animals

When I was a kid, I used to go to my grandparents' farm every summer for a few days. One summer they had a couple of calves, which I was allowed to feed. The next summer the calves were gone. I asked what happened to them. Grandpa said "they died because you fed them" and I cried for the rest of the day.

It was years before I was brave enough to ask my Mum if that's what really happened.

Gwen

When I was 7 my mother stepped on my cat and then had to kill it. She told me that a wild cat ripped it's neck out. For the whole week I was trying to avenge my cat's death..

Edward

I believed that all Cats were female, and all Dogs were male, and wondered why they hated each other, since they had babies (puppies and kittens) together.

Andrew Wade

I was told when I was about 7 that my dog was sick, so my Mother gave him to a friend who owned a farm so she'd have lots of space to run and play until she got better.

I was about 15 or so when I cracked the joke "bought the farm" and realized what really happened to my puppy.

Collin

My dog was knocked down and killed by a car when I was about 8 and my dad took it to his work to be 'buried'.
I imagined my dad digging a hole and placing poor 'Prince'in the ground with maybe a tear in his eye and a short prayer.
My dad however, worked for the local cleansing department, his job was to burn the rubbish.
It took me up until I was about 25 to work out that my poor dog had been thrown in the fire with the rubbish and cremated.
The same fate met my rabbit when it died.
Parents eh!

CJ

Mr brother told me my cat had died because i left the microwave door open and hed been cooked to death. Little bugger.

Sue

When I was 4 two of my cats disappeared... we lived by a lake and I was convinced Ginger and Stripey had gone fishing and liked it so much they stayed by the lake and lived happily ever after.

I only remembered and realised how silly that was when I was in my teens, doh.

em

I used to believe that the school rabbit liked the red berries that grew in the hedge. But then he died.

Charlotte

as a kid I was once given the job of looking after the school goldfish at half term. unfortunately two of them died so my mum feely guilty replaced them with 3 new ones. when I told the teacher what happened she said that's all right, we used to have one - now we've got seven. for several years I thought she meant they had babies.

johnboy

One day our neighbour was walking his 4 year old son to school. Along the way the little boy spotted a bird in the gutter, so he gave it a nudge with his toe. When it didn't move he asked his father why it didn't fly away. His father explained that the bird was broken (i.e. dead). Instead of getting upset the little boy said firmly "It's alright Dad, the man will fix it." No matter how hard his Dad tried to tell him that the bird couldn't be fixed the little boy was adamant. The next day when they walked the route to school again the bird was gone so the boy turned to his dad and said "See! The man fixed it" and smiled smuggly.

Jeremy

My dead tortoise was buried in the garden - next spring I found a live tortoise at the same point - unbeknown to me my parents had bought another one but told me it was the original one. I believed this until early adulthood!

Julie

My pet rabbit disappeared and I was told it had been stolen - many years later I found it had been killed and we had eaten it!

Sylvia

Until I was around 8, I thought cows were killed nicely!

Duncan