Pet Ownership POLL

well I have two cats, one dog (as of Monday), and two guinea pigs, so other?

Congrats on the dog! What’s you get?

One dog, 3 cats. Trying to get another dog too but the wife is still holding her ground. Another year of periodic nagging and I think we’ll get there

i have one dog, a three year old large collie cross we rescued two years ago pretty much as soon as we actually owned our house

https://i.imgur.com/6ZeyjHE.jpeg

Two dogs, two cats. The cats are not happy about the dogs.

Two cats. One dog. One cat loves dog. One cat hates dog. Dog loves everyone.

Two cats. One dog. One cat loves dog. One cat hates dog. Dog loves everyone.

so other?

Dang! I had planned to cover the 'trifecta' instance in one of the main choices, but somehow it got overlooked. Sorry about that.

We used to have hamsters, but the cats vetoed them.

My landlord stands in the way of any plan I may have to get a pet

All my pets occurred in childhood. The most memorable were a puppy who lasted about four months before proving beyond our family's ability to accommodate for its needs, a hamster named Spiro (after Agnew), a variety of goldfish from the grade school fund-raising carnival (that kept dying), some tropical aquarium fish - mostly neon tetra (that kept dying), and at least one tiny green turtle from a five-and-dime store of a variety that was eventually banned from import for bringing salmonella into the country with them.

Since adulthood my living situation hasn't been conducive to pet ownership. First it was sheer poverty and instability. Mostly it was an overload of other responsibilities. My wife hopes someday to own a cat to replace the one she had in an earlier marriage. I don't know when or if that'll ever happen.

i had a dog and plan to adopt a rabbit or rabbits.

"family pets" growing up - a lizard who lived seemingly forever, hamsters who didn't :(

a variety of goldfish from the grade school fund-raising carnival (that kept dying)

that, too.

The most memorable were a puppy who lasted about four months before proving beyond our family's ability to accommodate for its needs

that's horrible, my friend briefly had a puppy as a kid and then his mom cruelly made him give it up, it destroyed him

you sould totally get a cat!

Other: I have never been the primary owner of a pet but have managed to live in the same household as a pet for long periods of my life and hope to do so again in the future.

We have a cat and a dog, close to the same age, who arrived within a month of each other. They're pals. They don't wrestle as often as they used to but they're adorable when they do.

One cat, inherited from my mum last year, who herself inherited it from her uncle the year before

Congrats on the dog! What’s you get?

Thank you! We got a galgo from Spain, we've always had greyhounds. She's in the process of adjusting to Canadian weather.

currently at 1 cat, 8 chickens. at various times during the past 5 or so years those cat and chicken numbers have fluctuated.

I do not own any pets, I would find a way to live with my cat allergies but I also hate litter boxes. No dogs because I assume my mom's dogs will outlive her and I'll be taking them in.

never had pets as a kid -- my mom was allergic to everything

now on my second cat

first cat was the best creature god ever made; second cat is decent but i feel bad about not loving her as much

At our height of pet ownership, husband and I had three fish, four cats and four dogs. Now we just have one cat and three small dogs, and as we get older, that feels about right.

Two cats since kittens (siblings). One male one female, one big one small, both very babyish with distinct personalities.

0-7 (roughly): no pets
7-11 (roughly): one rabbit, several guinea pigs
11-49: no pets
49: two cats
49-50: one cat :(

I think I’ll probably end up getting another dog eventually but my husky died in March and I’m still crying about it on the regular. It was the second worst grief experience I’ve ever gone through. I spent 24/7 with her for 10yrs (I’m a homebody and I also took her to work with me), and I feel like I can’t let myself get that attached to another dog again. She was kind of a dick, so how bad will it be if my next dog is really sweet??

i used to be exclusively a cat person but now I have two dogs, one of which is like a cat, and I enjoy it.

there was a brief few weeks in my life when I was kid when we had like, 15 cats, because we moved into a house where the previous owners left behind two pregnant ones and they had litters within a week of each other.

There's a cat that lives in my building and comes in my apartment all the time because I give him treats. He sleeps on the sofa, and used to stay the night on my bed but I put an end to that

So I have the benefits of an occasional cat visitor, without having to clean a litter box.. works for me

xxxp That is the tremendous downside of living with pets: losing them.

