How can I persuade this person? UPDATE

[LittlePuffyTail]

Was just on kijiji and saw an ad for bunnies, $5.00 each, delivered. This guy put a photo of the buns and they are so cute. They look like New Zealands. I want to write to him about how he should not just sell them to anyone with $5.00 because they will end up as snake food, etc but I’m scared he will just write back saying he doesn’t care where they end up. Any ideas that could maybe persuade him to re-think his ad? I can’t just not respond. The picture made me too upset.

[Sarita]

LPT, I say even if he writes back that he doesn’t care at least you have made your best effort…I just want to say this first.

I would first find out if this is an accidental litter or what the situation is and then you can go from there – if he is breeding them then you may not be able to persuade him anything but if it’s just an accident then you may stand a better chance of educating him.

[Karla]

Maybe you could just write and ask what is wrong with them since they are so cheap? Not sure if it will work though. Or simply just write and ask if he is selling them to snake food or as pets. If he says, he doesn’t mind, then there isn’t really anything you can do, but if he says pets, then you can tell him about the risk.

I have to say though, that when we put our dog up for adoption, I got a lot of rude responses to the fact that the price was $40. Thing was, that we loved our dog dearly, and I did not want him to go to the only family who were willing to spend a lot of money on a dog. I wanted him to go to a home with love and where he could live forever – I put him on what probably is your craigslist, because the target group is bigger there. But I screened and screened people. Emailed back and forth, googled them, facebooked them et.c and in the end he came to a home, where they didn’t even pay for him (they didn’t even offer it, how rude ), but he is in the best forever home he could ever be. If I had put a higher price on him, that familiy may not have looked at the ad?

Also, I have never paid for Jack or Molly. I got them for free after having seem them on an online website. I do consider myself a good bunny mum nevertheless, but I did adopt two unwanted bunnies, so I think I did the owners a favour and both Jack and Molly.

My point is, that I do understand your concern, but people can still be good pet parents even though they don’t want to earn big bucks from their pets when they look for a new home for them.

[babybunsmum]

karla thats a great point. i think its fab that you want to investigate this ad lpt. good on you. putting in your best effort like sarita says is never a mistake. so you can let your cynical side pick out such ads, and tempered with the possibility that the person could have decent intentions you may just be able to ask non-judgmental questions and end up having some positive influence.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Ditto for sure. I think both points are really valid.

Perhaps instead of asking him to increase his price hugely-perhaps a slight raise (so it’s not worth it for food-maybe 20$) and a little booklet he can give a new owner for free-maybe you make alittle booklet of basics with links to BB and rabbit.org so they can learn on their own?

You might be disappointed with his response…but you might save some bunnies and the only sacrifice is sending an email

[LittlePuffyTail]

I went to e-mail him but the ad is gone. I really hope he didn’t sell them all and just changed his mind.

[babybunsmum]

me too! maybe some one else intervened? that’s what i’m choosing to believe

[LittlePuffyTail]

Wow! Some people! So I went on Kijiji again the day after the ad was removed and saw they posted another ad: All remaining rabbits , $3.00, OBO, delivered. Even worse than the first one so I e-mailed them a  quick response, figuring they would probably not read it if it was long and winded.

I e-mailed this:

I’m a rabbit lover and I just can’t help but e-mail you about your ad. Please have a heart and don’t let them go to just anyone with $3.00. Rabbits are so sweet and I fear ads like this may result in them ending up in terrible hands and meeting a terrible fate. I do not mean any offence, I just care so much about rabbits that I needed to try. Thank you for taking the time to read.

 

Their reply:

Thank you for your interest.

Just so you know for any future emails of this nature you may want to involve yourself in the word “Offence” is actually spelled with a ‘s’ instead of a ‘c’, as in; “Offense”. If you notice a red squiggly line under a word after you’ve scripted the body of your draft it means it’s spelled incorrectly and if you position the cursor indicator over the word and right click spell check will give you the correction options.

We took no offense by the way, to put your mind at ease.
 

My mouth just dropped! They were obviously po’d and just decided to take it out on the fact that I misspelled a word. They didn’t even refer to the rabbits. I’m so angry, I’m shaking!!!

[LoveChaCha]

I hate the grammer brigade. I really do. I can understand people if they misspell things but shortening things confuses me. I can understand your letter. Wow, they’re so angry. They can’t talk about the rabbits, so they pick on something unrelated?

[LittlePuffyTail]

I’m annoyed with myself for misspelling something. That’s rare for me. I usually pride myself on my good grammar and spelling and it just gave them a reason to put me down.

These people obviously don’t care where their bunnies end up. Just like I suspected.

[MimzMum]

My heart goes out to you LPT. I was made aware this morning of a situation where a lot of rabbits are going to end up in dire straits being ‘rehomed’ and there is no persuading these people to take other routes.
Unfortunately with the economy as it is, rabbits are one species that is primed for being either a ‘cheap gift’ or seen as a money maker.
And at this time of year too, people just don’t think or they don’t have the resources to do otherwise. Christmas is getting as bad as Easter when it comes to rabbits being advertised as ‘easy-to-care for’. >.< UGH, I just want to SCREAM… If they're so easy to care for, WHY AREN'T YOU DOING IT instead of profiting from them?

I keep telling myself, I can’t save them all, and then I only cry harder. ;_; And I pray. I pray for the bunnies. A lot.

[babybunsmum]

what an a-hole. your gut was obviously right on this one. typical defensive bs response by some one who needs to belittle others in order to try in vain to feel good about themselves.

[jerseygirl]

I’d send a corrected version again. I’d also add, “I paid attention to what you pointed out and amended the error. I hope that you do me the courtesy of paying attention to the core subject of my email. ” or something along those lines.

[peppypoo]

Good for you to keep trying without being too snarky. Who knows what they may say in return, but no matter what happens, you should feel better knowing that you tried your best to help.

(The ironic thing is that in their email, the entire first paragraph is composed two run-on sentences. This person apparently does not entirely grasp the correct of commas.)

[jerseygirl]

There you go! lol
Good pick up peppypoo.

Now I’d want to respond “Thank you for pointing out my grammatical error.  Your own grammatical errors made me feel better about being less than perfect.”

But why even go there… it’d be pointless and not helping those rabbits.  LPT, you’ve done what you can. Take heart because others like you may have sent emails too. If they get a few like this, they may just pay attention yet.

[Author]

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