My friend's mom told my friend's little sister thatI when a dog died, it went to a retirement home.

ellen

When I was little, I believed that animals died the way they did in the cartoons - they just flopped down on their backs and put their feet in the air.

I firmly believed that until one day. I saw a squirrel run across the street and get hit by a minivan doing over fifty (in the suburbs). Needless to say, it has remained one of my most vivid memories.

Jessica Tinch

I used to believe that if you put salt on a dead fly it would make the fly come back to life.

Cody

My parents told me when I was about 5 that roadkill animals weren't dead, they were actually sleeping. I believed this until I was about 10.

Anon

I used to believe that if you squeezed your fist very,very tightly you could not be stung by bees. Worked! Didn't work for wasps and hornets.

Ron

I was given a hush puppy in a restaurant when I was very young and didn't understand what it was. I thought it was a puppy someone had killed and 'hushed' so I didn't want it.. I exclaimed loudly in the restaurant, "him dead!". I'm told they all laughed at me... for good reason I guess!

blonnie

When I was 10 my Mother's dog passed away. My Mom told me that she had just died at home in her sleep and that my Dad and Grampy brought her to the vet to be buried. (She didnt want to tell me that they had to make the hard decision to put her to sleep--they didnt want me blaming them for her death). When I was 20 years old my Mom was talking to my friend about her old dog and made the statement, "When we had Tammy put to sleep" I was mortified! I wouldnt have been upset that she was put to sleep because death was death to me, but the fact that for 10 years I believed she died underneith the dining room table and had to be brought to the doctors" My Mom had no idea I still believed that years later.

Nikki

When I was little we took my dog, Toffy, to the SPCA, supposedly to be adopted. My parents told my brother and I that our dog had gone to a lovely family that lived on a farm that had lots of space for Toffy to run around on, and that she was very happy. It was only after watching a Friends episode, years later (I was in my late 20s) that I realised that Toffy had in fact been put down. I was shocked, believing all this time that she had been on a farm and enjoying every minute of it!

Wendy

I used to think that muesli was the same as hamster food. So I fed it to my hamster. For three weeks. It died. Something about condensed milk?

Lozza

A neighbour's cat, Tabitha, got run over when I was about 4. While I was visiting them with my family, I said: "Poor Tabitha. She's probably spinning round on someone's wheel by now."

Rachel

After seeing "All Dogs Go to Heaven", I was convinced that when dogs died, that's really where they went. As if they had their own special Doggy Heaven or something. I didn't stop believing that till I was about eleven. I'm fifteen now.

Anon

when i was little i had a cat and when it died my mam told me she saw it turn into a cheeter and it ran away to find some other cheeters to ply with but it went so fast that it neva got the chance to say good bye i belived this until my 12th birthday when i found out what really happened!!!!

ellie

One day our neighbour was walking his 4 year old son to school. Along the way the little boy spotted a bird in the gutter, so he gave it a nudge with his toe. When it didn't move he asked his father why it didn't fly away. His father explained that the bird was broken (i.e. dead). Instead of getting upset the little boy said firmly "It's alright Dad, the man will fix it." No matter how hard his Dad tried to tell him that the bird couldn't be fixed the little boy was adamant. The next day when they walked the route to school again the bird was gone so the boy turned to his dad and said "See! The man fixed it" and smiled smuggly.

Jeremy

When my cat died I asked where he was and my dad said he died. I asked what that meant and he said it meant he had just stopped moving. So I thought when animals died they just completely ground to a halt and wouldn't move.

Razorness

My dead tortoise was buried in the garden - next spring I found a live tortoise at the same point - unbeknown to me my parents had bought another one but told me it was the original one. I believed this until early adulthood!

Julie

When I was nine or ten, I found a grasshopper and decided to keep it as a pet. I named it Hopper, I think, and I kept him in a shoe box with leaves and a drop of water. I kept him for several days, and after awhile he stopped eating and moving completely. I thought that he was sad, so I decided to release him back into the wild, a.k.a. my back yard. I put Hopper on the patio table and left him there, expecting him to hop away eventually. He didn't move AT ALL for the next couple of days, but for some reason I never realized he was dead. He was even covered in ants at one point, and I just brushed them off 'cuz I didn't want them to hurt Hopper. He dissaperad from the table after that.

It wasn't until a few days ago I realized that not only was Hopper dead after Day Two, but that the leaf I gave him was poisonous; it was the kind with milk in it. Poor Hopper!

Cricket

When I was three or four, I secretly pulled my cat's tail to get it to meow onto a tape recorder. When the cat died several months later, I was convinced that it was because I had pulled his tail. I still felt guilty thinking about that poor cat, even years after learning about the digestive problem that actually killed him (and despite understanding that death by tail-pulling is not a possibility!) I think I finally stopped feeling this way at around 15 or 16.

guilt-ridden cat-lover

When i was younger i had a pet rabbit called smokey. one morning when i came doen for breakfast mum told me dad had left the cage open and Smokey had run away but it was ok becasue he was off somewhere happily playing with other rabbits. I believed this as mum had no reason to lie, since she'd told me the truth about my goldfishes death. For weeks i was angry at my dad but eventually got over it. then a couple of weeks ago it suddenly dawned on me and i confronted mum and she finally confessed that smokey had infat died.

Anon

I used to believe that when my animals died they would go to animal hevean. All the animals would get a long together up there and they would all become friends.

April

I used to believe that pylons had electricity running through them and used to get upset for the cows and sheep in the fields next to them, that they would get electrocuted and die

Emma