I can't think of the word, but it just bugs me. I've lost two animals since the beginning of December and I'm the only person that seems to really care. (other than my fiance who has always been there for me and my animals.)

Late November, my bearded dragon juvenille became impacted due to a walnut substrate that my mom insisted on using, despite my warnings and recommendation to use something else. For two weeks I worked on that lizard, trying everything I knew to get him through it all. I gave him warm baths every few hours to coax the shells through him, gentle belly rubs. $130 in vet bills, constant monitering, giving him oil, feeding him water out of a syringe. I did EVERTHING, and it was her fault. Never once did she fess up or say she was sorry. That lizard died on December 5th, 2006. When I called my mom she was so unsympathetic. She even went as far as to say "It was just a lizard." The vet was nice enough to not charge me for the surgery since she knew I had been working so hard on this lizard.

When I got Monkey, a fuzzy/hopper mouse for Zim, I got attached and upgraded it to pet status and began feeding it by hand and caring for it. During the whole time I was caring for this baby and treating it as equally as any of my other pets, people kept telling me to feed it to my snake. I'm like "Its my pet now. Would you feed your dog to another animal, no! And that's how I feel about Monkey." One person went as far as to say. "Well that's what mice are for, for snakes to eat." Did they ever once consider that a snake owner could have a mouse as a pet. Monkey died yesterday, and people didn't even seem to care.

Am I the only one who ever feels grief when an animal dies. I treat my animals as I would any human and love and care for them as I would any person. And when I have trouble with an animal or one of my animals dies, people just brush it off as just another 'pet' died. Big deal, right? Its only people on here and on the other pet forums that really know how I feel when these two animals died.

Sorry for the rant. I needed somewhere to vent.