Unfortunately when people neglect animals they will wait until its almost too late before they will give them up, I've seen it many times. They are often animal lovers and its not that they don't care, its that they are not coping emotionally in their life and have put their feelings in front of the welfare of the animal - whether it be because they feel attached to it or are wanting to avoid having to deal with disapproval.
It's better to leave the door open to them to approach you should they have an animal that needs help (if you want to provide that outlet) and to be kind - tell them the truth but stick to the positive - "its good that you helped the fish by passing it on to me".
You don't need to have sympathy for that person or suppress your anger at seeing cruelty (that's not healthy) or have them on your Facebook though :)
I call it a 'hostage situation' and have dealt with it many times, including people calling my mobile with their number blocked to ask for advice because they think someone is going to come and take the animal by force. Despite how defensive they are, I've had 100% success in the person contacting me again later to give up the animal - it wasn't anything special that I did, they wanted to be relieved of the burden of care all along and they organised it for themselves, they just needed to find someone who would smooth the way.
You obviously did that as you now have the fish :)
It's been tough so far with the Scooters as they are so small and need the food to move the right way to trigger a feeding response, I've been scraping by but today I got some Hikari Frozen Bloodworms and they went ape for it, even getting it out of the water column - really good product!
Its clean, doesn't smell and the worms have been gut loaded with vitamins and some other goodies. Its really soft as well so the dragonettes can easily break it down to the right size they need.
I would say live brine isn't enough nutritionally, but if its working don't stop! ;)
It's better to leave the door open to them to approach you should they have an animal that needs help (if you want to provide that outlet) and to be kind - tell them the truth but stick to the positive - "its good that you helped the fish by passing it on to me".
You don't need to have sympathy for that person or suppress your anger at seeing cruelty (that's not healthy) or have them on your Facebook though :)
I call it a 'hostage situation' and have dealt with it many times, including people calling my mobile with their number blocked to ask for advice because they think someone is going to come and take the animal by force. Despite how defensive they are, I've had 100% success in the person contacting me again later to give up the animal - it wasn't anything special that I did, they wanted to be relieved of the burden of care all along and they organised it for themselves, they just needed to find someone who would smooth the way.
You obviously did that as you now have the fish :)
It's been tough so far with the Scooters as they are so small and need the food to move the right way to trigger a feeding response, I've been scraping by but today I got some Hikari Frozen Bloodworms and they went ape for it, even getting it out of the water column - really good product!
Its clean, doesn't smell and the worms have been gut loaded with vitamins and some other goodies. Its really soft as well so the dragonettes can easily break it down to the right size they need.
I would say live brine isn't enough nutritionally, but if its working don't stop! ;)