I have my mother's cats while we trying to sort out her living situation. We are trying to get them certified as emotional support animals, so they can live in the condo I am buying.

Two kitty cats, ahahaha.

https://i.imgur.com/rkYiODl.jpg

none, since my snoogle boogie monkey muffin died last fall, and none planned for the future because of cost (financial and emotional <\3)

i used to think that once my last kitty died i'd foster others but i guess i've gotten weaker since then, the thought is too painful -- love and protect a helpless little being, then relinquish it to this horrible world of monsters? it would fuck my heart up every time and i don't know how much more fucking up my heart can take, i have to try to guard what i've got left

when i was a kid we had random fishes and a couple gerbils, who all came to a bad end

but always cats, wonderful beautiful cats, usually too many, sometimes *way* too many, which now that i'm older i recognize was, how to put this? bad. for everyone. at the time, though, they were everything good in the world for me.

2 old cats. 1 shy and 1 friendly although the shy 1 adores me when other people aren't around. Friendly 1 a bit high maintenance and poos on the floor instead of in the litter but at least he pisses in the litter box, that would be worse

2 pugs. Benson is almost 14! We always had dogs when I was little and I got Benson as soon as I could. I can't ever imagine not having a dog. One day I'd like to have a donkey and maybe a goat.

Pets are one of the best things about life. I feel sad for people who don't have any.

I had a rabbit at one point when I was a kid and we had a horse but they were both jerks.

0 pets when I've had the choice.
mum had 2 cats when I was a kid, I didn't really pay any attention to them. then when I was 12 she got me a dog because I should learn to 'look after and love something'. didn't really work I just found it annoying and loud.

I'm sorry about your husky, just1n3.

3 beautiful - and effectively communal - cats hang out in this traditional London Square. I like to see them daily if I can.

One dog, 6 cats and one goldfish here.

ENBB otm

Beautiful kitties e.mily

6 CATS!?

6 cats? *wistful sigh*

i will let you all in on my secret shame, i like videos of pet birds. they are so weird! so uncanny! some of them talk??????! when an animal starts talking it feels like you should just back away and go about your business as if nothing happened, or placate them with offerings?

and there are naked birds, right on the border of cute & cursed

https://www.instagram.com/reel/B_SbPGqnupn/?hl=en

(behold, a man)

I worked in a record store back in college. We had an African gray parrot who could talk pretty well. He was also highly neurotic; he constantly pulled his own feathers out. Whoever closed the store was responsible for taking him to his downstairs cage for the night, and he would usually bite me. Fuckin' bird.

Childhood pets were a succession of black poodles plus two black rabbits.

Love that symsymsym has a galgo. I’m a sighthound convert because years of looking after a few whippets and lurchers for out-of-town friends convinced me they are in every way wonderful. They are.

My fawn brindle whippet, Widget, is a beautiful little devil who is either lively or sound asleep. He turned three today!

Childhood pets were a succession of black poodles plus two black rabbits.

Love that symsymsym has a galgo. I’m a sighthound convert because years of looking after a few whippets and lurchers for out-of-town friends convinced me they are in every way wonderful. They are.

My fawn brindle whippet, Widget, is a beautiful little devil who is either lively or sound asleep. He turned three today!

My sister has rescued greyhounds for years, her current one is a real character. He literally has half a brain.

(ergh, sorry)

oh puir parrot, that sounds like a rough life for him

there's an undercurrent of banal horror with pet birds: they're fuckin' birds! they can fly, they need a flock (most of the ones kept as pets, anyway), but so many just get bought as decoration or a curiosity and have to live these stunted imprisoned lonely lives

jesus this thread brings out the maudlin in me

happy happy happy birthday to Widget!!

... literally half a brain?

Yes, literally, he is missing one hemisphere. He is a very sweet boy, though.

Yeah, the parrot was obviously stressed. We had animal control called on us a couple of times. Tbh, the guy who owned the store was a complete prick. The right thing to do would have been to keep the bird at home, maybe give him room.

cool greyhound fact: they make excellent blood donors for other dogs!

nightmare greyhound fact: they make excellent blood donors for other dogs, and as a consequence [a capitalism happens]

I like to look at birds in nature and on film but could never have one as a pet which reminds me that we did have a parrot named Chico when I was a kid and several fish at various times over the years.

