Sad but true :(

La gente irresponsable no debería tener mascotas.

Punto.

Yyyyyyup. That always makes me really sad.

If you want me to watch your cute raccoon videos, you'd better be a knowledgeable wildlife conservation specialist providing proper care to a creature in need.

YES. THIS.

Pretty much every meme compilation I watch has a pet raccoon or some other animal. It’s flat out irresponsible, since they only think so far as “aw cute raccoon” and not realize it’s a wild animal. A stinky, territorial, messy wild animal. Can’t imagine the amount of flooded animal sanctuaries there’s gonna be in the future. Or god forbid poor animals being released into the wild or euthanized..

SORRY FOR THE RAMBLE IT JUST MAKES ME ANGY

I've been told raccoons do tend to put on a lot of weight for winter, but honestly it still seems excessive.

It's worse when it's an animal that people try to insist is healthy at such a state; I'm a reptile guy and the number of overweight pythons and boas I see is obscene, and no one wants to admit they've overfed their animal...but they look so much nicer when they've got the correct build!

That is so common in the reptile world. And it leads new reptile keepers who trust the established "experts" to have a very distorted view of what a healthy weight is for their animals, and continues the cycle.

My people.

I hope the people who do this cease to exist

It's so disheartening.

Agreed. Very sad for the animal.

It's quite sickening. I also see lots of people putting exotic pets like reptiles and amphibians in horrid, sometimes even dangerous situations while people laugh, simply due to antropomorphizing and projecting onto the animal instead of learning its own language for suffering. One of the reasons I had to uninstall IG i almost got zucced multiple times commenting on these. Thank you for speaking up on it.

Ironically, my late mother's former neighbors had a fat cat who lived to be 13. Yet he didn't even eat very much, and was agile enough to do a lot of tree climbing and jumping on top of car hoods.

A huge number of people do not care about the animal, its health, mood, training, etc. Many are looking for popularity, no matter how it harms the animal, and even if it dies, they will just buy a new one...

For example, in Russia a very large number of people buy exotic animals, and almost no one knows and does not want to know how to take care of him, how to feed him, how to communicate.

They often began to buy foxes, and if from fur farms - it would be good... so the animal could get a good life, instead of a terrible death, but no, people pay breeders who treat animals in exactly the same way and earn while increasing production... On a fur farm, foxes cost $120 and breeders sell for $200+, and for people it's not much, and if an animal dies, they just go and buy a new one...

The same applies to reptiles, amphibians, wild cats and dogs, etc. Buying a purebred dog costs more than buying such an animal, from $1,000 per puppy, but even considering this price, people buy animals and throw them into the forest or euthanize them when they or their children play enough and get bored.

And there are still people who do not understand that an animal bred or raised in captivity cannot survive in the wild, and they begin to harm normal owners, trying with all their might to take away the animal, in a legal way and not. Some even deliberately throw things, adjust situations, inject all kinds of drugs into animals, just to do what they want, even if it hurts the animal or results in its death.

Any animal needs education, training, in the wild it is given to them by their parents, in captivity it must be given by people, i.e. - socialize among people and animals, teach what is right and wean it from what is wrong, etc.

People are sick... It's sad

Yes, this, this, this! Gosh, it hurts so much to see people being happy with clearly overfeeding their pets.