to wonder why even the nicest of people think animals are objects...

[ThatVikRinA22]

i am flighty and fickle, but not even i could ever get an animal and then decide somewhere down the line i cant have it anymore, surely that should be a major consideration when deciding to get a pet?

yet some of the nicest people i know have had pets for a few months/years then "rehomed" them.

i have often ended up with "rehomed" animals....

i wonder what it is in peoples psyches that makes a sentient being somehow be expendable? sometimes my kids have stretched me to the limit, but rehoming them wasnt an option! ditto with DH....seriously though - shouldnt these things be thought through better beforehand?

we have had countless animals yet i have always thought that taking on an animal is a (its) lifelong responsibility...

what do people think happens to pets that are "rehomed"....?

i realise peoples circumstances change but i just think all things should be considered prior to getting a pet....its makes me quite sad, i lost my pooch last year and to me he was just as big a part of the family as any other one of us. Why dont people think it through more before getting a pet?

My cousin split with his girlfriend, relocated to small one bed city flat. Felt it would be unfair on his beloved cat. So we stepped in. Result - one relieved cousin, one extremely happy Proudnscary family who loooove their new moggie!

CheeseandGherkins I agree. Pigs are just as intelligent as dogs. People choose not to think about that. In some countries dogs are or horses are raised for meat , and people here get upset by that. I just think people are extremely hypocritical.

YABabitU, sometimes people have no other choice which is fair enough. I really don't like it when people do it cos they're bored of them/didn't think it through.

We got a kitten 2 years ago at DP's request, 2 years down the line and he is bored of him. The cat has recently decided to have a wee every now and again in a certain spot in the bathroom and every time he does DP comes through all angry saying "RIGHT! We're getting rid of him!" I don't understand his logic behind it at all He also says it with my much loved elderly moody old cat that I have had since I was a young teen. Some people are just like that and they dont see them as part of the family for whatever reason. I'd never let him get rid of my babies though unless it was extreme circumstances.

I have a friend who has had around 5 cats in the last 15 years. She moes and then gives them away. Not once has she taken the cat with her. She has always found a decent home for them but I do wonder why she keeps doing it..

YABU and a bit of a judgey pants

YABU. I know of a few families who have under-estimated the work involved in looking after a dog and have got the timings wrong when bringing a pet into a home. One friend got a dog when she was pregnant with her second child because she thought the dog would be company for her second child!

Once the baby came along she just couldn't cope with bfing a baby, looking after a challenging toddler and training a huge boisterous dog so the dog was rehomed. I would argue that she shouldn't have got a dog in the first place but she made a mistake and it was better that she rehome the dog as she clearly wasn't coping with him and everybody was suffering.

And you can't compare an animal to a child it really isn't the same thing!

This sort of thread is exactly why people like me think we can never have pets.
When we have had pets in past I've put a huge amount of thought into their care & welfare. More than the average standard of care, I'm sure. I've only once rehomed a pet, btw, an unwanted gift, but I wouldn't want to have to categorically rule it out in future either.
But that's not good enough, nothing is ever good enough I think. :(

The weird thing is that sometimes I look at the ways animals in rescue shelters are kept. These the sort of shelters that would never euthanise a mostly healthy animal, no matter how bad-tempered or unsuitable as a pet, the sort of shelter that make you sign 16 pieces of paper about how they really own the animal forever, if you "adopt" one of their residents.

And how the animals are kept in those shelters strikes me as piss poor, truth be told. The animals not free to exercise, socialise or express most of their natural instincts. Too many such animals, for a start, for their carers to provide them a great quality of life. But the shelter's held up as a gold standard because they are the sort of rescue that never euthanises and demands lots of paperwork.

OP If you are a responsible parent and your dog or your cat attacks your baby you do not ask yourself why, you do not ask yourself what you did wrong in the training of the pet: you separate the two, at once, and if the animal cannot be "rehomed" you have it put down.

That should indeed apply if the animal attacks anybody else's child too. Whatever the child did.

YANBU. Yes, things happen where it is understandable, only way out and best for everybody, but those cases are rare.

Most dogs are rehomed or dumped to shelters or tied to a tree (like this gorgeous 9-month lab in my nearest shelter) because people are irresponsible idiots.

