Bully throws cup of water on cat to shoo him away, owner gets him back

While most folks are nice to animals, you always meet the odd bully here and there. The thing about these bullies is that they come in all shapes and sizes - and at all ages. In a tweet that has gone viral since it was first posted, a cat owner shared that her neighbor (who is only 10 years old) threw a cup of water at her cat. All the furry friend was doing was chilling on the fence. Instead of letting it go or talking to the child, she decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. The internet is divided over whether she did the right thing.

Shannon Cooper, who goes by the username shannoncooperox on Twitter, wrote, "My 10-year-old neighbor just threw a cup of water over my cat, who was sitting on the fence, minding his own business, and laughed. So I threw a basin of water over him from the window and now his dad is at my door going mental, but I don’t see the problem. Don’t touch my cat." As of early Monday morning, the tweet had over 74,000 retweets, 635,000 likes, and 4,700 replies. The responses, as one would expect, wavered from complete support all the way to anger. To those in the latter group, Shannon had a little bit of an explanation.

She stated in a follow-up tweet, "People are so mad over this. The kid and his dad were laughing about it today, we are friends (also might I add the dad never knew what his son [had] done which is why he was mad, to begin with). Also the kid is 13. He really looks f*cking 10, lmao." However, that didn't stop all the frustrated Twitter users from popping off in the replies. One person responded, "Lol, it’s obvious no one on this thread has any education in early childhood. You don’t throw a basin of water over a young kid acting up. That’s literally showing him that violence is the answer when someone does something wrong."

On the other hand, several folks sided with the poor kitty. "Justice has been served for the kitty," one user posted. "Also his dad should teach his sh*tty kid to be nice to animals. I don't let little kids anywhere near my pets if I can help it. They're too damn rough and their parents don't do anything about it until the kid gets scratched or growled at." Evidently, this was a pretty contentious issue and the kids versus pets debate got quite heated. Ultimately, we're just glad that the cat is safe and dry now, that the child learned his lesson, and that the world can keep spinning.