Chandler: Yeah, it's like when you're a kid, and your parents put your dog to sleep, and they tell ya it went off to live on some farm.
Ross: That's funny! That, no—because our parents actually did send our dog to live on a farm.
Monica: [uncomfortable] Ross?
Ross: [scoffs] Hello? The Millners' farm in Connecticut? [to the others] The Millners, they had this unbelievable farm that—they, y'know, had horses, and they had rabbits that he could chase, and it was—it was—
[everyone stares at him, helping him realize he was lied to]
Ross: Oh, my God, Chi Chi!
Ross: That's funny! That, no—because our parents actually did send our dog to live on a farm.
Monica: [uncomfortable] Ross?
Ross: [scoffs] Hello? The Millners' farm in Connecticut? [to the others] The Millners, they had this unbelievable farm that—they, y'know, had horses, and they had rabbits that he could chase, and it was—it was—
[everyone stares at him, helping him realize he was lied to]
Ross: Oh, my God, Chi Chi!
How do you tell a child when their dog has died? The simple answer is, you don't. You just tell them that good old Spot has been sent to a lovely farm with new owners who will take very good care of him. This way, the kid doesn't have to learn about death and his parents don't have to tell him about it.
The straightest example of this trope applies to pets, but in extreme versions can apply to actual people who have recently died. Of course, at some point, the kid is going to grow up and realize their beloved dog was never actually sent to a farm. This can also apply to cases where the child is told their pet simply "ran away" or something of the like.
Pretty much a Dead Horse Trope nowadays, as parenting techniques have changed and they no longer shy away from the realities of death.
Sub-Trope to Lies to Children and Released to Elsewhere. See also Never Say "Die" and Black Comedy Pet Death. Contrast Death by Newbery Medal and Death Is a Sad Thing, which is all about learning about death, and No Longer with Us, when a common metaphor for death is the literal truth (the dog really did go to a farm). If you're playing a Virtual Pet game, sending your pets to something like this is a common lore explanation for a Reward for Removal.
As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, after Hughes dies, Mustang makes up on the spot the lie to Ed that he had retired to the countryside to try and spare his feelings. Unfortunately, not five minutes later, Maria accidentally reveals to Ed the truth when she mentions that after "what happened to him," he was promoted twice. Her confusion at Ed's own at being double-promoted upon retirement clues him in to the truth.
Audio Plays
- Big Finish Doctor Who:.
- In "The Wrong Doctors", a younger, pre-Doctor version of Mel fatally strains herself in psychically righting a damaged timeline. Rather than admit that she's died, something he can't bear to do, a post-Mel Doctor, comforting her as she passed, tells the older Mel and younger Doctor that she's returned to her timeline with a smile and a wave.
- In "Starlight Robbery", a woman whom companion Will Arrowsmith has grown fond of is killed by the antagonist. Not wishing to emotionally injure Will, the Doctor says she left to strike out on her own.
Fan Works
- Lies
is a Making Fiends fanfic delving into the theory that Charlotte's parents are dead. Her parents died in a plane accident. Charlotte's grandmother lied to her and said they were astronauts living on a space station.
- Marooned in Madagascar: What Julien tells Keke to spare her from the fact that her mother is dead, though he puts his own spin on it by claiming that Victoria is a super spy who left her daughter on Madagascar for the latter's own safety. Probably for the better, since it's revealed that Keke accidentally led her mother to her death, by pranking Savio, which got all three of them caught and tranquilized (in Victoria's case stuffed) by the poachers.
- In Mr. Hart, the Doctor reveals that the real Jane Howard died when she was five and her parents told the other kids that she is merely sent off to school. This allows the fake Jane to assume the identity easily when the parents are not around at the moment.
- Some Things Never Change: After Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy passed away, their caretakers at Shady Shoals told SpongeBob that the pair moved to a different retirement home, and that no, sorry, they didn't have the address written down anywhere. None of his friends could bring themselves to reveal the truth.
