Tuesday, 03 November 2009
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Every Kid Should Have a Pet
When I was about four years old my mother bought me my very own pet goldfish. I thought Sarah (I named everything Sarah in those days) was the best thing in the whole wide world. I wanted Sarah and me to be the best of friends and to do everything together! One afternoon my mom caught me taking Sarah out of her comfortable fishbowl so that I could pet her and needless to say mom started to yell, trying desperately to explain that Sarah needed to be in water at all times. This knowledge crushed me, how were Sarah and I to be best friends and do everything together if I were not able to take her out of water at least from time to time?
My mom, an animal lover herself, could see my passion for them as well and wanted me to have a pet I could interact with more than I could with Sarah. Being allergic to both dogs and cats however limited our options a bit. Back then we had not learned of hypoallergenic dogs but boy was I ecstatic when we did. Anyway, the next best pet for me my mom decided was a hamster.
One Sunday my mom scooped me up in her arms and told me she had a surprise for me just a car ride away. I could barely contain my excitement wondering where on earth we could be going and was even more excited once we walked into a pet store! With my face pressed up against the glass of the hamster cage I begged to take home not one but two pet hamsters. My mom eventually gave in and we brought my two new friends home.
As my mom began to unlock the front door, me following behind with my new friends I noticed something strange going on and began to scream. I tried frantically to explain that one of them was must sick but as my mom peered into the box she simply began to laugh.
Turns out the hamster was just fine, she was giving birth not sick! Apparently, the salesman at the pet store was wrong when he informed us that both hamsters were males. My hamsters continued to procreate like bunnies for the next couple of years. I helped to take care of them, making sure the cage was clean and that they had enough food and water. Every time we had a new litter of hamsters my mom would take me to the pet store where I would sell the babies back or exchange them for supplies my two parent hamsters needed.
Having hamsters as a child taught me a great deal of responsibility. Though parents need to be on board with the whole pet thing, as children need lots of help with caring for their pets, I think almost every family should have some type of pet, even if it is just a fish. By owning a pet your child will learn how to take care of another living creature as well as learn compassion towards animals. They will also learn about the life-cycle (maybe not all of you will actually get to witness the birthing process) but it is inevitable that the pet will die and though tragic this is a great way to explain about life and death to a child if they are old enough to understand.
What pets have you found are best for children and how have gotten them to take responsibility for the pet?
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- From: michcoy@xanga
- Name: Michelle
- About Me: I am a full-time nanny who loves to write whenever I can. I also love being outdoors whenever possible. Camping, hiking and kayaking are a few of my favorite activities.
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Comments (16)
I really wish my childhood pets hadn't mostly died in awful ways (seizures (dogs), car accidents (cat), diseases (fish)). Pets are a good oppotunity to explain about life and death, but hopefully in less traumatic ways. :)
And, it didn't matter what pet I had, my mom ended up doing most of the work.
Good blog. Totally agree.
"(I named everything Sarah in those days)"
You, too?! lol, must be a Sarah thing. :)
I used to raise both wild and tame rabbits. I find them to be very good pets for small children as they are mild mannered and friendly but require the child to take on responsibility to make sure that the rabbit is happy and content. Talking from experience, it only took my tame litter-trained rabbit one time of tipping over his litter box, that I had forgotten to clean, once, to make me pay closer attention to him and his needs.
When it comes to raising animals that need to be kept on a schedule, it teaches children about time-managment and organization. Atleast, this was the case with the baby wild rabbits I helped to raise.
I have 5 kids... and 5 pets.
Each girl has a kitty, and we have 2 huskies for the boys. (Of course the pets are for all the family to share as well).My girls scoop the kitty litter, refill food/water, and brush their cats fur everyday. They even clean up puke or "accidents" the kitties sometimes leave. I love how they take such great care of their cats!!!Also- about 8 years ago I got 4 "male" mice from a pet store... a week later one of them gave birth LOL 8 little babies! It was so cool though that all the adult mice nursed the babies... not sure they were males.. and I'm beginning to suspect pet store employees don't know or don't care and just say whatever you want to hear so you'll buy them LOL
We've always had pets. Mice, hamsters, gerbils, parakeets, cats, dogs, fish, and sea monkies. All at once! It didn't seem like that much, though since most of them are small and require small living quarters. It's not only a good responsibility lesson, but pets enrich our lives in ways that can't be explained.
Pets are animals that will love you for who you are and not judge you. I have bonded with my dog where he is my best friend. We do everything together! We are rarely apart. It is sad to think one day he may not always be next to me. But all you can do is spend all the time you can together and enjoy every day like it's the last day on earth! My friend and I do this a lot. We take our dogs hiking and canoeing. It's a lot of fun!
I bought a book for her becuase her dog just passed awa, but I ended up reading it. It's called "Animals in Heaven? Catholics Want to Know!" by Susi Pittman. http://www.catholicstewardsofcreation.com/about-the-book/
It examines the tenets of the Catholic faith on the subject of life beyond this world for animals and why Catholics may or may not believe in such.
I hope this book helps someone out there reading this great blog. :)
Great post...though I do think it depends on the kid... Not willing to take another cat or dog, we let the boys get (tame) cockatiels. They've largely sat in their cage, ignored, after the novelty wore off beyond the first week. I've begun to question whether or not it makes any sense to keep them.
I do agree that kids should have a pet at home so that they do learn how to take care. However, some kids treat pets like their TOYs.
