TaviaMaeBradshaw

Although all little boys won’t grow up to be firefighters and little girls won’t grow up to be princesses, your childhood can say a lot about who you’ll grow up to be. Michael Vick claims to have beaten, fought and killed dogs because he was raised in the slums. People say Lindsay Lohan is the mess she is because she became famous at much too young an age. Whether you think it’s how you’re raised, or something you were born with, your youth often foreshadows the rest of your life.

Like most kids, I grew up watching Disney movies. I adored ‘The Little Mermaid’ and was never scared of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. I loved princess movies, but what little girl doesn’t? To others, it may have seemed I was just following the path of thousands of little girls before me, but my reasons were different. I didn’t want to grow up to be a princess. I watched princess movies because the animals were always happy; safely singing songs and helping the young women go from rags to riches. As soon as someone put on ‘The Lion King’, it was game over. A tantrum would start and I’d kick and scream until it was changed. Any movie where an animal (animated or real) was emotionally or physically hurt, at any point, was not my kind of movie. When I got a bit older, the list of movies would grow to include films like ‘Stewart Little’, ‘Air Bud’, and ‘My Dog, Skip’. To this day, I still have trouble watching them.

Soon after I turned five, my family moved from our small house in Mississauga to a larger house in Oakville. This meant we were no longer limited to the two cats we already owned. It was time for some new pets! We went to the pet store and picked out two “male” rabbits that we named Dusty and Spot. It was less than a year later we realized Spot was in fact NOT a male rabbit. We were now the proud owners of three little fluff balls named Dumbo, Shadow and Spot Jr. An interesting fact about rabbits is that they can conceive in the same hour they give birth; yup, the same hour. In a few months, our five rabbits became twelve. Five was already a little much, so when Spot had 7 more my mom said the babies had to go. Like all mammals, rabbits are only supposed to have as many babies as they can feed. For rabbits, this limit is six. We named the runt bunny Princess. My mom used to hand feed her twice a day. We found homes for a few of them and the rest went back to the pet store. Dusty was spayed and we kept Princess along with her parents. It was sad to see the others go, but I wasn’t devastated until I found out some people eat rabbits… But that’s a whole other story. We discovered our little runt was actually a boy, and he became “The bunny formerly known as Princess”. Dusty later had a stroke and never recovered. I cried for days when we had to put him down. Spot died of separation depression less than 48 hours later. Seeing the love connection between those two creatures broke my heart and changed the way I look at animals forever.

When people ask children what they want to be when they grow up, the receive answers like ‘Pop Star’ or ‘Star Athlete’, but not from me. When I was little I wanted to be a dairy farmer. Not the usual childhood dream, but I had it all planned out. I loved animals and couldn’t imagine my life without them. So, what jobs could I get where I could work with animals? Well, there was always the obvious choice of a veterinarian, but I would be forced to put animals down and see them at their worst, so that was out of the question. If I worked in a pet store, I would have to sell them and I’d never get to see them again; being a breeder led to the same outcome. In my little third grade mind, the only choice left was farmer. Well, I could hardly be a regular farmer. Sell my animals to be eaten? I don’t think so! So I came to the conclusion that a dairy farmer was the right profession for me. I could have as many animals as I wanted and nothing would ever get hurt. Unfortunately, this dream was rather short lived. I found out spiders like to live in barns and my fears trumped my dreams.

When I was ten, the cat my mother had, had since before I was born was put down. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, but everything happens for a reason. Not too long later, we bought two new cats that we named Mischief and Frisky. “Misty” was always ‘my baby’ and he is still my heart today. About a year after we got them, Frisky was killed by a car. Yet again, I was devastated. The two cats were biological siblings and my mom didn’t feel right burying Frisky while Mischief went out searching for her. She showed him his sister’s body and he became withdrawn and depressed for months. Again, the absolute adoration these cats had for each other just melted my insides. How could something with such a simple life and mind have such a massive heart?