Film — Live-Action
- In the Live-Action Adaptation of Bunny Drop, Kouki's father is deceased rather than divorced. In order to spare her six-year-old son the knowledge of his father's death, Kouki's mother tells him that she divorced his father. Kouki figures it out anyway and runs off with Rin to find his dad's grave.
- In Fielder's Choice, Zach's mother dies in a car accident while she's in San Diego. For days, Philip tells Zach that his mother is still in San Diego and will be home in a few days.
- In the 1970 film of Jane Eyre, the dying Helen Burns applies this to herself, assuring Jane that she's just being sent home to recuperate and will come back to school when she's well again. This is immediately followed by a Time Skip showing adult Jane placing flowers at Helen's grave. This trope is only found in this adaptation, though, as in the novel and most other versions, Helen comforts Jane by assuring her that she's going to heaven and that Jane will one day join her there too.
Literature
- The Dark Profit Saga: In Son of a Liche, Jynn is furious when he discovers that his childhood dog Patches did not "run away" but was really turned into a Hellhound by his necromancer dad. Fortunately the dog is revived when they defeat the Hellhound.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: When Greg's father Frank was a child, he had a dog named Nutty, who his dad told him ran away to a butterfly farm. In reality, his dad accidentally ran the dog over. He reveals it many years later over family dinner thinking enough time had passed that Frank would look back on it and laugh, but Frank was so mad his father lied to him that he immediately left with his family mid-meal, stuck Grandpa with the bill, and got a new pet dog.
- Gaav: Mash Hassan owns the only cow in his tiny Iranian village, and he loves his cow, murmuring affectionately when he washes it and decorating its head with garlands. So when the cow up and dies out of nowhere while Mash Hassan is out of town, the villagers elect to conceal the death, telling Mash Hassan on his return that the cow ran away. This does not work, as Mash Hassan has a full mental breakdown.
- In the Halo novels, the Spartans were turned into Propaganda Heroes by the UNSC to maintain morale during the war with the Covenant. This led to an unofficial policy of never admitting any of the Spartans had died on a mission, instead only listing them as "MIA".
- Played for Laughs in I Am America (And So Can You!), as one section is devoted to Stephen Colbert telling off his childhood dog for abandoning him to go have fun at some farm (along with his grandpa), and that his new dog is way better than she ever was. Even if he was getting slower with age, and couldn't jump as high anymore...
Live-Action TV
- In the Bless This House episode "It Comes to Us All in the End," Sid tries to break the news of Joey the budgie's death to Sally. He tells her Joey ran away to be with a flock of wild budgies flying to Australia. Sally immediately figures out what really happened.
- Desperate Housewives: In "In a World Where the Kings Are Employers", Orson tries to get into Bree's bank accounts because he wants to know how much she's paying her son Andrew vs. what she's paying him. While on the phone with her bank, the accountant clarifies that the security question concerns the name of Bree's childhood pet. As he doesn't know the answer to that question, he has to trick her into revealing that it was a dog named Munchie who got released to a farm. When he reveals the truth about what he was doing, she's not pleased. He ends the conversation by telling Bree:
Orson: Oh, since we're being honest: Munchie didn't go to any farm. That's what parents tell their kids when they've just had their pets gassed.
- Doctor Who: In "The Robot Revolution", a robot that is kidnapping Belinda Chandra ends up killing her neighbour's cat. Before Belinda gets taken away, she asks Mrs Flood to tell her neighbour that the cat ran away to a farm.
- Friends:
- In "The One With The Thumb", Ross comments that when he and Monica were kids, their parents actually did send their dog to a farm. However, as he's describing it he comes to the sudden realization that there was never any farm. Monica appears to have worked out the truth much earlier.
- One episode involves Phoebe being invited to play her songs for a group of children. This ensues:
Phoebe: [singing] Now your mom and your dad said [Grandma] moved to Peru, but the truth is she died, and someday you will too.
