When I was about 3 or 5 I thought that when my pets died they got to go to heaven and that when I died I'd get to be little again, so I could still play with them.

Anon

When my guinea pig died when I was about 6, I wrote all these letters to her addressed to "Heaven" and put them in the mailbox. I am 15 now and was looking through my memorobilia and I found all the letters hidden in a corner. My mother kept them and hid them from me.

Anon

When I was a little girl my Dad told me that if horses laid down they would die.
I was in my thirty's before I found out otherwise.

Pam

i never under-stood what'put to sleep' ment. i thought they'd give the animal a tray of warm milk, and sing lullabyes until my friend found out that i didn't know in 4th grade, and told me.

i wish she hadn't, i was depresed for a few days after

Steph(13)

this is not my own belief
When I was babysitting for a catholic family, their 4-year-old boy once strated talking about a rat in the garage. He said: "We had a big rat in the garage, and then Daddy shot the rat with his shotgun, and then the rat died and went up to Heaven." We (his older siblings and me) tried to convince him that rats can´t go to heaven, but he insisted on it. Finally he said: "OK, but cats and dogs always go to heaven, because they are good."

estonian au-pair

i used to belive that if you eat a slug you whould always have the slime that slugs have dripping from every hole in your body, then my dog eat one i thought he was going to die.

Kylie

When I was a child, I understood that a dead animal was gone forever and never coming back; I also knew that "put to sleep" meant the pet had to be euthanized because it was sick or injured. However, I do have a distinct memory of believing that animals went to heaven after they died--bodies and all! So it was puzzling to me that dead animals on the roadside didn't vanish into thin air, or that skeletons of animals could be dug up later on.

Vivienne

Theres a graveyard back where I used to live, where I grew up, and when i was about 5 or so (think id seen the lion king 1 too many times) I used to think there was an elephants graveyard over a fence i couldnt see over...and i believed it until i was old enough to see over the fence - so a good 7 years i was fooled!

HitcH

I believed that all Cats were female, and all Dogs were male, and wondered why they hated each other, since they had babies (puppies and kittens) together.

Andrew Wade

When I was about 7, we had a goat by the name of Claude. He disappeared one day, and my parents told me he had gone to live on a farm, as he wasn't suitable for the rainforest where we lived. It was only when I was 25 that my mother told me he was eaten alive by dingoes (wild dogs native to Australia), and they were his horns sitting above our friend's fireplace in the house where I used to play often as a child.

Maria

When i was younger (2 or 3) i had a fish called FiFi, he was my first pet and eventually we got him a brother who angrily took a bite out of FiFi! I was very angry and was so upset if i had a younger brother he would do the same to me! Anyway FiFi died from his horrific injury but being so naive my mum told me a man had taken him away whilst we were on holiday and that he was in the caribbean i only found out JUST THIS MINUTE that this story was infact untrue!

R.I.P FiFi

xXxXx

Marisa P M

My mother told me that my cat had gone to live with an old lady who needed a cat to take care of her.

I sincerely believed her for a long time. As I grew up, it turned into a sort of a resentment.

Then she told me it wasn't true, quite a few years later, and that the cat actually met a rather horrible death.

I didn't know what to feel.

Beregon

When I was around 4 years old I always wondered how dinosaurs died off. I also wondered where did shoes come from. You never see any shoe factories, if you've noticed. So I assumed wrongly that the dinosaurs went extinct because they shrunk down and turned into shoes, then people come because we now had shoes.

Cyla

When my dog died, I was convinced she was still alive, just "Holding her breath!" I thought that dieing meant you just stopped breathing; I had no clue about the heart needing to beat...

Hey, I was only five!

*Holds breath* I'm dead!

When I was 6, my mom took my sister and I on a trip. When I came back, 20-some of our barn cats were gone and only a few remained. My father said he put an ad in the paper and a bunch of really nice people came and adopted them. Much later in life I found out he 'donated' them to the university for disection and experiments.

Delaine

When I was about six years old, I had a neighbor and we were really good friends. I used to go to her house everyday. Her dog just died and we were both finding out about death. We had this big huge idea to write letters to dead people/animals.We were going to take them to heaven with us. If you only knew how many hours we spent in her basement writing letters to her dead dog!

xXxLeighxXx

When I was really little, my aunt's dog died. I didn't know what death was, I just knew the person went away and it was sad. And they couldn't ever be brought back. So when the dog died, I imagined Woody slipping through the floor until only his head was above the ground, and my aunt was crying, and then he went under. I don't know how I got that idea....

Laurel

I had a cat named Rajaa (like in Aladdin) whom I loved with all my heart, dispite the scars and scratch marks on my body. My mother and I are not religious and very open so naturally when my cat died she told me she had sent him to a nice lesbian couple on a ranch. I believed that until I was 13 and I am now 15. For years I always laughed at the picture of the things my poor kitty would see.

Emily, California

This isn't my own belief but my 4 year old cousins (She did this 2 years ago for a 6 month span). When her older sister's hamster died and they buried it in the yard my little cousin didn't understand so everyday would go outside and stand over the hamsters grave and scream ,"Hammy! Hammy Hampster!! Come out!! Where are you!!"

Echo

i used to think that if ur animal died and u diddnt feed him after he died hed come back to eat u.

crazygirl