Well, this is a little embarrassing.
1. My cat was not being her usual playful self. She was just lying around, and I thought her nips were a tad bigger. So I rushed her to the vet... And I got scared when I heard the vet saying "Uh-oh."
Turns out that she just had a case of kittens-in-her-uterus-itis. And because she was an indoor cat, terrified of going outside, we know who was the culprit: My mother's 6 or 7-month-old kitten. We thought he was still too young to be a father! At least they were fantastic parents, the kittens were born healthy and strong and Taro (the dad) got snipped 4 days before birth, so no more being a teenage dad.
2. My snake had a large lump in his stomach and I took him into the vet because I was afraid he had a tumour or had eaten something too large to ingest. The vet took his x-rays and we were shocked to see that it was actually just constipation. Poor little guy!
Anonymous
3. My 8lb Maltese, Wilson, stopped going out the dog door. He would stand in front of it and whine until I opened the door for him to go out. I was worried something on his face hurt- since he has to use his little snout to push through the door, or maybe his leg was hurting, or he had a UTI. So I took him to the vet, she checked him for everything- no infection, his teeth were fine, no sinus infection, no signs of a hurt leg. When I mentioned that for the first 10 years of his life we lived in Canada, and didn't have a doggy door, but he had picked it up pretty quick when we moved to Texas. She just looked at me and said "Yeah, I think he is older and a bit stubborn, and he has decided he just doesn't want to do it anymore". I think she is right, because I KNOW he is going out when I am not home, and if I leave him out longer than he wants, he comes in on his own. So I took him to the vet and paid for blood work and a few other things because he is a spoiled stubborn brat.
4. My boyfriend and I were sitting on the floor watching our pet rats run around. As my boyfriend put his hand down on the floor to stand up, our crazy, hyper Flower rat ran straight under his hand. He accidentally (Continued)
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squished her back leg. That led to a vet visit, gassing Flower so she would lie still for the x-ray, confirmed broken ankle, painkillers, anti-biotics and bed rest. Did I mention she's incredibly hyper? The bed-rest did not go down well..... Flower is now back to her usual bouncy self and you wouldn't know she ever broke her leg unless you look closely at her wonky foot. The silly rat has not learned her lesson and still tries to dash under human hands and feet.
5. My basset hound, Lucy, ate about 3/4 of a chocolate cake. We'd left it on the counter overnight, thinking it was pushed far enough back. It was a LARGE cake with only about 4 or 5 pieces gone. When we came down in the morning, Lucy had somehow gotten to the cake & eaten as much of it as she could. Then she pooped & threw up all over the kitchen. We took her to the vet & she ended up having pancreatitis. She had to stay overnight for 2 nights.
This dog also ate a bonsai Christmas tree...
6. My cat killed a bat. My family only let her out on our second story deck, and we accidentally left her out all night once. The next morning she presented us with a bat corpse, and we had to take her in to get a rabies shot and get tested.
She hadn't been vaccinated in years and thankfully did not get rabies, and the vet said Panther must have been one hell of a hunter for being able to take a perfectly healthy bat right out of the sky.
7. My boxer ATE a rag before. A dirty rag, that had been soaked in bleach for cleaning. We didn't recognize it at first. He started gagging and throwing up later. He puked up the rag on our carpet at home and we thought it was his intestines coming out. Packed everything, ran to the vet, many hours later returned home with a health A-OK pupper... and a nice large white bleached out spot on our carpet. At the time the carpet was a dark green. There's no hiding that.
8. My dumb dog got a stick wedged against the roof of his mouth, but didn't act like anything was wrong for an entire week. When I realized it was there he wouldn't let me touch it, so I had to take him in to (Continued)
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get it pried out and check for infection. That stick was one of the worst smells to ever grace my nostrils.
9. My father's cat started screaming and wouldn't stop - my mother phoned me to tell me the cat was probably having a heart attack or something, so I drove over, picked them both up, and drove both the screaming cat and my screaming mother to the emergency 24 hour vet, barely avoiding a speeding ticket. They rushed him in and put him on oxygen.
Turned out the cat was having a panic attack. Which cost us $1,800.
Deep breath. A panic attack. $1,800. Good thing we all loved that bloody animal... or we'd have given him something to panic about!