Chico lol

my aunt got a parrot that was so loud and obnoxious she gave it away to her neighbors who ate it

i feel like the way forward is just to become pals with the wild birds, let them nibble seeds from your palm and so forth

or this

https://www.tiktok.com/@lexiclinemusic/video/7266633806541557038?lang=en

My parents had a talking budgie called Birdman when I was very little

Some years later we got another budgie, Spud, who also learned to talk and was a real character, very friendly and goofy, but didn't live very long because cooking on Teflon is a thing that kills birds I guess?

I'd love to have a parrotlet but both our existing pets (1x cat 1x dog) would certainly try to destroy it, the cat probably more successfully than the dog, who is a bit of a himbo

Cats are, quite literally, built to kill birds.

To clarify we did not cook Spud in a Teflon pan, we suspect he died from the fumes/chemicals they give off

The literal canary in a coal mine, eh?

Two dogs! Sally who is a rescue mutt (half pit) and Pearl who is a boston terrier.

Sally is my daughter's dog, they're besties and they sleep together. I dread the day that something happens to Sally.

Pearl is everyone's dog. If you have a lap she loves you and if she was stolen away to a different home she would never think about us again, as long as there was a lap.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/3614/ZFi9Ts.jpg

Boston Terriers are adorable.

a+ wise and gentle eyes on Sally

Pearl, on the other paw, looks to be plotting nefariousness

She looks disgruntled

I grew up around a lot of animals. My dad had a lot of cattle, horses, and cow dogs.

My mom has always had chickens, rabbits, cats, dogs, goats, donkeys, pot-bellied pigs, and a lot of birds (peacocks, love birds, doves, etc). But there were also: the hedgehog, llama, sugar-gliders, guinea pigs, flying squirrels that lived in the house, and loads of other critters. Aquariums.

I worked in a pet store for a little while.

Given all that, I am more than content with two dogs.

I worked in a pet store when I was a kid. They kept a monkey, I think he was an organ grinder monkey, in a cage in the front. He wasn't for sale. You really had to be careful around him.

Omg

https://i.cbc.ca/1.4536338.1518671023!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_1180/darling-pet-monkey.jpg

Mail order money!

monkey, dammit

Exactly:

When Tuthill grabbed it, the monkey began gnawing on his arm “like a drill press.”

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/648321/when-comic-books-sold-live-monkeys

Monkeys do not make good pets imho

No pets at the moment. We're thinking about it, though. Today a couple came to our front door seeking to have us pet-sit their French bulldog, but it turned out they wanted one of our neighbors a few doors down.

Xpost - oh I know. I love them but would never even consider it.

We had plenty of pets growing up - a ginger tom cat in childhood, then a springer spaniel we had for years, a tabby cat who ran away, a tabby cat who stayed (he and the springer were great pals), a wire-hair fox terrier, that fox terrier's son who we had to give away because the two kept fighting each other, an injured stray cat who ended up staying with us, a goldfish (briefly) and a lakeland terrier. Oh, and a springer pup who we had to give away because he was batshit crazy.

Finally we got a ginger Maine cat during lockdown - our sole current pet. Just a few days ago, this post would have been much sadder, but we just tracked her down after being missing for just over two months and now she's curling up on the couch. No idea how it happened, but she ended up in a rural estate miles away. We were keeping track of local missing pet Facebook pages - not the happiest daily ritual, I gotta say.

My mom was anti-pet, so when we left home my dad got a dog and I had a hamster for a bit and then a gopher (a neighbor brought it over saying their cat "was playing with a funny-looking mouse"). Years later, Cassandra the kitten chose me and we were best friends for four years until she decided to fight a rattlesnake. That was 1992 and I'm still upset about it - never had a pet since.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

one sassy thicc ginger boy cat who is also very sweet and loves kitty pets.

Ive one big strong fatty boombah cat boi who is a very good mouser and also a pain in the bum and also a derp.

it took me a year to notice it, but we've been housefly free since we've had him. i think he eats them.

one dog and one gerbil. the other gerbil just left us.

my dog is a bosnian rescue, we have had her a year and i am somewhat overwhelmed by just how much i love her. she is adorable but can also be a huge, moody pain and has all sorts of issues we can hopefully overcome eventually.

