Amen!

I’m not opposed to breeders, since by and large, breeders care about the breed beyond the standard. I personally know several dog breeders, and they’re always happy to take in rescue cases and help rehabilitate and foster animals in their sphere of interest.

But it’s still my firm belief that people should always go the rescue route before they go to breeders. Like it or not, we live in a world with so many homeless animals, and most people don’t know how to tell good breeders from bad. I’ve never purchased a pet, and I probably never will. I’ve never gone wrong with my little cast-offs.

And furthermore, I agree with you about exotic pets. I’m not sure ferrets are terribly exotic, but they’re not hard to get from enthusiasts of the species. They don’t need to come from PetCo.

Oh, and my gerbil? I found him running around a dumpster. SO EVEN MY GERBIL IS A RESCUE CASE.

Long time reader, first time poster here.  In the UK we’ve banned the sale of most live animals in store and it’s been greatly to our benefit.  I do believe that most cage and exotic pet fancies actually highly recommend specialty breeders over pet stores, for precisely the same reasons: an impulse buy of an animal of unknown background being treated like product often leads to grief.  If anything, the case for *not* making an impulse purchase for an exotic animal is even stronger.

This next part may put me out on a limb: even though I support rescues, I think that there aren’t enough decent breeders out there for animals and there need to be more of.  Decent in the sense of giving a hoot about the long-term welfare of any animals they breed or place.  I think that most breed societies fall down in supporting and educating people to become better breeders.

I’ve always had dogs, which my parents got from various sources.  Not too long ago my dad found our dog Yoda, a Welsh Corgi, in a pet store—which later went out of business.  He’s a pretty well-adjusted dog, occasionally barking at postal workers but he doesn’t behave too badly.  Except when there’s any kind of sliding glass around.  When we purchased him he was in a tiny cage with a sliding glass window and this has obviously stayed with him ever since.  Once I opened a sliding glass door in a (to him, unfamiliar) house where we were staying with the dogs and he got so upset, he actually bit my leg.

I would agree with the poster above that rescue is the best way to go, but also, just look for people whose dogs or cats had a litter, in the Penny Saver, whatever… usually people take pretty good care of puppies/kitties to whom their pets give birth.  My mom has let a lot of her pets have one litter before getting them spayed/neutered, but personally I wouldn’t—too much work to take care of and to find good homes for, plus the accidental death of a puppy last time put me off it.

What further mea culpa does Pet Smart need to perform to lose the “soulless” appellation?

I get dog breeding—-certain dogs have specific characteristics you may want—-but I must confess I’m baffled by cat breeding.  There’s not a lot of variety between different kinds of cats.  They’re all cats, you know?  They act like cats.  One cat is as good as another cat.

That’s more the standard disclaimer to keep away the folks waxing on about the local pet supply store that Pet Smart ran out of business.

No live animals does fuck with fish, snakes, reptiles, and bugs - which make fantastic pets for people without alot of space, like in a city.

I’m totally okay with banning sales of any animal that gets over two pounds or so.  That way people can still have mice, fancy rats, pretty lizards and small snakes and fish.

Of course, it doesn’t stop people from actually dealing in animals.

Note:  Fancy rats and white mice were also bred to be pets.  Their pigmentation is a big kill-me in the wild.

One cat is as good as another cat.

No fucking wai! PhysioCat is teh specialest most bestest cat EVAH!

I can’t get behind it unless there are exceptions made for very small pets, like fish and rodents, which is what the law was originally going to do, until some nutcase San Franciscan got involved (I’m guessing).

I’d also be very surprised if there are many small pet stores left in the city.  All this law will do is move puppy and kitten selling to the suburbs, where many/most non-boutique, non-high-end businesses have already had to relocate over the past few decades.

They’re all cats, you know?  They act like cats.  One cat is as good as another cat.

So lets start exterminating mini-dog breeds and everybody breed golden retrievers!  I jest.  Cats all act basically the same because of their size and general abilities but just as some people want a black lab vs a golden lab vs a pug, it’s a matter of choice.  There are at least 4-5 easily distinguished varieties of cats without getting into the various coat colors.  I like Scottish flop cats, folded down ears on a cat just seems somehow silly yet appropriate. 

That being said, cat breeding is a fine act just like dog breeding.  What’s even nicer is that in many cases you can get rarer cat breeds outside of the hairless ones and the wildcat-mixed for free if the person doesn’t realize what they have.

Pretty much.  And with pet store pets, you don’t know how the employees have treated it; how much exercise and care they get, how well they’ve been socialized with people and other animals, etc.  DH and I hopefully are going to get permission to have a cat in our apartment, so I’m looking forward to adopting an animal that needs a home.

My family of origin has adopted kittens from neighbors’ litters, runaway dogs, dogs from shelters; bought a mutt from a farm (he was one of the best dogs we ever had), and we’ve never had bad luck with getting non-pet store mutts.  There was one dog who just loooooved to run, so we had to give her to a family that had a fenced in yard.  That’s the only time we’ve had to give away a dog.

My folks did purchase a dog from a pet store last year—he was there because the other dogs at the pound picked at him mercilessly.  The pet store owner agreed to have the dog in the store to give the pup a break, as well as greater exposure, since the pound was going to put down this puppy in a couple weeks if no one claimed it.  Of course, the cute puppy plus his sad story guaranteed that my sister and my mom talked my dad into an impulse buy.  Which fortunately turned out, but not everyone who impulsively buys a dog is an experienced dog owner that knows what goes into training a puppy or what breeds are prone to what behaviors and temperaments.

I must confess I’m baffled by cat breeding.  There’s not a lot of variety between different kinds of cats.  They’re all cats, you know?  They act like cats.  One cat is as good as another cat.

I mostly agree, and I usually dislike the flat-faced breeds that are so popular (more b/c of the owners than the cats, I guess), but there are a few differences.  Siamese cats tend to need companions, I think—my brother has one and works long hours, and I don’t think it’s good for her to be alone so much.  I just said goodbye to my 14.5-year-old Aussie shepherd/cattle dog mix about ten days ago, and while I want to wait a couple of months to get another [feline] pet, I’m looking mostly at Maine Coon mixes—they’re more companionable than cuddly, like water, and usually have a strangely high, trilling meow to come from such large, rangy cats.

Even if they didn’t make such an exception, I won’t lose any sleep.  Mice, birds, rats, etc. aren’t really treated a whole lot better than dogs and cats by pet stores.  Except for allergic people, cats are great pets for small apartments.  They are lazy and enjoy laying around.

latts, yeah that’s a good point.  On the companion thing, I think almost all cats do better when they have another cat around, if you get them both when they’re young.  (Older cats that haven’t had a friend sometimes don’t like sharing and will hate a new cat.)  People have this image of cats as solitary, but they’re really not.  They get bored without some company.  I honestly think two cats end up being less work than one, because they tend to look after each other’s emotional needs so that you don’t have to spend nearly as much time comforting and playing with a lonely cat.

Fuck puppy mills and the people who buy from them.

One of the few industries not hit hard by the recession is the pet food/accessory industry. They actually had growth. I don’t believe any of these stores are making money off of hamsters. The hamster is cheap as fuck. I’d bet any amount that the cage, wheel, cedar chips food and other accessories are where they make their money. The “oh noes we’ll put them out of business if they can’t sell a $3 hamster” argument is bullshit.

I do know of a couple long time pet stores in the city that only sell fish and some reptiles/amphibians. But they could go the Pet Smart route and bring in one of the reptile rescue places so people could adopt an “exotic” that works as a pet, then buy all the pet stuff from the store. Ever had a boa curl up in your lap under a blanket and go sleep? They can be affectionate little serpents if they’re handled from an early age so it’s not fair to consign them to a cage at a rescue when they’re used to being handled, just like dogs and cats.

I would argue that one cat is not same as any other cat. I have one rescue/feral (he’s such an attention whore) and one Maine Coon. The health and personality of the Maine Coon is unparalleled to any other cat, or even dog,  I’ve ever had (of my 33 years there have only been about 2 where I didn’t have a pet). She was the perfect match when we wanted a second cat and couldn’t find a good fit at any of the shelters. But there are Maine Coon rescues (along with other breeds) so if you like a breed you can still rescue without handing your money to a breeder/increasing the pet population.

There’s not a lot of variety between different kinds of cats.  They’re all cats, you know?  They act like cats.  One cat is as good as another cat.

Not in my experience. There are cats who talk (siamese e.g.) and cats who don’t. Cats who tolerate humans and cats who bond strongly. Cats who lie in the sun and cats who will fetch. Cats who hunt gleefully and cats who will look at the mouse in their food bowl and wait till it has left. Not all of this is by breed, by any means, but at least some of it is. (And some of it is obsolete since most people don’t need mousers any more). I think it’s mostly the limited time that so many cat owners spend interacting in compliated ways with their pets that makes it seem like this. (Same thing for dogs, imo.)

Now I’m getting heated under the collar (even though I’m wearing a t-shirt) about the cat is a cat thing. Fuck Persians and Persian breeders. My Maine Coon’s health and personality traits evolved from being ship’s cats and cats that protected grain stores during the winter in the north east. Which is why they have the long tufts in their ears and their between the their paws pads. They weren’t bred because some bored rich person thought a smushed face was cute. Ear tufts are cute as hell but they serve a purpose, dammit. Ok I’m done, thanks for humoring me.

oopsie not quite done http://www.mainecoonrescue.net/

Some exotics qualify as domestics if we’re talking about “removed enough from their wild counterparts that they will not survive in the wild” - ferrets, mice and rats in particular (but mostly because I have direct experience with them) - but also, these animals do have ethical breeders and rescue organizations. I also would not be sad if the mass mill breeding of exotics where to come to an end along with that of puppies and kittens. I’ve got three ferrets, a rat, and a parrot at the moment, all of whom with exception of the parrot were either first or second generation from a massive breeding facility, and all (including the parrot) have been rehomed or from rescues. I think it would take a long time before any scarcity of exotics like mine would actually result in any real hardships for people who want to keep exotics, and a little bit of hardship is not something I’m overly sympathetic to when it comes to wanting to ‘own’ an animal. Take parrot rescues that require volunteering and either proof of home ownership / landlord agreement, it’s a good idea, as parrots are obnoxious to care for and loud. These are in place so they don’t end up as homeless animals. The fact that petstores don’t care is hardly a good thing and not something I’m going to rush to defend.

Yes, yes, fifty thousand times yes!

I’ve never really understood the concept of buying pets anyway. The best dog I ever had was a stray mutt, and all the cats have been either strays or from unplanned litters. I’m down to one old, very neurotic cat, and I’ve no plans to get another pet. But since most of my pets have picked me, rather than vice versa, I won’t be surprised if another one comes along some day.

I do have family and friends who have a specific preference for a specific breed of dog, and they’ve bought dogs from breeders, always people they’ve checked out and feel good about. So I have no problem with caring breeders, but those generic puppy stores are horrible.

latts beat me to the Maine Coon thing. The trilling sound is awesome. I’ve had chatty cats but never one that trilled. She does is when she’s running so we call it her gear shift noise.

Just because you happen to like dogs and cats doesn’t mean that they are the only appropriate pets. Rabbits have certainly been bred as domesticated animals, as well as rats and quite a few other rodents. Many dogs were bred as working dogs rather than companions. I remember reading that some scientists taught praying mantids to ‘play’ (i.e. repeat a learned interaction without a food reward, which is more than i can say for my cat). The problem with exotics is that so often they aren’t properly cared for - just like working dogs that go crazy living in a tiny apartment. But you don’t need to lord over people’s choices for companions to make your point about pet stores. You like cats. Great. Other people like ferrets or chinchillas or pythons or miniature horses (which, squee, please look up pictures immediately). The problem is not people choosing the wrong animals. There are no wrong animals. Humans can bond with pretty much any animal with a spark of intelligence, as long as they treat it well.

Having said that, I think there’s no reason for our society to have a box-store approach to animals. Petfinder, craigslist, the internet in general means that people that genuinely care about a particular type of animal, from tarantula to goat, can raise that breed or species and find like-minded individuals. If somebody wants a particular kind of animal, then they can seek it out. Otherwise, what’s the harm of having the pound be the go-to multi-animal store?

Agreed.  Unless you know a breeder personally or are able to thoroughly check them out, you’re risking getting a puppy mill puppy. And seriously, those mills are hellish, hellish places.  If a law puts a couple of pet stores out of business to reduce the instances of puppy mills, I’m all for the law.

If you’re set on getting a purebred dog, there are lots and lots of breed-specific rescue organizations.  If you’re not bothered about breed, then for pete’s sake, get a dog from the pound.  There are so many great dogs out there who need homes!  Same goes for cats.

A similar law passed in Albuquerque that resulted in an increase in pet adoptions and a significant decrease in pet give-ups, so yes, I support this law whole-heartedly. 

I do animal rescue, and for a while, we were getting all these give-ups from people who had bought their animals at the one local pet store that still sold puppies and kittens.  The animals were in TERRIBLE shape, inadequate food and water at the pet store, unvetted, and when people got them home, they often found the animals had all these long-term health issues, many due to bad breeding.  We finally ran them out of business, and no, I don’t feel bad, because the store owner obviously had no concern for these living creatures.  The worst of it was that we could never get a good answer to what happened to those puppies who weren’t sold.  Puppies eventually get bigger and hard to keep in cramped little cages, then they’d disappear and we never found out where they went.  So yes, more laws like this, please, especially when so many animals are being euthanized in this country every day.

I heard the orange tabbies tend to be higher maintenance and a little more diva-ish than your average cat—this is from someone who worked in a vet hospital. But anecdote does not equal data, so I could be wrong.

Crissa,  I used to think that small animals and cage pets could as well come from pet stores but since getting to know the rat fancy, I’ve come to realise that there are *massive* differences in longevity, health and even temperament between rats from decent breeders and pet stores.  No animals benefit from being marketed in a pet store.

To come to another issue, over the top rescue organisations. There are times when exceptional vetting is required: when placing animals with specialised need at risk of neglect or mishandling, such as when placing ex-military dogs or big cats. For regular pets, it’s a good way to waste resources and antagonise supporters, but I’m of the mind-set that such rescue organisations tend to be self-limiting and aren’t worth regulating.  The vetting procedure used by the rescue organization I volunteer with would seem nearly lackadaisical by US standards, but with excellent follow up care, we get very few returns. If people have taken the time to think about it, more people than not come to the right decision.

The problem with the cat fancy is the same as plagues most other fancies—genetic drift and selection pressure for winning shows means that even small quirks that may have been practical get exaggerated.  Then people fall in love with the stories and the exaggerated traits and become blind to reality, but such is human nature.

Oh, and my gerbil? I found him running around a dumpster. SO EVEN MY GERBIL IS A RESCUE CASE.

The rabbit I most recently had was adopted from the pound. The rabbit I had before her was a rescue, caught running in someone’s yard. It may not be the case in every area but where I am you can reliably get rabbits, rats, hamsters, chinchillas, guinea pigs, and ferrets from rescue and adoption orgs. Check PetFinder. Google for small animal shelters.

I tend to think that pet stores don’t have much business selling small animals like rats and hamsters either, because they’re often easier to write off as lost stock if they get sick or escape and they primarily move to familes with small children who see them as disposable entertainment, then come back for Fluffy II when Fluffy dies in a few months. There really is not a lot of tender care invested in pet rodents at the stores, but those animals are capable of suffering as much as a puppy or kitten.

Animals like guinea pigs and ferrets? Even less so because their care is more specialized than most people realize but pet stores (because they are a business) will hand them over to pretty much anyone with the cash. And selling a demanding intelligent animal like a parrot in a pet store is just fucking stupid. There are so many miserable and neglected parrots who looked awful cute in the pet store but now “they bite” or “they screech all the time”.

Unless you know a breeder personally or are able to thoroughly check them out, you’re risking getting a puppy mill puppy.

You know, I’m pretty convinced that even a lot of the mom-and-pop breeders people go to (who run the ad in the paper and make you fill out a questionnaire, who will show you the puppy’s parents and give you a tour of the house and seem like nice people) are behaving in a wildly irresponsible way. Anyone who breeds to make money is being a prick, end of, because breeding responsibly is a thing that generally loses money what with the cost of getting hips and eyes certified and the frequent checkups and the emergency c-section that may need to be done, the fact that you shouldn’t breed a bitch more than like once a year or breed inappropriate animals ever, and the desire to make sure their puppies are always safe that leads reputable breeders to take *back* a dog someone can’t keep later for whatever reason. And generally people who do breed responsibly have waiting lists for their puppies, so, you know, they’re not running ads in the paper or on Craigslist.

Foxling, is the ban in Albuquerque just dogs and cats? I can only find articles mentioning dogs and cats so I was curious if the ban included “exotics.”

Forgot to say that of course “nice” irresponsible breeders are far from the level of evil that is a puppy mill, but still—creating feeling, suffering lives for profit is creating feeling, suffering lives for profit, and not something I feel can be ethical ever.

While I disagree with Amanda’s comments about exotics, I do agree that all animals would benefit from not being treated like products and sold in pets stores.

My pet ratties made great pets, damn it.

I agree strongly that cats have very distinct personalities, sure.  But there’s way more individual variation between cats than between breeds.  But different dog breeds correlate with personality traits more.  I guess I’m saying you can’t really predict a cat’s personality at all from the breed.  The stereotype, for instance, that tabbies are kinda quiet? My tabby is a meowing machine.

You know, I’m pretty convinced that even a lot of the mom-and-pop breeders people go to (who run the ad in the paper and make you fill out a questionnaire, who will show you the puppy’s parents and give you a tour of the house and seem like nice people) are behaving in a wildly irresponsible way.

We never made people fill out a questionnaire, but we did make sure that we sold our Yorkie puppies to people who would take good care of them.

Anyone who breeds to make money is being a prick, end of, because breeding responsibly is a thing that generally loses money what with the cost of getting hips and eyes certified and the frequent checkups and the emergency c-section that may need to be done, the fact that you shouldn’t breed a bitch more than like once a year or breed inappropriate animals ever, and the desire to make sure their puppies are always safe that leads reputable breeders to take *back* a dog someone can’t keep later for whatever reason.

Yah know what?  We sold ours at below-market prices because we weren’t interested in making money, even though we did do so in the end.

I even sold a little doll-faced ‘teacup’-sized girl who was the runt at the litter to someone who promised that she wouldn’t be bred because she couldn’t handle the size of the pups even if she was bred with a regular teacup.

