To say that having a pet is a luxury, not a right?

[YourSnappyFinch]

Pets are expensive and time-consuming. Shouldn’t people prove they can afford and care for them before getting one?

Because when you aquire something vulnerable that completely needs your care and particularly when you keep it locked in, you take on a moral duty of care. Which means to minimise any suffering. You can only control what happens inside your home. Globally people, children included are living in misery and dying unnecessarily and in agony, by your logic, nothing needs care or intervention, because somewhere the same animal (including humans) will be suffering worse.

I don't know anyone who got a pet at a time they couldn't afford it. Sadly, sometimes circumstances change. its really not that hard to understand.

Not another one.

there are threads discussing this at least once a month.

doyou not know how to search?

Probably costs more because clipping an animals claws takes a bit more care and finesse ( to get right and not hurt it) than it does to give a human a manicure.

I don't think anyone ever said that pet ownership is a right.
But income doesn't make being responsible.

I could spend all my income on designer clothes, cocaine and trips abroad and leave my dog alone for days on end with just a bowl of corn flakes.

Alright then. Let’s play this out, just for fun. In order to have a pet there will be a set of criteria you have to pass, the most important being affordability. Shall we set different income levels required for small and larger animals. Say household income £35K for hamster and £50 for a dog? Maybe push those numbers up a bit if the applicant also has children (they take a fair chunk out of the available budget after all). An extra £5K for each child?

And then there’s the cost of administering this scheme, the licence will need to cover that so as to avoid it coming from general taxation. Would £500 cover that do you think, for the back ground checks etc.

Discount for working animals or not? What is a working animal anyway, is it a pet when it retires, does it work FT or PT….going to need a separate licensing system for that.

Let’s move on to enforcement. Her husband pisses off and leaves her with the kids, cat and bloody budgie. Maintenance money barely covers the kids. Her down the road has smuggled in a cockaopoo in the dead of night and I can see by the state of her she hasn’t a pot to piss in, I’m reporting her for no licence. Are we going in to take the cat, budgie and dog or is this a court and fine situation? There’s enforcement costs now needed to be added. Let’s put the licence cost up to £1,500.

I agree. Too many people buy animals and then can't afford the vet bills or don't do research and look after them properly.

Rodents are some of the most abused animals and often bought as throwaway pets for kids. It's not right. I have pet rats and they're amazing little creatures, but I've spend a lot of time researching their habitat needs, diet, etc. Most people just buy from Pets at Home without a thought and then they don't get enough enrichment.

It's not about penalising people with lower incomes. The vast majority of people cannot afford an unexpected vet bill coating thousands. It's about ensuring you can afford insurance, or spending a year setting aside some money for the vets, or etc. Just taking a bit of responsibility, you know. People buying working dogs for inner city flats with no plans to walk them are thoughtless at best and cruel at worst.

People buying pets from backyard breeders are also problematic.

When I got my dog, I had considered it for 3 years.

I then looked for a year, and acted as if I already had him, by putting the money aside that I’d be paying for insurance, food, vet subscription etc. to check I could afford it. All good.

So four years after wanting one, I got him.

Another four years later, life changed. COL. Ex husband decided to stop paying maintenance for his kids. Other stuff happened.

Had I known all this would happen, I would not have got him. But he’s here now, and I’d never get rid of him. I’m his favourite human and I wouldn’t put him through that. He has a great life. Luckily, his favourite food comes from Aldi and he hates all the posh stuff (good job because Butternut Box was costing £60 a month). Insurance has sky rocketed (I knew it’d go up, but didn’t anticipate by triple in year 3).

I don't know. We are already so far removed from our natural world to the extent that we don't care enough for our environment.

I like to think that having a pet (house plants/ feeding birds / gardening...) can give us a tiny bit of caring about another species and re connec with our surroundings.

Then there are the health benefits of owning a pet. A pet home is less sterile, pets can reduce stress and some (dogs or horses) get us outside and exercising.

But at the same time, the financial impact of having a pet and paying for their upkeep is plus the unexpected is expensive. In a perfect world, people would only get a pet if they were able to afford the unexpected vet bills.

Could say that about many things, children for one. Mortgages, cars.

For the sake of the poor pet you should make sure you can afford food and insurance. Saying that two dogs cost me close to nothing, the third has cost me thousands. Luck of the draw.