10. My idiot cat fell out of the window of an old second story apartment - twice. Turns out the moron likes leaning on the screen of open windows and doesn't seem to get the concept of gravity. Luckily the screens of every other place we've lived since have been much stronger, because my little genius still does it.
(He's fine, btw. Might've done a little damage the second time, but not enough to stop him from leaping around to every conceivable surface.)
11. My middle cat stole and ate a whole steak when my back was turned. (Yes, a whole steak. She has serious middle child syndrome.) She was lethargic for two days before I finally thought maybe she wasn't just in a food coma, and took her to the vets.
The vet did loads of tests, shaved a hella cool patch in her neck, then said she was fine! When my boyfriend went to pick her up, she'd tortured the nurses so much they made him go into the back room to get her. He said she'd never looked so pleased to see him!
It cost me 360, two weeks after Christmas, but at least she got a tendy hipster haircut that she sported proudly for a couple of months!
12. I had to take my rabbit to the out of hours vet because she wasn't eating, just as the vet called us into the room she actually (Continued)
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started munching on the hay in her carrier. It cost 120 to tell the vet my rabbit is eating again.
13. I was peeing with the door open (dude) and my bunny came hopping in the room. I said hello and such. Bunny looked at my pee stream and before i knew it she jumped into the toilet bowl. Such horror as she was sitting in there chest deep in gross toilet pee water and getting splattered with fresh pee still as i didnt have enough time to stop the hose without hitting her stupid dumb face with my stupid dumb wiener pee.
14. I use to have this Jack Russel named Kelsie. Most bad ass dog on the planet. Herded horses into stables for my aunt, once had a 3 day battle with the BIGGEST POSSUM YOU HAVE EVER SEEN and came out bloodied and victorious. And then there was the great fire of '97. My aunt's house caught fire one evening and we ran over as soon as we heard, bringing Kelsie with us of course. We got there right as the fire department was hooking up their hose. Now I'm sure many of you out there have dogs who love playing with the hose water. Something about the pressured water comin out just drives 'em nuts. And Kelsie isn't your average terrier, he's got balls of steel.
So when the firemen unleashed the geyser from the hose there was no force on Earth or otherwise which could hold him. He tore off and leaping went face first, teeth bared, into this super stream of water, and was subsequently blown against the wall of the house with a thud similar to Atlas adjusting his scrotum. Everyone was terrified, some people laughing. But then something no one expected happened. Out of the bushes came Kelsie, barking as enthusiastically as ever, and jumped back into the stream. As you can imagine, the result was identical. Kelsie's spirit was unbreakable, however. He managed SIX more attacks on his liquid enemy before we were able to corral him. The next day at the vet his x ray showed 2 fractured ribs and some minor internal bleeding, but you would never have guessed it from his disposition. I played with that dog and the hose every day for 5 more years.
15. I came home from work and my lab/shepherd had eaten an entire dura flame log. Had to take to the vet to induce vomiting. Cost $108. Stupid dog.
16. Vet here. One time a lady brought her dog in, thing was pooping/pissing blood, was lethargic, screamed when you touched it's stomach, etc. She said this had started about a day ago and had swiftly gotten worse.
After a quick talk about the dogs daily routines we were shocked to learn that (Continued)
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since SHE takes an aspirin a day for HER heart and well being, she decided that the dog should do the same. This was not a large dog, an aspirin a day was at least 4-6x the maximum dose for a dog of that size, and no dog of any size should be on aspirin for more than 1-2 weeks (and vets very,very rarely ok aspirin use for dogs anyway.) This had been going on for months. The poor dog's liver and kidneys were completely shot and it's other systems were in cascading failure. Dog had to be put down.
17. (Friend is a vet not me) Had a guy ask for an autopsy. Weird but whatever they can try and find cause of death. Guy goes to his car and brings back an urn of ashes.
Had a very awkward conversion explaining you can't learn anything from ashes.
As soon as he was outside one of the techs chimed in "it looked to me like the dog burned to death"
18. A surprising amount of owners assumed all medication was administered rectally.
Also, one of the people we had in said, "My cat can read my thoughts and I don't want her to know if she is sick so please don't say anything during the exam. Pretend we are old pals and I will call you later"
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19. I worked for a vet. A lady came in with a beautiful silver persian cat. She wanted it put down because it didn't match her new furniture. The vet offered to find her a new home. Which he thankfully did.
