The Word: Are people more upset over Mindy McCready’s dog than her children?

McCready killed herself days after she was released from rehab.
Credit: Getty Images

Twitter was ablaze over Mindy McCready’s tragic suicide on Sunday (the troubled 37-year-old country singer shot herself in the same spot her longtime boyfriend, the record producer David Wilson, killed himself a month earlier). But after reports came out that McCready killed the family dog before turning the gun on herself, sympathy turned to anger — people seemed to be much more upset that she shot her dog rather than being in such a dark place that she would leave behind her two young children, Zander, 6, and Zayne, 9-months-old. A sampling:

@ChasinCaroline Seriously? Mindy #McCready killed her dog before she killed herself? Now that’s cruel!

@wwtdd the fact that mindy mccready killed her dog first makes me glad shes dead

@ChristopherFTL Mindy McCready shot and killed her dog before turning the gun on herself. My sympathy meter just went to zero after reading this.

As a huge animal lover, I get the outrage. But as murder/suicides go, a dog is better than, God forbid, a child. Of course, Twitter is but a small sampling of what we’re all thinking, but isn’t it fascinating that the world decided to pick up on this aspect of the tragedy rather than the human one — that two little children are going to be messed up for life and will grow up with no mother?

Fergie, Josh Duhamel are expecting their first child
Fergie has some new lovely lady lumps — it was announced yesterday via Josh Duhamel]s Twitter that the couple are expecting. “Fergie and Me and BABY makes three,” he wrote. Fergie, 37, followed suit: “Josh and me and BABY makes three!!!” she tweeted and included the hashtag #mylovelybabybump.
Duhamel has been talking about fatherhood for a while. “It’ll happen,” he told USA TODAY while promoting his new film, “Safe Haven.” “It’s happening. But every three months she’s pregnant [in the press]. If she gets a little paunch everyone thinks she’s pregnant. It’s like, well, thanks, they’re basically calling you fat. But like my mom said, well, if she’s been pregnant as long as everyone says that she is, well then we’re going to have a baby elephant. We’re on our own schedule with that.”