I bought a pet emperor scorpion back in the 90s, a giant shiny black thing. The woman at the pet shop was like "Why are you buying this? Never, ever try to touch it."

I had it for a couple months and watched it eat a cricket, but I think it got too cold and died

In childhood, dogs, cats, hamsters, mice, a skunk, a rogue of a horse. In young adulthood, rabbits, a horse, cats, and a min pin, not simultaneously. A spate of no pets at all for several years, then 2 ex-feral FeLV+ cats which lived for 19 years. Then zero pets for awhile. Then 1 ex-feral cat. Then 5 ex-feral cats, then down to 3 for a few weeks. Then 6, and now 7 ex-feral indoor cats. The explosion from 1 to 7 happened from November 2019 through September 2022.

3 cats, 1 dog, and 2 parakeets

Two cats — one increasingly bony old boy, one younger fella who let himself in through the cat door and stayed. I grew up with dogs and am fine with them — I like my friends' dogs — but I've never wanted to own one as an adult. Cats are more my vibe.

You guys with multiple pets are triggering my financial anxiety. We probably spent upwards of $12k in vet bills over 10yrs - Neko came from a really horrifying abuse background* and her teeth were fucked up from chewing rocks when she was being deliberately starved, so most of her vet bills were dealing with that (by the time she died she had maybe a third of her teeth left)

*she was finally taken from her owner after someone saw him beating the shit out of her in a public parking lot because she’d peed in their car and called the cops. I know she spent about 8 weeks at the vet hospital but I don’t know many details because it was horrific enough my husband wouldn’t let me read her file. About 6mo after we got her, I was walking with her and she spotted a man about 50ft away heading towards us. I don’t think he was her abuser (she came from a nearby county) but something about him triggered her. It was one of the weirdest, most disturbing things I’ve ever witnessed. I can’t really describe it except to say that she froze and the vibes radiating off her, it was like she was haunted. It wasn’t anxiety or simple fear - it was several levels beyond that. She just stared at him the whole time, until well after he’d walked past us. My best guess is that there was a scent about him extremely similar to her abuser.

That's horrific just1n3. Good on you for taking poor Neko on

This is my favorite Neko photo ever

https://i.imgur.com/cstbWQA.png

And this was my dog Jemma when I was a little kid

https://i.imgur.com/mvoBVxz.png

I had a fish when I was a toddler, Ben. It died after my stepdad's sister poured vodka in the tank.

Otherwise, we never had any pets in the house. I think because of that I'm really uncomfortable around animals - no ability to interpret their emotions and if they're happy/upset/scared etc. Also I have no tolerance for their smells, and I feel like when I go to visit someone with pets I want to wash my hands as soon as they touch me. I know this is my own hang-up and unreasonable but it's that lack of experience and familiarity with animals that causes it. I was also like this with babies until my mid-20s because we had no young children in the immediate family.

I think pets are great, for how much joy and happiness and comfort they bring to people, I just don't want them around me ever. Reading this thread and how much better everyone's lives have been for having pets is wonderful, uplifting stuff.

I didn't have a pet I could call my own until I was 28. my parents had a dog and cat when I was a toddler but I don't remember them being there. not sure why, maybe due to the divorce, the cat went to my grandparents' and the dog, well I guess he went to live on a farm somewhere? no idea. I was v fond of the cat, who was a gigantic chonker called Minnie, but I didn't know she used to live at our house until much later.

I did grow up with animals around though, my grandparents had 2 dogs, a chihuahua and a black lab, the chihuahua was a dick but I loved the lab, unfortunately he died pretty young, when I was about 8, and 3 cats including the one from our house. My uncle lived with us for a bit and he had a dog (a mongrel), and my sister had a couple of hamsters.

when I got married my late wife brought her cat over from the US, and a year or so later we got another cat, who is the one I mentioned upthread who's now 18 years old, but a friendly old guy (although this can be annoying if you don't like cats licking you, because that's his thing).

You guys with multiple pets are triggering my financial anxiety. We probably spent upwards of $12k in vet bills over 10yrs

Fair play to you for taking Neko on and giving her a good life. And to her for being a strong girl.