And generally people who do breed responsibly have waiting lists for their puppies, so, you know, they’re not running ads in the paper or on Craigslist.

creating feeling, suffering lives for profit is creating feeling, suffering lives for profit, and not something I feel can be ethical ever.

So, if I sold my puppies to responsible owners so that hopefully the only suffering they get is due to those of old age, or an incurable disease,  not from neglect or malice, I’m less ethical that the parent of a baby who abuses he/she because I profited in the former case which cannot be said about the latter one.

Thanks for straightening that out for me.

duck, you attacked a straw argument and didn’t address my actual point, i.e. that dogs and cats evolved to be pets and wild animals did not.

Actually, Amanda, I pointed out that some dogs are bred not to be pets but to be workers. And there are quite a few animals that could be said to be domesticated (white rats, for instance, rabbits, miniature horses, etc) that are not dogs and cats. Wild animals are one thing; saying that people should only have dogs and cats as pets, that’s a whole different kettle of fish (ha). So no, I don’t think that’s a straw argument.

Wait, what, no.  Two breeds of cats are not necessarily alike.

I bought (yes, bought, I’m a horrible person, I know) a Devonshire Rex a number of years ago.  She was my constant companion for 12 years, and the nicest cat anybody had ever met.  It usually took her about 20 minutes to calm down after a strange person had come over, and then she would stake claim to their lap, and sit contentedly.

Compare and contrast with, say, a Russian Blue, most of which I’ve met have been….. let’s go with fiesty.

Now, which cat would you prefer?  One who is loving, and wants nothing more than to hang out with people, and be petted, or one who thinks nipping at anyone near them is an excellent idea?

And I won’t even get into the whole allergy thing.

Sorry, Amanda, but you’re wrong.  Cat breeds are as different as dog breeds.

Between petfinder, the variety of breed-specific rescues and humane socities, there is no need for petstores or breeders.  Why would you want a purebred anything anyway?  If they’re bred wrong, they can have a whole host of health problems.  My no petstore -breeder rule stands for small animals like gerbils and rabbits as well.  My local humane society has a section for small animals.  You may have to wait a while for the specific animal you are looking for, but with the unlimited power of human irresponsibility, it will show up eventually.

Cats and dogs evolved to be our pets and want nothing more than to be our pets, thus they are the best choices for pets.  They may not love every second of being a pet—-going to the vet comes to mind as a moment they don’t love—-but on the whole, what they want is to be a pet.  If you’ve ever adopted a cat that was feral but is well-socialized, you’re probably familiar with how true this is.  Even though my cat Molly only spent perhaps the first two months of her life as a feral kitten, she is clearly still haunted by the memory.

Disagree strongly with part of this.

Cats did not evolve to be our pets.  “Being feral” is a synonym for “growing up”; when a kitten gets to a certain age, its mother withholds grooming and food and it becomes a paranoid vicious little predator - this is what it was supposed to be. We deliberately retard their development in a kittenish phase by providing constant affection, grooming and food - but this is unnatural.

That’s not a moral judgement - I like cat as pets, I get on well with cats, and if I had my choice, I’d be keeping a cat now.  But cats as pets are unnatural, and being feral is normal cat development - they prefer being pets in the same way Paris Hilton prefers being a permanent party girl.

(And Molly was probably deprived too early as a kitten, which is why it scarred her)

If humans disappeared tomorrow, many dog species would die. Most cats would just become what they have evolved to end up as.

I’m looking mostly at Maine Coon mixes—they’re more companionable than cuddly, like water, and usually have a strangely high, trilling meow to come from such large, rangy cats.

I actually kind of dig taking Keaton to the vet because there’s always someone in the waiting room who coos, “Aww, can I see your kitten?” when they hear him meow and I get to amuse myself by showing them that my giant 13-pound cat is making that babyish noise.  He’s on the small end of Maine Coons (though he’s still very big for a domestic cat), which probably means he’s a mix, but he has all of the characteristics from his fluffy ruff to his snowshoe paws.

Dark Avenger @31, if you ended up coming out of a dog breeding hobby in the black financially it’s not the same thing as someone who sets out to breed dogs because they can sell the puppies for money. Did you get into breeding your dogs because you saw them as a means of profit? If not, then it’s not about you. If so, then yes, I think it was a dick move.

“I’m not sure ferrets are terribly exotic, but they’re not hard to get from enthusiasts of the species.”

Ferrets from the primary American breeder come spayed/neutered.  If you banned their sale, you’d either see an uptick in small breeders—who, unfortunately, can be even more irresponsible than Marshall Farms—or the damn-near disappearance of them as kept pets in most of the US within a decade.  They’re not hard to get right now because they suffer the same treatment as other commonly-kept pets, only at a higher rate because training techniques aren’t as widely known and it can be pricier to treat illnesses.  Ferret breeding, even moreso than ferret keeping, is serious *ahem* business.

“I understand the urge to have something like a pet ferret, but like with smoking, it’s an understandable urge that probably is best not indulged.”

Ferrets have been domesticated for a very, very, very long time.  Domestic ferrets are also pretty damn sociable.  Their personalities tend to be in keeping with that of a very social cat.  You may be thinking of the recent upsurge in people trying to keep mink as pets.

But there’s way more individual variation between cats than between breeds.  But different dog breeds correlate with personality traits more.

I completely disagree. Persian personalities and Maine Coon personalities are completely different and it correlates strongly to the breed. The personality traits aren’t just different because of their individual kittieness.

I’m baffled by cat breeding.  There’s not a lot of variety between different kinds of cats.  They’re all cats, you know?  They act like cats.  One cat is as good as another cat.

I’m going to have to join with the awesome squeeness over Maine Coons and mention that cat breeds vary widely.  They have traits that have been bred specifically just like dogs.

It’s is hard to understand if all you’ve ever had is you typical ‘mutt’ tabby or solid.  I didn’t get it myself until I moved in with my partner who had a Siamese. Living with a siam is living on a different planet than living with your typical cat; I was wholly unprepared.

They are ridiculously intelligent, I’ve had to ‘childproof’ my apartment. Extremely affectionate, they’ll literally try to punish you if you dare to be away from the house too long. In many ways they are like mini dogs, extremely trainable, not only do they know their names (and come when called) they sit on command, play fetch etc.  Whenever my little one is getting into some trouble I purposely hide his toys and then tell him to go find them, keeps him occupied.

And yes those are traits of the breed not the individual. Not to say that there aren’t other cat breeds with similar temperaments but lots of dog breeds are similar as well.  Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, anything else with ‘retriever’ in the name are similar. Ditto for many of the ‘terriers’ or the ‘herding’ dogs.  For all the different breeds there are only so many personality types.

All that said I am a huge rescuer. My home includes two rescued cats and a rescued dog, I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.

Breeders are better than pet stores if you actually know they are good breeders.  Visit them, make sure they know about the breed, and only purchase from those who have a quality health guarantee.

I agree strongly that cats have very distinct personalities, sure.  But there’s way more individual variation between cats than between breeds.  But different dog breeds correlate with personality traits more.  I guess I’m saying you can’t really predict a cat’s personality at all from the breed.  The stereotype, for instance, that tabbies are kinda quiet? My tabby is a meowing machine.

Tabby isn’t a breed, it’s a coat pattern that exists in many breeds.

You can predict it some—-sometimes.  Some breeds do involve personality traits that the cats of that breed tend to correspond to to some level, other breeds don’t.

I think it varies, whether breed or individual personality carries more sway. Cats are more generalized than dogs, with less variation between breeds than the astonishing diversity we’ve bred dogs into.  There are some points, though, where the difference in the breed’s baseline traits outdoes the likely individual variations in the breed. Some breeds can as a general rule be counted on to be more high-strung, and others docile; some talk more.  Other breeds have little in the way of personality traits bred in, and personality can go any which way.  And of course there are the physical considerations, which won’t vary from breed standard as much as personality does.  Things like size, medical issues, and how allergenic they are.

It’s not going to be as noticeable or as universal as it is in dogs, but it does exist, and it exists enough that people do often find it helpful in choosing a breed to suit their lifestyle.

Mnem,
When we would take our Maine Coon kitten to the vet while we were living in NM, the entire staff would crowd into the examining room to see her. They always wanted us to “make her do that noise”, tickle her ear tufts, and stroke her fluffy feather duster looking tail. I agree it’s fun to show off these kitties. Especially when people see how big they get.

Comment #7: Crissa on 07/11 at 03:30 PM

I’m totally okay with banning sales of any animal that gets over two pounds or so.  That way people can still have mice, fancy rats, pretty lizards and small snakes and fish.

Actually, the reported motive for the proposed San Francisco law is hamsters.  From the SF Chronicle:

The real problem, staff said, is hamsters.

People buy the high-strung, nocturnal rodents because they’re under the temporary impression that hamsters are cute and cuddly. But the new owners quickly learn that hamsters are, in fact, prone to biting, gnawing through expensive wiring and maniacally racing on their exercise wheels at 2 a.m.

So the animals end up at the shelter. Just about every species has its own rescue group in San Francisco, but no one seems to want hamsters. Hamsters are the No. 1 animal euthanized at the city’s shelter, said San Francisco Animal Care and Control director Rebecca Katz.

I think owning pets is weird in itself.  Whether it’s from a rescue society, a stray, a breeder, a puppy mill, or a pet store, I just don’t share the desire to own another living thing.  I know I’m in a small minority when I say that, but I strongly question those who buy children pets and the justifications that are given.  Words like “companionship”, “socialization”, “responsibility”, and “love” are bandied about, but I think such things can be accomplished without having another living thing being involved, especially an owned one.

Yeah, yeah: they’re companions, not owned things.  They’re friends.  They’re all sorts of anthropomorphised emotional catch-alls.  But I still don’t get it.

I’d rather have a camel than a car, however.  But that’s another topic for another day, probably on a completely different blog.

Are hamsters edible?

Hi all, I so strongly agree with you Amanda about this all. First off, I do understand that rescue centers mean well with trying to find the best fit for your life but most get too picky when picking a home for a dog or cat. I once volunteered for a shelter and they taught us volunteers bad things to look out for with people when we walked them around the shelter and talked with them but the application process was a bit ridiculous. Plus the place was filled with cliques like high school which was weird and people with problem power trips. Why I didn’t volunteer there long but me as a dog person (love cats but hubby allergic) found my two dogs at animal control and love them to death and have had them eight years now. The whole exotic thing bothers me I have a friend who has a parrot an amazon who she had to include in her will since they live so long. I don’t get the point of exotics especially the rural area I live in which only has vets for cats and dogs no exotic vets but I know plenty of people who have exotics that drive all the way to Pittsburgh to get them seen. Dogs and cats like Amanda said are to be our pets but exotics not so much but that just my opinion. I defintely agree though get your animals from a good rescue (Petfinder has a list of things to look out for when going to a shelter to see if they are a good, reputable one) or animal control.

I was intending to post in the defence of fancy rats as pets, but I’ve been beaten to it!  I’d still like to point out though that regardless of whether they were bred to be pets (they were) they love being pets in the same way that dogs do.  Amanda, I recommend you visit someone with rats and witness the way they come running to the sound of their owner’s voice, sit on their shoulders and ‘groom’ their hair, sit happily in a pocket for hours or run free ranging around the living room (or wherever is rat proofed!)  My rats live in a habitat that is roughly equivalent in terms of scale to me living in a huge penthouse apartment!

I am also in the UK, and am wholeheartedly opposed to the selling of ALL live animals in pet shops.  Most people know about puppy farms, but here’s a rodent farm:

http://www.ratz.co.uk/rodentfarm.html

kristin, I’m unwilling to ipso facto go on the assumption than anyone who breeds animals for profit in an irresponsible way as you outlined above is = to anyone who breeds animals for a profit per se.

FWIW, we bred our dogs because we believed that the combination of their traits would make for good examples of their breed, and it wasn’t profit that kept me feeding the runt of the litter for 9 days so that she could pull through.

If humans disappeared tomorrow, many dog species would die.

I do hope that you never encounter a pack of feral dogs without a large stick or firearm to defend yourself with, as happened to me one time.

There are some breeds that would thrive, like the dingo or the Canaan Dog, which was only re-domesticated less than 60 years ago:

They survived this way until the 1930s, when Dr. Rudolphina Menzel came up with the idea to use these intelligent scavenger dogs mainly found in the desert, as guard dogs for the scattered Jewish settlements. Prof. Menzel was asked by the Haganah to help them build up a service dog organization (later to become Unit Oketz). She captured and acquired wild and semi-wild Canaan dogs. She worked with semi-free and free-living dogs of a specific type, luring them into her camp and gaining their trust. She also captured litters of puppies, finding them remarkably adaptable to domestication. The first successful adult she called Dugma (meaning example). Dr. Menzel found the dogs be highly adaptable, trainable and easy to domesticate. It took her about 6 months to capture Dugma, and within a few weeks she was able to take him into town and on buses.

Also, I’ve known of cats that were so far from being hunters that the idea that they would live in the wild long enough to breed would be risible in the extreme.

I’m unwilling to ipso facto go on the assumption than anyone who breeds animals for profit in an irresponsible way as you outlined above is = to anyone who breeds animals for a profit per se.

Well, obviously, I am. Primarily because breeding dogs (I really don’t know about cats) in a responsible ways is, as I’ve covered, fucking expensive. And there’s a limit to the market for ridiculously expensive dogs. The only way to reliably breed dogs as a money-making venture is to cut back on the exact practices that make it both expensive and responsible.

Also, I’ve known of cats that were so far from being hunters that the idea that they would live in the wild long enough to breed would be risible in the extreme.

Again “many dog species” would die and “most cats” would grow into being what evolution designed them to be - vicious little feline predators preying on birds and rodents.  You’re not actually arguing with me, just missing the qualifiers I put in there.

I bet there were few daschunds, airedales or cocker spaniels in that feral dog pack…

Primarily because breeding dogs (I really don’t know about cats) in a responsible ways is, as I’ve covered, fucking expensive.

I believe I met the standards you set, we were willing to refund the price of one puppy that turned out NOT to have a genetic illness often found in the breed(which was an artillery shell we dodged).

FYI, we stopped breeding because the last whelping took 8 hours and I couldn’t subject my little female dog to that kind of stress for a few measly bucks in the future, so we had he fixed when the vet said she could handle being operated on.

Phoenician @51

You can’t be so sure about daschunds not being part of a feral pack. Doxies are actually ferocious little hunting dogs who can be downright vicious. When I was a kid we had one who would regularly dominate dobermans and rotties owned by family friends. She was a mean little thing. I’d say she would have a better chance surviving as a feral dog than the golden retriever we had later. Gorgeous dog, but dumb as a brick.

3letterjon,
So you can’t understand the value of “companionship” or “socialization” or “responsibility” for a child or an adult? I think you might be missing out on some lovely parts of being human. I get that you’re talking about pets and not people but love for a living being is important to an individual’s health. Plus a common joke among cat owners is that even though we technically “own” the cat, IRL we are the cat’s staff. The pet cats of responsible owners don’t know they’re owned. They could care less what humans call it, as long as their needs are met.

Ownership is important when it comes to animals because it involves responsibility. Otherwise, people could just claim, “I don’t own it, it can fend for itself, so it’s not my problem,” you know like how some people try to do with their kids?

Of course this isn’t to say people don’t mistreat animals they own. But it means there are legal consequences for it. Plus it makes owners more culpable for the behavior of an animal they own. If your kid, parent, friend or any other person you might have a responsibility, to/for but of course don’t own, beats up another person there probably won’t be any legal consequences for the you (maybe civil, for med bills) but if your dog rips the crap out of another dog there can be state and civil consequences.

The benefits of owning a pet are too numerous to name in one posted comment, for people and animals.

Dusty is a triller extraordinaire, too.  She runs around the house trilling.  She’s just super vocal about all her emotions.  It’s usually cute, except when she’s angry we go to bed and walks around protesting.

I bet there were few daschunds, airedales or cocker spaniels in that feral dog pack…

Actually, there were some small dogs there.  Don’t let the fact that they’re ‘wiener dogs’ allow you to overlook what they were bred to do in the first place:

These walking phalluses thrive in family environments, preferably in Mormon families where there aren’t a lot of dick jokes being cast about. They are a popular breed for that reason, which inevitably means that profiteers churn them out with little respect to breeding standards. As a result they are increasingly prone to basic flaws like snappiness and larger problems like spinal and hip issues.

So they’re both ridiculous and defective, meaning they wound up with the shittiest hand nature could deal them (other than extinction, though even that is debatable).

What They Should Be Known For

The name dachshund translates from German to mean “badger dog.” They were bred in the early 1600s in an attempt to create a dog as long as it was fearless, so that it could dig into badger burrows and fight them to the death. This is no small feat. Badgers are surly, vicious little mothers. Even the benign-sounding honey badger consumes porcupines and venomous snakes between honey fixes.

It should be no surprise the dachshund was also used to hunt wild boar in some instances. Hell, drag them to Africa and take them on a big cat safari. They just don’t give a fuck. It is a good day to die.

To jump on the cat breed theme, I found a kitten crying in a bush who turned out to be the most annoying, demanding, and deadly (to anything that crawls or flies) cat I have ever seen in my life.  A little research showed that she was a Turkish Van and that her traits and confirmation were completely consistent with the breed standard; it’s a good thing too or she might have been put down as a kitty sociopath.

When I was a kid we had one who would regularly dominate dobermans and rotties owned by family friends.

Family on my mom’s side has always had them, four legged Napoleons, is what we called them.

Re: Comment 27

I’m really sorry, I don’t know if the Albuquerque ban extends to exotics or not.

In many ways they are like mini dogs, extremely trainable, not only do they know their names (and come when called) they sit on command, play fetch etc. 

I’m still skeptical.  I’ve had a tabby who was that dog-like, and I’ve trained Molly to respond to suggestions that she come take a nap with me.  I had a Siamese cat who was just grumpy and stubborn.  I think there are cat breed traits, but they aren’t as sure a thing as dog breed traits.  Cats always felt a little more like individuals to me, and I say this as a dog-loving person (who would have a dog if I felt I could provide the stability and space a dog needs).

3letterjon, I’ve long believed that the way people treat animals is an excellent indicator of the way they’ll treat people if they have enough power over those people. Conversely, I’ve long believed that when people grow up learning that animals, largely helpless before us, should be treated with compassion and respect, they have an easy time extrapolating that to humans who are vulnerable or disempowered.