There are other factors though, health etc if you live in worry you’ll never do or have anything ‘just in case’.

But it's the people who won't pay for insurance/take a pet to the vet/buy decent food (often claiming it's too expensive, according to a vet friend) that annoy me.

Sorry but I honestly don’t think vets are great to talk to in terms of money- they’re well paid and seem to forget that vets bills can absolutely blast people and are in their bubble of ‘but it’s your pet, you should be ready to pay anything!’ I have rarely paid under a hundred euro at a vets and in general they tell you the bill like that’s nothing- with the x, y and z that’ll be two hundred and thirty euro.

The comparison to children is so stupid because the enforcement is so different. Not that I really agree with it but if you introduced a pet licence, it's not equivalent to whatever you'd have for children which would have to involve some form of forced contraception/forced abortion/forcible removal of newborns. The enforcement for pets is just that you can't buy a pet without a licence.

Definitely OP. I actually think it should be frowned upon as it's exploiting animals, unless they are working animals or guide/disability assistance dogs. That's exploitation as well but at least there's a good reason beyond "the kids wanted a kitten".

I know people will say they won't exist if they are not pets - the same argument used for eating animals but the animals don't know if they don't exist. And there will be wild versions.

I also don't think looking after domestic animals helps the environment. You're better off being a member of your local Wildlife Trust and doing some gardening or volunteering outside.

They know how to search but they never come back because they have no point of view. It's intended to be goady and cause arguments between pet lovers and pet haters.

Members of the homeless/ hostel/sofa surf community I've met that own a dog always say that looking after and caring for it gives them a reason to live.

They might be a chronic drug addict with severe MH issues without the motivation to shower but they'll still make sure the dog is fed and cared for. Even if they do need to use Blue Cross when the pet gets sick.

I'm poor and on benefits but I would never ever consider life worth living without my cats.

Of course there are people who are abusive and shouldn't have pets but that's not strictly linked to the contents of their wallet.

I've seen loads of comments about having to plan for/save for kids. Which to a degree is obviously sensible...but if someone complains about the cost of eg a school trip or overpriced branded school uniform they are often told that they should have thought of that before having children.
But as pp say, circumstances can change either personally or in society that makes things that were once affordable...suddenly not.

🙄

Yeah, I'm also going to reinforce the above opinion that checks on the ability to look after them should DEFINITELY be done with children (and pets).

I know the argument is always "it's my right", "I'm pregnant, what are you going to do to stop me"... or "I'll manage/find a way", but I think there's a big difference between a 'good' parent, and a 'responsible' parent, and I think you need to be both.

You can love that child/pet to the ends of the earth, and you can mean well, but if you don't have a pot to piss in, they will suffer, and that's on you.

I guess so but I was still shocked

It took all of two minutes and I had to hold dear cat down

Well you could apply the same logic to children

I'm don't have lots of money and my cat is very well cared for . Microchipped,spayed ,up to date with all her vaccines and used to go to cattery if I went away anywhere . She had a bad eye and I took her to the vet the very next day

It's not stupid to compare similar things. The stakes are different but anybody can have children and anybody can have pets, it's exactly the same thing, with the results that we know.
Animal breeding is all but unregulated, anybody can do it and advertise; we should start here.

I don't think it's that different

Post that you're pregnant and people will say "you'll manage/you'll find a way"
Post that you want a dog and people will say "can you afford one?"

I can't afford a child so I don't have one

Who is going to police this, though? Do you want licenses for pet ownership? What would be the competence threshold? Would you have to prove income? How much do you have to earn to be allowed to own a cat or dog? Plenty of people on low incomes make good pet owners. I hate the idea of animals being mistreated or neglected but it sounds totally unenforceable.

Getting a pet from a rescue shelter is already ridiculously burdensome: they exclude large swathes of the population on pretty dubious grounds. I was turned down by three rescues to get a cat, mainly on the basis that I live in London and can't work from home full time, so I gave up and bought one. Not ideal but I can't help feeling that a lot of the shelters inadvertently make the problem of abandoned animals worse by making the bar to adopt an animal so ludicrously high that almost no one can do so. Dogs are apparently even harder to adopt than cats so God knows how anyone achieves that.

Would probably require a new government department employing thousands and costing billions. A luxury the country cannot afford.