Want to know why I don't eat MEAT anymore? Yes I still has the fishies, I like them too much, plus I figured I needed the goodness from them.
So yeah, back when I was like 15/16sh, my older brother and his then girlfriend decided one day that it'd be a great idea to get a hamster together, of course they only cared for the hamster for that one day, after that the hamster became mine really. I fed her, cleaned her cage, gave her company, so I may not have purchased her, but without me she wouldn't have had someone to look after her.
So yeah skip forward to just over a year then finally my parents agree to get a family dog. I wanted a dog since our old one died back when I was 9 and I intended to be the master, so when we got this little puppy I basically devoted all my attention onto her. I still fed the hamster, cleaned her, but I admit that I gave her less attention and saw her as a burden from that point on.
Skip a few months on, things were basically the same, and I just had a thought one day "Hmm I don't remember seeing Chelsea (hamster) out yesterday", so I open her cage and then lifted the lid of her little house up, almost knowing what I was going to find, and there she was, dead. Rigor mortis had already set in, so I had the feeling she had been dead for a day and I failed to find out sooner.
Guilt hit me hard then. I felt horrible for having neglected her, of course I made semi-excuses to myself then about how she wasn't mine, but my brothers so it wasn't my responsibility, but it didn't help really. I buried her in our garden, crying the whole time of course - I made sure my dog was locked inside, I had to be the one to put the hamster to rest on my own.
Still I felt bad, and I remember as my dad was driving me to work the next day I said to him that I was going to stop eating meat as a gesture to Chelsea for not giving her a better life - Of course he laughed, my family laughed, everything thought I'd just get over it but yeah I'm 21 now, so it's been over 4 years and I've yet to eat meat. I don't intend to let Chelsea down.