Disney's "Pets and your family" disgusts me

GuineaPigz · Apr 8, 2005

Today while watching the disney channel a common "episode commercial" about kids and their perfect families and lives with their cute little pets came up. I always hated these commercials because they treat the pets "as parts of their family" but really treat them like some toys. Today though I was very disgusted. They showed some girl with her guinea pig. It was in a pet store cage which compared to the pig she had the pig was 1/4 of the cage's size. I'm not exaggerating. It was very sad. The pig was trotting slowly around the small food dish in its cage. All it had was a food dish and some water. No hay no hidey house, pigloo, cozy, ANYTHING!! THe food wasn't even pellets it was mixed seeds!!! It was like on the bare bones care. She said it was part of her family but I think otherwise. Answer this honestly. Would you put a family member for their whole life in a room four times bigger than them with some stale bread and old water and sometimes take them out to play???

Slap Maxwell · Apr 8, 2005

That is horrible. Glad I don't watch Disney Channel anymore.

GuineaPigz · Apr 8, 2005

My editing time ran out. I was going to add a simple diagram I did quickly in paint to show the scene. Here it is.

charliesmommy · Apr 8, 2005

Wow, that's pathetic. I wonder if Disney can be contacted in some way to let them know that they just sent a big advertisement for 1) kids to beg their parents to go BUY them guinea pigs, at a PET STORE and 2) to make them live in tiny cages, without hay or proper food and veggies! These kind of things make me so mad because there's so little you can actually do to make it right. I highly doubt that Disney will air another episode with proper guinea pig care... but we can all dream, right?

mncavylover · Apr 8, 2005

If someone can find a contact for the Disney Channel, we should definitely let them know about this.

rabbitsncavyluv · Apr 8, 2005

They showed a rabbit that lived in a hutch year round too. The girl let him run around the yard sometimes.

mncavylover · Apr 9, 2005

Yeah... sadly, the TV world is not the best when it comes to pet care. Or most of anything, for that matter.

Peaches · Apr 9, 2005

I saw one spot this morning for a girl with 35 pets. 2 hampsters, 3 dogs, a cat, 2 gekkos(i think) and a crapload of birds.......this girl was 9

I think taking care of a pet is a good learning experience for a kids but this is ridiculous.

luvfamrap · Apr 9, 2005

I agree with peaches.This girl would not have the time to really take care of all her pets.

Guinea_Gal · Apr 9, 2005

That pisses me off so much! I am 14, so i just getting off of Disney Channel, THANK GOD! PEOPLE CAN BE SO IGNORANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
god . . . i just feel bad for the pig, it would be like being stuck in jail. All alone with no room. I can't imagine!

littlebear · Apr 9, 2005

I am still young I am the same age as Guinea_Gal. I still watch Disney I saaw that Its so horrible. I have two piggys it hard enough to take care of both of them before I go to school. And the girl someone was talking about has 35! Also that cage in humane and I know how to contact disney!

rabbitsncavyluv · Apr 11, 2005

Well, to be fair, I think the girl's family helps and yes, they do have a lot of animals, but they seemed cared for to me, or at least clean from what I saw. Maybe space is an issue, but they weren't like living in dirty conditions or starving. I don't think the girl does it all by herself and she said it was hard to take care of them all although rewarding. I think that should be enough to ward off the next kid to run out and get 30+ animals.

Peaches · Apr 11, 2005

True. It looked clean for the TV screens. Hopefully it is that way day-to-day. I guess the other thing for me is besides school and the animals, what time does this girl have for anything else? Assuming each animal get a fair amount of play time/attention.

charliesmommy · Apr 11, 2005

This is sort of off topic, but the same general idea... I saw Dr. Dolittle the other night and the guinea pig, Rodney (voiced by Chris Rock) was absolutely hilarious and definitely the best character in the movie! They got so many piggie idiosyncracies and habits absolutely perfect in the movie, but they made one major error: they showed his cage as being TINY, wire, and having... a wheel! Ugh. It made me not even want to watch anymore!

rabbitsncavyluv · Apr 12, 2005

Yeah, and what do you think happened to the poor pig after filming ended?

Guinea_Gal · Apr 12, 2005

I was only 8 when i bought my first guinea pig "Henry" at a pet store with a tiny cage. It was probably 2x2.5 feet. My parents and i never really knew much about guinea pigs, except for what the people at the pet store told us.Henry was held constantly, in a clean cage, with his own wooden house my dad and i made, but he never did get hay. We gave him pellets, water and fresh veggies once in a while, but i still feel regretful to this day that i didn't give him the life of a king that he deserves. that is why i have dedictated myself to my three pigs now and treating them all like the queens they are. we are only human and so we are going to make mistakes, especially when real lives are put in our hands, but it is our job to fix out mistakes as well.

I do think that disney channel is horrible though!!!!

VoodooJoint · Apr 12, 2005

rabbitsncavyluv said:
Yeah, and what do you think happened to the poor pig after filming ended?

As expected the Guinea Pigs from the Doc Dolittle movie were dumped at the end of the film. They ended up in a pit bull rescue and were eventually adopted by someone on GuineaLynx. They were some of the few "lucky" movie animals.

Here's the link https://www.guinealynx.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17927&highlight=dolittle

rabbitsncavyluv · Apr 12, 2005

Yeah, I heard about that too. A local rescuer has them. They were the luckier ones. They usually take rabbits and dispose of them by hiring someone to shoot them.

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Disney's "Pets and your family" disgusts me

GuineaPigz

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