January 3rd, 2013

I was looking at my dashboard on Tumblr just now and came across something that absolutely disgusts me. It's a text post that says, "My mum said if I accidentally let my sister's guinea pig out of it's cage and into the garden so it never came back she'd buy me a mcdonalds." Underneath this text, there is a picture of a young girl drinking a large McDonalds drink, a large fry, and what looks like a hamburger box. Now, for the people who know me, I love guinea pigs. I've had the pleasure of raising a total of nine guinea pigs (my first one being when I was in 4th grade and having 4 babies). So seeing this post upset me for a huge reason. Pet guinea pigs are pets for a reason. In America, we raise them as domestic animals instead of just pulling them from the wild (and in some countries, eating them). This means that although guinea pigs have natural animal instincts, raising them as pets and then releasing them is going to leave them more defenseless. Not only that, but it also means that they aren't very likely to survive as long as wild guinea pigs. But the most upsetting thing about it is that this... there are so many horrible words I could use as accurate adjectives right now... little monster of a girl (she literally looks evil in this picture) carelessly set this little animal free... for FUCKING MCDONALDS. I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY? Who does that? Who takes a defenseless animal and throws it into the wild just because someone offers you fucking McDonalds? I sure wouldn't trust her with my life. "Hey, if you kill your sister, I'll buy you McDonalds." "Okay!"

Now, maybe she didn't really do it. Maybe her mom just bought her McDonalds one day and she decided to try and be funny. But I don't see how that is funny at all. Some people may think I'm overreacting, but I do not support any form of animal cruelty, and to me, this is one. Why? Because a good pet owner does not just throw an animal out when he/she gets tired of it. It doesn't matter if it's a dog, cat, guinea pig, or mouse. It's just wrong. Your pet is part of your family, and in a way, it's like disowning a child, which is frowned upon.

I sure hope this little girl didn't really do that. I don't want to have another reason to lose faith in humanity.