- She is removed from the library after some parents complain, but the kids love her and actively seek her out at the coffee shop so they can hear her songs again.
- The chick and the duck serve as Chandler and Joey's pets for some time before Chandler gets engaged to Monica, disappearing without explanation around this time. However, the Grand Finale (in which Joey gets Chandler and Monica a baby chick and duck for their new house and children) reveals that they both died of natural causes and everyone in the group lied to Joey that they were sent to a happy farm, but they couldn't visit them.
Joey: Yeah. It's a shame people can't visit there.
Phoebe: That is the rule, though.
- The Good Place: A flashback shows Eleanor as a young child, with her mother Donna informing her that her dog Max has passed away. Eleanor is unable to understand, so Donna says that Max has passed over a rainbow bridge into a beautiful farm, and they can't visit because it's in Guam. Eleanor presses further, and Donna gives up and flat out says that Max died after she left him in the car and he overheated and that Guam isn't a real place.
- How I Met Your Mother:
- In a Season 2 episode, Robin starts to realize that keeping five dogs in a New York City apartment isn't such a good idea and says it's time to "send them to the farm". Lily is horrified but Robin tells her she's talking about an actual farm. However, since the entire series is a story that Ted is telling his children, he might have been playing this trope straight.
- During "The Autumn of Breakups", Robin tells Barney that as a child she had a dog sent to a farm where her aunt lived with her best friend. Subverted in that she really did send a dog to the farm, but discovered that her aunt was more than just friends with her housemate.
- In "Who Wants to Be a Godparent?", Lily and Marshall are in the process of choosing a guardian for Marvin among their friends in the case of their deaths. After asking Barney how he would tell Marvin why his parents aren't around anymore, he responds that he'd just change a few words to an excuse he often uses with his one-night stands.
Barney: [to Marvin in Imagine Spot] The president of the world has called your parents away on a super-secret space mission. For the sake of the planet, you will never see them again.
- Monk: An unusual example appears in "Mr. Monk and the Dog". Monk ends up agreeing to watch Shelby, Amanda Castle's dog, while the police look for her owner. When Monk gets the news of Amanda's death, he tells Shelby that her mistress isn't returning and she went to a beautiful farm with lots of cool features. However, then he decides he's not fooling anyone and just sympathizes with Shelby over her grief.
- Spoofed on Mystery Science Theater 3000. During the watch of a movie in which a dog gets horribly burned to death in front of the child, Mike has the dad say "I very quickly sold him to a farm upstate where he’ll be happier."
- QI: In one episode Stephen talks about the Soviets training dogs to look for food under tanks during World War II, then strapping explosives to their backs and letting them loose on battlefields to blow up the enemy tanks. When the audience is shown a picure of a dog carrying an explosive, Phill Jupitus tries to reassure the audience "Don't worry, that one didn't blow up! He lives on a farm now, they really love him and they stroke him a lot!"
- The Red Green Show gives us an example in one of their segments called "The Experts". In it, a viewer writes in to talk about how his car is great, except it has such limited rear visibility that a St. Bernard could fall asleep behind it and the driver wouldn't notice until after pulling away. The viewer's question is thus, "How do you tell a child their pet is dead?" Red's advice is to lie by saying the dog has run off, joined the circus, and will be back in a couple of years. This is also what he told Harold when his hamster died, and Harold still believes him.
- Played with a twist in Rosemary & Thyme — "the farm" is real. A murdered blind man's service dog saves Rosemary's life. Laura is strongly tempted to keep him but entrusts him to a sanctuary, a kind of retirement community for elderly service dogs (such places do exist, see the Real Life entry below). The woman who runs it literally assures them that he will have "comfortable kennels, open fields to roam, as much food as he can eat, he'll have the life of Riley."