20. My boy's tail was just hanging there limp and lifeless. Took him to the vet and they said he had strained his tail muscles so couldn't move it. There is nothing sadder than a labrador that can't wag its tail, fortunately he's back to his waggly self now.
21. One time I brought my dog into the vet because she was doing this weird thing where she would sit outside the door to our bedroom, put her paw between her back legs, and rattle around on the floor for like 30 minutes. We were concerned that she had worms or maybe a rash that we somehow couldn't see that was irritating her. The following was the conversation:
Vet: So, your dog is putting it's paw between it's legs and doing what?
Me: Like, moving it around.
Vet: Like rubbing it's genital area.
Me: Yeah, exactly. I figured maybe it was worms or something?
Vet: I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your dog is masturbating.
Me: What? Do dogs even do that?
Vet: Yes, many dogs do.
Me: But she's just watching us in bed at night.
Vet: I hate to be the one to tell you this, but everyone has their "thing." Unfortunately, your dog's "thing" is, well, you.
Then my vet laughed and explained that actually some animals do that when they feel like they're being neglected. We had a good laugh about it. We started sleeping with the door closed after that.
Life is full of shock and surprise.
Apparently, that is part of the fun.
Who hasn't been left stunned by life events?
We always think we're immune to way too many things.
Anything and everything is possible.
It's important to be ready.
Redditor Bob_the_peasant wanted to hear about the things that have left people SHOOK, so they asked:
"What 'That can’t happen to me' thing happened to you?'"
I haven't been left that shocked that often.
I'm always expecting the worst, so I'm prepared.
But you never know.
I'm Dead
Snakes Imacelebau GIF by I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! AustraliaGiphy"A snake fell out of a tree and bit me on the head."
"ETA: I have always been more scared of snakes than anyone I know, so it’s just so ironic that this happened to me of all people."
amanitachill
Crash Into Me
"A car crashed through my kitchen last year."
aster636
"I woke up to a truck parking in my bathtub 2 weeks before Christmas a few years ago. I watched my sink roll past my bedroom door followed by a hubcap. The driver managed to cross a median, 3-lane road, up an embankment, through an iron fence and between trees. He'd been involved in an altercation nearby and was fleeing the scene."
anjie59k
Hot Air
Swinging Hot Air Balloon GIF by Red BullGiphy"My family and I were in a hot air balloon crash."
GymDoll2000
"My friend had one crash into her pool when she was a kid."
Environmental-Car481
This is why hot air balloons and skydiving are just a HELL no for me.
Always have. Always will.
Tragic
Cat No GIF by Looney TunesGiphy"My wife cheated on me with my best friend. They’re moving in together next month. I’m in a new city thousands of miles away. I found out a month ago."
Tssodie
Bad Penguin
"Everyone else’s stories are very sad so here’s something a bit lighter. I’ve mentioned this story before but I got bitten on the neck by a penguin."
"I was at an event where the local zoo had a penguin and owl sitting on tables with handlers so you could take a picture next to them. The penguin went for my glass of wine, I moved the wine, and it bit me on the neck hard enough to bruise. They removed the penguin after that. 😂."
archaeologistbarbie
All Gone
"Our house burned in a wildfire, we lost absolutely everything we owned and only salvaged a single coffee 3 cup."
"On the good side: There was a boy I crushed on all through high school. We went to summer camp together and I adored him. We ended up getting together in our 20s after reconnecting, and have now been together more than 20 years, married almost 17. We’re as madly in love as ever."
toomuchisjustenough
Good Luck
"Homelessness. It came swiftly and out of nowhere. had no savings and the landlord sold the house I was in. couldn’t afford a new place so lived in my car with my dog for a few months. ended up finding community assistance and got into an apartment."
jumbospicyslimjim
"I can’t even imagine being in that situation. Hopefully, this is just the start of things turning around for you. Sending you good energy!"
frappbarqueen
Early Michael Myers
"About 10 years ago, I was stabbed in the arm with a flathead screwdriver. It was a coworker whom I had previously gotten along well with. He had stopped taking benzos and smoking weed a few days before and was on a hair trigger. I said something sarcastic, and he just snapped."
Mr_Spaghetti_Hands
Bad Landing
Bad Day Seagull GIF by Sound FXGiphy"I was lying on the beach and a seagull flying very high took a poop and it went straight in my mouth."
Competitive_Show6205
This is why I say... "Never trust a seagull!"
They are minions of the devil.
