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?

YAB a bit U but I take your point - people should think it through more before buying a pet. Perhaps they should have to fill in a long form before they can buy one, that would deter the fly-by-nights - one that has multiple-choice questions like "your pet becomes accidentally pregnant, what do you do?" "your pet becomes diabetic, what do you do?" "your child decides it doesn't like the pet, what do you do?" and they need to pass before they're allowed to buy it.

However - when life-changing scenarios happen, it's not just pets that can be rehomed - some people do have their children "rehomed" as well, temporarily or permanently - if you can't provide adequate care for them then sometimes it is the better option. So it's unreasonable to tar everyone with the same brush without knowing their situation.

I think we should have licenses for pets too. It should be quite hard to get a pet.

We have 3 cats and I can't think of any circumstances where I would rehome any of them. About 6 years ago we were going to emigrate, we had two cats. We had them micro-chipped and got passports for them. There was no way we were going to settle anywhere without them.

The Cats Protection League will try to get as much money out of you as they can when you take one of their cats. This is partly to help fund them in their work, but also because if you invest sufficiently then you are more likely to take proper responsibility for the cat.

I saw a flying squirrel on craigslist yesterday that was being rehomed after 13 days due to 'husband getting sent to Florida with military' - that bugs me so much. Military families over here are forever rehoming their pets on the grounds of deployment, cross-state move etc. Yet the military hep with moving pets and family, so it isn't really an excuse. Why should military people get away with abandoning pets as soon as they outgrow the cute kitten/puppy phase, they know their life situation. Grrrr.

The number of people claiming allergies bugs me too. I don't believe half of them are true. And don't get me started on the adverts reading 'wnt cute kitten, no older than 6 wks thnx' - which is illegal here...

My husband is allergic to cats and dogs. So much so that it triggers his asthma. We still have a whole menagerie of cats and dogs. Admittedly he can't spend much time in the cat zone, but he still wouldn't dream of having them sent away. Thankfully our dogs are of the hypoallergenic variety.