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) has one episode where Salem hides in a bubble to avoid catching Spring Fever (a disease that makes a witch easily distracted due to fixating on a certain issue). At the end of the episode, Hilda and Zelda remember he's still in the bubble, this exchange occurs.
Zelda: It's the grasshopper in the jar all over again!
Hilda: What? You said Mitzy joined the circus! - The Sopranos: When Bobby's kids ask Bobby and Janice if they can get a dog, Tony reminisces on his and Janice's childhood dog, Tippy, who got sent to live out in the country after contracting worms. Janice reveals to him that, no, their dad sent Tippy to the pound to get euthanized, much to Tony's distress. It turns out their father actually gave the dog to a mistress after his wife forced him to get rid of it.
Tony: Father told me he took him to live on a farm...
Bobby: That's what they always say. That same farm must have 17 billion dogs on it. Dog shit up to the rafters. - Parodied in the second episode of The Suite Life on Deck. Bailey (Zack and Cody's Country Mouse classmate from Kettlecorn, Kansas) tells Cody that she once owned a pet pig, and one day when he was gone, her mother told her "he moved to the big city".
- That '70s Show: "Black Dog" featured a reference to Eric's fourth grade hamster, Snowball. He was told at the time that his pet was sent to a farm upstate, but he learns in the episode proper that Kelso killed it while playing with a BB gun.
Eric: You shot Snowball?!
Kelso: The gun went off by accident! - In one episode of Teachers (2016), one of Ms. Watson's students informs the class that pets don't die—his mom told him that all of his hermit crabs went to live on the farm.
Manhua
- Take My Brother Away!: In chapter 82, Shi Miao reminisces about her hamster who was "given to their neighbour". Her father forced her brother to throw it away into the sewers. What's more, he threw away her pet goldfish too, and their father personally cooked their rabbit!
Print Media
- In the MAD parody of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry is told that Sirius Black went to go live on a farm with other godfathers, which is more appropriate for this trope than other human examples given that Sirius's Animagus form is a dog.
Radio
- In a round of "Showstoppers" on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, where the object is to complete the first line of a song in a way that will immediately end it, this is Fred Macauley's answer to the question "Scooby-Dooby-Doo, where are you?"
- Riffing off claims that the Conservative campaign to protect Boris Johnson's career in the wake of Partygate was called Operation Save Big Dog, The News Quiz called the Tory rebels Operation Tell The Kids That Big Dog Got Sent to Live on a Farm.
Stand-up Comedy
- In Have Your Loved Ones Spayed or Neutered, Jeff Foxworthy talks about how childhood pets that got sick never died but "went away" and goes on a run listing out various animals. But when he comes to the kicker and says if Grandma got sick, she'd "go away" the entire audience groans in a Dude, Not Funny! reaction and is awkwardly quiet when he tries to salvage the joke.
Video Games
- In Crusader Kings II, if your character has the Dull trait and owns a cat, an event may fire where your courtiers tell you that your aging pet was sent to live with your aunt at her country estate, where it will surely be happy frolicking in the woods and playing with other cats. The only response option is "I'm glad it's in a better place!"
- In Mutant: Year Zero, the achievement for putting 20 Zone Dogs "to sleep" is of course "Sent to the Farm."
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Played with. The Palutena's Guidance for Pokémon Trainer has Viridi wondering about the "weak Pokémon who get left in their balls and forgotten", which gets Pit worried about "PikaPit". Palutena assures him that any such unused Pokémon are "playing together at a farm upstate". At the time of Ultimate releasing, the then most recent Pokémon games had a location called the Poké Pelago that did act as a sort of farm and play area for boxed Pokémon to play in, so it's easy to assume that's what Palutena's referencing in this instance.
