Anyone ever wonder what their rescue pets life was like before?

[MomOfElves]

Does anyone else ever look at your fur babies and try to imagine what they've been through?

We have 4 rescue kitties, one was a little kitten when we got him, but the rest we got when they were just under 1, I often look at them and wonder, we had no background info on any of them and it just makes me curious.

Dcat who I had for almost 20 years before she died came to me with a broken nose and a bite first ask questions later attitude. We loved each other big time but I was the only human for her
She hated all other people with a passion her whole life. She had to stay in my bedroom if friends came round because she couldn't be trusted with them. But to me she was my beautiful girl and we loved each other to death.

I do wonder. cat1 was dumped with her kittens and was so badly emotionally damaged she was at CPL for a year before we took her home. Cats 2/3 are siblings who were handed in and so we did get a decent amount of information about them.
Dog1 was a traveller dog who wouldn't course and came into rescue (thankfully not dumped) but he'd had a hard time while they had tried to make him chase things. Ddog2 was born in rescue so nothing bad for him, just his damaged poor mum.
We foster for the rescue the dogs are from and its heartbreaking trying to unpick things for the pups and finding out what scares them.

We have an elderly, retired pony.

Sadly I know some of her previous life as the RSPCA prosecuted the previous owner and it was in our local press, but not the full extent of it. I don’t want to know

When she was clipped, you could see she’s covered in scars - she’s not ridden anymore so we don’t clip her.

I’m a bloody nightmare about her care as I never, ever want her to remember a single second of what her old life was like. When she was found, the muck in her stable was so high, her head was touching the roof, so underweight you could see every rib, massively overgrown feet, full of worms and hadn’t seen a dentist in years.

I’ve got an old photo of her from when she was found and she looks so sad and in such a state that it breaks my heart (then the little shit treads on my foot or steals my bobble hat for the billionth time that day and my sympathy wanes )

One of our rabbits came from an animal hoarder. They had so many the local shelter couldn’t cope and they had to distribute them around the country, so it was nowhere local. She is a happy bunny but is very greedy and dives on any food she is given so I think she must have had to compete for food.

We adopted our Dcat when she was about 8 months old. She was rescued with her 2 kittens.

I often wonder what happened and how anyone could not love her and care for her like we do.

She's very trusting and loving so I don't think she was mistreated. She must have been neglected though to be found pregnant while still a kitten herself, unchipped and malnourished in a London garden.

I know her kittens were also rehomed. I wish I'd asked for a picture of them. When my daughter sees a cat that looks like Dcatcshe always says that might be one of her kittens.

Anyway, she is now the most loved, spoilt and contented cats ever so hopefully we have more than made up for her rough start in life.

My two furry empresses have ruled the roost since we adopted them 10 years ago when they were about 2. CPL told us they had come from a home with many cats and I often imagine an old person who gave their animals lots of love but couldn't look after them all in the end. They are lovely, trusting girls and show no sign of ever having been mistreated. I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude for bringing up my children.

I do, I hate not knowing how our sibling pair came to be in the shelter for 4 months at 2 years old or why the boy cat is fixated on me brushing my hair, or why they both cower if you lift your hand too quickly, or why they stop themselves biting you if you get too annoying when you play (they go to, and then freeze and lick you instead)

It doesn't take a genius to work out that they were most likely hit as kittens, but they are such lovely cats it breaks my heart

Personally I don’t like the blanket term rescue. Yes some have had horrible lives, but I know many that current owners refer to as rescues that had lovely family lives and were well cared for and then circumstances changed and they had to be rehomed.
I much prefer the term rehomed, one of my friends refers to her spaniel as rescued, when the owner had died- I find it a bit disrespectful

My rescue was from a Romanian kill shelter, she was picked up as a stray.
she's the sweetest lovely dog ever, loves people and especially children.
I feel she must have been a pet at some point, she took living with me with such ease. She's not a fan of dog food though, so she must have had a more varied diet as a street dog! Also not a fan of dog beds, like to cuddle up in my bed a night instead

One of my favourite things she does is really love having her collar put back on after she's had a bath and dried off for a couple of hours she really leans into me putting it on - makes me feel she's happier with me than wherever she was before.

There are tiny subtle clues that she has a dysregulated nervous system, but only because I'm looking out for them and I'm interested IYKWIM.

I don't believe where you are born makes you any less deserving or loveable in any way, and that's the same for animals.
I've rescued several animals over my life so far, I've never bought a pet as I hate the idea of puppy farms etc, and so far they've all been amazing!

God my heart is breaking reading some of these posts, poor animals. Humans can be such disgusting beings.

Thankfully my two had a good life before they went into a shelter. They were brought over to the UK from Asia when their owners came here to live. Unfortunately their owners had to go back and couldn't take them with them so surrendered them, aged 5, to a shelter, where they stayed for 18 months as they were terribly unhappy and as a result very unfriendly to prospective new owners.

When I adopted them the rescue asked me if they could give my contact details to their old owner who was so thankful that they had been rehomed and I send him photos every once in a while.