I know a family who got a puppy and decided to rehome it in 2 weeks, as "they both work and puppy keeps waking them up." Well, it's a puppy, what exactly did you expect? And instead of coping with this, they decided it's too much of an inconvenience. How can you say those people were not treating the dog like a pair of old socks?

Or this elderly woman with mobility issues living in a small apartment who got a husky. A husky!! If she spent just 5 minutes thinking this beautiful dog would not have ended up in the shelter either. True, she actually couldn't handle the dog, but she still treated him like an object when she decided to get him - "aww, soo cute" - was enough, instead of thinking if she can actually offer this dog what he needs.

I really wish there was a mandatory dog-owners course before you allowed to get one. Preferably also with interview, exam and assessment. we would have less of those "But she didn't realize dogs are a lot of work, she's too busy, of course the dog should be gotten rid of, it's the right thing to do!"

No, the right thing would be if that kind of people didn't have pets. The trouble is that they will. Again. Because it will be different now. It won't. Another dog in shelter or PTS..

What's the difference between rehoming a cat or dog, and rehoming a horse?

I had ponies and then horses when I was a child and then teenager and had to 'rehome' them all eventually, when I got too big to ride them comfortably. In each case I took great care to make sure they would go to a loving home. I also 'rehomed' a series of slightly bigger ponies/horses and took care to help them settle into their new surroundings quickly. The two most vulnerable I had, one very young, and one very nervous, didn't seem to take more than about a week to settle in, and displayed no lasting signs of anxiety or upset.

Was I an irresponsible owner as I was not being able to offer my first pony a home for life? Even if she would have spent most of her life doing nothing in a field once I was too big to ride her? In fact, the most upset I ever saw with any of them was when I had an overlap between buying a new horse and selling my pony. My pony was more upset during the two weeks overlap when he was sharing my attention with the new horse than he was when I went to check on him two weeks after he went to live with his new owner who showered him with affection.

Why is it so different for cats and dogs?

I had to rehome my guinea pigs after developing asthma age 25 - having never had asthma as a child. Causes numerous hospital admissions, regular steroids and a home nebulizer - keeping the guinea pigs would have been crazy.

Perhaps we should return to the days of having licenses to own animals? Or stop breeding pedigrees? When I was pregnant, everyone kept saying "Oh you'll have to get rid of your cats then" (we've had them for 13 years), but the cats were here first and we had nothing to suggest that there would be any problem with regard to allergies.
DD now nearly 10 months and cats are still here.
It is a bit inconvenient as cats are obviously knocking on a bit and tend to leave fur, hairballs and vomit around randomly, meaning DD can't crawl 'round on the floor....but she has a playpen that is safe, and gets out and about for active play so in the long run, no big deal.
I would take in pets that needed rehoming if we had more space, but in our current situation it is not practical.

I would also point out that children are often fostered or put up for adoption.

You are being a bit stupid.

Speaking as someone who has worked in rescue for a very long time and seen both the "genuine rehomes" and the "lying rehomes" scummy bastards who make up a crap story to get rid of the animal they can't be aresed with any more , there is a VERY big difference between the two and so you can't generalise.

People rehome pets for many reasons. A good example is me, this last week. In late October, I rescued a 5 week old kitten from a carpark. She had been dumped. She was very friendly and well socialised, so the conclusion I came to (after years of dealing with similar stuff) was that she had been rehomed too young and the person who had her, got fed up of the needs of a young kitten and dumped her where she'd be found.

I have 8 cats and numerous other animals. I've taken my cats to the USA and back, because I didn't want to leave them when I moved. I take commitment to my pets seriously.

I don't want "another cat". So I made the decision to rehome her and she went yesterday. I know exactly where she has gone, she has made a family very happy and she will have the life of a pampered princess where she will be utterly adored. Here, she would have been "1 of 9" with the problems that entails a very busy, multicat/multianimal household.

Sometimes, it does have to be done for the best interests of the animal. One of our Border Collies, lived his life on a chain before he was rehomed to us, at the request of his owner. Would it have been better for the owner to "keep him for life" (on the end of a chain) or rehome him with us where he's out running and working all day with my DH?

Don't get me wrong, OP, I have seen some real arseholes surrender their pets for stupid reasons, but I have also seen a huge number of legitamate people have no choice but to give their animals up into rescue.

Don't judge everyone the same.

