If you’re going to shame them, nobody will want to bring you their neglected plants.
I’m an animal lover who has only worked retail for the last 8 years… I can kind of understand why they’d want to shame them. Because first there’s the obvious:
A) You should not have adopted a
petliving being if you weren’t absolutely sure you could ensure it’s well-being along the way. (btw I’m realizing the analogy between plant and animal is only so perfect)And B) Now they have to deal with it. Not only that, but they know that the person returning that living being knows that they’re perpetuating a very dark problem in our society.
I’ve never worked with animals professionally, but I do have very strong feelings on the matter… I think recognizing that they fucked up and still bringing the living being to someone who can take care of them is commendable, but they still deserve to be shamed. Because while it will extend their life and give them another chance to have a life, they still catastrophically failed that being in a way that’s just sad, and there’s no way around that.
I have worked for a rescue charity and though you want to shame them, it’s really not a good idea as they were usually trying to do the best for their animal under difficult circumstances. Though sometimes animals would be_returned_ to us after being adopted for dumb reasons so I think those people did deserve some shame but the ones just trying navigate a bad hand, I didn’t feel too bad about. Life can be tough and unpredictable.
The ones who would just tie their dogs to the gate and drive off though, those people deserve plenty of shame.
I had to take some birds to a rescue years ago. I’m incredibly thnkful that lady was doing what she was doing.
I did not choose to adopt/purchase them. My mother did, then did nothing with them for years, then she died and I ended up with a pair of 7-ish-year-old unhandleable conures. Screamy birds. I get headaches daily, migraines weekly.
I cared for them for several years, got them sort of handleable, but I couldn’t deal with them for another 25 years.
That isn’t unique, people inherit animals all the time that they didn’t plan for, or their life situation changes drastically. Be careful with that shaming. People who don’t deserve it will catch strays (bullets, not pets)
I’m a wildlife rescue volunteer and we have to bite our tongues a lot. Many injuries are due to loose pets or people’s crap they leave out that ensnares/traps/smacks wildlife. We also get people that try to treat animals they don’t understand the needs of and will make them sicker or unsaveable when they could have brought them directly to us to save them.
We can’t scold people no matter how accidentally or purposefully they hurt wildlife because then people will either leave them outside to die a prolonged death or keep them themselves and they will die or have terrible health problems and live miserable lives. We only let people trained to properly receive patients talk to the people that come in.
We also get some plain insane people that will be kinda scary to the almost exclusively female staff, and we are fairly secluded.
Jesus this is such an oversimplification and also just fucking bullshit.
We had to surrender my dog for behavior issues. But if anyone say we didnt try everything in our power, id fight you over it.
We spent thousands of dollars on personal training, we had our trainer reach out to other trainers, we had vet appointment after vet appointment. We tried working half days so we could be home with him, we tried anxiety medicine, we tried relaxation diffusors, and probably more things i cant even think of. We tried for more than 2 years with that dog, but the stress and anxienty my family felt almost ended my marriage.
We tried to rehome him to friends, we tried to rehome him on social media thru friends. Ultimately we had to surrender him. He needed to be an outside dog and we simply couldnt accommodate that.
I cried like a baby when i surrendered him, and im a 40 year old man.
Get fucked.
Thankyou! I was bristling too. Sometimes you have to give up a pet despite caring madly about them. I myself am soon giving up a parrot, because I’m finally ready to admit that my disability is preventing me from looking after him properly, and his new home will be among many more parrots and two keen and energetic parrot keepers. He will almost certainly be happier there.
It sounds like both partners went to work full time during the day. While some dogs can tolerate that, none thrive with it. I hate that it’s socially acceptable to put a dog in that environment. It’s not entirely your fault that you were mislead into thinking that’s an OK situation before you got the dog since it’s so normalized.
Since editing crashes my client after the last update:
I know I’m giving a very serious reply to what was probably a joke comment, but I have a lot of feelings on this topic and needed an excuse to get them out lol.