- Trickcal: Elias is a world where sentient beings are completely immortal, but not non-sentients. When the Master asks what happens if, for instance, a denizen steps on a bug, Erpin replies that these bugs "go to the Weekend Farm". The elementals of Elias are said to take the smushed bugs to the Weekend Farm when no one else is looking, and these bugs live there happily ever after. Ner adds that the academic world is split over whether that place should be called the "Weekend Farm" or the "Weekend Ranch". The elves, who are a race from another dimension, are completely familiar with death and say that "dying" and "going to the Weekend Farm" are effectively synonymous.
- In one possible ending in Undertale (if the player kills every boss except for Papyrus) Sans calls the player after they return to the human world and Papyrus briefly talks to them. He says that he's noticed that the other bosses have gone missing, but Sans told him they're all on vacation. Papyrus buys it wholeheartedly.
Webcomics
- In this strip from Loading Artist, a man releases a pet rat into the wild only for it to be immediately snatched by a hawk, which turns out to be delivering it to a mouse family complete with a "WELCOME HOME" banner and birthday cake. The final panel pulls back to reveal the father narrating all of this to his tearful kid as a comforting bedtime story.
- Pills That Make You Green: Parodied in "care"; Lime and Moss send Orange (who has been acting like their dog for the past several comics) to Moss's "anarcho-caninist friends up south", who live on a big farm. When they tell Leaf about this, Leaf immediately assumes they euthanized Orange, and no amount of explaining that it's a real farm can convince them. The last panel confirms that the farm is real, showing Orange blissfully hanging out there with several other Little Bit Beastly people.
- Sam & Fuzzy: During the Fix Your Problem era, it's revealed that the Mr. X who was present for much of the story was actually Jess, a shapeshifter spying on Sam and Fuzzy on behalf of Mr. Sin. When Fuzzy finds out, he demands to know what happened to the real X, and Sin sarcastically remarks that "he got sent to a nice farm". It turns out the farm is actually real, and X goes on to become an important supporting character for much of the Myth Arc.
X: *surrounded by dogs happily frolicking in the countryside* I wish there was something to eat here besides dog treats...
Web Originals
- Parodied in the Framley Examiner advert for Doolittle's Pet Placements:
"We'll take the corpse of your pet and give it to a loving farm family. We have hundreds of rural families on our books, none of whom mind having a dead dog on the hearth rug. Now you won't be lying - both you and Rover can go to Heaven!"
- I Used to Believe, page about animal death has many stories along these lines.
- One person's belief was about their dog Muffy. The truth is, Muffy really did get sent to live on a farm, but they didn't realize why everyone looked so sad when informed of this.
- Another poster's parents told them their cat was sent to a farm, resulting in Mistaken Identity. The poster visited his grandparent's farm and thought their barn cat was his cat, who hissed at them for petting it.
- Another poster's father worked at the shipyard which had stray cats to catch mice. The father convinced the poster that any dead pets were living in the shipyard until he was caught burying one.
- When Jay & Miles X-Plain The X-Men are X-plaining New Mutants #74, in which Ship from X-Factor (1986) freaks out about Gosamyr because her entire species are ravenous monsters, she insists she's trying not to be like that, and Ship immediately says that in that case, it can send her to a planet it's heard of where members of her race are taught to control their powers by enlightened beings, Jay is absolutely convinced that, given we never see Gosamyr again, this supposed planet is the equivalent of a farm upstate where she'll be very happy, and Ship just blew up the spacecraft as soon as it was out of the New Mutants' sight.
- The Onion:
- "Fire Consumes Big Happy Farm Where Families Send Sick Dogs To Run Free And Play" lampoons the trope by reporting an incident where a farm where many people's beloved pets were sent to live had caught fire and all of the pets burned to death. It is also mentioned that the fire also killed several long-lost fathers who had gone to the store years ago to buy nice presents for their children.
- "We Gave Rex To A Nice Farm Family vs. They Had Me Put To Sleep At The Vet" has a parent informing their child that they've sent their dog Rex to live with a new family and giving convenient excuses for why the child can't see Rex (e.g. losing the camera containing the pictures taken of Rex's new home, insisting that Rex is much happier in his new home), followed by the dog telling the blunt, non-sugarcoated truth that he was euthanized and cremated.
