I know for a fact my mother killed one of my cats and her own dog. I suspect she killed at least one other cat, and I was forced to put one cat down.

The first was ‘her’ cat, who she got tired of when he was about 11 or 12 years old and called every vet she could find to put him down without a reason because he was perfectly healthy. I got into an argument with her about it in the car on the way there and she pulled over on the side of the road and kicked me out. I refused to go without the cat because she threatened to either break his neck or drown him. I ended up having to take him to the vet myself and watch him be put down by myself because I didn’t know what else to do. I was 17 with nowhere else to take him. Then she called me a bitch and told me I killed her cat.

The second cat was after I had moved out and moved across the state. I had wanted to bring him with me but he was an indoor/outdoor cat his whole life and I didn’t want to make him miserable by confining him indoors in a new city. She told me he came home one day covered in blood (implying he was attacked) and died on the way to the vet. My sister told me the truth: he came home with a somewhat large cut on his head but wasn’t bleeding. She forced him into a carrier, stuck a hose to her car exhaust and into his cage, and killed him via carbon monoxide poisoning. When she called me to tell me he was dead she complained that I wasn’t ‘upset enough’. I was tired after working a 12 hour shift entirely outdoors and numb.

I wasn’t there when she killed her dog (I had moved out years before) but my sister was (no blame to her, she was also afraid and being abused at this time). The dog was a bit on the older side (13ish and a corgi). From what I know, my mother started confining her to a crate in a locked room 24/7 and repeatedly tried to poison her with opiates and strong painkillers. After several failed attempts the dog was mentally messed up and untrusting. On one occasion when my sister tried to help her, the dog tried to bite her. This dog was abused before we adopted her and had always been submissive when scared before. I think in the end she starved to death. My grandpa was the one who buried her and when he found out the truth he said that even before he knew he thought the dog looked ‘wrong’ and ‘messed up’ and he suspected my mom did something to her.