YouTuber Parents Trick Daughter Into Thinking They're Giving Her Puppy Away

April Fool’s Day — the perfect opportunity to prank your 6-year-old by pretending to give your dog away

Popular YouTube family vloggers, the LaBrant Fam, decided to pull an April Fool’s prank on their six-year-old daughter, Everleigh, in which they told her they were giving away their family puppy, Carl. But instead of a hilariously funny outcome, the video is pretty heartbreaking to watch, and led to some major fan backlash across the interwebs.

Watching Everleigh crying and totally dejected over the loss of her pet is absolutely a strike against the dumb holiday of April Fools, as well as a bit of a strike against parents Cole and Sav, who, to their credit, don’t look super pleased with the results of their trick as the video progresses. Maybe video blogging your child’s distress over a fictional tragedy involving an actual living family member isn’t super great? Just a thought.

But let’s break down the video, which is of course called, “We Have to Give Our Puppy Away… Saying Goodbye Forever :(.”

First and foremost, if you aren’t familiar, the LaBrant family consists of parents Sav and Cole, as well as their kids, Everleigh and Posie. Both Sav and Cole have been internet famous for a while, before they met, fell in love, and started a family while continuing their influencer lifestyle.

The wholesome Christian family now has 8.7 million subscribers on YouTube, not to mention large followings on Instagram (even the dog has way more followers than you do, they would definitely not give away this white fluffy internet star).

Usually their lives are pretty controversy-free, and well stocked with value-filled family activities and a lot of pastels. But yesterday, about seven minutes into their regular vlogging (which consisted of things like chilling and eating breakfast), we cut to a sad scene with Everleigh facedown and inconsolable on the couch.

Cole and Sav soon explain that she’s upset because Carl is leaving the family – they simply don’t have time to care for him properly, and they’re moving to a new house soon that just won’t suit him.

Everleigh finally sits up with some cajoling and clings to Carl while her parents explain that he can’t stay – and then ask if she’d like to give him away to someone. While recording.

After an excruciating few minutes (with Sav cracking up in the background a time or two), they break the news to her that it’s a prank, which just seems to make her cry more.

“Too far?” Cole asks the camera, to which the internet replied, “Um, yep, kind of.”

Also, for filming and posting purposes, this prank was pulled on March 31. Totally, totally not cool.

The family has a solid history of playing pranks on each other – but in the past it’s largely consisting of Sav and Cole pranking each other, with Everleigh in on the tricks. Maybe they should stick with toying with the emotions of adults (with histories of being pranksters themselves) instead of temporarily traumatizing a child. But – they’ve disabled comments on their April Fool’s video, so maybe they’ve learned their lesson.