Quote: keewik @ March 19 2011, 9:18 PM GMT... when you're left looking after somebody's pet while they go on hol and it dies on you? I've heard of somebody who stored their neighbour's hamster in the freezer till the neighbour returned. Didn't go down well. My mother-in-law told her neighbours their budgie was buried in our garden when she'd dumped it in the bin. What would you do?
If they value/love the pet sufficiently to get someone to look after it, rather than putting it in an over-priced boarding kennel, they would probably appreciate a call/email informing them of its demise. With some animals (such as wasps, frogs, fish, terrapins, birds, hamsters, foxes and goats), you can get lookalike replacement pets so that they won't know the difference. Hamsters have pretty short lifespans, so one of them croaking is nothing to worry about. I'm sure a few sitcoms have used the "person entrusted to looked after beloved pet lets it escape/die so finds a lookalike pet" plot.