Yes, the financial anxiety is real. We're not too bad at the moment because our medication bill is probably only about €80 a month right now and our dogs are small so we don't go through food as quickly as we used to. But we had periods in the past where our vet bills were colossal. We had two dogs with terminal cancer at the same time as well as a cat with kidney disease and an overactive thyroid, and another dog on long-term pain relief. So it was special foods and expensive meds all the way down. I still have a pile of those pill sorter things in a drawer in the utility room in case I ever need them again.

Never thought about it before but, when I was growing up, no-one in my family - grannies, great grannies, uncles, cousins etc - had cats which might explain my disinterest in cats, which persists to this day.

Cosign on the financials. I didn't have the means to or really understand how to take care of my animals well until the two FeLV+ cats came into my life. 6 of our 7 are older, with two starting to show some chronic issues, and the youngest (#7) had a terrifying anemia event 6 months after he came to live with us. I couldn't give up on him - 2 transfusions, nights in the specialty hospital, months of daily meds and specialist follow-up care. He fully recovered and is a not-quite-10k former feral.

The cost can be extreme. We really lucked out with B considering so many pugs have a lot of health problems. The only thing he's ever had that was very expensive was 21 (!!) teeth pulled about 5 years ago which was about 3k. Somehow he's made it to 14 without ever needing anything else or regular meds etc.

bloody hell. Pogo had loads of teeth out but it only cost a few hundred for that. our big expense for him was when he fell off the roof and dislocated his leg, that cost about £1500 I think.

the major expense we had was when the cat that came from the US got stomach cancer, paid about £5k, cat died anyway. after that just decided if it's time to go it's time to go

I guess if I added up all the inhalers I got for Pogo's asthma over the years that would probably come to quite a lot. glad he doesn't have that any more

Never thought about it before but, when I was growing up, no-one in my family - grannies, great grannies, uncles, cousins etc - had cats which might explain my disinterest in cats, which persists to this day.

― The First Time Ever I Saw Gervais (Tom D.), Friday, November 3, 2023 8:57 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Think childhood experiences/exposure is huge. I always had dogs and have never really spent any time around cats. I'm ok with them now but they still sort of freak me out and I will admit that I don't fully get the appeal. Similarly, I've noticed that the kids of friends who love dogs tend to also love them but the ones whose parents don't like dogs/are scared of them are also wary/scared. Def learned behavior.

My mom wouldn’t have cats because she felt they were sneaky, plus the moulting. Our poodles were pretty good at subterfuge, but did not moult.

Never had siblings or children but I have always had a pet dog since I was 5 years old. The only times I didn't care for a dog were when I was in college and living on campus and it was prohibited and even then I considered sneaking in a dog. Love all dogs even though I am scared of big ones because my dogs and I have been attacked; largely indifferent to cats.

Also have inexplicable fondness for turtles

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I fall out with my dog occasionally, like when he bites my thumb so hard it's gone to the bone and bleeding profusely. Or when I'm making a pasta sauce out of all the last ends of cheese I have left, and it's a divine blend of padano, red leister, crumbly lancashire ... etc and the cunt eats the grated lot of it while I'm at the front door. But it's hard to bear long term grudges, even against such an annoying as fuck noble beast

I had a buddy who took his cat to the vet, I don't remember the issue but the bill was $3000... he rationalized by comparing it to buying a laptop which I thought was sound

i have all sorts of grievances against the uh i guess i’ll call it “racket” that is dealing with the vet

My animals go to the vet on an “as needed” basis. Which so far in my young life, has been basically never (besides puppy vaccination and the kitty boys getting the snip).

Please guilt me out of my ways with proper reasons. I love my pets with all of my heart, just so far I haven’t seen their need for a vet

in the summer, various shops and cafes in my neighborhood put out bowls of water for passing dogs

is this not a way for disease to spread? (sorry, i neither have a dog nor know anything about canine health issues)

when my dog was slowly dying with a sock lodged in his small intestine the private veterinary practise I went to were doing everything to monetise his suffering through multiple expensive consultations without successfully diagnosing what was a simple problem. I took him too a quite unorthodox vets in Morley where this Scottish guy was running an after hours emergency surgery and he knew there was a blockage straight away by feeling his stomach and noting that he was obviously suffering from severe dehydration. He did an x-ray to confirm it and could see I was skint and desperate and said "he wouldn't keep still for the x-ray so he couldn't in good conscience charge me £120 for it". He referred to him to the nearest PDSA, which are the charity vet org in the UK, and they saved his life.