- And again with "Packers Tell Fans They Gave Favre To A Nice Farm Family" after Favre was traded by said team to the Jets over his waffling about retirement when the Packers wanted to give the starting quarterback job to Aaron Rodgers.
- "Fire Consumes Big Happy Farm Where Families Send Sick Dogs To Run Free And Play
- This Reddit is about apparent euphemisms that turn out to be true:
- The OP had his dog taken away over a classmate's Wounded Gazelle Gambit and was told the usual farm story, which his brother clarified. Months later he was taken down to his Uncle's farm and discovered the dog was still alive.
- Another poster claimed their parents used the farm story, after his friend's dog was getting increasingly aggressive. The poster did not believe the claim due to hearing about the euphemism from a short story. It turns out that not only was the dog actually at a farm, but the reason they never visited the farm was that being around children was too stressful for it.
- Inverted in another post: the poster's father told them their dog died when he actually gave it to the farm where their neighbor worked since he no longer had time take care of it after his divorce.
- Twitter user @wzio made this parody of His Master's Voice in 2013 after UK music retailer HMV (named after the painting) went under. In the parody Nipper the dog has left behind a card next to the gramophone reading "I've gone to live on a farm".
- In this Not Always Working story, one of the submitter's coworkers is describing the tortoise he had when he was a kid, and says he was sent to a tortoise sanctuary. When the other coworkers question this, he says no, there was a tortoise sanctuary, because he visited it and recognised his tortoise. Another co-worker says he always knew his dog hadn't really been sent to a farm, and it's suggested he should ask his mom, just in case. Turns out that was true as well!
Web Videos
- Badman: In the episode "Batman vs. the Penguin" it is revealed that Batman has no clue what death is. Not only does he think all the goons he's killing in this episode are just sleeping, he also insists that his parents aren't dead but living on a farm for old rich people. And his goldfish appearantly is still swimming in the ocean after Batman flushed him in the toilet.
- During one Achievement Hunter Minecraft video, something exciting happens to Michael. Just before this event, a message from the editor pops up on the screen, reading, "By this point, you're all probably wondering where Michael's footage is. It was taken to a farm where it would have more space to run and play." Said exciting event is then played out through exceedingly poor animation.
- In the last episode of the Let's Play series My Story Mode House, which is based on Minecraft: Story Mode Season 2, after Stacy Plays' baby llama dies while trying to bring him up to the Parrot Party room, Stampy tries to tell Stacy that it ran away to the forest, opened a bookshop, survived a fire, and lived a long and happy life.
Western Animation
- Arthur: In "Arthur's New Puppy", Arthur is told by Francine that Pal will have to be sent to a farm if he doesn't behave. However, it's not clear if this is a euphemism or if it's meant literally.
- Bob's Burgers: In "An Incon-wheelie-ent Truth", Gayle is dismayed to learn that her childhood goldfish is not immortal and living at an aquarium for study.
- Season 5 of BoJack Horseman sees BoJack's mother Beatrice pass away, with BoJack insisting that everyone just treat him like normal. Mr. Peanutbutter (who's a dog) then mentions that he'd never had a death in his family; his mom just went to live on a farm upstate. Both BoJack and Gina point out the truth, prompting Mr. Peanutbutter to break down into tears and subsequently get all of the support BoJack secretly wanted. The episode concludes with Mr. Peanutbutter thanking everyone for being with him when he most needed it, and that the person he feels the most sympathy for is his father, because if his mother is dead, his father is all alone out there on that... same... farm...
- Doug: The B-plot of the Disney episode "Patti's Dad Dilemma" reveals that Doug once had a hamster named Happy that died when he was five years old. At the time, Judy told him that Happy ran away to join the circus, but now, at age twelve, he finally learns what really happened.
