I had a pet shrew and my father was going to check hir while I was gone housesitting for three weeks, my father abandoned the shrew to die of neglect (Ran out of water).

My water pans probably held a weeks' worth of water and probably after that ran out, the animal died of dehydration and was left to rot in the tank.

If my animal died of an accident or natural death, I would be sad but an act of delibrate cruelty just has made me very upset/. I mean for crying out loud, he could have told me over the phone that he had no time to check on the animal instead of neglecting the animal to die.

To make things worse, my father is acting like nothing has happened even coming over to my reeking of dead animal appartment and asking me out to lunch.
I said I did not want talk about it (Because I knew I was going to explode with rage so I wanted to wait untill I had calmed down).
Then coming back twice again pretending nothing happened.

That is so awful! I am so sorry for you loss.....I would have a very difficult time forgiving anyone who could
let a beloved pet of mine perish like that....

Oh my gosh! That is just SO sad!
Your poor furbaby! I am so sorry. You are right, trying to deal with this is harder when it is a case of neglect.
I don't think I would ever be able to forgive someone that could be that insensitive and cruel to a living animal

Cheri

Have you talked to your father about this? Could there have been a miscommunication? I am so sorry for your loss.

What a horrible experience. I hope that there was some misunderstanding on your father's part. However, it is a terrible truth that not all people value animals. I happen to be a vegan but most people eat animals of some sort, and don't think of them as individuals.

I believe that the best thing I can do in honor of your shrew and all animals is to try to make people aware that animals have the right not to suffer. I promise I will continue to do so.

I'm so sorry for your loss, Karen

I am so sorry that your little one was not fed, watered, and cared for while you had to be away. I am sorry that it was your dad that did not take care of the shrew. That is terrible that he did not even say he was sorry and acted like nothing happened.

Shame on your dad for letting you down and his actions or lack of them that led the shrew to his or her death. The little shrew's death was senseless if only your dad had just spent a few minutes caring for it's daily needs.

Everytime I hear about abuse it makes me very angry and it makes me sad to think that people have so little regard to precious life. I am talking about all the cruel people in this world who make any living being suffer.

Sometimes I wish they would make all people of any age take a course in caring for animals before they were allowed to get and keep them. No one (humans) nor any living thing should be unloved, unwanted, and uncared for.

There should be strickter laws that would make each person accountable for their actions perhaps then we would have less abuse. I know that accidents do happen when an animal slips out of the house or out of your sight for a few minutes, gets stepped on, or flies out the door, stuff like that.

But to let anyone starve to death of both water and food is unforgivable. This kind of painful death could have been prevented. Most of us here are all so desperate to see, hold, touch, hear, kiss and look into our babies eyes one more time. Most of us would do anything, give anything to have them back whole and well with us. I did not mean to carry on and on but I am a survivor of abuse I couldn't help myself when I was a child. But I have plenty to say about neglect whether it is about a human or an animal.
Ann