If you’re receiving any kind of benefits, PDSA is brilliant. You should never go anywhere else if you can avoid it, and I’m furious that your regular vet, knowing your situation, didn’t signpost it.

Widget was the proud owner of an undescended bollock so needed to be neutered eventually. My regular vet for his jabs and check-ups (on a £20/month plan) is the Royal Veterinary College, and although it’s a non-profit, they wanted upwards of £500 for the procedure because it was ‘complicated’. They couldn’t give the final cost until they’d done the op. Sure, Jan… Luckily I qualified for PDSA at the time, and they took the fairly enlightened line that the surgical work was invasive like a spay, and charged accordingly (£120).

The RVC vet practice is OK for appointments (£50 to get seen, diagnose and treat a problem, plus a general look at the pet’s condition) and basic meds. British people with pets: avoid Medivet affiliated practices, they’re always the most expensive. If you can’t afford insurance or can afford care but don’t have it, you can get third-party coverage for £25/year by joining Dogs Trust.

the lifesaving surgery he had would have cost upwards of 2 grand at the private vets, the PDSA didn't specify a number to me - they asked me to donate what I could afford which was about a hundred quid at the time. I gave them another hundred when they took the stitches out. Such a vital organisation.

Yeah, the direction that vet care has taken since COVID would certainly give you... paws. (Thanks, yes, I did used to write social media posts for a dog charity.) It's great if you can find a local vet who hasn't sold out to a big American company.

Dealing with vet bills without being made to feel skinflinty is always a chore. RVC tried to charge me off plan because Widget’s vaccinations had to be restarted and not just boosted due to issues with their suppliers during lockdown. I actually said to the receptionist that this wasn’t a me problem. They tried to do it again recently when they gave him flea meds from a brand that was off plan, but the plan bumf does not distinguish beyond ‘flea and worm tablets’.

We've never had insurance for any of our animals. We are fortunate to have enough money, but also we put the money we would pay out in premiums into a savings account, just in case. We've yet to have a single big bill of thousands, and at this point our vets would be foolish to start hassling us for money. They have big signs up around the clinic telling people they MUST pay their bill on the day, but we've often been able to get someone else to collect meds or pick up an animal after treatment for us and we just pay them next time we're in.

for fleas I use nitenpyram tablets. It's £20 for 6 tablets which is a bit much and annoyingly the small dog packets are £5-6, which makes me wonder if I should buy the small dog one and give him a double dose. Of all the ones I tried, this was the most effective. It's such a scam that if I went to the vets it would be at least double the price.

The way I’ve always seen it is that caring for an animal is not free and it’s important to care for your animal so accepting the financial burden is part of the animal custody business. Also there’s no alternative to this attitude really bc 🇺🇸

This is why, despite hassles described, I’m with a nfp vet practice that’s attached to one of the best veterinary colleges/teaching hospitals in the world. It’s lucky that it’s so close to where I live and they have loads of experience with sighthounds.

we have a pet plan covering standard regular treatments but got insurance after a bill of several hundred quid earlier in the year, which worked out because an episode a few months after would have cost a few thousand

its been worth it for us but our girl is a big energetic clueless disaster tbf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iee2TATGMyI

"so accepting the financial burden is part of the animal custody business"

there are lots of poor people or even homeless people who are dog owners, if they can't afford pet insurance or massive vet bills it would be classist and wrong to infer there is something negligent on their part about them keeping an animal. Not trying to start a row here, perhaps it's a US/UK thing because I doubt there is an equivalent to the PDSA in the US that is as good as it is in the UK -although like everything healthcare related it will be a shrinking resource. It's fine that the wealthy or the comfortably well off can afford to be scammed by the vets multiple times a year, but it doesn't make them superior pet owners nor does it guarantee that their pets are going to be healthier or happier or better looked after. Sorry, I'm more ranting at the clouds here rather than having a personal dig at you, so please don't feel attacked.