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AIBU?

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Original poster

to think it's time we stopped keeping "pets?"

254 replies

Hullygully · 14/11/2011 08:13

Why do we still do this?

Apart from working animals, guide/guard dogs etc, isn't it odd that we keep animals in our homes? Expensive, huge amounts of waste that has to be dealt with, extermination of songbirds etc etc

Yes?
No?

Am discussing with dd, so interested in views!

OP posts:
LaFilleSurLePont · 14/11/2011 13:14

YABVVVVVVVVU.

Animals are wonderful,and bring many benefits. I volunteer in a care home and we recently had a visit from a falconer who brought several species of birds of prey with him,and the response from the residents was incredible,even those who barely respond to anything and who won't take part in activities loved them. The same thing happened with some therapy dogs.

And they also get a lot of pleasure from watching the deer,foxes,squirrels and rabbits that visit the home.

Keeping animals is not weird,and it's nothing new.

And hamsters can be found in the wild.

LaFilleSurLePont · 14/11/2011 13:16

I do wish though that people would think twice about getting a pet,and about breeding their dogs. There are too many people out there who get a pet and get rid of it later for some ridiculous reason,when they should never have gotten one in the first place.

JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar · 14/11/2011 13:17

I've seen more foxes in town that I have now I'm semi-rural. I do hear them though.

There are a few places where you can go and watch badgers locally if they don't grace you with their prescence in your garden.

Our slow worms congregate under a bit of old carpet at the bottom of the garden. Sometimes you'll see them on a path, but generally they stay hidden. They love compost heaps too (nice and warm).

theDudesmummy · 14/11/2011 13:21

If I had not had my cat with me at the time when I left my first husband and got divorced, and found myself living alone for the first and only time in my life, I don't think I would have coped...
She couldn't do or say anything helpful but at least there was another living cretaure there when I came home at night. It really did help.

Voidka · 14/11/2011 13:25

I agree - lived in a rural village for 16 years and never saw a fox, plenty of hedgehogs and rabbits.

Now we live in the city and we see loads.

soandsosmummy · 14/11/2011 13:27

We keep cats for 2 reasons. First of all we like them and enjoy their company Secondly this is an old house and until our cats came we were infested with mice and spiders both of which seem to have moved out

Original poster
Hullygully · 14/11/2011 13:28

We are also riddled with foxes (one sleeps in my greenhouse)

and slow worms in the compost

OP posts:
allhailtheaubergine · 14/11/2011 13:29

It's a bloody good question and I would like to start the revolution by offering up my wretched hound as the first against the wall. Bloody dog. NINE WEEKS it took growing an avocado shoot. She watched me do it. She watched me lovingly plant it out. She didn't even have the grace to let me put my trowel away before she ate it in the middle of the sitting room carpet.

ChickensHaveNoEyebrows · 14/11/2011 13:29

I was woken up by a hedgehog eating a roast potato once. True story.

BoffinMum · 14/11/2011 13:31

I bloody wish someone would ban small fluffy things that die dramatically, then the DCs would stop buying them.

Original poster
Hullygully · 14/11/2011 13:31

So no one so far thinks we shouldn't, I don't think

Keep pets, I mean

OP posts:
MillyR · 14/11/2011 13:32

I don't think it is weird that we keep pets. Humans like to have companion species. We like something to love. We like to pretend animals are like people and invent myths about them. We have done for thousands of years. We do it in a wide variety of cultures all over the world.

It would be really weird if we stopped doing it now.

TheRhubarb · 14/11/2011 13:33

Err, didn't I say we shouldn't?

In theory we should not. In practice I guess it's different as people rescue them or use them for healing mental health wounds. But all things being balanced and equal, no we shouldn't.

OrmIrian · 14/11/2011 13:34

"We are also riddled with foxes (one sleeps in my greenhouse)

and slow worms in the compost
"

As long as you aren't riddled with worms Grin

Original poster
Hullygully · 14/11/2011 13:35

soz Rhubs!

yes you did. just went temporarily barking

OP posts:
Original poster
Hullygully · 14/11/2011 13:35

DON'T THEY COUNT?

It's all some people can afford, Orm. You are being elitist and pettist.

OP posts:
TheRhubarb · 14/11/2011 13:38

We have worms and slugs, do they count as pets? dd once made a box for them and unbeknownst to me she took the box into her bedroom so she could care for them. Of course they disappeared and she came running down to tell me her 'pets' had escaped. I was forever finding them after that.

I explained gently that they should be free to eat the neighbour's lettuce and pop up out of your overflow when you're not looking. She's now moved onto snails.

OrmIrian · 14/11/2011 13:40

Problem is hully, they breed so fast! You start off with one or two cute little wormies, next minute you've got thousands of the little buggers. I just wish people would think before they get 'em. A worm is for life, nor just for christmas (if you don't get treatment)!

Original poster
Hullygully · 14/11/2011 13:40

I'm not v nice to slugs I must confess. I leave my Jainism at the back door when I go out with my Stabbing Stone.

OP posts:
Original poster
Hullygully · 14/11/2011 13:41

True Orm. DS used to get them all the time, thankfully he has finally stopped eating the garden and moved onto plastic.

OP posts:
CheerfulYank · 14/11/2011 14:15

Americans are not all mad, though the ones who keep exotic animals are of course.

When I was younger and lived with my parents our neighbors had a black bear cub. They were well and truly mad though...the bear cub was actually the least of it.

Whatmeworry · 14/11/2011 14:20

Actually, cats keep us.....

catgirl1976 · 14/11/2011 14:26

I saw a quote once

"Humans used to worship cats as gods. Cats have never forgotten this" :)

Mine certainly havent!

NoOnesGoingToEatYourEyes · 14/11/2011 14:42

Pets are beneficial for all kinds of reasons, including mental and physical health, so I don't think we have reached a point where we should stop keeping them.

We've had everything from dogs to ducks, and when I was little I had many small rodents as pets. However now I seem to have developed a guilt complex about keeping things in cages so I'm hoping DS never decides to ask for a hamster or a bird or something.

Orm - "A worm is for life, nor just for christmas"

I have a Christmas ornament that says just that, it's a tiny little man sitting on a toadstool with a worm gazing up at him and a placard with exactly those words on it.

LulaBear · 14/11/2011 15:35

I couldn't live without my cats, I just couldn't Blush
but I live with somebody who keeps several birds in a cage, and I think it's horrible (but they don't seem to care). The birds scream and shriek constantly and never seem happy, for what? I few moments of "oh look, birdy's upside down!" I just don't see how they can be happy not flying :(
At least the birds the cats kill have a happy life.

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