One of the most valuable things our pets do is provide a living example in our family that we prioritize them as feeling, experiencing creatures, we do what’s right for them even when it’s inconvenient, and we do our best to make them happy even though we’re not really legally obliged to do so.

That’s not the only reason we have pets, of course, or even the primary reason. The primary reason is probably that we have a hard time turning our back on a creature in need, knowing no one else is waiting in line to step up to the plate. But animals are remarkably like people in certain ways, and it’s not anthropomorphizing or projecting or imagining to observe that when they’re happy and we get along well, they’re wonderful company and delightful to be around in much the same way human friends are.

Frankly, I question the human socialization credentials of someone who really cannot grasp that interacting with a friendly animal is enjoyable for human and animal alike.

I concede that rats make good pets, because they’re like cats and they evolved to be part of human society.  (In fact, one reason cats evolved into good pets is that they started sticking around people because people attract rats, which make good food.  And then cats started getting selected for sociability and cuteness because the cats who had those traits got fed and sheltered better, and now we are where we are.)  I think owning a rat is great, but for their ridiculously short lives. (That’s why I’d never get one—-it’s always sad when a pet dies, but at least you get a good decade plus out of cats and dogs.)  But if the only way to get a rat is through a pet store, I think it’s really better to go without a rat as a pet.  Luckily, rat breeding seems to be an option, as does rat rescue.

I know I’m in a small minority when I say that, but I strongly question those who buy children pets and the justifications that are given.  Words like “companionship”, “socialization”, “responsibility”, and “love” are bandied about, but I think such things can be accomplished without having another living thing being involved, especially an owned one.

I think we’re talking about completely different things here.  There’s a big difference between getting a pet because you want companionship and love from another living being and are willing to take on all of the responsibilities that come with that and getting a pet for someone else because you’re hoping that the person you buy it for will magically develop the ability to be responsible.

Any parent who buys a pet for their child thinking that the kid will be taking care of the pet is a total fucking idiot.  Having a pet is an adult responsibility.  Kids can’t pay vet bills.  Kids can’t get up out of bed at 3 am to walk the dog.  Kids can’t get the dog completely socialized.  They can help and participate in those things, but ultimately those are adult responsibilities that only adults should take on.

If the problem is that you just can’t understand why anyone would want to interact with a non-human species, then I can’t help you there except to say that cats are fascinating little animals and it’s entertaining every single day to watch them interact with us and with each other.  I understand myself better by living with them.

I think what blurs for dogs that doesn’t for cats is the “I’m here for you, master” mentality that most dogs come with, as a species that forms packs with a definite hierarchy.

The only cat I’m aware of that meets that level of social organization is Panthera leo.

(The article also claims that a U.C. Davis study found that “only a small fraction” of pets at shelters originated at stores, but they quote an industry representative for this, so take it with a grain of salt.)

I’m guessing that the statistic is for animals that were purchased at pet stores and subsequently surrendered directly to the shelter.  If Animal Control picks up an abandoned animal, they have no way of knowing where it originally came from, so they’re not going to classify it as a pet store animal.  The only ones that will be classified that way are the ones where the owner walks into the shelter and says, “I’m tired of this dog I got at the pet store so I’m turning it in.”  So the statistic is probably right, but the industry is using it in a misleading way, to say the least.

BTW, if I may blogpimp for a moment here, there’s a commenter at Balloon-Juice named Werebear who has a really terrific cat behavior blog with lots of good advice:

http://www.wayofcats.com/blog/

(If the ‘nym looks familiar, I’ve occasionally seen her post here, too, but not as regularly as at Balloon-Juice.)

Amanda, 63.  I’m with you on the lifespan issue with rats, but in a way it makes them great pets for people who are a little less secure or stable.  If you have to move across the country to a tiny bedsit and work 60 hours a week, your 3 year old border collie is screwed.  I adore dogs, but I can only commit to rats right now, they need me but less than a dog would.

As for the domestication of cats, I’m allergic but always had a bit of extra admiration for them since reading ‘The Cat Who Walked By Herself’ in the Just So Stories when I was a kid!

Thom, 61.  See my post 48 for some images of a rodent farm in Europe.  Pretty horrific mass production of animals, and bear in mind small animals can breed more frequently than cats or dogs.  A rat or a rabbit might have ten litters a year or more before being sold as frozen snake food.  I can’t imagine it doesn’t happen in the US.

“I concede that rats make good pets, because they’re like cats and they evolved to be part of human society.”

O_o So, domestic ferrets (deliberately bred for thousands of years as working animals fairly distinct from any extant wild population bearing the name) are like picking up a cigarette habit, but animals that evolved to be opportunists whose interests were best served by avoiding direct contact with us whenever possible are awesome pet material?  I’m having a little trouble following how you’re classing animals as “not real pets” and “pets.”

(Note to rat-fanciers: I am not disputing the idea of rats as pets or the legitimacy of rat breeding, just the legitimacy of classing animals as natural-pets or undomesticated based on the above criteria.)

I get what you’re saying. Certain personality traits can show up in cats that aren’t a specific breed type, just like mutts. But then the argument would then be a golden retriever is a golden retriever is a golden retriever. Not that a cat is a cat. Just because there might be less variation in a dog breed than it a cat breed, the correlation between breed type and personality in cats is strong. Just like dog breeders, cat breeders are looking for very specific personality traits that correlate strongly with that breed. And just like dog breeds you get outliers.

Plus stubbornness is a common Siamese trait, it goes with their intelligence and mischievousness. No matter how many times you tell them (or try to thwart them) not to open the latch on the dog’s toy chest, rummage through the chest to find the dog’s favorite toy, take out that toy then use it to tease the dog mercilessly (based on actual events) it will still do it. For as long as it can.

PS.  My rats are rescues, there’s always tons of them available because pet shops incorrectly sex them SO much of the time, then send people away with a breeding pair and a couple of weeks later you’ve got 10 unwanted rat babies that either die from a lack of proper care or go into rescue.  If anyone wants info on rescue rats in the UK shout up!

shit hit blaspheme instead of preview, sorry for the mistakes.. responding to Amanda @63

shit again, not #63, #60. I need a nap.

I would agree with the poster above that rescue is the best way to go, but also, just look for people whose dogs or cats had a litter, in the Penny Saver, whatever… usually people take pretty good care of puppies/kitties to whom their pets give birth.  My mom has let a lot of her pets have one litter before getting them spayed/neutered, but personally I wouldn’t—too much work to take care of and to find good homes for, plus the accidental death of a puppy last time put me off it.
Comment #3: Meghan Elaine on 07/11 at 03:20 PM

Uhm, well intentioned, but no.  In the first place, the person whose dog or cat had a litter unintentionally was irresponsible enough to not spay their dog, and then not to supervise it.  If they are a “backyard breeder” of registered animals, better, but still, do we really need more animals, and if the parents aren’t “show dogs” meaning with titles for either obedience or conformation, well, what is the difference between that and a mutt?  Dysplasia fixing ain’t cheap.

OK, I know most of you are apartment dwellers, but if you are ever not, the same thing that can be said for dogs/cats (too many, go to a rescue first) can also be said of horses.  Now, lots of people will buy a horse because of ability at something, or speed, but really most today are pets.  Here’s a really neat rescue - thought some of you might enjoy reading. 

http://www.horseshaven.org/

PS for all those city dwelling folks who always wanted a horse, their sponsorships make neat birthday gifts.

3letterjohn, unless you were in some way traumatized at an early age by an animal encounter, I don’t get you.  I pity you (not in a snarky way) because I can’t imagine someone NOT understanding the joy of having an animal, on so many levels-fun/amusement, aesthetically, companionship, pride, unconditional love….  and owning an animal well, we use the term, but for most, that’s a misnomer.  It really is more akin to a family member.

God, I would be so thrilled if stores like PetSmart and PetCo had to stop selling exotics.  I have heard so many horror stories about the way they treat reptiles - the same kinds of disposable commodity problems as with the other animals, plus keeping them in toxic conditions (lack of appropriate lighting, poor diet) and misinforming customers about proper care (to the extent of misidentifying the necessary diet as herbivorous rather than omnivorous.)  If you ever want to see fireworks, ask a bunch of serious herp enthusiasts about these stores.  If the only way to buy a snake or an iguana or whatever was through a reputable dealer, that would increase quality of life for the critters and cut way, way down on the people who just want one because it’s cool and have no notion of what’s required for proper care, or intention of providing it.

I do wonder though, about how the law distinguishes (if it does) between live animals sold for pets and live animals sold for food.  All but the smallest snakes eat rodents, as do some lizards and frogs.  Ideally, they’d all be eating frozen/thawed, but for whatever reason a lot of animals still get live feeding, and their owners have to buy food somehow.  (The article mentions rats as included in the ban, but not mice.  I don’t know if mice would be included or not.  And some animals are just too big to thrive on mice.)

Well, obviously, I am. Primarily because breeding dogs (I really don’t know about cats) in a responsible ways is, as I’ve covered, fucking expensive. And there’s a limit to the market for ridiculously expensive dogs. The only way to reliably breed dogs as a money-making venture is to cut back on the exact practices that make it both expensive and responsible.
Comment #50: kristin on 07/11 at 06:26 PM

Yes.  But it’s really more fundamental than that.  Some of the very traits that Dark Avenger talks about are pretty cruel to breed into dogs in the first place.  All those breeds like bulldogs that have horrendous breathing issues and something like an 85% c-section rate, the skin problems inherent to sharpeis, the extreme slopes bred in the ‘60’s into German Shepherds which crippled many a dog at a fairly early age.  Breeding for conformation that isn’t functional and may be detrimental is very irresponsible, even if your purpose isn’t to make money..

Look at Irish Setters - those ultra long fluff coats simply don’t work in the field.  We see much more of this in the horse world, where the average halter (wins for looking pretty) but is horrid to ride, breaks down early and often and almost looks to be a different breed from his working world counterpart.

All but the smallest snakes eat rodents, as do some lizards and frogs.  Ideally, they’d all be eating frozen/thawed, but for whatever reason a lot of animals still get live feeding, and their owners have to buy food somehow.

They wouldn’t be able to sell live rodents as food.

Since feeding live rodents to kept reptiles is so dangerous and irresponsible, I have no problem with reptile owners having to switch to frozen/thawed mice. Most of them do live feeding because they enjoy watching their snake consume a terrified rodent anyway. No matter what they say about the snake’s “preference.”

“I have heard so many horror stories about the way they treat reptiles - the same kinds of disposable commodity problems as with the other animals, plus keeping them in toxic conditions (lack of appropriate lighting, poor diet) and misinforming customers about proper care (to the extent of misidentifying the necessary diet as herbivorous rather than omnivorous.)”

Fish as well, at least with Petsmart.  (I don’t know if PetCo sells fish.)  I have yet to see them misidentify fish themselves, but misidentification of care level, food-type, behavior, tank requirements, and eventual size is chronic.

I can’t imagine who would be harmed by a pet-selling ban, aside from pet store owners, whose concerns are frankly outweighed by the concerns of the animals dying in shelters and unprepared pet owners who can’t handle the critters they purchased. As long as there are fertile animals out in the general population, there will be pets available for adoption. There are perfectly lovable animals abandoned on street corners, FFS. If someone genuinely wants a pet, they will find one. The critters don’t need to be displayed in store windows.

... getting a pet for someone else because you’re hoping that the person you buy it for will magically develop the ability to be responsible.

Any parent who buys a pet for their child thinking that the kid will be taking care of the pet is a total fucking idiot.  Having a pet is an adult responsibility.  Kids can’t pay vet bills.  Kids can’t get up out of bed at 3 am to walk the dog.  Kids can’t get the dog completely socialized.  They can help and participate in those things, but ultimately those are adult responsibilities that only adults should take on.
....
Comment #64: Mnemosyne on 07/11 at 07:24 PM

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.  Yes, kids (of a certain age) can indeed take care of a pet.  Yes, the parents do have to supervise the kid taking care of the pet, but the kid can be frontline resposnsible - and it is great training for responsibility.  Especially when kitty has some very POINTED ways of showing you that his food/water bowl is empty, or some odoriferous messy ways of showing you that his litterbox needs to be cleaned NOW!  And yes, that can mean the parent needs to wake up the kid to tend to the animal needs, but they do seem to learn quickly.

Shakahi @80: I agree with you about live feeding vs frozen/thawed.  I think in the long run it would be better if live feeder rodents weren’t readily available.  But I also think in the short term there would be an increase in mistreatment and abandonment - some owners won’t care to switch, some owners won’t know how, and some animals are harder to transition than others.  (Some people buy live and kill the animals themselves, before feeding.  I don’t know what the benefits are of that vs f/t. If there are any.)

Any ban on selling live animals should be specific with regards to purpose and taxonomy. There are outfits that sell live animals for research and educational purposes that could be harmed by a broad law against selling live animals.

I’m still skeptical.  I’ve had a tabby who was that dog-like, and I’ve trained Molly to respond to suggestions that she come take a nap with me.  I had a Siamese cat who was just grumpy and stubborn.

Oh there is definitely some individual variation but it’s not like dogs don’t have that either.  The laziest, dumbest dog I know is a Golden, completely uncharacteristic of that breed. One of the sweetest is actually a Chihuahua, which have a tendency to be spoiled assholes.

Also most cats that people own are simply mixes or ‘mutts’. You don’t know their history.  It is completely possible that Molly could have one the several tractable breeds in her history and that’s what gives her that great nature.

And the purebreds can sneak in quite easily. For example this lovely ‘tabby’ (eating my partner’s hand) who isn’t actually a tabby at all but a purebred siamese. It was actually quite amusing because the individual we were working with had no idea he was a siam until she pulled his documents out and lo and behold, pedigree papers. (When we met him, we figured he was part siam due to his blue eyes)

If a cat breed that is actually well known can be moving through the system completely under the radar, I’m sure there are tons of rescue cats that are either purebreds but less well known or have purebreds in their recent heritage.

Plus stubbornness is a common Siamese trait, it goes with their intelligence and mischievousness. No matter how many times you tell them (or try to thwart them) not to open the latch on the dog’s toy chest, rummage through the chest to find the dog’s favorite toy, take out that toy then use it to tease the dog mercilessly (based on actual events) it will still do it. For as long as it can.

Oh my god, yes. I have way too many child-locks for being a childless person.

We see much more of this in the horse world, where the average halter (wins for looking pretty) but is horrid to ride, breaks down early and often and almost looks to be a different breed from his working world counterpart.

I would disagree.  There are really only two horse breeds that really fall victim to this, QH’s and Arabs.  Most other breeds are extremely healthy.

The poor confirmation and disease issues occur in much higher rate among dogs.  German Shepherds, Cavalier and King Charles Spaniels, Pugs, Bulldogs, Dachshunds, Basset Hounds, Neapolitan Mastiffs, Boxers… Just off the top of my head; not just impractical for their purpose but they have debilitating and deadly genetic defects that are common among them.

Not that a HYPP positive QH is a barrel of laughs.

O_o So, domestic ferrets (deliberately bred for thousands of years as working animals fairly distinct from any extant wild population bearing the name) are like picking up a cigarette habit, but animals that evolved to be opportunists whose interests were best served by avoiding direct contact with us whenever possible are awesome pet material? 

I know!  Evolution is a funny thing, isn’t it? 

In all seriousness, yes.  I will never, ever understand the appeal of ferrets.  Their good qualities are the same as cats, but they have all these downsides cats don’t have—-they smell really bad, they tear shit up, and their claws are way more painful than cats.  I don’t see why not just get a cat, when so many need good homes, instead of creating demand for more ferrets.

As for the ban on rodents as food, I’d imagine that yes, that’s what would happen.  San Fran already bans selling live animals for food, actually, and so I’m guessing much of the rodent trade is actually illegal already, but continues on because the pet store owners can say the animals are pets.

I was thinking of AQH as I typed that - my time with the breed was the Impressive era.  But, I’d probably add show American Saddlebreds, and Tennesee Walkers to that - although a large part of their screwed-upness is human interference (shoeing and tail surgeries) Add a large number of the draft breeds, too.  That high action will NOT work for pulling and breaks down quickly on anything but showring soft. Even the not very well known Peruvian Paso can have problems, ligament ones form breeding to be “springy walk” typey, with ultra long weak pasterns.  Couple that with owners/breeders who want to insist on versatility (bullshit) - they do not jump, they shouldn’t even be asked to CANTER.

Wow - lots of Maine Coons and Maine Coon mixes here. I have two mixes, littermates that I got from a rescue when they were six months old. They were found in the woods at four months but were too sick to be adopted out at first. One has very much a Maine Coon personality. The other wants to be carried around all the time and sits on my lap. Neither is very large for an adult female cat - 10 and 11.2 pounds at their last vet visit, but both have the bottle brush tail, tufted ears and paws, and lots of fur. Just a little bit of a ruff on each of them, and as they are not all the way to three yet, we’ll see what happens with the triple coat when they get a little older. They look alike, but personality-wise, only one acts like the part-Maine Coon that she is. The other acts like the house cat that she’s mixed with. They both talk to me all the time, and the tiny voice especially on the bigger one just cracks me up. The smaller one’s voice is a little lower.

@Amanda Ferrets are smaller (so better for apartments) and a LOT more social/human friendly than cats. Plus most people admit otters are adorable. What’s not to love about a tiny, multicolored otter relative?

“I know!  Evolution is a funny thing, isn’t it?”

...selection doesn’t somehow not result in evolution just because it’s humans rather than nature.  Astonishing, I know.

“Their good qualities are the same as cats, but they have all these downsides cats don’t have—-they smell really bad, they tear shit up, and their claws are way more painful than cats.”

Their good qualities are more that they have the personality type associated with dogs or really friendly cats while being litter-trainable and much smaller than cats and non-teeny-tiny dogs.  It’s also far easier to have ferrets concurrently with natural prey animals like birds or fish; you have to make sure that the ferret can’t climb up to them, not make sure that the cat can’t jump up to them.  One of the cats I’ve got now has about the same personality as some of my more mischievous ferrets.  The ferrets?  Way, way easier to keep out of trouble.