I respect that you’re very passionate about animal welfare. So this is not a critique. Surrendering an animal out of pure convenience is extremely shitty and the people that do that deserve judgement.
That said:
Sometimes, shit happens. An animal you’ve loved and cared for deeply is no longer going to receive the same care, or is in an unsafe environment for whatever reason. Maybe there’s an unexpected health issue. Maybe work suddenly requires a lot more travel. Maybe a newborn has come and the animal and the baby can’t coexist, either due to allergies or temperament.
I’m not saying every surrendered animal is a legit sob story, but many of them will be.
Unrelated to the thread, but I had the same crashing issue. I went to play store and manually updated to 1.88.2 and the crashing stopped. For some treason it had only uprated to 1.88.1.
You know, absolutely everything you wrote is spot on, zeroed right on the mark correct, as far as I’m concerned. Absolutely explains “why they’d want to shame them”. Truly, you translated human nature into the comment very well.
But…human nature is…well.
All that you wrote is what someone who is looking to make someone face and own their decisions and the consequences of their actions should do. But the reason why the poster you commented on is correct, is because the shopkeeper in the comic, by their own signage, isn’t someone who is looking to merely chastise to engender better behavior.
The other half, is actually dealing with those consequences. As you noted, the person who chose poorly has invited their consequences upon another living being, whether through willful action or unfortunate circumstance, doesn’t matter.
The person will need to learn, but the living being who is not the person, is actively enduring those consequences. The reason why they let you drop off babies at fire fighter stations without making you have to go in and sign a form, is because unrestricted absolution leads to more babies being saved.
When a person has an out, out of a problematic situation that they can utilize without furthering worsening their situation, they will take it. Note that I said without worsening, the sting of the original problem always remains as hook enough for self improvement. A person will have to eventually step up to fix themselves or they should be stopped, and discouraged, yes.
But if someone else is choosing to instead, rescue or protect or rehabilitate the collateral victims of the consequences of another’s actions, the most effective course is to focus solely on that which they seek to save, as the person who did the damage is not their responsibility and engaging poorly there, would result in less saving of that which they would protect.
I think the analogy of animal and plant is exactly what the comic was evoking. I think the problem with shaming is that people may decide to not bring their animal here because they don’t want to be shamed, which ends up being worse for the animal. So if the store truly cares about the well being of the animal (or plant), they shouldn’t shame so it encourages people to do the right thing.
They’re so confusing though😭 If I give them love and attention, they get root rot from overwatering. If I ignore them they’re happy half the time or they die without any warning! What do they want😭
They want different conditions. Soil, drainage, light, humidity, temperature, there’s loads of things plants care about other than “water yes/no”. Look at the plants that have succeeded and find things with similar requirements.
Best tip I can give is to get plants suitable to your environment rather than changing the environment to suit the plant. Second best tip is get a plant that’s a drama queen, then only water or do something to it when it looks like it’s about to die.
My basil plant is perfect then😂 Such a dramatic little thing
I am a basil killer … I don’t know what I’m doing but I kill those guys.
I just planted it in my backyard after a while and they grew so well. Putting them in a pot in my house is the beginning of the end 😭
a soil moisture meter
If they didn’t want to be neglected maybe they shouldn’t be so god damn passive and needy
This is why I prefer pets, and babysitting kiddos - they tell me exactly what they need/want and when they want it 😆
I wish the bastards would tell me what they want.
There’s a few variables that affect the happiness of plant. Most of them are to do with the dirt, not the plant itself. Think of it like you’re nurturing the soil, and the plant will either thrive or die on it’s own depending on if the soil is within it’s ideal ranges. You can fuck up 1 or maybe 2 of these, but any more and it will just die. There’s websites that list the ideal ranges for every plant
- Soil acidity. Ph meter is good for this. Over time the soil may change ph
- Soil Nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen, etc). You can also get measurement tools for this. Over time the soil will lose nutrition
- Soil composition: clay vs sandy (water retention vs drainage). This usually doesn’t change
- Soil moisture (Watering frequency). This one is your direct responsibility and easiest lever. Be mindful of rainfall if outdoors
- Soil temperature. Usually directly related to:
- Sunlight (intensity and also duration). Positioning matters here. Also most plants usually benefit from a 20% to 60% shade depending on how harsh your sun is. There’s a reason why grass grows better under the trampoline, the plants are usually cooking
I don’t understand why anyone wants a plant in a pot that they have to care for daily, rather than an ecosystem in the yard that cares for itself.
