animals

When I was little we took my dog, Toffy, to the SPCA, supposedly to be adopted. My parents told my brother and I that our dog had gone to a lovely family that lived on a farm that had lots of space for Toffy to run around on, and that she was very happy. It was only after watching a Friends episode, years later (I was in my late 20s) that I realised that Toffy had in fact been put down. I was shocked, believing all this time that she had been on a farm and enjoying every minute of it!

Wendy

when i was little i used to believe that when we ate meat (chicken, lamb, turkey etc) that the animal had died of natural causes. i only realised a few years later that people actually hunted them.

the jellybaby lover

I used to think that muesli was the same as hamster food. So I fed it to my hamster. For three weeks. It died. Something about condensed milk?

Lozza

A neighbour's cat, Tabitha, got run over when I was about 4. While I was visiting them with my family, I said: "Poor Tabitha. She's probably spinning round on someone's wheel by now."

Rachel

when i was little i had a cat and when it died my mam told me she saw it turn into a cheeter and it ran away to find some other cheeters to ply with but it went so fast that it neva got the chance to say good bye i belived this until my 12th birthday when i found out what really happened!!!!

ellie

When my cat died I asked where he was and my dad said he died. I asked what that meant and he said it meant he had just stopped moving. So I thought when animals died they just completely ground to a halt and wouldn't move.

Razorness

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

I used to believe that pylons had electricity running through them and used to get upset for the cows and sheep in the fields next to them, that they would get electrocuted and die

Emma

When I was about 3 or 5 I thought that when my pets died they got to go to heaven and that when I died I'd get to be little again, so I could still play with them.

Anon

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

When I was nine or ten, I found a grasshopper and decided to keep it as a pet. I named it Hopper, I think, and I kept him in a shoe box with leaves and a drop of water. I kept him for several days, and after awhile he stopped eating and moving completely. I thought that he was sad, so I decided to release him back into the wild, a.k.a. my back yard. I put Hopper on the patio table and left him there, expecting him to hop away eventually. He didn't move AT ALL for the next couple of days, but for some reason I never realized he was dead. He was even covered in ants at one point, and I just brushed them off 'cuz I didn't want them to hurt Hopper. He dissaperad from the table after that.

It wasn't until a few days ago I realized that not only was Hopper dead after Day Two, but that the leaf I gave him was poisonous; it was the kind with milk in it. Poor Hopper!

Cricket

When I was three or four, I secretly pulled my cat's tail to get it to meow onto a tape recorder. When the cat died several months later, I was convinced that it was because I had pulled his tail. I still felt guilty thinking about that poor cat, even years after learning about the digestive problem that actually killed him (and despite understanding that death by tail-pulling is not a possibility!) I think I finally stopped feeling this way at around 15 or 16.

guilt-ridden cat-lover

When i was younger my dog died, I asked my grandma where she went and she replied " doggy heaven" from then on i believed there was thousands of heavens. EX: doggy heaven cat heaven fish heaven.

Danielle

When I was about 3, a stray dog had a litter of pups in our garage. We had a small hill right behind our house and as the puppies got older, they would run all over the yard including the hill. Then one day my mom said, "One of the puppies didn't make it." I thought she meant it didn't make it up the hill. I believed this until I was 10 years old.

Beth

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

When i was younger i had a pet rabbit called smokey. one morning when i came doen for breakfast mum told me dad had left the cage open and Smokey had run away but it was ok becasue he was off somewhere happily playing with other rabbits. I believed this as mum had no reason to lie, since she'd told me the truth about my goldfishes death. For weeks i was angry at my dad but eventually got over it. then a couple of weeks ago it suddenly dawned on me and i confronted mum and she finally confessed that smokey had infat died.

Anon

I used to believe that when my animals died they would go to animal hevean. All the animals would get a long together up there and they would all become friends.

April

I used to have a dog named Piper who was a black Labrador. We were best mates and as a child I spent most of my time playing with him. One day my parents said that we had to send Piper away to a farm because he has more space there (we were moving house). It wasn't until about 2 months ago (I'm 18) that I discovered he was really put down! Turns out 'going to a farm' is the nice way to say it to a kid. I was shattered!

Brendan

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 think that if a fly didn't bleed when it was swatted, it would come back to life.

Anon