Tragic Pet Deaths

"Today we gather together to celebrate the life of..." Death is one of the few certain things in life. Ironically it is a personal favorite of man-kind to try to fight and/or ignore. It seems our own mortality (especially those who are lacking the promise of eternal life) makes people very uncomfortable.

Now many of us will experience death prior to our own. Family members, friends, acquaintances, and of course beloved pets remind us of our own demise.

It is even a greater struggle when these deaths are a direct result of our actions.

My beta fish, Samson, died a tragic death in an unfortunate incident with a garbage disposal. I was replacing part of his water, a traditional method of bowl maintenance between cleanings. I was pouring it into the sink/garbage disposal my hand slipped a bit. Before I knew it, he had followed the current directly out of his bowl.

I tried in vain to retrieve him but my efforts were futile. To insure he wasn't just sitting at the bottom, I flipped the disposal on and my fish met his untimely death.

Another tragic story is when my husband's grandmother was cleaning out her canary cage. Birds can be awfully messy. Grandma decided that vacuuming out the bottom of the cage would be the most efficient least disgusting way to clean out the cage.

Well one thing lead to another and the poor little canary was sucked right into the vacuum cleaner. They quickly shut it off and opened the bag. The bird was dusty but still alive. He sadly though died the next day as a result of the trauma. It truly sucked the life out of him.

Nothing like the tragic deaths of our pets to remind us of our own mortality.