- El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera: Manny was given the classic version of this as a child, the "They went to live on a farm where they could run free and chase rabbits" kind of classic... except this wasn't about a pet, it was about the superheroes killed by El Mal Verde.
- The Fairly OddParents!:
- "That's Life" has Timmy accidentally turn his dead pets into zombies via magic when trying to help his mother's garden grow. He's shocked to see each of them (especially his gerbil Eddie, the focus of the episode), as he was always told his pets just "ran away" while he was at summer camp... camp... camp...
- In "Snow Bound", Timmy and Vicky are trapped after an avalanche. With nothing else to do but talk, Vicky admits that she was lied to about her turtle, a childhood pet. Her dad claimed the turtle ran away, but she came to realize that turtles can't run.
- Parodied in Family Guy when the Griffins decide to move to a farm. When they tell Brian that he's going to be living on a farm soon, which they do in the most ominous way possible, he freaks out when he thinks this means they're going to have him put down. He screams that they'll never take him alive, pulls out a gun, and takes Stewie hostage.
- Implied in Making Fiends with Charlotte's parents. Charlotte lives with her grandmother, and both say that the parents are astronauts in space. Some of the wording in the episode where this is mainly focused upon, "Parents", implies that they're actually dead and that the story of them being in space was a cover-up told to Charlotte to prevent her from being upset that she's an orphan.
- Phineas and Ferb: Parodied in "It's About Time!". While visiting the Danville Museum, the boys see they have a dog's skeleton with the same name as their old one, which their parents told them went off to kindly old man Simmons' farm after he got sick. Before they can fully realize the connection, their father steers them towards the next exhibit, which turns out to be the skeleton of kindly old man Simmons. At this point, he hastily hurries to the next wing.
- Robot Chicken had a segment that parodies Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? centered on Brutal Honesty (such as clarifying that Santa Claus isn't real), and one of the questions asked what happened to his dog when he "got old", and the fifth grader replied with the farm excuse, which the adult contestant quickly disabused him of.
- The Simpsons:
- "The Boys of Bummer":
Lisa: Bart, come with me. I'll take you to someone who will make you feel better.
Bart: Is it my rabbit Cottontail, the one who went to live upstate?
Lisa: He died, Bart! Dad buried him in the backyard, but not in that order. - In "How Munched is That Birdie in the Window?", Lisa jumps to the natural conclusion when Marge says they're taking Santa's Little Helper to a farm upstate, only to find out they literally are.
Marge: For once, a pet going to a farm upstate really is going to a farm upstate!
Bart: What about all the other pets you told us went to a farm upstate?
Homer: [hums in thought] Backyard, backyard, toilet, ocean, don't know, backyard, Flanders' mailbox, Lenny's freezer, tire fire.
- "The Boys of Bummer":
- Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Much Ado About Boimler" when Boimler gets stuck in teleportation phase and Tendi creates a doglike abomination, T'Ana sends them to Starfleet's medical resort planet that specializes in the weirder conditions people face, which is called the Farm. On the transport ship to get there, the rest of the "freaks" explain that this is the Farm, and Starfleet is just hiding them because there is no cure for their conditions. Of course the Farm turns out to be a real place, just as wonderful as they were promised it would be.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In "Return to Mewni", Queen Moon tells Star that she won't let her fight Toffee and his army, breaking down as she confesses they killed her own mother when she was Star's age. This is news to Star, who had previously been informed that her grandmother had been sent to a "grandma farm".
Real Life
- There actually are farm sanctuaries for older animals. Along with elderly and sick pets, many of the residents may be adopted out of high kill shelters. Unlike the stereotype, of course, you can visit your old friends at these places.
- Some people seem to believe that this happens to every pet dumped on the side of a rural road. While there's the occasional story of an abandoned pet wandering up to the right farmhouse, there are far more that don't have happy endings.