Pound for pound, a ferret who decides to tear shit up doesn’t do nearly the same damage as a cat or dog who decides to tear shit up, and their claws are seriously not way more painful than cats’.  I mean, not even if I sat there with a file and tried to sharpen them to the same point I try to take off the cats’ claws.  Their claws are like dogs’—blunt and for digging.  I’m not saying it’s like being tickled with feathers—one of my current ferrets digs at feet, and I really, really wish this wasn’t the habit he decided to be stubborn about—but if one of my cats did the exact same thing with her claws out, I’d probably need stitches.  Apples and oranges.  As for smelling bad, even assuming you have a ferret with intact musk glands (the vast majority of pet ferrets come with them removed), they only tend to fire the cannons, as it were, when they’re upset about something.  It’s roughly on par with a bad human fart, and lasts about as long.  How much time have you actually spent around ferrets?

I wouldn’t expect a pet store ban to significantly depress the market for ferrets. In the age of craigslist, anyone who really wants a ferret can find a breeder. I figure that if you don’t want a ferret badly enough to seek one out, it’s probably best if you don’t get one. They can be a real handful.

Let the feminist ferret flaming commence!

Sorry, I’m not trying to be a snarky super-jerk about it.  It’s just that I hear stuff like that a lot, and 9 times out of 10 it’s coming from meeting a ferret a few times or handling a kit (similar behavioral issues as very young kittens and puppies) in a pet-shop.  Which is really frustrating, since I’ve been living with a variable-sized pack of the little beasts for the past decade, and a) it’s not true, b) a lot of the ferret-slander feeds back into people deciding it’s okay to mistreat them*, and c) that’s how I wound up with most of mine, who by and large lived shorter lives because of that early neglect. 

*Kind of the same way people talk shit about cats (they hate you! and they piss all over your stuff! and they claw the shit out of you!) and then think it’s okay to be mean to them.

Fuck pet stores to Hell, honestly. I used to work for an animal rescue group and we’d often find entire newborn litters that breeders had tossed into a dumpster by a shitty breeder because they had a defect that would make them difficult to sell.

People act like all the dogs at the county shelters are insane face biters but it’s just not the case. There are plenty of adorable, well socialized dogs there and they have to put many of them down because people would rather have a dog that matches their shoes, or something.

All my pets have always been rescued pets and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I have three cats, all mixes, and all different in personality. 

- Siren is part-Siamese, EXTREMELY loud, and emotionally fragile; she was dumped on my doorstep as a seven week old kitten back in 1994 and is still yowling up a storm.

- Hunter Moon, aka Malfoy-the-cat, is a polydactyl flamepoint Siamese mix who is a coward, a wimp, extremely affectionate, and incredibly dumb.  I got him from my best friend’s neighbor.

- Diamond is a tiny gray blotched tabby with a Napoleon complex.  She was dumped in the country with her kittens, rescued, and then had to spend several months in a shelter after her babies were adopted.  She spent a year living in my linen closet, then decided the house was now hers, and has been beating up on the other cats (especially Hunter) ever since.

I love them all dearly, but my next cat will likely be a shelter kitty.  Diamond is such a delight, and so grateful, that I couldn’t do otherwise.

And oh yeah - they’re all neutered.  No way am I going to contribute to the problem.

Rodents and other small pets that come from big stores like Petsmart do tend to be less socially trained.  However, the small local pet store that I got my mice from breeds their own.  They are socialized by the staff.  So I got two very friendly, health, shiny (and now spoiled as hell) satin mice.

Growing up, my house was basically a mini rescue for stray cats and dogs.  Either we’d find them, or someone my mom knew would find some poor critter and bring it to her, since they knew we’d care for it until we could find a good home.  When I my now ex and I got our own cats, we adopted from the shelter.  Greatest kittes evar.

flamepoint Siamese mix who is a coward, a wimp, extremely affectionate, and incredibly dumb

Anecdotal survey: are there in fact any flame point Siamese who aren’t all these things? We have a flame point mix who had caught one of his legs in someone’s fan belt and needed an amputation when we rescued him. He’s gigantic, talkative, and a complete butterpat, loves to cuddle, and I sincerely doubt he has the IQ that God gave cheddar cheese. His name is Baby, but his nickname is Clueless Morgan.

I completely understand the notion of wanting to love an animal, doing so, and having a mutually-beneficial relationship.  I just don’t do it.  It’s not that I dislike animals, as I have plenty around and my life is enriched by their presence.  I just don’t feel any need to own anything when there are so many animals readily available to watch in my yard, at the nearby washes, in trees when I take walks, and even on my porch.  I’ve had hummingbirds nest in the Christmas lights I kept up year round (they’re clear bulbs, so it’s socially acceptable,) had a coyote in the backyard recently, and sometimes have some hawks for the Winter.  Gecko v. cockroach hunts on the patio are fun to watch.  And I have plenty of other lizards and birds passing through.  Why would I want to own something when I can enjoy them for free?

I won’t be burning down any pet stores or setting free any zoo or circus animals, but I just don’t personally want to own any animal.  Yes, they bring a lot of people a lot of joy.  But I think too many people get animals for reasons that don’t make a lot of sense to me, and I don’t think it’s impolite or it should open me up to psychoanalysis to suggest that getting a child an animal because they need to learn responsibility or they’re lonely or to test if they’re a serial killer are all bad reasons to do so.  I think parents who do that are using their children as excuses to get what the parents want, which would be okay.  A dog or cat can be used to teach responsibility and compassion or a lot of other things, and they are much cheaper than more children.  But there are many ways to teach good values that don’t involve ownership.  End of pseudorant.  Enjoy the animals you have, take care of them, and don’t let them breed any more than is needed to sustain their existence for the future.  End actual rant.

I don’t know what to say about your indifference to “breeding”. Basic logic would tell you that is an incredibly stupid and evil practice. (And yes it is evil.)

Perhaps you should read the wiki entry Pedigree Dog Exposed or in fact watch the documentary so you have a strong negative opinion on dog breeding.

I am sorry if this is strong but I get a visceral anger fueled reaction to dog breeding. My basic disgust with pet stores is almost entirely to do with dog breeding. Wanting designer dogs is what causes dogs to suffer at the hands of pet stores. Take out the breed aspect and it would be a lot harder for these places to continue because they wouldn’t be able to market these animals as special.

I’d always had pets as a kid but once I left college I never really thought about getting pets. I just ended up having them because there are so many animals out there that need homes and for whom the alternative is being put down, which I just can’t stand for if I happen to have the resources to help. I don’t think I’ll ever buy a pet, because when my pets pass away I’m sure other stray kitties will wander up, other dogs will be found in boxes in parking lots and I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to turn them down.

I don’t hate ferrets. On the contrary, I think they’re adorable. If it weren’t for the smell issue, I’d probably be a ferret owner. I’ve known several lovely ferrets, but without exception they were owned by very committed and knowledgeable people—the kind of people who would never buy a ferret at a pet store on impulse. I’m just saying, as a generally pro-ferret person, that an anti-pet store ordinance wouldn’t be a disaster for ferret fanciers.

Haha, and also, when I first read the headline I thought it said, “Screw pet stories,” and I thought that I really couldn’t agree more. Nothing more boring than hearing for the gazillionth time about that funny thing Tasha the kitty does with the string!

In further defense of ferrets, I would like to throw out that they are /very/ intelligent creatures (when they feel like it, that this - they rank up with monkeys on problem solving skills, but just try seeing how long it will take one to get out of a paper bag).
Also, they are mostly hypoallergenic - my mother, whose throat closes up upon entering a room that a cat has receently been in, much less one with an actual cat in it, has owned ferrets for years without any ill effects.

anybody who breeds animals especially dogs cares far more about making money than about animals or they wouldn’t be contributing to the overpopulation problem.

Great post!

Yes, please close down pet stores. But also, mom and pop breeders need stricter regulation.  Several years ago, my dad got us a dog from a local breeder, the dog was a wirehair terrier, which is generally a really smart breed. We’d had one before that was an awesome dog and smart as a whip.

This dog was sweet, but *could not learn*; I’m convinced he was actually mentally retarded, most likely from inbreeding. Ever since, I’ve believed in either pound mutts, dogs from friend’s litters, or reputable and expensive breeders only. But I’d really love to run people like that woman who sold us the inbred dog out of business. It’s cruel to let that happen. And I know lots of other people who’ve gotten “purebred” animals who had mental issues, lots of physical ailments, and deformities that point to inbreeding going on.

And I know lots of other people who’ve gotten “purebred” animals who had mental issues, lots of physical ailments, and deformities that point to inbreeding going on.

Yah. I got my rats from a breeder, the rats were sisters, and both of them died within a year of various lung ailments that apparently can crop up when dumbo-earred rats are inbred. And they were so young that I thought for sure they’d get better, and I ended up pumping a fair amount of money into vet visits, antibiotics… It kind of (irrationally) put my off the breeder thing; the best ratties I’ve ever seen include a pet store rat and a leftover lab rat who was missed as a baby when all his siblings were sacked.*

Not that this detracts from the main gist of this post. But it’s not like all pet store animals are terrible and all responsibly-obtained animals thrive.

*named “Lucky” because scientists are creative. :D

But I think too many people get animals for reasons that don’t make a lot of sense to me, and I don’t think it’s impolite or it should open me up to psychoanalysis to suggest that getting a child an animal because they need to learn responsibility or they’re lonely or to test if they’re a serial killer are all bad reasons to do so.

Since everyone posting here adopted animals as adults and not a single person got one for a child to “make them” responsible, I really don’t know where this strawman you’re beating came from.  My mom had a cat when I lived at home, but it was her cat, not a furry responsibility-bringing machine.  G’s family had dogs when he was a kid but, again, they were there because his parents liked dogs, not because they thought the kids needed companionship.

There are some people who get animals for that reason, but they’re the same people who buy dogs on impulse from pet stores that are supplied by puppy mills, so we’re not exactly talking about responsible pet owners here.

@100 I think we agree more than we disagree. I like to watch wild animals too—maintain our yard as one that’s safe/appealing for as many birds and beneficial insects as possible, and enjoy a mutually tolerant neighbor relationship with the local family of opossums—but it’s not the same as interacting with an animal that has actually made friends with you. (And if anyone doubts animals can make friends with humans, bite me; animals regularly, observably form interspecies relationships with other animals, including humans, based on mutual enjoyment. Calling these relationships “friendship” makes at least as much sense as calling them anything else.) I like to watch the Steller’s jay family learn to fly in my yard but it’s not at all like having my cat greet me affectionately when I come in the door.

Legally I own them, but it’s not about the control of ownership; I don’t believe in treating my pets like toys or entertainment to amuse me. I have a shy cat and I never pressure her to socialize when she’d rather be alone; I have a cat who loves to play fetch but not to be cuddled and I respect his boundaries. It’s about sharing my daily life with these little individuals and having them share their daily lives with me. The butterflies in the garden are nice but they’re not there when I wake up, waiting to start a morning routine we’ve worked out between us.

I agree, though, that people get pets, especially for kids, for a lot of bullshit reasons. Kids can observe responsible relationships (and practice them with supervision) with a family pet but there’s no reason Junior, Daisy and Frank each need their own kitten, like kittens are party favors. And frankly going out and getting a pet “so the kids will learn responsibility” seems dubious; have a pet because you love having them or someone else in your family loves having them, not the way you get an extra skillet “so the kids will learn to cook” or an extra pair of dish gloves “so the kids will learn to do the dishes”.

Pets die and it’s a valuable lesson in loss and grief for kids, but having a pet because you know it’s going to die and the kids need To Learn About Death is bullshit. Giving a pet as a reward for “proving responsibility” is bullshit.

Letting a pet get knocked up so the children can see The Miracle Of Birth is, of course, one of the most bullshit things of all. For Godsake, just hit YouTube. There’s a bajillion videos of that shit.

“Evolution” didn’t design anything.

Gimme a break - I was just using teleological language as shorthand, not as a friggin’ evolutionary theory.

Wow, Amanda.  Just, Wow.  FUCK YOU.

Ferrets claws are much easier to clip than cat claws. They’re smaller and when you scruff a ferret, even an adult one they hold completely still for much longer than an adult cat. It takes 2 people to clip my cats’ claws but I used to clip my ferrets’ claws with one hand holding their scruff (which makes them yawn and doesn’t hurt them oh and it’s cute as hell) while I clipped with the other hand.
If you change out their litter, wash their blankets (which they usually hate) and bathe them (unlike cats many like it) you can cut the smell to a minimum, since they usually come with their scent glands removed.
Smell is often the same reason used by non pet owners as to why they don’t want/like cats and dogs. Not to mention that a fish tank that’s 24 hours past needing a cleaning can smell awful. So if you don’t think smell issues don’t rule out cats and dogs as good pets because responsible owners know how to take care of their pets then it doesn’t apply to ferrets either. Plus ferrets will play with almost any other animal. Dogs, cats and even rats and guinea pigs.
Like so many dog breeds, ferrets are NOT for the first time pet owner.

I’ve never had a rat or a ferret, but I’ve met rats and ferrets belonging to friends.  The rats clearly loved being pets; they were like tiny rodent-shaped dogs. The ferrets, on the other hand, tried to run up my pants leg. I’ll take the rats any day.

If a law like this were proposed in my town, I would want to know whether they had talked to the store owners first.  There’s a PetCo near me that has live animals available, but most are actually adoptable rescues being offered in cooperation with the humane society.  No cats and dogs (except when they host an adoption event), but they have small birds available for adoption as well as rabbits and rats.  They also sell fish, mice, hamsters, and guinea pigs (and some weird stuff like tarantulas).  If the shelter were getting a ton of hamsters they couldn’t place, I would think the pet store would be amenable to carrying adoptable hamsters instead of hamsters for sale, as well as putting up information about the fact that they’re loudly nocturnal.  (I had a pair of gerbils as pets when I was a kid, and ... yeah, I really do not understand the point of keeping hamsters and gerbils as pets.)

Wow, BadKitty. That seems harsh. Fuck Amanda for what reason? Hating puppy mills? Not caring if unethical pet stores go under? Thinking cat breeds don’t have a strong correlation between breed and personality? Not liking ferrets? I disagree with her on the last two (I love me some Maine Coon and ferret personality and cuteness) but I don’t think she’s posted anything to deserve that.

I have to take issue with characterizing snake owners who prefer live food as people who just want to watch a rodent suffer.  Sometimes, it really is a preference based on the interests of the snake. I had my snake for almost 20 years. She was well-cared for and healthy, but developed vision problems by the time she was about 6 years old.  Up until then, she had been fed a mix of live mice and small frozen rats.  But as her eyesight failed, she literally could only hone in on prey that was moving and I personally was not interested in being bitten when she missed (which happened more often as she grew older).  Once she was totally blind in one eye and mostly blind in the other, it was to the point where we could only choose white mice for visibility.  Sure, I could have tried to force the frozen issue, but I kind of think purposefully starving a blind snake is rather cruel.

But one thing I never found fascinating was the actual kill. It was a unfortunate necessity. Sure, friends’ kids and my own son were fascinated by it, but I don’t think it was because they enjoyed the killing.  It is just unusual to see how a snake hunts and captures their prey under any other circumstance.  Usually, they lost interest in this after watching once or twice.

In any case, I support bans on selling live animals at pet stores, including feeder mice. These mice are so inbred and overbred that they usually live less than two weeks and that is completely irresponsible.  I would rather have a few mice/rat breeders who provide live feeders for reptile and amphibian owners who need them and encourage the rest to train their snakes to take frozen prey. I just find it less than helpful to malign snake owners who use live prey to encourage this shift.

I would rather have a few mice/rat breeders who provide live feeders for reptile and amphibian owners who need them and encourage the rest to train their snakes to take frozen prey.

I don’t know anything about snakes, but having legitimate rodent suppliers like that seems reasonable. I sure wouldn’t pick up a mouse from a pet store for labwork and I’d be reluctant to give just any old mouse to my beloved nonexistent snake. I would want some kind of regulation, I think…

Now I’m getting heated under the collar (even though I’m wearing a t-shirt) about the cat is a cat thing. Fuck Persians and Persian breeders. My Maine Coon’s health and personality traits evolved from being ship’s cats and cats that protected grain stores during the winter in the north east. ... They weren’t bred because some bored rich person thought a smushed face was cute.

Persians piss me off. Have you ever seen photos of old fashioned Persians? They ruined a gorgeous breed by turning them into flat faced jerks.

Anyhow, all the pet ‘stores’ in the west bay that I know of are also places that do boarding.  It’s really expensive to have storefronts in the bay area, so when one of these stores fails, there’s always dead animals - but generally they exist because the pet store, when behind on rent, is also behind on the cost of proper disposal (which also costs money).

There is something to be said about buying a pet from a place that has kept the same fish in the front case for twenty years, or the place that is caring for people’s exotics while they’re out of town - no, you can’t buy that lizard!  It’s just visiting.

I will not have one bad word said against orange tabbies—my preferred “breed.”

I’ve owned three in my lifetime, and all have had wonderful personalities: some dog like behavior (in the good sense), loved people, were exceptionally smart for cats (felix has been seen to put a paw to either side of the doorknob and tried to turn it, when he wanted in.) 

All three loved attention and were affectionate (well, the current, felix, is a bit demanding of affection, and talky, and when he was still allowed out, would visit my various neighbors, stopping by for a chat and a pet.)

All have been rescues, after my first orange tabbie I went looking for more from rescue societies.

The local pet food chain stores don’t stock actual pets (beyond fish) and set aside one day of the week when rescue societies bring in adoptables. The local shelter is essentially no-kill (they have to ship in abandoned pets from other area shelters to fill demand) perhaps for that reason.

As for breeders: I don’t see the point of them either, and as for being responsible—a friend who works in rescue says you can find most pure bred breeds in shelters, especially after breeders have dumped off litters that apparently didn’t come up to snuff in the perfect breed look department.

In my long life of pet ownership (nearly 60 years) I’ve only owned one pure bred, a Siamese kitten bought on impulse from a pet store in New York nearly 40 years ago. And the most neurotic, unhealthly least affectionate, if not stupid of all the pets in that period. All the rest have been mutts, domestics and/or rescues, and far superior as both pets and animals.

Never again: pure breds are bred for look only, so end up with congenital health problems, and they’re certainly not bred for brains.  Pet stores should go the way orphanages, so that there are homes for all the pets, and I also don’t see the point of breeders in a world where so many pets are destroyed and abandoned.

By the way, in over 50 years of cat ownership i’ve never clipped a cat’s claws. I don’t think it’s necessary, and it may be cruel.

When I was a kid, we had indoor/outdoor cats, and scratching posts, the arms of a couple sofas have done—although I’m gratified that Felix doesn’t seem to care to work on the vintage wicker.

