/ot/ - Off-topic

Here's a cat

Here's my pet wasp :^)

>>17206
Here's my pet shoe.

>>17206
Cute

>>17207
also cute

Many years ago, in the middle of the night, I went into a small toy shop on the corner of a street and in an inconspicuous corner saw this strange box covered in cartoons talking about, "genetically engineered frogs". Basically you could order from some company frogs that have supposedly been genetically engineered to only live in water. I ordered one in the summer out of curiosity and finally got the thing in my mail during a windy, winter night. I freaked out because I thought the thing was dead on account of it being freezing outside, but when I got inside, opened the box and put the tadpole in some water it was strangely totally fine(this makes a lot more sense in retrospect). So the thing grew like a frog normally would, losing its tail, sprouting legs, getting bigger, etc. but like the advertising said it never left the water. After around half a year it got big enough to need a new tank, which I got from the same company, and it came with a new frog so that was like an added bonus. The new frog was already fully grown and bigger than the one I already had so I had to keep them separated. I put the old frog in a slightly bigger tank that I made myself out of a large, plastic cookie package. A couple months later the first frog dies. Apparently the makeshift tank I made didn't let in enough air and the poor thing suffocated in the middle of the night. I was sad that I wasn't sad about it. The new frog was fine so I guess I didn't really care too much. One day I ran out of the food that the company gave me (usually I remembered to order some more before this could happen) so I did some research to see if there was anything else I could give it… Turned out the whole thing was a hoax. The frogs I got weren't genetically engineered. In fact, they were actually an invasive species from Africa that wasn't even allowed in my state. The species of frog breeds like crazy, can eat anything, can live in ANY climate and lives for twenty five years. I was still in school at the time and a couple of months before I found out I asked some pimply, kind of pompous guy I knew about the frogs. Apparently he also ordered some and decided it was too much of a pain to clean their tank so they kept dying over and over and he kept ordering new ones for the hell of it. Male frogs of the species apparently constantly make loud noises during mating season so I was lucky to only get females. The company said that if you put two frogs together there was a, "very small chance", that they would breed(total bullshit) and that if it did happen the customer should just send the offspring to them to be, "re-located". There's also been a bunch of stories from customers about their frogs somehow escaping tanks and crawling all the way across the floor and up to a window before dying of dryness. What a cruel, horrible world.

>>17212
Holy shit, what a stupid scam. Was the “company” ever caught?

>>17212
That is one hilariously evil scam, it's actually pretty brilliant too. And I second >>17214, I'd like to know if this company went under or was found out. Do you remember the name of the company?

Ah, African Clawed Frogs. Sometimes mislabeled as African Dwarf Frogs. Aggressive, invasive, notoriously difficult to kill, ergo they make wonderful pets for lazy people.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=2490

Still legal in Ohio ;3

>>17219
sidenote: both African Clawed and African Dwarf frogs are fully aquatic species. They still need access to the surface to breath, however.

The companies called Grow A Frog. I used to buy food from them before switching to a cheaper alternative sold in a pet shop close to me. I remember the first purchase coming with this weird pamphlet with a sort of comic about how frogs, led by a frog called Gilly, came to land, got sick of being killed for food(by the french) and science, and went back into the water. I don't know what they're up to now, but their site's still up.

>>17223
They're literally promoting the spread of an invasive species under the false pretense of trying to, "save the earth".
"Our goal is simple. We want students and teachers to learn about amphibian declines 'hands - on' by actually caring for endangered species! We believe by distributing these frogs to as many classrooms as possible that together we quite literally can save a frog ( or two ) from extinction"

Here is a somewhat long story that might be more of a horror story for pet lovers.

Back in the 80s my parents had a cute brown mutt. She was smart and had a lovable charisma, a really easygoing type of dog. My parents cared for her immensely. She was always inside the house’s fenced property, only leaving when accompanied by one of the owners. So it was strange that one day, even though this precaution, no matter how much they’d call for her she wouldn’t come. They searched the whole house and garden but the dog was nowhere. They assumed she must have found a way out even though how unprovable it seemed to them. All the ways out of the property were closed, the fence was too big to jump, there were no evidences of escape efforts, and it was just out of the dog’s character to leave the house even if given the chance. She was well trained, knew she had to stay even if the doors were left open.

Despite my parents’ efforts, they didn’t found her or any clues of her whereabouts. None of the neighbours had seen her. No one of the neighbourhood had seen her. The dog just vanished. They were heartbroken. Didn’t had any more ideas about what to do.

Then one day, around a month after, a similar dog was seen wandering the street where they lived. But something seemed off. Still my parents wanted to clear any doubts, and it was indeed their dog, although their joy was overshadowed by how hard it was to believe to be the same animal. She was in an unbelievable messed up state, it just seemed like she had gone through some kind of hell and come back. All her fur was either missing or just some leftover dirty patches, skinny as if she hadn’t eaten for months, physical marks as if she had been through abuse, her body looked frail as if she could stop breathing any time. It seemed impossible to everyone that, in such a short time, the dog would end up like that. At least on its own.

What worried the most though were some strange marks on her body, especially a few clean and symmetrical small holes on her head. They didn’t seem organic, as with an animal bite. They appeared to have been done with an object.

They rushed to a vet and even though the doctors couldn’t come up with a good reason for her state, they did had one suspicion. They supposed she might have been victim to animal testing. They told my parents that in a neighbourhood not very far from where they lived there was a research facility (of what my parents don’t remember), and since its establishment there was a tendency for some pets occasionally disappearing from the surrounding neighbourhoods in similar situations as with my parents’ dog. Afterwards, some of the missing pets would reappear, usually in a state common to hers, better, or worst. She was lucky she was still alive.

It was known they tested on animals in their laboratories, but the circumstances were uncertain and everything was quite obscure, evidences couldn’t be traced to them, so everything rested on suspicions. My parents couldn’t do anything about it.

The dog’s condition wasn’t ever asserted. There was no way for the vets to completely know her condition, if she would survive, what tests were done on her, what symptoms she could suffer, and if she could pose a health threat or not. It was proposed to either accept the risk and take her back, or euthanize the dog. This last option was initially thought up to be the best, to just give the dog deserved rest from what she had gone through, but on a second thought my parents brought her back home. Despite being kidnapped, put through a horrifying situation and unimaginable suffering, and afterwards having barely any energy left on her, she still managed to find her way back home, to her family. My parents felt it was cruel to take from her the chance she had fought for.

But they couldn’t stay with her. They had young children, and considering the health risk scared them. They found someone, a lonely lady that accepted her even knowing her unfortunate misadventure and the uncertain risks that carried. The lady didn’t lived very far, and so once in a while they’d see her walking the dog, now fat and fluffy with all her fur again, peppy and joyful as if the whole event hadn’t ever happened.

My dog died a few weeks ago. He was so cute and fat and a big drama queen when I first met him. I only knew him for a year or two but he was really something else. I'm a Hikki/NEET so it really was nice having him around. I feel lonely now. He died because he was old so I'm not too sad over that, but he was suffering a lot his last month and especially his last few days.

He was a little dachshund and 13 or so years old. I'm glad he's finally at peace now. Pic related isn't him, I'd feel kinda weird posting that but this dog looks very similar. He made me really love dachshunds.

>>17237
i'm sorry for your loss, friend.

>>17237
Daschunds are truly bro-tier dogs. I'm sorry for your loss man.

Cats or Dogs?