Turbohot

Basically, I was on my usual walk in the break a couple of weeks ago, and some adolescents stopped me and propped up this question to me:

Imagine (just imagine, even if you never have/had/will have either of them as your pet) you have a pet snake and a pet rat. Your pet rat dies one day. Now, would you feed the pet rat's body to your pet snake?

My immediate answer was 'Yes'. There was some dissatisfaction around my answer from just one person in the group, so it made me thinking.

What do you guys (and if another lady is knocking about) think?

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

Yep, feed the dead rat to the snake.
If you are of a particularly sensitive or sentimental nature you could console yourself with the thought that the rat lives on as part of the snake.

dpb

Well saves on snake food I guess

why anyone want keep one goodness only knows

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

Depends what the rat died of, if it was a heart attack at seeing the snake then **** the snake this could be your only opportunity to find out what nice clean well fed rat tastes like, spit roast rodent yummy.

neil-h

Granted it's been a while since I've been up that way but i didn't realise north Wales had gotten that strange.

Turbohot

Would you apply same thought to the cat and dog scenario, or will your thought be a different one? Would you feed your dead cat to the dog? Please note that in this imaginary scenario, the cat dies of natural death or in an accident with something else, not poisoned or killed by the dog.

dpb

http://halfmanhalfbiscuit.uk/trouble...h-on-our-side/

Turbohot

Thought provoking question, I thought. Children/adolescents shouldn't be just seen but heard, too. Better snake-rat debate among them than debating which bird to sh@g next and what corner to hang out at, for a toke of dope while skidding around senselessly on their skate boards with a can of value cherryade from lidl in their hand each.

neil-h

Just struck me as being incredibly random.

On the note of random questions. What would you rather be attacked by, 1 horse sized duck or 10 duck sized horses?

dpb

your dag wouldn't want to eat the cat unless it was REALLY hungry , youd have to prepared it for him

whereas the rat , just chuck it in there, jobs a goodun

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

Do you regard a cat as a part of the natural diet of a dog?
Hardly the same thing as rat/snake is it?

Turbohot

Oh, definitely. I felt it was random too, but I found it sensible with that.

Now, to answer your question, I'd rather be attacked by 1 horse size duck, to be honest. I say that because I could either ride a horse size duck in defence or run off from between its magnified feet but 10 duck size horses would be trampling all over me from every direction, and I will get well leathered by them. It's slightly similar to the analogy of being totalled by one lion and ten Anopheles mosquitos. You have better chance of escaping your agony with one lion than you would, with ten mosquitos. Ten mosquitoes will bite you something chronic and give you slow death like malaria whereas a lion will just kill you and end all your agony quite sharpish.

Turbohot

No.

Natural diet isn't so much of a question here, Blue by You. The question is your emotional attachment with your pet. Cat isn't a natural diet to the dog, we all know that, but it's a natural prey to it. Yes, they may become friends in many instances, but that's not the point. Imagine both are your pets, but they don't get on with each other. Now would you chuck the dead body of your cat to your dog to rip it apart, as it may toy with it, if not naturally consume it to satisfy its hunger?

Ok, if cat and dog analogy isn't so suitable, think of a goat and a lion as your pets and apply the situation to that scene.

I think this one will be difficult as goat and lion as pets isn't really that common, is it.

Ok, think of a pet budgie and a pet cat scenario in your own context and apply the situation to that.

dpb

I reckon this blokes parents kept the rats to feed the snake

Turbohot

In that ^ case, there wouldn't be any dilemma.

In the scenario I am talking, the pet rat isn't kept as the food for the pet snake. It's kept as another loving pet.

yabbadoo4

iTrader: (8)

either scenario works, bury it and it returns to the earth to nurture it. feed it to the snake and it gives sustenance to the snake who in turn dies and returns to the earth to also nurture the soil. unless a predator eats the snake in which case the snake supplys sustenance to the predator of the snake, who in turn dies and returns to the earth to nurture it, unless.........you get the idea lol. as a side note when the snake dies skin it and you can make some nice snakeskin shoes, or a handbag in your case

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Trampling all over you? Are you staked-down and tied to the ground in this scenario, or are you a bona fide real-life Lilliputian?

JTaylor

Is this a real thread or am I having a flashback?

Turbohot

Even in the cases other than that, I personally would find it difficult to fight off 10 duck size horses. What about you? Are you going to input with what you would do in such random scenarios or just pick a hole in other people's posts in your usual insipid, back-and-white ways?

Turbohot

What do you mean? Explain!

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

I thought it was a plausible, if somewhat bizarre, topic at first with two fairly simple and equally rational answers; practicality vs sentimentality.
But now I'm not so sure, squeak hiss whinney cluck - GET DOWN!

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Watching Attenborough in Tibet last night, some Buddhists up there actually take their dead and leave them on the mountaintop for the vultures. Pics of the place were rather disturbing.......

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

Don't be worried, I'm sure you have a few more years on here left yet

Turbohot

dpb

Really as gruesome as setting your loved one adrift down the Ganges on a few twigs ?

Turbohot

That's a collectively agreed, organised, well-thought and practical thought by the Buddhists. If the pics of that kind disturbed you so much, I'm wondering what you'd do with your loved but a dead pet rat. Would you feed it to your loved pet snake or what?

And yes, it's still the practicality vs sentimentality in question.

I forgot to say that I did give the example to the objecting (to my 'yes') lad of what's happening in Syria/Madaya right now. I told him that people are leaving their sentimentality behind as they have no choice, and are having to eat their pet dogs and pet cats to survive. But the kid wasn't convinced. he said he was talking about the regular setting here in the UK, not the current desperate setting in Syria.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Plus I'm not Buddhist, nor do I live in Tibet

The worst thing was that the dead are carried up wrapped in long cloths, and LEFT WRAPPED, so that there were scraps of rags all over the place. Looked like an explosion in a cemetery. I suppose it suits them, but.......

Turbohot

Last year, my English traveller daughter witnessed these scenes on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi. She said that it was something very deeply explanatory to her, in terms of what us living beings are; with our mortal bodies.

I'm still not so sure whether she'd feel her pet rat to her pet snake, though. She's away on her travels again, so can't ask her of her views on this.

I, from a distance, once saw a Hindu dead body burning on a pyre in Guyana. It was long after I had started to live in the UK. It was a traumatic site. I had lost my father only a few years prior to that, so watching the aftermath of a human body brought that up for me, and made me very sad.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Now you put it that way, you're probably right, I wouldn't stand a chance. At least not if they're anywhere near the size of mine


ps
My earlier comment was meant in jest, sorry for forgetting the smiley

Turbohot

Hey, your guess was still right, though. I'd pass for a Lilliputian at a pathetic 5'2" meself, Mark.