Gerbil Dilemma?

Question

My aunt and uncle are looking after their neighbours kid's gerbils while thye are on holiday. My aunt went in to the room where the cage is and there was blood in the bedding- my cousin had accidnetally pulled off the tails while trying to 'play' with them. she is five years old and, needless to say, has only had experience wiht dog sand cats.

They toook them to the vet, blah blah blah, and all is fine, but there are now two stumpy gerbils. My uncle thought that he should keep these and buy the neighbours kids some look-a-likes, but my aunt thinks honesty is best policy. What do you think?

Answer 1

my friend took care of my gerbil and this horrible accident happened. i was really sad when they told me and they offered to buy me a new gerbil. trust me, the kid would rather have his old little pet back with different look than a lie. and new ones would NOT be the same. the kid probably tamed them and can handle them.

Answer 2

i think yall should tell the kids' parents, and let them decide whether the kids are ready to accept death as an option, then if its not, with the parents' permission buy some look-a-like gerbils. However, i might not be that easy to find 2 gerbils that look exactly like those two.

Answer 3

There is nothing wrong with a gerbil losing it's tail.  That is their defense mechanism and they can live 100% healthy without it.

While this may make the gerbils look weird, they will know whether the "new" gerbils are their pets or not.

Gerbils have distinct personalities and you cannot just go buy lookalikes and put them in with eachother and expect them to get along.

Your aunt is right.  Honesty is the best policy.

Answer 4

Your aunt and uncle should not get look-a-likes for their neighbor's child. Beloved pets aren't replaceable. If my gerbils were replaced with look-a-likes, I'd know and I certainly wouldn't appreciate being lied to. I'd rather know what actually happened.

Your aunt is right. In this situation, honesty is the best policy. The gerbils are still alive, and their tails will heal just fine. Accidents happen. I don't think that an adult should ever leave a young child alone with any pet, but she didn't mean any harm to the gerbils.

I would recommend that your aunt and uncle simply tell the neighbor what happened. Explain to them that it was an accident, they took them to the vet (paid for the visit, by the way), and everything will be fine. They'll just have stumpy tails, but losing their tail won't affect them much. I'm sure that the neighbors will understand.

Answer 5

I would just tell them the truth they all have different personalities and the kid would probably know that they weren't his.

Answer 6

I own a family of Gerbils and if someone tried replacing them with look-a-likes I would feel insulted. Plus I would be able to tell the difference between the two characters.

Honesty is the best policy. So what if they have stumpy tails? Their tails will heal nicely and they will still be the same Gerbils they always were. With or without a tail.

Be honest.