When Mischief recovered emotionally, he became the most loving animal I have ever had. He also had to find something else to amuse himself with, since he no longer had Frisky to play with. Mischief too up the “sport” of hunting. There’s nothing he can’t catch. Quite often, he brings them home half alive and I try to nurse them back to health, without much success. The best example of this is probably my baby mouse, Teddy. Misty brought him home with a few gashes, but mostly alive. The thing was so young, its eyes weren’t even open yet. Every night for almost a month, I would stay up until 11pm and get myself up at 3am to feed the little monster. Baby mice need to be fed every four hours. After the first week and a half, Teddy opened his eyes and learned to walk. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed. Unfortunately, the wounds did eventually kill him. My favourite success story is my squirrel, Gibby. He had a bad leg and without going into detail, I nursed him until he was old enough to be out on his own. I moved him into my tree house and he later moved himself to my neighbour’s front yard maple tree where he lived for two summers, lame leg and all. I’m not sure what eventually happened to him, but I’m glad I was able to help him have the life he did experience.

I am now 16 years old. These and many other affairs affected my life drastically. I have been a vegetarian for three years and a vegan for almost two. I am an animal rights activist and fully intend on having a hobby farm and marrying a marine biologist. I still have tons of pets, (which I now call my “animal companions” - my average is 8 at a time) and my biggest goal in life is to abolish animal testing. I don’t think any of my teachers or family friends from my childhood would be surprised to hear I’m a vegan. When I look back, I’m only surprised I didn’t become one sooner. I will never go back to eating animal products and I think my childhood had a lot to do with that. I truly believe that your childhood foreshadows who you become as you grow up.

I am so rattled right now. I’m sorry tumblr. I don’t like to be the kind of person that just bitches on their blog but I need to get this out. I’m supposed to be doing a final project but I can’t clear my mind. Please, just let me vent.

I am a vegan. I will do anything to save an animal. I have gotten up every 3 hours throughout the night for 3 weeks to try to save a baby mouse! And today, this bitch, @trollist on twitter, had the nerve to tweet, “@TaviaMae Dumass. If you knew anything about animals you would not have said that. It’s because of idiots like you that tigers are dying out”… Ummm… EXCUSE ME WHAT?! You have got to be fucking kidding me! This bitch doesn’t know me at all, but she hit a nerve. A nerve big enough to warrant 4 tweets back. I’m not going to post them here, because it will probably just be excessive. Not to mention, the stupid bitch spelled “dumb-ass” wrong!

Normally, nothing people says bothers me. Okay, well obviously it bothers me a little, but ever since my little “episode” on Christmas Eve, everytime I get really upset about something like this, I get really light headed like I’m going to faint. That’s usually followed by nausea and difficulty breathing. I don’t know about you guys, but those symptoms don’t really sound very good to me! I’m seriously considering going to see like a therapist or a psychologist or something…

I don’t want to dwell too much on this but WOW I REALLY HATE THAT BITCH! Who exactly does @trollist think she is to be bashing me?! And yea, sure. I’m making it worse by talking about her and blah, blah, blah…

I HATE HER, I HATE HER, I HATE HER, I HATE HER!! What a rediculous bitch!!!

Okay, I feel better. Thanks for listening guys :)

What’s for dinner?

Okay so I think I hit the jackpot here!

I was looking for a new vegan shampoo that isn’t tested on animals at Shopper’s Drug Mart so I didn’t have to try to get out to other stores. I stumbled upon a shampoo & conditionner made by a company I get a lot of my other hair products from. It’s called ORGNX by lacoupe. It’s probably the best shampoo & conditionner I’ve ever owned in my life. On all levels! It’s just fantastic! I don’t even know quite what to say here. My hair is soft, damage repaired, smells good && everything I’m putting on my scalp is organic & cruelty free!! What more could you want!?

I guess all I’m saying is if you’re looking to change your hair products, switch to lacoupe because it’s everything you could ever hope for in a shampoo!

Located at 264 Dupont st.
(North East corner of Dupont and Spadina)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5R 1V7

Phone: 416-515-2002 
Email:   info@livefoodbar.com

Alright so I think this may be THE greatest restaurant I have ever been to in my life!  It’s completely Organic, all the ingredients are fresh, NOTHING is processed, and it’s 100% vegan.  So, what’s wrong with this restaurant? Well other than the fact that the service is a little unprofessional at times, NOTHING! This restaurant is fantabulous (and I do not use that made up word lightly)!!! I highly highly recommend you try and help me find a way to get one in Oakville! I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to eat at another restaurant again because this place ruined all other food for me. (& it has just been brought to my attention that they do infact sell their cook books. How great is that?!) So go! Go and eat the most wonderful food on earth! (Oh and I suggest ordering the Baked Tempeh ‘Crab Cakes’ - which are obviously not actual crab) & Just a heads up I probably missed half the information in this post so go check out their website @ www.livefoodbar.com