But I think too many people get animals for reasons that don’t make a lot of sense to me, and I don’t think it’s impolite or it should open me up to psychoanalysis to suggest that getting a child an animal because they need to learn responsibility or they’re lonely or to test if they’re a serial killer are all bad reasons to do so.

Having a bout of insomnia and reading most of these comments makes me worry for the posters if they fall into that love their pets more than people category.  But I digress, I needed to point out to the writer of this that if your statement is true you should just stop talking.  You are saying in one breath how you don’t want to indite animal lovers yet you have wrote a message long enough to qualify as a thesis outline on the matter. 

As for your love affair with nature, that is wonderful.  I know people who nature hike and watch birds but would never own a dog or cat for the same reasons you outline.  Of course that relationship is different from a pet.  Cats & Dogs specifically have a strange relationship with humans but once involved in the family unit they create a different cohesive bond.  Though truth be told, we do own them.  Course we own cows, horses, pigs, and any number of farm animals and have since the beginning of domestication.  It’s a natural aspect of our intelligence and for those animals it is equally natural. 

Thankfully you do realize you’re in a very small minority but insisting on defending your position through excessively long statements when you seem to not want to push it upon others is questionable.  I suggest you just give up on your status of neutrality and continue to press people to give up their animals.

Now I did volunteer at a pet shelter for a time but I realized how much I loathed the people who worked there because they were quicker to turn a way a poorer family than one who drove in from the suburbs for a dog.  They were exceedingly picky about who could adopt and questionably racist at times.  I thought volunteering would be fulfilling but it became a job rather quickly and I quietly left after about a month of volunteering because I found myself wanting a dog I could raise on my own, bought from a breeder or found young rather than the neurotic messes the shelter was pulling in.  Course the good dogs that actually could function were adopted out immediately so the shelter served its technical purpose atleast.

Judy, my babies love to get their claws clipped. Well, maybe the fat one. The skinny one is a little sensitive about it right now because she ripped out one of her claws. I’m still not sure how. But regular clipping is the only reason I know she injured herself at all. Poor dear.

I suppose if your cats live primarily out of doors, clipping is unnecessary, since they’re worn down naturally through use, but mine are house cats, and without regular clipping they tear up the furniture and put holes in my pants whenever they jump up onto my lap. Not to mention they hone them to very fine needle points on the $400 scratching post I bought them for christmas two years ago. It is very ouch. Clipping is essential for the cat-human happy times that they seem to enjoy so much.

It’s certainly preferable to the barbarism people inflict on their pets when they have them “declawed.”

Still—no, my cats rarely got out in years, never clipped my cats claws, and haven’t had an experience of needle claws, or holes in clothes, by the time they’d worked their way through the arm of a sofa I’d bought at a thrift store, it was time for a new one, anyway. (Or I’d throw a throw over it.)

Those $6 cardboard scratchers now seem to satisfy Felix, who’s now almost exclusively indoors for a year or more, and he hasn’t shown interest in the vintage wicker living room set, or chair in the bedroom.

No, in all my years of cat ownership, I’ve never clipped a cat’s claws, never had any trouble with them, never so much as had a vet comment on their nails.

Perhaps clipping their nails, may lead to more problems than it solves.

judy: I never have clipped the cat’s claws, because my first two would have killed me if I tried. Scratched arms, shredded furniture and holes in clothing not kept permanently out of cat-reach is just a fact of life—if I minded, I wouldn’t have cats. However, their back claws were not in good shape, too long, grown crooked, and no way to fix it except knocking them out at the vets. I try to get the current bunch of cats a little tamer, so that when they become too old to climb the wallpaper and the wooden bookshelves they won’t go click-click-click on the floorboards. (Yes, they climb wallpaper. Nothing like walking down the hall and run into a cat hanging on the wall at eye-level.)

Urgh - the blanket statement.  There are some , very few breeders out there who breed working dogs.  And for them, I would make an exception.  The herding, tracking and police work breeds do need to be very specialized, but those folks usually don’t breed willy-nilly.  They tend to have long waiting lists and breed their best very few years, selling primarily to owners who are professionals or really, really dedicated amateurs who need the animal.  The one I work with also trains, and every pup comes with some training guarantee, or it’s written into the contract that dog MUST come back fro training.

Kristin@110:

Ok, for the record, all five the kitties here were rescues or wander-ins.  All are neutered-yeah! neuterscotter.com

That said, if you have the room and $ they all get along - no reason for each kid not to have their own kitty, that they feel personally responsible for, and have a special attachment to We have a total right now of 5, with one being an outdoor barn cat.  After all, how else would people who sleep in a 45 degree at night house keep their feet warm?

Never again: pure breds are bred for look only, so end up with congenital health problems, and they’re certainly not bred for brains.  Pet stores should go the way orphanages, so that there are homes for all the pets, and I also don’t see the point of breeders in a world where so many pets are destroyed and abandoned.
Comment #120: judybrowni on 07/12 at 04:52 AM

again with the blanket statement.  Yes, the majority of breeders do breed for looks - and that does cause problems - and don’t een get me started on breeding for color and what that does to a breed - white shepherds, red huskies, paints/pintos and palomino horses or black arabs. 

That said - there are breeders who do so for strengths for working animals Roach (convex) backs for strength in a schutzhund dog,  a slight underset to hind legs in a cutting horse - and knowing both parents to make that “nick” is essential.

that should have read neuterscooter.com

And to the person who posted the old fashioned persian picture - deadlink.

Judybrowni - uhm do you understand the basic structure of cat’s claws?  They grow/shed their nails just like humans - (and it sounds like you know the difference, but just to be sure everyone does, we’re not taking de-clawing here, but trimming.)  Trimming is just like you cutting YOUR nails.  SOme cats nails will actaully peel off - and just like us, if a nail snags, it bothers - so we clip.  The cat scratches. 

For many animals, it would be cruel to NOT clip trim claws.  For my dog, she has a hard time gaining purchase on the tile if her claws are overlong and it makes her arthritis worse because she’s not walking on her pads.  She runs primarily on grass, so they don’t wear naturally. 
If horse hooves weren’t trimmed every 6-8 weeks, the horse would be unable to walk - again, we don’t have rocky outcrops here, so we need to trim to keep them at the best angle - for their comfort and health. 

While YOU may not care about your furniture, and lucked out with a cat that ignores the vintage, that isn’t the case for all.  ANd if trimming can keep kitty in a good home instead of being booted to a shelter for restructuring the damask (or riffing on the leather (sigh)  all the better.

@bagelsan, 108

Just for the record, Dumbo earred rats are exactly the same as ‘normal’ rats, only the position of the ears are different.  Breeding two dumbos isn’t necessarily ‘inbreeding’ anymore than two blue eyed humans would be ‘inbreeding’.

Long time reader, first time poster -

FWIW, even in the early 1980’s my parents were able to find a ferret at the local shelter.  They aren’t really exotic, and in my experience there are plenty of slightly used pet rabbits and guinea pigs to go around as well. 

While I admire Petsmart and PetCo for allowing shelters space for cats and dogs there, I have been saddened in recent years to see them selling rabbits and ferrets.  In my mind, there is no more reason to continue to breed these animals in mill situations.  Especially now with the internet, if you would like to own this type of pet, one can be found.  One day I would like to own a ferret again; they have a great personality and I still miss the one I grew up with.

EinAtlanta,

For the millionth time, not everyone has access to the internet.  Even those who only do so at work or the library often can’t use it enough to look for, evaluate, check, and inquire about pets.  The internet is a wonderful thing, but blaming people for not using it is something that should be reserved for bloggers, newspaper columnists, and politicians: people who should check things out using their available resources.  The average Joe or Jane?  Still not able to get around on the internet.  Still not versatile.  And even if they are, a misspelling related to what is normally something outside of their knowledge can lead to them giving up when they don’t find information.

So they go to the expertise of a nineteen-year-old pet store worker who might have the self-awareness to suggest a book about ferrets to go with the ferret he’s trying to sell you.

It really upsets me when pet stores sell large birds.  These aren’t stupid animals, they need to be in an environment where they can be constantly entertained.  They don’t get purchased quickly because of the price tag, so they spend enough time suffering through so much boredom that they end up being really aggressive. My family had a parrot when I was young, it was an incredibly sweet animal and brighter than half the household.  But here’s the thing, it was a rescue animal we got when it was very young, it lived in an environment where there wasn’t a lack of entertainment, and it didn’t have to socialize with dozens of new people every week.  Every time I see exotic birds for sale, I feel like the store is selling toddlers.

I got my cat from a pet store that was going to discard him for being “too old”.  He wasn’t an adorable ball of fluff anymore, so he hadn’t been drawing a crowd.  They have him to me for $5.  If the pet store wasn’t selling animals, I never would have met my best friend and constant companion of ten years, but if I hadn’t been there on exactly that day to save him, he’d probably have died.  I can’t fathom killing an animal because it’s not cute anymore!

There are still a few places around here that do registered breed kittens, but most of the stores I’ve been in have moved to housing adoptions.  I like the adoptions better because there’s a little tag that gives you biographical info like whether or not they’ll do well with kids, dogs, or other cats.  Also they have a lot of older cats, which are great if you’re looking more for a companion than a playmate you’ll have to run after all the time.

Shakahi at 115: Durign times of economic stress, its probably not a good idea for the government to enact policies that would eliminate employment.* This is especially true for lower and middle income level jobs like the employees of pet stores. Getting rid of abusive practices towards animals is a good thing but I don’t know if this is really the time for it.

  *Like all things, there are exceptions. The moratorium on oil drilling in the gulf was absolutely essential even though it would negatively effect employment in a place that really needed it because of the sheer amount of ecological damage facing the area. The good caused by the moratorium outweighs the harm. Going after the abusive practices of pet stores, not so much. Wait till its easier for lower and middle income people to get jobs. Humans take precedence over animals sometimes.

BTW, the puppies in the photo are absolutely adorable.

Thanks for the Maine Coon love above. I’ve had cats, all manner of cats, all my life (until I developed allergies in my late 20s), and I’ve never had a cat like my Maine Coon. They are dogs in cats’ skins: loyal (mine always had to be in the same room as me when I was home), chatty, constantly interactive, prone to playing fetch and hugging my neck like a monkey if I got too close to a table or counter he could jump up on. He was also an ace bug-killer/disposer if I let out a specific call and pointed to the insect in question. It was quite a distinctive personality—he amazed me day after day. When we were separated for a few months due to allergies (he stayed at my dad’s), I’ll never forgot how he tore downstairs and into my arms when he heard my voice at the front door, even before I actually called him. Best cat I ever had.

Not sure I’ll ever be able to own a pet again, but if I could, I’d seek out a Maine Coon from rescue or classifieds—nothing with living creatures is a guarantee, but they offer as close to one as possible, in the “great personality” department.

3letterjon:

I am a librarian, and my specialty is helping folks find stuff on the internet.  I am well aware of access issues.

I said *especially* in the age of the internet; when my parents found a ferret in a shelter in the 1980’s, it wasn’t with this aid.

By the way, in over 50 years of cat ownership i’ve never clipped a cat’s claws. I don’t think it’s necessary, and it may be cruel.

I’m not really sure how it’s “cruel” to use a pair of clippers to snip off the end of a cat’s claw, any more than it’s “cruel” to trim down a human’s nails.  Yes, the cat whines a bit when you do it, but so does a toddler when you try to trim their nails.  And it absolutely doesn’t leave them defenseless—I’ll show you the scar Keaton left when he decided to launch himself off my arm if you really think their claws somehow become useless if they’re slightly blunted.

We were in a pet store when a young black and white kitty put my son’s heart escrow until we came back and adopted her.

Yes, adopted her.  None of the pet stores in our area sell dogs or cats, but they do provide space for shelter organizations to run adoption centers.  Fiona was there for two months - her kittens were all quickly adopted and she was spayed and was a little difficult to place because she was an adult cat (around 2 years old) but still needed to learn manners and really likes to play rough. 

She is now very happy to have three doting males who appreciate her sassy spirit (turns out she vastly prefers men and older boys) on her staff and seems to be thriving and has learned a safe word that cues her to let go when she’s gotten too crazy and that people don’t like claws and teeth.  We wondered if she was getting fat - so we weighed her on the wii fit and she had gained nearly 3 lbs!  Our vet neighbor picked her up and said, no, not fat - between homelessness and kittens and digestive issues in the shelter she simply hadn’t finished growing.

We would never have met her had the cats not been in the pet store.  On the other hand, we didn’t buy her, but we do get food and supplies there.  I think it is a good solution.

What about animals to be fed to other animals - like mice for feeding to snakes?

Ranylt, your Maine Coon cat puts me in mind of my long-departed Siamese chocolate-point.  Regardless of where I was coming from or how long I’d been away, he was always the first one at the door to greet me.  It took me eight years after he passed away to be able to adopt another pet.  We now have a rescue cat (been with us over two yearsd) and I couldn’t live without her.

Breeding two dumbos isn’t necessarily ‘inbreeding’ anymore than two blue eyed humans would be ‘inbreeding’.

I had got the impression that maybe some lung problems were linked to dumbo ears, and that my rats were dumbos *and* inbred, hence the lung problems… I don’t remember what I read, it was years ago. If they’d been inbred and non-dumbo maybe they would have died of something else.

How much is that doggie in the window?

Well, less than from an ethical breeder. Until the vet bills start rolling in.

When it comes to dogs, most people would be far better off with the right kind of mutt than a purebred. Most purebreds were bred for a purpose; running alongside a carriage all day, or discouraging poachers, or killing wolves, that is really no longer needed, and hard to provide for the dog now. A hybrid is going to tone down those traits that, in the home, just get sofas destroyed, childrens’ hearts broken, and dogs in the shelter.

I’ve known many people who love Irish Wolfhounds, or Jack Russells, or Dalmations, and can offer the right home because they love those traits that make them what they are. But anyone enamored of a breed because they saw a professionally trained dog act in a movie or TV show are clueless, and an ethical breeder will weed them out of contention because they know the puppy is going to boomerang right back at them, only older and neurotic.

These dogs still exist because they have fans. Just like cat breeds exist because they have fans. There’s no mistaking the picky picky Turkish Angora from the super mellow British Shorthair; there’s a big difference between the almost-monkey Siamese and the nutty goofball Maine Coon (a personal favorite.) But as much as I know and understand these cat breeds, it’s mostly been in combination, and it’s always been in rescue. Because there isn’t any excuse to sell anything live in a pet store. This is not an impulse item.

Animals should be bred by dedicated breeders who do it because they love the animal, and if a person has to jump through a few hoops, and save up for it, all the better. Cats, especially, are treated as disposable and interchangeable, but so are hamsters, and I had to give up having hamsters because they were affectionate and delightful, each one different; and they only live for so long.

So this law sounds like a long overdue good step. Many, many people need help to do the right thing, because they don’t frickin’ know that the right thing is. And that’s what laws are for.

I don’t think “pets” should live in cages. I’m not talking about a dog crate. If you have an animal that has to live in a cage, I don’t think it should be a pet. It’s mean to require something to live out their life in an enclosure that can be measured in inches. I’ve had hamsters and rats and it seemed cruel to me to leave them in that cage. I was good to them, but I swear I could see the desperation on their wee little faces. They were always trying to get out of the cage. That was indicative that they weren’t happy with their pet status.

I know people have these types of animals and are wonderful owners. I just question why it is generally considered okay to cage a bird or a snake or a lizard or a rodent. Because you must cage them to keep them, unlike cats and dogs. That, to me, is a pretty good sign they aren’t meant for domestic life.

I also think if you have to feed your pet another pet, it shouldn’t be a pet.

EinAtlanta,

I’m a librarian, too.  Mostly at a prison, where getting access to available—and much needed—information has additional hurdles that I am very glad are there.  Still, the amount of stuff that’s supposedly easy to obtain in this information age for even non-inmate populations is limited by access issues, especially in the poor, immigrant neighborhood where my Saturday busman’s holiday of a part-time job at a public library takes me.  People trying to get employment on computers have a very hard time, and they’re mostly applying for jobs that don’t require much computer use.  Those cost-cutting measures businesses and governments are using to reduce paperwork?  They reduce access, too.

I don’t see where 3letterjon is saying people shouldn’t have animals as pets, just that he doesn’t want animals as pets.  It’s not necessary to either love or hate the practice, no matter how much one might insist.

I know a couple of people who just don’t care for pet animals, and they’re not assholes and don’t seem to be missing empathy or sense.

That said, I think having an animal in the family can have a positive effect on the children, but only when the parents are simply sharing something with their children that they themselves enjoy.  While children should never be the sole caretaker of an animal, they can use and develop empathy and responsibility when caring for a pet animal in the context of the whole family caring for the pet animal.

I don’t see where 3letterjon is saying people shouldn’t have animals as pets, just that he doesn’t want animals as pets. 

No, he says that he thinks the idea of owning a pet is “weird” to him, and he doesn’t understand and questions the motives of those who do own them. I place 3letterjon’s comment in the category of “if it’s not about you, it’s not about you derails/cries for attention.

Tabby isn’t a breed, it’s a coat pattern that exists in many breeds.

It exists in ALL cats. All cats are genetically tabbies. The ones that aren’t tabby-patterned have genes that suppress the expression of the tabby gene; solid-colored kittens often have faint tabby patterns that “fade out” as they become adults.

Amanda, sorry, I know you hate being wrong (who doesn’t?) but you’re wrong. There’s a lot of variation between cat breeds. Of course cats have a very large range of personalities, and there are quiet, laid-back Siamese just as there are American Shorthairs who will yowl your ear off; but breeds have pretty common characteristics in terms of personality as well as looks. That includes allergenic qualities, and I don’t mean hairless breeds; some shed more and some just set sneezy people off more than others do.

WereBear got it x100. Ethical breeders do not make money off selling animals. Those high prices cover vet bills, and breeding, and shows, and etc etc. Ethical breeders love the breed of animals they’re raising; they’re not breeding because they’ve got the ‘hot breed’ of kittens/puppies whose sales will pay for their trip to Cabo. They DON’T sell their animals to pet stores. (Incidentally, purebred cats end up at shelters less than you think. But untrained shelter staff, and perhaps those hoping to encourage an adoption, will label any pointed cat a “Siamese” or long-haired big guy a “Maine Coon” or gray cat a “Russian Blue”.)