I am about to get 2 cats when we move and the intention will be to have them for the whole of their lives. If however one of my children developed, say, a proven allergy to cat hair further down the line or we decided to emigrate to australia in 10 years time I would be rehoming them without so much as a second thought. Humans come before animals in my world, pets are a nice to have if it is convenient, not members of the family. I would never treat one cruely and woul make sure they were rehomed with a suitable family but still, how can you judge people for reasons that you may have no idea of. People give up their children which is fr worse and fr harder I imagine and probably get less judgement. YABU and silly.

While there are plenty of people who rehome because they are too lazy to properly care for a pet, there are plenty of people who rehome for good reason.

I currently have 4 rescue cats (one of whom I've had for the last 7 years and she's now living in her 4th country, I call her the worlds most expensive stray) and I live in fear that DS will develop allergies to cats and I'll have to rehome. It will break my heart to do so, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

My friend got a 16 week old puppy about a month ago, then sold him because her neighbour complained about his barking. It was bonfire night, he was barking because he didn't like the fireworks! The amount of pets she has had and got rid of just because she changed her mind is ridiculous! She got a puppy a couple of years ago and gave him back the next day because she couldn't cope with his puppyishness!

I miss DBF here!

AgentFarnell I do hope things are better for you now, and I hope some people on here will read your story and then stop to think for a minute before condemning people out of hand.

It would be great if some of the people on here who are so outraged about rehomed pets would put time and energy into campaigning for more social housing. Because if I have to think of the people (thankfully not me) who I know who have had to rehome dogs, it has been because they have lost their home, had to go into rented accommodation, and have not been able to find anywhere that will accept a dog. Since neither B&Bs or womens rescues accept pets it is literally a question of sleeping on the streets or rehoming their pet.

And as Hully has sensibly pointed out, children do end up fostered or adopted too - in the most awful of circumstances, it really can be the best of the options out there.

YABU. You're making very silly comparisons between children and animals that don't exist. Yes, people should think long and hard before taking on an animal but, if it doesn't work out for whatever reason, the animal is going to be far better off in another home. 'Disney Pixar' style anthropomorphism is completely out of place.

sense of humour failure when i referred to re homing my kids and DH, just in case you hadnt noticed i was joking regarding that....though i was fostered for some of my childhood so maybe thats where my sense of empathy comes in for the 'unwanted' - why do people assume that because i ask these questions that "nothing bad" has ever happened to me? because plenty bad has, can i only ask why people re home their pets if i am suitably qualified by the school of hard knocks....? (ive been homeless, familyless and jobless...mostly at the same time)

i ask as someone who has ended up with a host of others unwanted's, i ask because i see people who i think of as lovely, decent people, get puppys, have them weeks, rehome them, one family i know and whose dog i have ended up with have since gone on to buy and rehome 5 other dogs. Colleagues that i respect and like have taken their cats to the dogs home for rehoming....(how many actually get rehomed from dogs homes? the more likely scenario is being pts)

i realise that some people do have to rehome animals for genuine reasons, but of all the people i know i would say a very small percentage who have rehomed pets have had a genuine reason for doing so, the others just didnt think it through enough first before getting their pets.

i think people should have to pay for licences for animals, a big enough fee to make people stop and think first. thats just my opinion and im not asking anyone to like it.

Well, because they're NOT the nicest people, OP. That simple really. If you take on an animal, have it depend on you for its survival and life, then to abandon, deciding you don't want it anymore is just low behaviour. I can't think of any exceptions either.

There are a lot of dicks around who don't think through the implications of having a pet and rehome at the first hurdle

However, at the other end of the scale are people who won't re-home/PTS in any circumstances and apply human emotions and rationality to animals.

Somewhere in the middle is the appropriate mindset.

All our cats have been rehomees. The first two were dh's family pets, the next adopted us (we think he had a home once, but they either died or moved), and then the others have been from rescue. The first pair we had were elderly cats whose elderly owners had had to go into sheltered housing and weren't allowed to take them too. Which I thought was pretty miserable really.

I don't think it is right to get a pet if you are thinking in the back of your mind that if it becomes a bit inconvenient then you will drop them off at a rescue centre. It's nice to think that all those pets will get a new home, but in reality for a good proportion of them that's not the likely future. At the very least they may have months in a kennel or cage but some may end up being put to sleep because there are far more pets needing new homes than there are new homes. When we picked up our latest pair of cats the centre had over 300. There is no way they could afford to support that many cats in the long term.