There’s still a lot of setup for an ecosystem. Choosing the right mulch (heat and ph leeching), irrigation, shading, and knowing your local soil is very important. It’s just front loaded because once you set it up, it’s kind of set and forget. Also nowadays many people don’t live in freestanding houses that they own, so they don’t even have access to a plot of dirt to mess around with
Yeah, if I were to take up gardening, that’s the kind of gardening I would want to do. My background is in software. Build something that can act on its own, then let it do the hard work while you kick back.
I find it interesting that western agriculture follows the potted plant philosophy. Lots and lots of work every year, maintaining plants with optimum yield. You get a high population doing that, but it’s so much fucking work.
Aboriginal agriculture follows the ecosystem philosophy. Before colonisation, Aboriginal people used cold fire to maintain ecosystems. They didn’t prune and water every plant individually like western farmers, they used a deep knowledge of the ecosystem to tweak things here and there. They let the plants and animals do most of the work. You can’t support a population of 20 million that way, but you do get a lot more time to sit around the fire and tell stories, discuss philosophy.
I’d prefer to live in an apartment, or in a house with native plants that produce useful food and medicine on their own. I don’t want to mow a fucking lawn!
Yeah lawns are an extremely weird concept in Australia that have become normalised somehow. Like oh yes, let’s just waste all this water, time, and energy growing an entire mat of weeds we don’t actually want. Then you have to use all this energy and tools to cut it back down every week or two. It’s crazy to me 😂. Also lawns are extremely unforgiving. They turn brown, patchy, thorn-ridden, and ugly easily, and don’t really provide much to the wildlife.
I always keep it simple because I have fatigue issues. Weed mat, a nice mulch top layer (very cheap from the gov), lots of compost for a few months to prepare the soil (the dirt around here is completely awful), a basic sprinkler irrigation backup if it refuses to rain for weeks, then just plant things which would naturally survive and look after themselves. Usually natives, but some native plants are too fragile. Usually flowering plants because I love flowers, and so do insects and birds.
Recently I went for Acacia Limelight, lavender, the tiny bush bottlebrush (forget the name), and some cute little grasses that make stunning blue flowers. The acacias drop millions of tiny thin leaves which gives a beautiful autumn floor look year-round. I like the subdued brown/purple/green profile with a bit of bright colours here and there. We had a lot of bird and pollinator activity too, which really brought it to life.
could be too much sun too
Oh and don’t forget about too little sun!
“water… Please… Just water…”
“Fucking asshole plant WHAT DO YOU NEED???”
“wa… ter…”
proceeds to die from too much water :(
I’ve always wanted enough space to have a medium sized greenhouse.
I had the thought the other day that it would be kind of interesting to open part of the space to locals to drop off their plants for day care. Going on a trip? Just swing by and put the plant in the spots for the right watering schedule and pick it up when you come back.
It would also have a section for plant swaps, for plants people forgot that others could just take home.
Excellent idea. We finally got rid of our plants because it was a lot of trouble finding homes for them every time we went away.
If you do I’ve got a shamrock plant or two I’ll donate to the swap section. I’ve got multiple because relatives keep asking me to revive theirs and never wanting them back.
My favorite part about reviving shamrocks is the “what did you do?”
Which is always: I just fucken watered it, these things won’t die. How did you manage to kill it?
Oh this was even easier, they actually watered it mostly okay they just had it in a room where they almost never opened the curtains so it got less sun than a bat. Couple days in the sun and that thing shot up so many new growths with zero effort.
At least one leaf survived.