Pet stores offering space to shelters to place pets is a wonderful thing. Selling animals? Not so much, because then you bring in the profit motive, and the only way to profit off breeding is to run a mill.

I’m actually having a home visit from Seattle Pug Rescue tomorrow! I’m excited and I’m going to try not to make everything look *too* nice.
If they think that I am going to be OK - the pug will be my first dog in… 16 years.
I’m excited that Seattle has breed specific rescues who really care about putting the dogs in great homes and re-homing senior dogs and disabled dogs as well. I don’t know if I could handle a senior or disabled dog but I’m looking forward to seeing what they say. They also have get togethers everywhere around town all year around to give the dogs & owners lots of social time.
If anything, going to the meet & greet at the end of the month will be an experience.
)

Yes to what WereBear has to say. I got a Corgi through a really great breeder about a year ago. I definitely considered the rescue route and looked into it, but I’m considered a less-than-ideal candidate because I’m a single guy who lives in a second-floor walkup. At the same time, I have had dogs before and I love having them, and my apartment is actually fairly good as a pet’s abode since it has a long, obstruction-less 50-foot “runway” through the middle which makes for a fantastic dog path. There’s a park with a fenced-in run right down the block and we go most days. He can actually roam around the building, and there are other dogs here that he’s made friends with.

On paper, though, I would have had a hard time. I found a great breeder who does it for the love of the breed, she had puppies needing homes right when I knew I’d be working from home for a couple months and could devote the energy and attention to an 8-week old puppy (and the pups that aren’t going to show or breed need homes, too - my guy is as perfect as I’d ever want but he falls slightly short of the breed standard and thus isn’t a candidate for showing or breeding) and recognized that I knew what i was talking about and wanted this breed because of its character more than it’s adorableness (which is admittedly considerable.)

The breeder was able to suggest which specific dog would fit best with me, and I think she made absolutely the right call. She was able to talk about the varius personalities of the puppies (if thats the right word) and clearly did it out of love and care for the animals. I’m sure that what I paid did not go toward her trip to Cabo, but to defray the costs of running such a great breeding program. My guy is beautiful, but more importantly he is healthy and well-tempered and that comes from having started life in a good place.

I’m sure I will have rescues in my life again, but a good breeder is miles away from a puppy mill and it upsets me to see some people try and equate them.  Anyone who raised their eyebrows when they found out how I was getting my dog has relented once they meet him.

God bless the people who take on the potential problems with a rehomed dog, but I have to say that it was nice to only have to worry about the standard puppy problems without surprise health and behavioral issues on top of it. Good breeders can serve a great purpose and can provide some of the healthiest dogs with the absolute best traits of their breed.

I will also add that people who have seen my totally awesome Corgi have sometimes inquired about getting one themselves since “He’s so friendly and well-behaved!” and I have to tell them it took a lot of patience and focused attention for a long time to turn him into the happy guy who comes when I call him. They are a tough breed and will walk all over you if you let them, which is another reason a good breeder can act as a buffer and place dogs in the right homes.

Regarding claw clipping, it can be necessary for extra-toed kitties whose toes aren’t properly aligned.  Our giant orange cat’s double-thumbs didn’t entirely separate on one foot, and can’t retract.  He starts sticking to the carpet if they aren’t clipped.  Luckily, he’s sweet-tempered and just lies there while I lift his foot and clip.
It is also necessary for guinea pigs, whose claws don’t wear down enough, and rabbits - in guinea pigs, with which I have more experience, the claws will grow right around and into the pad, and will mess with walking long before that.  Guinea pigs have been domesticated animals for centuries, although, ahem, not exactly as pets for most of that time.

Yes, in more than 50 years of owning cats, I’ve occasionally been scratched, had some furniture tore up—but none of my cats (a total of 10 over those years) has suffered in any way (including exclusively indoor cats) from NOT having their claws clipped.

And yes, there may be real cruelty involved in trimming: “The pink part of a cat’s nail, called the quick, is where the nerves and blood vessels are. Do NOT cut this sensitive area.”

When I was a child in the 1950s—and up to the 1970s—I don’t remember any advice to pet owners to clip cats claws. This may be a relatively new phenomena, rather than longterm practice.

Claw clipping is, of course, preferable to de-clawing—perhaps the mania for clipping rose up in response to that barbaric practice, but one web advice column I just looked up advised clipping “If your cat’s claws split…”

I’ve even noticed some nail splitting over the years, but nature seems to have taken care of that as well.

If it’s one thing being 60 has taught me, is that there are passing fads and fashion in everything, including pet care.

Those alive and sentient during the fad can’t imagine life otherwise.

When in the ‘90s vets were suddenly recommending vaccinations EVERY year, I distrusted that—it seemed too much toxicity to me, and I simply refused to do it, even for my then indoor-outdoor cat, who I continued to vaccinate only every several years (at the previously recommended vaccination rate.)

For whatever reason—rise in cancer, or other reactions—vets have stepped back on yearly vaccinations, and my 14 year old Felix, an almost exclusively indoor cat for a only couple years now, is still happy, healthy, intelligent with a silky coat and still amazing balancing and running skills (when he escapes the house briefly.)

Never had his claws clipped in his long lifetime, either.  My brother also didn’t clip his cats’ claws, and refused yearly vaccinations for his two cats who lived to 17 and 19 years.

So clip—or not—as is your wont, but keep in mind that it may be more fashion than necessity.

I’m not in favor of breeders in a time of too many pets euthanized for lack of homes. They may be necessary for actual “working dogs” (or horses! but hey, I thought we were talking household pets here) but I’d like to see the end to both puppy mills and unregulated breeders.

Get rid of “pet stores” selling puppy mill stock, and regulate breeders so there are the fewer and better (who don’t dump irregular litters into shelters) and then we can talk.

For a time, there was a yearly cat show in my neighborhood I could walk to: and I noticed there were two types of pure bred, the absolutely gorgeous, and the breeds bred to an ugly and absurd point (for instance the new fashioned siamese with long rat tails, seemingly emaciated bodies and triangle heads, and their hairless, ugh, brothers.)

But I was never even tempted to the gorgeous because a small section of that show was dedicated to adoption of rescues (and yes, some of those purebred). Got to know the rescue people, and by the end of the show, not even all of the small amount of rescues they brought would be adopted.

Until we’re no longer killing thousands (or is it tens or hundreds of thousands?)—Wow, I just looked the numbers up and gasped:

Estimated number of cats and dogs euthanized by shelters each year:
3-4 million (HSUS estimate)

So until we’re no longer killing MILLIONS of pets each year, I don’t see the point of pet stores, puppy mills, or unregulated breeders.

This is interesting to me because I am a house rabbit lover.  I’ve had multiple rabbits over the years - all but one of them have been rescues. The *ONLY* one that is healthy, affectionate and just all around perfect is the only one I bought in a pet store at the local mall.  All the ones I got from the SPCA or from friends who “didn’t know how difficult keeping rabbits is!” were sickly and died relatively early. 

One rescue from the SPCA had a parasite in her nervous system that caused horrifying seizures.  I don’t know anything about the medical situation at the SPCA, but I’m still gobsmacked that they adopted out a rabbit that I had to take back there to be put down mere weeks later.  I’ve been reticient to adopt from there since then.

I had got the impression that maybe some lung problems were linked to dumbo ears, and that my rats were dumbos *and* inbred, hence the lung problems

Mycoplasma is a virus (IIRC) that virtually every domestic rat has, and it tends to remain dormant until stress or another illness causes it to flare up. It causes mainly lung issues (lesions) with secondary pneumonia type infections and you can fight those secondaries for quite some time with appropriate antibiotics but for many, many rats it eventually becomes the cause of death.

In my experience, and I’ve kept a LOT of pet rats, of the rats who did not die of simple old age the males died of mycoplasma or its complications and the females died of cancers of the reproductive system. I now know that spaying females can eliminate the reproductive cancers but I don’t know of any way to reduce the impact of mycoplasma. It’s highly contagious among rats, kits born to a mom infected with it are pretty much guaranteed to have it and cagemates are pretty much guaranteed to spread it, and since the domestic rat population of the United States can eventually trace pretty much all its ancestry back to the same pool of rats, they mostly carry it.

If I remember right there are breeders (like breeders of laboratory rats that have to be “clean”) that produce rats they know are free of mycoplasma by delivering kits via cesarean and disposing of the mother, and raising the kits in isolation from other rats.

So, yeah, anyway: not just the dumbos.

I don’t think “pets” should live in cages. I’m not talking about a dog crate. If you have an animal that has to live in a cage, I don’t think it should be a pet.

I don’t think this is very well reasoned. Most people accept that dogs and cats must be confined as well; what’s a house or a yard, when you don;t have the freedom to leave it if not a really big cage? And yet the vast majority of dog owners and a growing number of cat owners realize it’s just not acceptable to let those pets roam completely free, for their safety.

That said, I think the average cage a pet rodent is kept in is ridiculously small and if you ask me, even for mice, the appropriate cage should be measured in feet not inches; rats more so. Guinea pigs need way, way more room than a lot of people realize. And of course rabbits are much happier and more fun as housepets that have the roam of the house, or at least a whole room, to engage with the family.

BTW, before I had cats I had “free range” rats who were allowed the run of the living room and hall except at night when we were asleep. We rat-proofed the area so it was safe for them and for our stuff. They had a ball hanging out with the humans, sunning themselves on the windowsill under the blinds, and one of them in particular would follow me around like a dog. (They peed in their cage, but they did sometimes leave a little pellet we would just scoop up with a tissue and throw away.)

I also think if you have to feed your pet another pet, it shouldn’t be a pet.

But these aren’t pets and I’ve never met a reptile owner who referred to their feeder rodents as pets. Funny, we actually do know the difference and given that some animals have to survive off the flesh of other animals this is a practical necessity we cannot avoid.  The mice I fed my snake were never pets, they were food.  I’m sorry if that trips your sentimentality, but snakes gotta eat.

Especially since a lot of those rodents are purchased as ‘feeders.’ :(

I’m not sure why the term or concept of purchasing rodents to feed your pet is somehow worthy of sadness.  Whether the rodents are frozen or live, they are food for reptiles and certain amphibians and there is nothing that can be done to change that (except banning these pets altogether).  Banning the sale of live rodents as feeders isn’t going to change the need for SOMEONE to provide these pet owners with rodents for food.  The question is how can we ethically provide the need for rodents to reptile and amphibian owners?

I’ve never had trouble with health problems from shelter rescued pets: most unhealthy was the lone pet store “pure bred” I made the mistake of buying.

However, since some people tend to dump their unhealthy pets in shelters rather than paying vet bills, that could be a possibility, but I don’t know rabbits.

In general, I personally don’t get pets who can’t either purr and wag a tail, but that’s just me.

And yes, there may be real cruelty involved in trimming: “The pink part of a cat’s nail, called the quick, is where the nerves and blood vessels are. Do NOT cut this sensitive area.”

Owners who trim nails learn real fast not to hit the quick by mistake, because, as you said, that’s where the blood vessels are and even the horribly cruel nail-clipping owners you’re picturing are reluctant to get blood all over their floors and furniture on a regular basis.  Even the smallest nick into the quick can cause pretty dramatic bleeding, so it’s not like people are painfully cutting nails until the quick finally decides to start bleeding.  The bleeding is pretty much instantaneous and it only requires hitting the very end of the quick.

I’ve had 5 cats over 15 years of ownership and I’ve hit the quick while trimming nails exactly once.  It never happened again.  Sorry, but the horrible cruelty of nail clipping is all in your head.

When I was a child in the 1950s—and up to the 1970s—I don’t remember any advice to pet owners to clip cats claws. This may be a relatively new phenomena, rather than longterm practice.

How many people from the 1950s to the 1970s had strictly indoor-only cats like we do now?  How many of the cats that you owned between those years were never allowed outside?  Given how much better a tree trunk is for keeping nails under control than even the best carpeted scratching post, I’m guessing that there wasn’t really a need to keep nails trimmed by hand until people became reluctant to have their indoor/outdoor cats get run over by cars or be eaten by dogs and started making them indoor-only.

At least you very mildly admit that maybe, possibly nail trimming is slightly less cruel than surgically removing the claws, though apparently not by much.

If you have an animal that has to live in a cage, I don’t think it should be a pet.

Some animals are more suited to cage life than others. Keeping a ferret caged all the time is, in my opinion, little better than constantly caging a dog; a guinea pig, however, seems perfectly content to sit wherever you put him, assuming he has some cover and fresh food. Not all animals, domesticated or otherwise, are naturally suited to constant movement and changes in scenery.

I also think if you have to feed your pet another pet, it shouldn’t be a pet.

“Pet” is an arbitrary term, and the bottom line is that if you own any sort of meat-eating animal, you’re feeding it something that someone, somewhere most definitely considers a pet. Having a good understanding of what happens in a slaughterhouse has led me to believe that the live mice I feed my snake are much better off than the dead cattle/chickens/turkeys/etc. I feed my dog.

God bless the people who take on the potential problems with a rehomed dog, but I have to say that it was nice to only have to worry about the standard puppy problems without surprise health and behavioral issues on top of it. Good breeders can serve a great purpose and can provide some of the healthiest dogs with the absolute best traits of their breed.

THere are potential problems with any dog, Suet.  And I know someone who wouldn’t have a dog in a million years if she had to get a pup at this time in her life - though she’s a very good animal trainer and has had lots of them in the past.  NOw (her) Health problems for one, and being ethical for two kept her form going the puppy route.  She’s (the human) getting up there in years and worried that if she got a young dog or puppy, she would outlive it.  She’s gotten two animals from rescues, both older, one now passed.  It has worked out very well for all concerned, and for someone in tht situation can actually save on problems. .

My cats all know that nail clipping is a non-negotiable part of life. The two I adopted as kittens have had their nails clipped since they were young enough to think of it as a game. It’s not any more cruel than putting mite medication in their ears—they fuss sometimes, depending on the cat, but so do little kids when you clip *their* nails.

And unlike little kids’ fingernails, my cats’ nails require being clipped if I’m going to play with them (the cats, not the nails; play wrestling with the humans is a popular pastime around here).

I did used to have one sweet old lady with a highly developed and clearly defined personal space bubble. In her case I made an exception for nail clipping, because I think she might have actually had a coronary if I’d encroached on her like that. But she didn’t play wrestle or climb things, either.

OK, and if you are dead set against nail clipping, there are these nail covers
http://www.softpaws.com/?gclid=CL684fnq5qICFQrxDAodh1YEyw

We (me and the cats) found them absolutely ridiculous, impossible to put on, expensive, and I can’t even remember why we tried to use them…but our neighborhood cat lady swears by them - one of her cats is a “kneader” who sleeps with her, so….

Having a nail quicked doesn’t appear to be terribly traumatic.  There’s generally a minor protest from the animal (cat, dog or whatever), you do what you need to do (quik-stop and pressure, usually, for a little while), and you go on with clipping.  Not a big deal, unless you do it regularly.  Cats do, of course, shed the outermost part of the claw every so often.  You’ll find them on the scratching post and anywhere else the cats scratch.
Just took thirty seconds and trimmed the big guy’s nails again.  I think he looked up once.  Now he is sleeping on my foot.

Again, as I said, I’ve had exclusively indoor cats (when I lived in New York City), one exclusive indoor cat in Los Angeles for 14 years, and his brother who was outdoor/indoor until a couple years ago—and I’ve never clipped the claws for any—nor has that resulted in any problems for them, or for that matter, me.

Same for my brother and his indoor cats who lived to 17 and 19.

It may be necessary for some reasons—the only arguments here have been to preserve furniture, not to get scratched, to stop the possibility of declawing, or split claws—but in my experience, it may also just be the fashion, and those who grew up in the fashion see it as the only possibility, while I’ve lived the other for 50 years on and off, with nary a problem.

So do whatever you will, I haven’t experienced it as necessary during half a century of cat care.

Sure, it’s not necessary. But it’s convenient. And the argument you originally made wasn’t that it was unnecessary but that it was somehow mean.

Interestingly, for decades it wasn’t thought that providing water for cats was necessary. Ditto vaccinating them, or, you know, giving them any veterinary care at all really. I’m kind of glad all those things are the fashion now.

It may be necessary for some reasons—the only arguments here have been to preserve furniture, not to get scratched, to stop the possibility of declawing, or split claws—but in my experience, it may also just be the fashion, and those who grew up in the fashion see it as the only possibility, while I’ve lived the other for 50 years on and off, with nary a problem.

And yet for those of us who do find it to be a problem when our cats accidentally scratch us deep enough to leave scars, or who have had to rescue cats who get themselves caught on furniture when their claws get too long, apparently we’re unable to judge for ourselves that maybe painlessly trimming the cat’s nails is a good solution because our only possible motive for not wanting to be accidentally scratched or not wanting the cat to injure itself by tearing out a nail while trying to get loose is fashion.

If you don’t feel that trimming your cat’s nails is necessary, then great.  But it’s more than a little silly to tell people who explain their reasons for doing so that those aren’t good reasons so their only possible motive is because nail trimming is a fad.

Not everyone has access to the internet. Many of those who don’t still have access to freebie classified papers. Those are always full of listings for ferrets and other pets.

Jesus Christ on a crutch, I’ve said OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN that you can trim a cat’s claws if you want and acknowledged your reasons for doing so.

It JUST HASN’T BEEN NECESSARY IN MY EXPERIENCE of 50 years on and off with cat care (or my brother’s), and appears to be a fashion TO ME.

Trim your cat’s claws, if you like, for whatever your reasons. However, the fashion seems to be to trim every cat’s claws, whether there’s reason to or not.

They’re your damn cats, do whatever the hell you want.

However, if you don’t have a reason, I’m here to tell you that the other option is viable, for both you and your cat.

I’ve never cut into the quick of a cat’s nail where’s there’s nerves and flesh and blood, because I’ve never clipped their nails, so I’ve never caused them that pain.

Maybe it’s a minor pain, maybe an experienced clipper doesn’t do it, but since I haven’t had a good reason to clip their nails, I’m glad I’ve never taken the chance.

