A grim QOTW
jeez. only read a couple of pages. the poor wee creatures...

ive got the direct opposite. intentional but ultimately un-cruel.
we had a mad as a box of frogs mut named ben. i loved him, the rest of the family hated him, especially mum. my elder sister devised a game in which i would happily join. we would play it regularly: lets kill ben. as small kids, our efforts were ultimately pretty harmless. the most fun one i can recall was making him an afternoon snack: the most lethal brew we could devise. made from water, dirt and some berries we had been told were poisonous. we truly believed that his time was at an end. he licked at our concoction briefly before ambling off to dig another hole or poo where he shouldnt. i can recall my mix of joy and disappointment to find him stubbornly alive later that day. Rather than reason that perhaps mum had lied about the toxic nature of the berries in a bid to stop us from playing with them, for us it was clear that ben was in fact indestructible and on that basis we stopped trying to kill him shortly after. though no cruelty was inflicted by us, the intention was there. a year or two later mum got her way and the vet proved our theory wrong. but i doubt he used squashed berries. so poor ben. in the end there was an unintentional cruelty, all too common. the cruelty of people who buy pets they dont want. mums whim cost the mut his life.
(lazy killer robot found that beer tastes better when your older, Mon 10 Dec 2007, 3:02, Reply)