AMEN! I think kids should have a pet to teach them responsibility and because they're fun and comforting to have around. I've been raising guinea pigs since I was 10 years old (5th Grade). I recently started on Syrian Hamsters last year. Pets are a good way of teaching kids about the life cycle, like you said. I work at a pet store and it IRKS ME TO THE EXTREME! when parents want to pretend a pet didn't die and their kids won't notice the difference. C'mon! Please be real! Things do NOT live forever!
It really does depend on the kid, even though I am an immense animal lover. I have a toy poodle named Bailey, a weird chihuaha terrier thing with an underbite named Daisy (my baby) a fish named Salvia, and a cat named Hash. I've always had pets, and when I was little I would always bring home strays (to my mother's dismay). But my brother and my father (though my dad's parents were animal lovers) sucked at life when it came to pet care. My dad only bought two animals in my entire life, 1 was my pet albino rat Frosty, and 2 was Eve, a rottweiler. Well, Frosty went fine but she died of cancer. Eve on the other hand was pretty much abused and abandoned while I watched helplessly. I was like 10 when we had her, and my dad couldn't even train her right. He just hit her really hard and yelled at her when she shit in the house, and she never learned to do her shit outside and we only had her a year. The house always smelled horrible, and my brother would hit her with the broom and pull her whiskers. Eventually she bit him, thankfully because he deserved it. She bit me once too because I laid next to her. My dad told me dogs don't like it when you lay with them; that's a fucking lie. I've had pitbulls and chows before, and I laid with them and snuggled with them; they were so sweet and well-trained that I could put my face near their bowl and they would lick me.
My point of all this is, that some people are just retarded and can't be animal people. So parents who aren't animal people, shouldn't get their kids pets because the kids will treat them just as their parents do.
:3
You have to be sure that with jobs, children, and life in general add up, that you actually have time to pay attention to this animal and care for it properly.
I loved animals from the very beginning (I'm now a veterinary technician), when I was 4 my mom adopted a kitten for me, but she was a very sick kitten and died soon after we got her.
When I was 7 I picked out my new kitten. I cuddled her every night and spent all my time with her, she was my best friend through moves in the military and everything in life. She was the greatest gift my mom could have given me, but when she died 7 years later it broke my heart, and ever since I have been dedicated to trying to prevent any other children from losing their cat to kidney failure. Every time I see a kidney cat in clinic I tear up and try to spend as much time as possible with that animal.
If you get an animal for your child, you have to be ready for the lessons on responsibility and care, and unfortunately, the lessons of life and death.
We love animals here! However some of my children are much better at being responsible with animals than others, that is why my son is the only one to have a "personal" pet (ie. one he keeps in his room). The girls do an ok job of helping with the dog and cats when reminded but my son is the real animal lover who takes on the care of the pets on his own.
My only concern with fish and hamsters is the alarming rate at which we lose them. We had 1 hamster die of unknown causes after 6 months, another die from what appeared to be a giant tumor after 3 months and 2 mice that died within a week because, well, evidently that was their expected life span and no one at the store told us that.
We have been through so many fish in the 10 years of my son's life that we don't even know the number and we lost a gecko after hundreds of dollars of vets bills to try to help her through what ended up to be a congenital issue. 
While each of these losses was sad and treated with respect I wonder what kind of message it sends about death and the "replace-ability" of life. I worry that pets become more like possessions and less like members of the family. Thus far that doesn't seem to be the case but it's what I worry about.
I love animals and our family has pets, but they are never EVER considered pets of my children exclusively.
I don't believe it does any good to tell a child something is theirs and then have them ignore it. It doesn't teach them responsibility at all and it doesn't promote healthy family relations to have to argue with a child over and over again to clean a cage, bowl or the backyard; to feed something or train it. It's not cool for the animal to have to live like that either.
Seriously, most children nowadays absolutely love the idea of having a pet, but they don't actually want the responsibility. Nor can they handle it. How many parents get their kids a puppy or kitten, or gerbil or whatever and then end up doing all the work themselves?
When I was a child, I took care of my hamster and my brother's too, a rabbit that I didn't want in the first place but was foisted on me as a "gift," and my mother's stupid salt-water aquarium. I didn't argue, the animals needed care and I did it. Now, as a parent, I still am the one to care for the dog, the cats and the snake. The kids enjoy them when they feel like it, but I long ago stopped arguing about the dog in the backyard who was ignored, the gerbil that nearly starved to death because the kid couldn't be bothered to shake out some pellets from a box, let alone clean the cage.
Don't torture the animals because you want to teach your kids "responsibility," folks. It's cruel.
pets are great with kids! my ex gf had a child and they had a pet dog. both daughter and dog were the best of friends. it was really adorable - you couldn't stop but smile when they played together.
I got my daughter a dog who she loves but he is really skiddish and doesnt like to be around her becasue she is loud and to active so i went out and got a birdy! i thought it was a bad idea cuz she could never really hold him but so far its been great he has his cage in her room next to the window and when sammi yells he yells bak its realllly funny! sammi is still to young to understand the responability yet but she dies love her "beeeeeeee" (she wont say biredy) lol
I got my first pet when I was 2. He was a bright blue parakeet named tweetie. He was great (except when he learned to copy the doorbell, microwave, and telephone....) He would sit on my shoulder while I watched TV and he lived untill I was 13 so he was fairly long lasting pet. also got a cat when I was 4 and she wasdeaf and ended up dying when I was 20 bcause she got out of the house via an open window and got into the street. Along the way I had fish, a termite farm, hamsters, chinchillas, and my brother's dog. I liked them all but I think the parakeet was the best when I was young, when I got older the cat was perfect.
Now my husband and I have 2 cats and a bunny.