Less of a bother to trim the cat’s claws once in a while when he’s relaxed than to go unstick him from the carpet at 3 a.m., I think.  I do not think clipping is necessary for all cats, although your vet will appreciate the claws being trimmed before an appointment if your cat is likely to scratch.  We have no furniture we wish to preserve, so the cat without the wonky toes doesn’t get trimmed much.
An exotic pet adopted from a species-specific rescue may be healthier than one adopted from a general shelter; often the shelter doesn’t know much about the needs of anything other than cats and dogs (having rabbits or guinea pigs on wire-bottom cages, for example, or not feeding hay, or not knowing about malocclusion).  The House Rabbit Society is supposed to be good for rabbit-adoption purposes; for guinea pigs, GuineaLynx is a good place to check for reputable rescues.

Since we’re talking about nail trimming for cats, the product SoftPaws is pretty amazing. They’re soft covers that slip on over the nail. My cat never minded me putting them on her and it saved my furniture and hardwood floors. They didn’t seem to bother her at all and they also look super duper cute.

NO Judibrowni, what you’ve said is that it proved viable for your particular cats, your particular lifestyle and your brother’s.  You also said it could be cruel.  That’s where you went WAAAAAY overboard in my book.  Sorry, but there is no way it is cruel, unless there’s an error made and even then, doesn’t cruelty require some intent, or doing something against the cats or object of action’s interest? ANd taking some glee or satisfaction in the pain?  You’re usually a pretty good wordsmith and I enjoy your posts, so this was surprising. 

And really, it’s much easier to quick a dog than a cat.  Lots of dogs have black nails - no way to see the quick, while even the darkest black, black, black cat (I just checked my black- except for the 3 white requisite 3 white chest hairs but who has a faint tabby pattern in her winter coat - cat) can/does have see through whitish nails.  So yes, a warning about being careful to not quick them was entirely appropriate. Claiming it was cruel - rejected.

judy: I never have clipped the cat’s claws, because my first two would have killed me if I tried. Scratched arms, shredded furniture and holes in clothing not kept permanently out of cat-reach is just a fact of life—if I minded, I wouldn’t have cats.

I clip a tiny part off the tips of their claws so that when we play, they don’t leave gashes in my hands. It doesn’t hurt them, and they purr right through the whole thing because they love that I’m holding them close and fussing over them. I clip them so conservatively that they can still do plenty of damage if they really wanted to. The scar on my left breast from the time I vacuumed the fat one’s belly is evidence of that (totally deserved and totally worth it).

I don’t know how you can say that a destroyed home is part of owning a cat. That’s like saying broken windows and stained clothes are part of having kids, so you just live with the damage and clothe them in burlap. Maybe it’s part of owning a cat that you refuse to train or provide with suitable alternatives, but if it were taken as fact that cats will always destroy your home, no one would keep them (and the holes are in clothes that I’m currently wearing. I can’t exactly keep those out of reach!). I only spent as much as I did on a scratching post because I had brought home a new kitten and the ramp topped with a sleeping platform was not going to be enough for a kitten and a fat adult cat to share. My deluxe “scratching post” is really a giant vertical tube lined with carpet (inside) and rope (outside) with two platforms and a large wooden branch from which hangs several enticing felt strips. It’s a very solid, durable structure (and by the way, it’s also an attractive piece of furniture) that will keep them off of my bookshelves. It provides the height they want, as well as all the scratching they could need for a decade.

And Judy, I’m sure ninety percent of people know better than to clip a cat’s wick. That big pink thing in the middle of their nail is hard to miss. I’m glad you don’t find it necessary to clip. That must be very convenient for you. But my cats don’t mind and it doesn’t hurt them at all.

Here are my babies on their Christmas present.

If you could see the raw nub where my cat ripped out one of her claws, Judy, you’d understand why it’s so important to me to keep their claws trimmed. It’s raw and red and it breaks my heart to see how much it pains her.

I’ve never cut into the quick of a cat’s nail where’s there’s nerves and flesh and blood, because I’ve never clipped their nails, so I’ve never caused them that pain.

So therefore those of us who do clip our cats’ nails must automatically be causing them pain every time and ignoring it for our own convenience.  That seems to be the accusation that you keep going back to.

I’m really not getting where this conviction is coming from that cutting an animal’s nails is always painful.  Our nails are not all that different from a cat’s or a dog’s (yes, dog nails have a quick, too, so hopefully you’ve been leaving any dog’s nails uncut, too, if you’re that worried about it).  Does it hurt every single time you cut your fingernails or toenails?

I’m not saying that because I don’t respect that you don’t do it. I do! That’s fine. I’m sure you get by just great. But you’re insinuating that people clip out of fashion. No one does that. A clipped claw actually has a dark tip because dirt collects in the ragged end (cats won’t tolerate filing). It’s not terribly fashionable.

We do it because we love our pets, just like you don’t do it because you love yours. Which is why we resent the implication that it’s somehow cruel. Plain and simple.

@ 177—I see our kitten isn’t the only one who likes to enforce snuggling.

(Charlotte loves to wait until Keaton is asleep and plop herself on top of him.  As far as she’s concerned, he’s her mommy, even if he is a neutered male.)

Trim your cat’s claws, if you like, for whatever your reasons. However, the fashion seems to be to trim every cat’s claws, whether there’s reason to or not.

Yeah, it must be the fashion. It couldn’t possibly be that people do it BECAUSE OF THE REASONS TO. Duh.

Did you know it’s “the fashion” for people to brush their teeth now? I mean I know there are reasons to do it, like bad breath, plaque, gingivitis and cavities. But the fashion seems to be for everyone to brush their teeth, whether there’s reason to or not. *eyeroll*

cola82 - can have full length view of that cat furniture, please?

But I was never even tempted to the gorgeous because a small section of that show was dedicated to adoption of rescues (and yes, some of those purebred). Got to know the rescue people, and by the end of the show, not even all of the small amount of rescues they brought would be adopted.

I’d be very interested to know what purebreds are being ‘rescued’ by shelters while breeders of those purebreds are sitting ten feet away. Seriously, I would be. Responsible breeders take back animals rather than let somebody give them to a shelter. That’s probably why there aren’t formal operations for cat breed rescue as there are for dogs; if somebody you sold a cat to calls you and says they can’t take care of it any more, you take the cat back and find it a home.

And not too many people are going to be lured away from a shelter adoption for a purebred. You can adopt a cat from my local animal shelter (which is rather posh, frankly) for about $100-$150, depending on the season and their load; if you can buy a purebred kitten of any breed for less than $500 (and they often run far more), I’d be astonished. You have to REALLY want a Tonkinese or a Scottish Fold bad to pay that much money.

Re the claw clipping thing - when you use terms like ‘fashion’ and fad’, it’s both intentionally hilarious (something is a ‘fashion’ because it’s only been around for 30-40 years?) and condescending (implying, as you’re perfectly aware, that people making that decision are dimbulbs madly swept up in doing the New New Thing cuz that’s what everybody else does). I will say that as a kid growing up in the 1970s, I sure didn’t remember a lot of exhortation as there is now for people to neuter and spay their pets. Maybe that’s a silly fad too.

Comparing claw clipping to spaying and neutering is a flawed comparison, and specious at that.

The two cats I had as a child in the 1950s lived shorter lives because most pets were allowed to run free in those days (and were not spayed): the one cat may have been poisoned (rat poison was also used freely in those days, if not by my family), the other a male, came back from one of his many battles the loser.

However, both mine and my brother’s later sets of cats have lived into the double digit years (his closed in on nearly 20 years)—without claw clipping. (His is a very beautifully decorated home, as well. Mine, not so much.)

Spaying, neutering, and keeping cats indoors has led to longer life spans, literally health issues for nearly every cat. There may be some cats for whom unclipped claws are an actual health issue—but that’s not the case for the vast majority.

My brother and I have spent thousands of dollars on vet care when necessary—and never once has a vet found a health issue related to unclipped claws, or even questioned either of us about the unclipped claws.

Yet, it’s the fashion to clip the claws of nearly every indoor cat—if you have a reason, you have a reason—but it’s sure not a major health reason with the vast majority of cats or likely to lead to added decades of your cat’s life.

So thanks for muddying the waters!

In fact, I may have contributed to the longeivity of my sweet Felix, a happy, healthy 14—by refusing to submit to the ‘90s fashion (or fad) of vaccination every single year, although that was hysterically touted as a health issue.

Vets have backed off that yearly vaccination schedule in recent years, for the very reason I suspected: the build up of toxicity, from what I’ve heard, that they believe may have lead to more health problems than it prevented.

Oh go clip your darn cats claws, if you want to, or feel you need to—this defensiveness over presenting an alternative is—wow.

Oh go clip your darn cats claws, if you want to, or feel you need to—this defensiveness over presenting an alternative is—wow.

You claimed that we were deliberately causing our cats pain in order to conform to “fashion,” and you never backed off from that.  And then you wonder why people got pissed off at you?

Here’s an idea:  don’t accuse people of animal cruelty for an innocuous act if you don’t want them to get angry with you.  What’s next, a rant about the rampant cruelty of brushing your cat’s fur?

Friends of mine in San Francisco make it a point to adopt only older cat rescues and they prefer Siamese or Persians—my friend Trina is in her ‘70s, so a certain percentage of her cat rescues have gone on to kitty heaven.

And yet, there have always been over the long decades pure bred orientals available to be adopted at their favorite no-kill shelter.

As I wrote earlier upthread, a friend who works in rescue at a number of shelter has seen the litters of not-up-to-snuff pure breds dumped off at local shelters by irresponsible breeders, no less the odd pure breds dropped off when their owners discovered health problems.

And I wonder, what do those supposedly “responsible” breeders do with the pets who are returned to them? Hmmm?

Yes, puppy mills and pet stores animal sales should be eradicated—with 3 to 4 million pets euthanized annually by the shelters, they’re obviously not needed to keep the supply of pets coming.

Our local pet food stores have seemed to thrive over the 25 years I’ve lived in my neighborhood, while only offering the possibility of rescue adoptions on Saturdays—and as a possible result, our local shelter is essentially no kill (they keep pets for months, until an owner is found, and also take the overflow from other shelters in near cities which sport pet stores with pure bred sales.)

But although it may not happen in freedom lovin’, gun totin’ America, I think breeders also should be regulated, if we really want to save the lives of millions of pets every year.

Please cut it out the hysteria: I wrote that claw clipping may be cruel at times (if the quick is cut—which also would be a health issue, even if minor) and may not be necessary, and may be a fashion.

None of that requires foaming at the mouth defensiveness, or specious arguments, or silly comparisons.

Cut your cat’s claws, if you have a reason. But over decades of cat ownership I’ve also found it to be unnecessary for me, or another example, my brother, and the longterm health of our multiple kitties.

There: I’ve presented an viable alternative, rather than following the current fashion, for whatever reasons.

Bring on the mouth-foaming, specious arguements, and silly comparisons!

judybrowni @188: responsible breeders keep the cats themselves, or place them privately in good homes. Even if you can’t bring yourself to believe that cat breeders are actually fond of their animals, from an economic sense it’s ludicrous for a breeder to dump kittens at a shelter where they have to pay the shelter to take kittens off their hands (instead of getting paid hundreds of dollars by somebody else to take the kittens). No, the answer is not ‘the kittens are not show quality’ - that’s what pet purebreds are.

If your friends are genuinely seeing purebred cats dumped off in shelters in great quantities instead of sold by their breeders for hundreds of dollars, they should alert national groups like the CFA. Cat breeders (even of very popular breeds like Siamese) tend to be a very clique-y bunch. If old Edna over in Oakland is dumping her Maine Coon kittens at the SPCA, the SF bay area Maine Coon clubs are going to be keenly interested in hearing about this.

Frankly, though, speaking from decades of experience, I have seen exactly one instance where somebody pointed to a cat that a shelter employee assured them was a purebred _________ that in any way could be mistaken, by somebody who knows the breed, as a purebred ___________.  I can’t really fault shelter employees for saying “oh yes, this cat is a purebred ________” if it helps kitty get a home, but as I’ve heard breeders say, unless their stud cats are sneaking out and partying every night of the week there can’t be that many purebreds on the loose.

Oh, and you probably already know this, but if you’re going to pull the tactic of exasperated, eye-rolling forbearance at children who are clearly overwrought and too angry (otherwise they’d agree with you), you might consider carefully whether that’s an effective tactic on a feminist blog where put-downs about tone are a common feature of nonfeminist men lecturing us ladies - particularly as you might fall into the unintentional hilarity that ensues by calling people “hysterical”.

I wonder, what do those supposedly “responsible” breeders do with the pets who are returned to them?

This is a big part of why, as I keep hammering on, responsible breeding is hideously expensive and not profitable.

You bet it’s expensive to keep around non-breedable dogs, feeding them and providing them with care for the rest of their natural lives because it’s the right thing to do. Do really responsible breeders do it? Damn betcha.

Vets haven’t backed off the yearly vac schedule (at least not the ones around here)  and there may be even more stuff coming down the pipe as many push pet “insurance.“Insurance is one reason why man humans get tested to death.  Ethical vets think it will change pet medicine too.

Kristin, even a responsible breeder, if they are more than an owner of one breeding pair and sometimes even those - can’t keep up with keeping culls (I had a large breed bitch who had eleven in a litter!)  If there is a health issue that would prevent a normal life -  the pup is usually put down - sad, but in the case I know of, the pups would have starved to death - no surgeries to fix at the time.  If the dog is just not viable as a show dog, too big, too small, wrong coat, wrong color, then they are sold as “pet quality” and responsible breeders will hold papers until given proof of neutering so that the animal cannot be bred and “papered” and give the kennel a bad rep. Pet quality pups should/generally run about 1/2 - 1/3 of what a show/breeding quality dog does. 

BTW, the American Kennel CLub is partly at fault - they will register ANYTHING as long as its parents have papers and you an get an owner of one of those papered dogs to sign off.  They do not inspect, they do not need a photo - it can have three legs and green fur, but if you have the paperwork to say it’s a German Shepherd - then by gosh it’s a registered German Shepherd according to the Kennel CLub.  That’s how any club of that type or breed association makes its cash.  Sorry to be cynical - there are lots of good people involved in both, but their viability is dependent on that cash stream.

Fortunately pet stores that sell puppies and kittens are very rare in Toronto - some have regular adoption events and others occasionally have adoptable kittens in the store.  I’d kind of assumed this was the norm in North America by now, at least in big cities.  I’m not sure how common rodents/lizards sales are.  Most of the pet stores I go to have a mix of:
- dog/cat/gerbil/ferret food and supplies
- functional/cute/ridiculous dog outfits
- dubious holistic remedies for various animal ills
- aquariums etc,
- fish.

We do have one really delightful fellow who sells only lizards and hand-carved walking sticks.  He also lives in the store - IIRC it was a living space before is was a store - and he won’t sell you a chameleon if he doesn’t think you’ll take care of it.

Anyway, I’m not a cat person (I have two dogs, one from a breeder and one from a rescue), but (anecdotally and somewhat OT) it seems to me that cats as a pet are in a transition that dogs made in the early-mid 20th century.  A cat is going from being sort of a lodger who you care about but who is ultimately responsible for herself, to being a member of the family for whom you bear responsibility.  Some people lavish care on their cats that I, the doting dog owner, find excessive. Others (like my old neighbours) are very casual with their cats.  These people didn’t even own a litterbox - the cats came in and out as they pleased and would disappear for days on end.  When one was gone for an unusually long stretch they would speculate as to whether or not it had gone off and died.  People who would never dream of having an unfixed dog will keep a cat unneutered until his caterwauling drives them crazy.  I’ve also never acquired a dog - or ever heard of anyone acquiring a dog - by having someone say to me, “Hey, do you want a dog?  I’m got to get rid of mine”, and yet I know several people who’ve gotten their cats that way.

As a dog owner, this seemed totally weird and alien to me until I read “All Creatures Great and Small,” the memoirs of James Heriot, who was a vet in rural England in the 1930s.  It seems like people treated their dogs then much like people treat their cats now - they could come and go as they liked, were rarely spayed or neutered, and got whatever vet care the owners could afford/were inclined to pay for, if they disappeared the owners were likely to shrug and say “Oh well, that’s just the way things go”, and the dogs tended to die earlier, often in accidents or of preventable diseases.  They were often seen as valuable parts of the family but were not afforded a lot of the family’s resources.  However, cats were also generally treated totally like shit, so maybe things have also improved for them as well.

phylosopher, depending on where you live, whether or not your dog gets a yearly rabies vaccine is mandated by the authorities.  According to my vet at least a dog needs a rabies vaccine every 3 years in Ontario.  I believe there are different brands of vaccine that are effective for different lengths of time.

And pet insurance generally doesn’t cover vaccines or preventative care.  You still pay for that out of pocket.  Mostly it covers grave illnesses and accidents that you might not otherwise have the resources to cover.  I know I can’t afford to pay 5 grand to save my dogs if they get hit by a car, but I can pay $30 per month per dog.

By “mandated by the authorities”, I mean your state/county has laws as to how often your pet needs to be vaccinated for rabies.  The other ones are not mandated by law but are a damn good idea, if you don’t want to see your pet die of distemper or leptospirosis.

Loved those books, but I think we need to put it in even a bit more perspective; these owners weren’t being cold or cruel, there just wasn’t the money, time, resources or technology for advanced and preventive pet care - except for Mrs. Pumphrey.

So:  Preventable diseases???  Well, as Herriot pointed out, they knew nothing about that old “di oxy ribo nucleic acid”  - funny scene -  and penicillin wasn’t even in use when he first started practicing.  I mean kids were sometime treated the same way - one had a lot with the hopes that some would make it - bc was illegal, right?  SO if You, the human were having 14 kids, spending money to fix the dog, well…

Great, there are responsible breeders—but pure bred rescues exist for a reason, and I’m not the only writer on this thread to report stories of pure bred litters dumped in shelters.

Those would definitely be the irresponsible breeders, which is why regulation would help.

Breeders may be well self-regulated, but we’ve still got those situations, as well as another 3-4 million euthanized pets at shelters.

I don’t think regulation of breeders is going to happen even if it were badly needed—look at the foofarah when San Francisco wants to simply discuss puppy mill supplied pet stores—so no need to pile on me.

I personally don’t believe in buying Pure Breds, although I think most of them are damn beautiful, and likely wonderful pets.

With all the pets in shelters needing homes, I personally couldn’t bring myself to buy a pet deliberately created for a specific look (or even temperment) unless a service dog. (Plus my one experience 40 years ago with a pure bred pet store kitten that was less than optimal.)

Again, whenever I investigated clipping my cats’ claws I came up against the information about possibly cutting into the quick, which stopped me dead, especially since I and my indoor cats been able to live with their unclipped claws fo decades on end, with no damage to any of us (and the furniture) we hadn’t been able to live with comfortably.

