil in dad's office.  Pretty gruesome.  A burial ensued, but it did not involve all of said gerbil as the head was missing.  After the burial we headed off to <lj="peacockharpy">'s house for the Memorial Day festivities. But, there is more to this taie.  When the boy went to bed that night he came bounding back out - as the gerbil head was in his bed! Ugh!  I have been pretty sick of Cicero's antics (one of the cats) but this about put the icing on the cake.

Comments

[flummoxicated.livejournal.com]

:( Though that makes me think of that scene in The Godfather, where the horse head is left as a warning.

[columella.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. I was REALLY glad he is too young to have seen that movie...

[flaming-mo.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I was thinking...

[raphaela.livejournal.com]

Me too! lol

Very sad for the boy and the gerbil,...

[chiere.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Cicero loves the boy and was leaving him a gift, not realizing how awful it would be?

I was talking about gerbils with a friend today. I loved them. I had quite a collection of the little agouti colored ones growing up, and still enjoy seeing all the new colors at the pet stores; new being relative,... Black and white ones were being bred when I was 20. Now they are buff and fawn and dove and so on,...

I really miss having them but Maredudd says "NO!!" to gerbils,...

Re: Very sad for the boy and the gerbil,...

[columella.livejournal.com]

I am sure that was Cicero's intention, he is just a very frustrating cat in many ways. I love cats, but sometimes it takes a lot to love him! (Now my girls, on the other hand, are fabulous!) He is like the eternal surly teenager who constantly picks at his siblings. So when something like this happens it feels like the last straw.

On the other hand, more gerbils are planned. We have told him that we need to hold off until he comes back from his summer adventures, but then two more are in the cards. I will say I was generally impressed with them as pets and found them to have a lot of personality. Now we just have to work on cat-proofing things...