Sorry guys, I need to vent. :(
Okay, this morning I got Jack ready, put him in his pushchair and set off for my grandma's house, who i visit every Thursday. As I was walking down the road adjoining ours I saw what looked like a cat, asleep. I stood still for a minute and realised that no, in fact it wasn't asleep as I had thought, but dead. I quickly walked to the nearby opticians, where the kind receptionist gave me a box , a newspaper and a plastic bag. I put the cat gently into the box and covered it with the newspaper, as it looked like its neck was broken and it had most certainly been knocked down / run over. One eye was enlarged or popped out , whichever. Suffice to say, it wasn't a pretty sight. (By the way I had left Jack in the opticians as he may be only a baby but he loves cats) I went back to the opticians, putting the box behind a gate so nobody would see it, the receptionist phoned the nearest vets. Who informed her that they take in dead cats, but no they wouldn't pick it up. I proceeded to put the box on top of the pushchair and walk a MILE!! down to the vets, where they said they would freeze it and put an advert in the paper to try and find the owner.

the things that most annoyed me about this were:
1) Having to walk all that way with a dead cat in a box on top of the pushchair
2) The fact that it was at the side of the road on the pavement so the person who killed it must have known, and moved it
3) The people walking past and looking at it but doing nothing

I am an animal lover, especially of cats and this angered me so much that when I got home I had a big cry and lots of cuddles from Vermillion, who is an excellent comforter. great day eh? :(

Hey I know how bad that is, Mortensen, when I was little (around seven) my neighbour had given me a kitten to look after until the people who had bought it came to collect it, however I was in the garden and it jumped over the fence and ran across the road, from nowhere a motorcycle came and ran it over, the driver stopped and looked at me before kicking it into the gutter, it wasn't even properly dead and he just got on his bike and went. I didn't know what to do and hid in my room, I haven't liked motorbikes since.

I completely understand. How hard would it have been for the vet to come and pick it up anyways? That would have burned me more than anything else. I love animals too (more of a dog, than cat person) and I ran over a neighbor's dog a few months ago, and just kept screaming incoherently as I tried to save it. No such luck, Buff (the dog, a rottweiler) was dead, as I can only hope, on impact. I've driven about 5 under speed for 5 months now, to keep it from happening again.

(PS- 8people, i'm appalled that you would blame motorcycles for the actions of one truly sick, twisted and ultimately evil man who rode one. The bike was probably just as hurt about the kitten as you, but being inanimate it couldn't do anything. That biker should be flayed alive and dropped into a sewer filled with feral cats, that would be retribution, not just justice.)

Hey, Irreligious Paladin, she isn't blaming them... she is just traumatized because she was so young, I think.

When I was a kid, I once found a bird on the pavement that had, apparently, been knocked by a car. it was still alive, but it did not live long... it died in my hands. So, me being my own self, put it in my bag so I could bury it later (it was summer) and when my dad found out, he threw it out of the car window. :(

I can still remember how sad I was, watching thé tiny bird's life literally end in my hands...

(*sniffle*)

I saw an air ambulance the same afternoon and it got me to thinking: why are animals less important to us than humans? We couldn't survive without them and in the end they were here first.

Losing faith in humanity :(

Animals are less important because most people identify themselves less with animals. If we all were to feel as sorry for dying animals as for dying humans there'd be trauma helicopters for animals as well.

As for them being here first, that's not entirely true, depending on which species. And due to evolution it's kinda hard to point an exact time anyway. But that's technicalities ;)

I remember that I had to kill my rat, because it was literally screaming of the pain, cancer in somewhat 3/4 places.. So I took a plastic bag and put my rat in that bag, then I went to the gascooker or (whatever you call that) and put my rat to sleep..

then I buried him in the backyard, weird thing was, I didnt feel sad or something, just relieved

Heh...
'Tis kinda strange. If I find some dead animal I don't cry, I just ignore it. May sound mean to you, but animals doesnt really matter to me. I have never had any pets, except some fish, cuz my dad is allergic. Maybe thats why I don't feel sorry for animals that are dead or in pain.
I don't know.
Past days, I've come to know that I am quite mean, at least inside.
I see my friends cry when they find a dead bird run over by a car, but I don't feel a ****.

I don't think that example shows that you're mean, Eilonwy, just that you save your deeper emotions for something you have an actual connection to. There's a big difference for me between the death of a family's pet and that of some wild creature.

What bugged me about Mortensen's situation isn't the animal's death, it's the callous treatment both it and she received in trying to do the right thing.