And the possibility of cutting into the quick—mentioned in every text I’ve ever read—is why I wrote that clipping ing claws—AGAIN—may be cruel.

Your mileage may vary, but I offered a viable alternative from decades of experience, and got in return foaming defensiveness and the attack of specious arguments and silly comparisons (For the record, I’ve spayed every pet from the 1970s on, kept indoor cats when possible—two rescued outdoor cats insisted on outdoor experience—kept up vaccinations in a common sense manner, and so on and so forth.)

IIRC Heriot also mentioned that his predecessor in the practice *wouldn’t* treat cats or dogs, only livestock and horses, so even 19th century veterinary care wasn’t available to small domestic animals at the time.  I do remember a nice scene where he talks about first using penicillin (I believe on a cow) and what a miracle it was. 

Yeah, phylosopher, if you have to triage resources they go to the humans.  That’s a very good reason why poor people didn’t/don’t spend a lot of money on their pets.

But you know, not letting your dog roam around town on its own doesn’t cost anything.  Keeping rat poison off the floor where dogs can’t get into it doesn’t cost anything.  It’s the attitude shift from being “nice to have around” to “someone I take care of” that I’m talking about.

As for yearly vaccinations, they may still being pushed at the chain vets here, but a private vet admitted to me that there’s some discussion about the toxicity involved and that he also wouldn’t vaccinate yearly, specifically for health reasons.

My acupuncturist—who was also a professor of research biochemistry before he got a degree in oriental medicine—treats his dog himself, when he can (after he felt his other dog was overtreated to death at a vets), and refuses to vaccinate yearly for the same reasons.

YEs on the rabies - but many of the vaccines are just not that necessary, IMO - and lots of pet owners could do the vaccines themselves, (as in I have a nurse friend willing to but… state laws in some states won’t let you buy the stuff - including things like heartwormer - chewable tabs- then the vet jacks the price up 3-4x.)  I mean, our dog rarely goes off the property, doesn’t choose to socialize with the neighbors dogs who are mostly in-housepets who don’t leave their property -  I mean bordatella?  She really doesn’t come into contact with other dogs.  ANd lepto- very rare in the US, esp for an older, mostly indoor dog who only drinks tap water.  I agree wholeheartedly on the rabies - but since every vet visit is $100 or so bucks around here - yikes.  It’s not that I don’ t understand vets need to make a living, and that their med school is just as long, hard, expensive as human MD’s.  But at some point, it would simply make having a pet unaffordable (in addition to food etc.)  We do go a lot by - look healthy OK, look sick, make vet appt.

Judy, it’s your pet, and you can decide for yourself how you treat him/her, but I personally am *way* less worried about the potential toxicity of vaccines than by the actual fatality of the diseases your pet can get.  One of my dogs had a serious alllergic reaction to a vaccine and gets a reduced schedule, as recommended by the vet; the other has never had a reaction and gets the full schedule.  The things they vaccinate dogs and cats for are generally, like the things we vaccinate people for, serious diseases that it’s better for you not to get. 

Phylosopher, lepto is on the rise in Canada at least.  Spread by the increased urban raccoon and skunk population.  Our vet specifically warned us against letting the vaccine-sensitive dog drink from pond water or lick grass, since lepto is one of the vaccines she doesn’t get.  Next year I may try the lepto vaccine on her again - after an antihistamine - if it’s still endemic in our area.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, no?

ANd you’re going to get it again, judybrowni, if you don’t stop using the word “cruel.”  Inadvertantly painful, injure if not careful, yes, and yes.  Cruel?  NO and no and no.  Any activity can cause unintentional pain - I was brushing my dog the other day and accidentally hit a sore spot-attendant good, though, because I was able to find and treat an injury that I would never have spotted if I wasn’t brushing her thick fur.  But according to you - Omigod - I’ll NEVER BRUSH HER AGAIN - after all, brushing is just a fashion, or a convenience for me -  hair in brush is not on floor.  But since I could possibly hurt her (even a temporary, non-life threatening nick)  it would be CRUEL to brush her ever, ever, ever again. 

And sorry Judybrowni, except for one flipped out commentor on a youtube clip, I can find nothing about clipping and trimming a cat’s claws being cruel - now, declawing is almost universally associated with that term.  Perhaps you could point us to this association you claim?

if it’s still endemic in our area.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, no?
Comment #202: KristinMH on 07/12 at 11:20 PM

If you can afford it.

even a responsible breeder, if they are more than an owner of one breeding pair and sometimes even those - can’t keep up with keeping culls (I had a large breed bitch who had eleven in a litter!) If there is a health issue that would prevent a normal life - the pup is usually put down - sad, but in the case I know of, the pups would have starved to death - no surgeries to fix at the time.  If the dog is just not viable as a show dog, too big, too small, wrong coat, wrong color, then they are sold as “pet quality” and responsible breeders will hold papers until given proof of neutering so that the animal cannot be bred

I agree with all these things.

Also that being “registered” is meaningless. I’m not a purebred dog enthusiast myself, but my understanding is that for the *real* breeders, it matters bupkis whether the dog’s parents or grandparents were champions, what counts is whether the dog herself has done anything important. If she has, then she’s a breeding candidate. Whereas backyard breeders are under the impression that “hey! My Lab is registered, my friend’s Lab is registered, that makes them both Important Purebred Dogs and we should breed them!” Dumbasses.

And the possibility of cutting into the quick—mentioned in every text I’ve ever read—is why I wrote that clipping ing claws—AGAIN—may be cruel.

Keaton almost died after being neutered because he had a bad reaction to the anesthesia.  Therefore, neutering is clearly cruel to the cat and people should be discouraged from doing it. 

I absolutely guarantee you that more cats have died after being neutered than have died from having their nails clipped.

Your mileage may vary, but I offered a viable alternative from decades of experience, and got in return foaming defensiveness and the attack of specious arguments and silly comparisons.

No, you got “foaming defensiveness” because you made ridiculous comments about the “cruelty” of clipping claws even though you fully admit you have zero experience with it and claimed that none of us even considered not doing it even after we provided you multiple explanations for why we started doing it.  (Hint:  the only way we know that the cats get caught on things if their nails get too long is by watching them get caught on things when their nails get too long.)

And you still haven’t explained what is so horrifically painful about clipping your own finger- and toenails that you refuse to even think of subjecting an animal to it. 

Again, if you don’t want people to defend themselves from attack, don’t attack them on ridiculous grounds about matters that you admit up front you know nothing about.  Simple as that.

phylosopher #76: Guinea pigs are also prone to having black nails, and most guinea pig owners have, I think, quicked a nail once or twice - at least.  Apparently if one shines a strong light behind the nail, the quick becomes visible.  Of course, it’s interesting holding the light and a squirming guinea pig that wants No Part of being restrained for nail clipping.
Some vets overclip a guinea-pig nail rather than try to hit a vein for a blood draw, but it’s not universally considered a good method.
We had a cat when I was young who could not retract her nails all the way; you could hear her coming quite a distance away - click, click, click.  I suppose we would have trimmed her nails if she hadn’t been an evil-tempered crotchety thing.

judybrowni: I have no idea why people even clip their cat’s claws. It seems kind of mean to me.

Other People: Well, scratching/destructiveness/other reasons for clipping. And also, actually, clipping isn’t any more unpleasant than trimming your nails.

judybrowni: Oh for God’s sake. Go ahead and clip your cat’s nails but it’s just the fashion. Clearly none of you ever considered *not* clipping your cat’s nails. I never clipped MY cat’s nails. Also, I know for SURE I am not cruel. Unlike you all. Who freaked out at me for no reason.

Other People: Oh for fuck’s sake.

judybrowni: Why are you so foamingly defensive? Why can’t I offer an alternative? Why are you so unbalanced? You all go crazy when I point out that unlike you, I am never cruel and not blindly following the fashion!

My first dog died from Canine Parvovirus. I was 9, so my memory is a bit hazy, but I guess parvo was non-existent in the then-Soviet Union before the 1980 Olympics. So the parvo vaccine was recommended, but not required. We lived in a neighborhood with a ton of dog owners who used to all congregate with their dogs in the local park, and it seemed that almost everyone was losing dogs to parvo. We actually did vaccinate, as did most of the other dog owners we knew, but parvo vaccine wasn’t 100% effective, especially since not everyone took the threat seriously and vaccinated their dog. So I’m of the opinion that vaccinating against anything that could affect your animals and the animals they come in contact with is a must, on the schedule recommended by the vet. No arguments, no questioning, no coming up with own schedules, no picking and choosing vaccines - just like it should be done with children.

Not only it was heartbreaking for me to lose my dog, but we had to bleach out our entire apartment top-to-bottom and we couldn’t get another dog (not that we wanted to so soon after) or even have another dog come into our house for two years. There are some serious consequences for playing fast-and-loose with vaccination recommendations. Parvo is obviously an extreme case, but better safe than sorry has been my motto since.

As to the subject of this post - fuck puppy mills and pet stores. If these places go out of business, it’ll be a better world, even if people can’t get exotic pets as a result.

I’m so sorry, elena.  Parvo is nasty stuff.
For those who are concerned about yearly vaccinations for their pets, the vet can do an antibody titer to determine whether they’re still protected.  Don’t know how much that costs, though, and it wouldn’t apply to the rabies vax, which is generally a legal requirement (certainly for dogs, often for cats), and rightly so - the others are survivable; rabies isn’t, and can be passed to people.  I suppose technically rabies is survivable, if odds of 1-3 to lots strike your fancy.

Vaccines for children vs. vaccines for dogs and cats - really folks, two very different animals.  Some animals almost never go out, almost never come in contact with other animals - cats.  Or dogs like mine - old.  She has a huge back yard to run in, but she’s at the slow stroll stage.  Therefore, their chances of catching said disease are slim to none.  Vaccinate against a slim chance of lepto or buy her a new comfy bed and some glucosamine and the best coated aspirin money can buy?  She likes her bed very much - thanks. 

Look at West Nile (mosquito borne disease).  There is a vaccine against it, and lots of folks were getting it for their horses when the disease first came this far north.  NOw?  Seems most every horse has had a mild case (per vet).  Vaccinate?  most of us with backyard pasture pets just don’t bother.  One, it’s 99.9% likely the horse is immune, two, while we love our animals, at some point, we have to choose between the vaccines and the hay bill - and it’s 100% sure they have to eat.  So, I don’t vac against West Nile, nor against malaria or shistosomiasis and a host of other things that their chance of getting is less than 5%. Three, their chance of encountering other horses in a nose to nose situation is again, slim to none.  Now, where this a show horse often meeting other “foreign” horses and their germs, or if we were in a boarding situation - then it would make sense and I’d vaccinate.

“And the possibility of cutting into the quick—mentioned in every text I’ve ever read—is why I wrote that clipping ing claws—AGAIN—may be cruel.”

Of course every text you’ve ever read mentions the possibility of cutting the quick.  Short of it being a preferred method of getting blood for a test, you really don’t want to do it.  Warning people that there’s a quick in there, even if you can’t see it easily, and that it will hurt the animal if you damage it, is the easiest way to keep preventable accidents from happening.

Mnemnosyne @206: it’s impossible to disagree meaningfully with judybrowni. Either you’re an idiot because she’s been around for decades and knows everything and everyone important, or you’re a foaming, veins-standing-out-in-the-forehead ragepuppet unleashing a disproportionate and unfair response. Mere disagreement means at least one of those two, because if you were intelligent or non-foaming, you wouldn’t disagree, QED.

kristin @205: being registered is not “meaningless”.

Phylosopher, that’s why I said “on a schedule recommended by the vet.”. I’ve been lucky to always work with good vets. My second dog, who lived to the ripe old age of 16, was active almost until she died. Our vet started every check up by discussing her level of activity, contacts with other animals, etc. Then he would discuss vaccines and which ones she might not need. But I’ve also known people who would argue that vaccinations are a money-making scam and try to avoid the distemper/parvo boosters because these diseases are now rare. No, vaccinating children isn’t the same as vaccinating animals, but the anti-vaccine pet owners use rhetoric similar to people who don’t want to vaccinate their kids.

Maybe someone said this already (didn’t read most of the comments) but on the point of ferrets…

Ferrets are considered fully domesticated; in England and I think other parts of Europe they were actually used for hunting mink.  They can learn commands, are relatively intelligent and are very human-friendly.

That said, like any domesticated animal, they can still behave badly if they have a history of mistreatment, and of course the ones you can buy from “pet stores” have questionable backgrounds. (I am not sure where PetCo/PetSmart get their ferrets; if they are rescue, or contract or freelance breeders needing to sell volume.  I do notice that store availability of ferrets at the PetCo where I shop fluctuates pretty wildly, which would suggest there is not a regular supply.)  There are very responsible ferret breeders out there, and like any potential owner one needs to be aware of what they’re getting into; Ferrets are high-maintenance and I think that’s where the perception comes from that these are still wild animals.

kristin @205: being registered is not “meaningless”.

Sorry, I meant “meaningless for determining suitability to breed”.

3Letterjon@46:
Yes.
Also, guinea pigs, like rabbits, were originally livestock, not pets (and still are in some parts of the world).

I always hear about how strict rescue organizations are when adopting out their animals, but I have never encountered such an organization. I don’t think they don’t exist, but if anything, most orgs are far too lenient and will give animals to almost anyone in their desperation to find them homes. I’ve volunteered with several orgs in the DC metro area for a few years, and got my own dog from one, and their standards are all fairly lax. No, you don’t need to own land. Yes, you can live in an apartment. I foster dogs for one org and they never even did a home visit on me. Of course, the requirements differ depending on the animal’s history and disposition. If they say “no children under x years old” for a certain dog it’s probably because the dog is afraid of, or aggressive towards, children. That doesn’t mean they refuse to adopt to families with children. I think it’s much better to hear from the folks who know the dog best what the dog is like and what sort of home would be appropriate. I’d hate for someone to decide against looking into adoption because of rescue org scare-mongering.

If clipping cat’s nails was cruel, Voldemort wouldn’t just hand me his foot when I ask for it.  The first time I did it, he didn’t know what was going on and made pitiful whining sounds; after that, he was easier about it, and after that he got just fine with it.  He understood I wasn’t doing anything painful or unpleasant) other than the minor restraint of holding his foot and that was that.

If he doesn’t like it, he can quit needling me on my chin when he wants petting, but if he’s going to continue to do that, I’m going to trim his nails so his needling is less painful.  He doesn’t like everything I do to him, well, I don’t like everything he does to me either, but we manage to strike a balance.

And I agree that the fact something’s painful if you don’t do it right doesn’t mean it’s cruel.  Sometimes I brush Voldemort too hard and it must hurt a little and he makes a little noise so I ease up.  But the fact that I inadvertently hurt him one time doesn’t mean I can stop brushing him - not if I don’t want him yowling and clawing on things until I quit what I’m doing and brush him.

I hit Voldemort’s quick once, but he forgave me.  Now there’s no danger of that.  I can cut his nails whenever I want, so I don’t cot far back.

“I always hear about how strict rescue organizations are when adopting out their animals, but I have never encountered such an organization.”

I think* a lot of it can actually be chalked up to unusual orgs (purebreed rescues/rescues catering to a more upscale area tend to have more exacting standards) or individual workers, who come with their own baggage about what type of person is “suitable” to be trusted with a pet.  I don’t think there are too many general rescues where there’s an auto-bounce policy because you rent, but there are probably a lot of rescues where checking the “renter” box might be the excuse that gets you kicked because of a volunteer on a trip about you being a single mom. 

*Drawing from tales from friends who’ve adopted, worked at shelters, and so forth.  Being the ferret-lady means a lot of “You know how to take care of ferrets?  Here, have another one.” and not a lot of shelters.

elena, I like my vet, we’ve pretty much grown up together with my animals. But even he has raised my suspicion - occult test for worms when the dog is on a heartworm monthly tab year ‘rouind?  Vaccines?  I wouldn’t have as much of a problem, except that I and other multi-animal owners have now been faced with higher and higher bills, and we know the REAL cost of the vaccines because some states do allow direct shipping.  And most of us have been doing our own shot giving for years.  So yeah, I’m pissed that my vet thinks it’s OK to charge A $40-50 injection fee, plus a 2-3x actual shot price and add in an office visit.  I know damn well that the shot is @ $10-$15, and the work of administering is what? five seconds.  And if it’s a yearly shot and is on the recommended for my area list, then????What is the purpose - to pay for the vets kids to go to a good school, or to have animals vaxed and to keep animals in homes?

A localish felin rescue league in NE MA is utterly ridiculous.  I would never again go through all the paperwork before they allowed us to even see any of their cats.  When we got to visit a foster house?  They had too many cats in an enclosed section of the house and half of them were afraid to come out and interact with me, much less my two older elementary-aged children (who were being suprisingly well-behaved considering how excited they were).  My daughter still has the Maine Coon mix we got there more than a decade later.  I hope they’ve gotten better, but no way would I ever deal with them again.

  Sorry, I meant “meaningless for determining suitability to breed”.
Comment #216: kristin on 07/13 at 03:03 PM

Actually, you’re pretty on track on this one Kristin.  A neutered dog/bitch can’t be shown (in conformation classes).  So that papered pet quality puppy?  Some sort of personal satisfaction only, and the ability to say - I have purebred and the papers to prove it.

Ferrets are high-maintenance

I keep forcing myself to remember this, when I think about having a pet in the vague future (housing currently does not permit.) As a kid I got entirely the wrong idea about ferrets (and other critters like that) because my favorite author of all time loved writing in hyper-intelligent-and-sometimes-psychic animals that would have adventures with their humans in space and OMG I WANT A PSYCHIC SPACE FERRET.

An important part of growing up is realizing that oh hey, taking care of other creatures is not all fun and games and is not a responsibility to just half-assedly pick up one day from a pet store. I’m not going to one day wander past a pet store and find a space ferret and everything will be awesome—if I got a ferret it would be hard work because that ferret wouldn’t give a shit what I read as a kid, if would just care about carefully coating my floors in shredded toilet paper, or whatever.

I’m not surprised the issue outside of puppy mills is hamsters. These creatures seem to have an almost unique ability to be bred into cuter and more cuddly looking variations, but they are extremely temperamental and very easily shocked awake, usually resulting in a nasty bite. We have a hamster and she’s a wonderful pet because I know what their requirements are—primarily to be left alone.